Hunted by khor, p.2
Hunted by Khor, page 2
The relief is immediate. But there's something else, a tingling where the water touches my skin. Not unpleasant, just... different. Like the water itself carries some kind of charge.
“Thermal vent connected to deep aquifers.”
I fall backward, scrambling away from the voice that came from the water itself. But there's nowhere to go. The depression's walls are steep, designed to funnel visitors to exactly this spot.
He rises from the spring like something from a fever dream.
Seven feet of crimson-scaled predator, water streaming from muscle that shouldn't exist on any humanoid frame. The scales aren't uniform—smaller and more flexible across joints, larger and more rigid over vital areas. His head is elongated, neck longer than human proportions should allow. When he tilts it to study me, vertebrae I can't see create angles that would snap a human spine.
But it's his eyes that hold me frozen. Yellow-orange, with pupils that dilate as he takes in my scent. Completely alien, yet somehow expressive in ways that translate across species barriers.
“The coloration is bacteria. Harmless to drink. Good for digestion.”
He speaks English—no, the translator is working, turning his guttural sounds into words I understand. But hearing him speak anything at all breaks something loose in my chest. Predators don't make conversation. They don't explain local geology while rising naked from hidden pools.
“You speak English.”
“The translator works both ways, little female.” He steps fully from the water, and I see all of him now. The ridge of spines that runs from skull to the base of a tail I hadn't noticed before. Arms too long, ending in hands with too many joints in the fingers. And between his legs... anatomy that makes the briefing materials suddenly, horrifically relevant.
Both breeding organs are partially emerged from internal sheaths, responding to my proximity. The larger one shows the ridged structure they warned us about. The smaller one pulses with patterns of light beneath translucent skin.
My body responds without permission. Heat pools low in my belly, and I have to press my thighs together against the sudden wetness that has nothing to do with spring water.
“They never tell you much, do they?” He approaches slowly, each step calculated not to appear threatening while remaining absolutely predatory. “Makes the hunt more interesting when prey doesn't understand the rules.”
“Prey.” I spit the word, trying to find anger instead of the attraction that makes no logical sense.
“Currently? Yes.” He settles into a crouch just out of my reach, as if he knows exactly how far I might lunge with my pathetic knife. “Eventually? My mate. The one I've been waiting for.”
“How many females have you hunted?” The question emerges without conscious thought.
“You're my first. The only one whose scent made my pleasure cock respond.” He indicates the smaller organ, still pulsing with those hypnotic light patterns. “Perfect genetic compatibility happens rarely. I knew you were mine from the moment you arrived.”
The casual certainty in his voice does something to my nervous system that I don't want to examine. Instead, I focus on the practical. “That's impossible. You couldn't know—”
“Chemical markers. Pheromone compatibility. Your scent tells me everything I need to know about genetic viability.” His nostrils flare slightly. “And right now it tells me you're responding to mine.”
He's right, and we both know it. The spring water still dripping from his scales carries his scent directly to me. Alien musk that should repel but instead draws something primal from deep in my transformed biology.
“For now, you run. You learn. You let the tonic complete its work.” He begins backing toward the water. “Eventually, you'll understand what your body already knows.”
“Which is?”
He slips beneath the surface until only his eyes show above the water line. Reptilian. Patient. Absolutely certain of the outcome.
“That running is just the prelude to being caught.”
Then he's gone, vanishing into water that's suddenly still as glass. As if he was never there at all.
I sit beside the spring for a long time, trying to process what just happened. A conversation with my hunter. An alien male who claims genetic compatibility like it's established science. My own body's traitorous response to something that should terrify me.
But underneath the fear and confusion, one thought keeps circling back.
He didn't take me. Could have, easily. I'm alone, exhausted, armed with a toy knife and surrounded by walls I can't climb quickly. He could have claimed me in seconds.
Instead, he chose to talk. To let me drink from his water source. To give me information I didn't have.
That feels important, though I'm not sure why.
The water tastes the same when I drink again, but now I'm aware of the mineral content, the trace elements that might be changing me in ways I don't understand. The tonic was just the beginning. Everything on this planet is designed to transform human biology.
Including the spring water. Including my hunter's proximity.
Including whatever's happening to me right now as I sit here, no longer thinking of him as an “it” but as a “him.” As someone with motivations and patience and rules I don't yet understand.
Someone who's giving me exactly enough time to become what he needs me to be.
The realization should horrify me. Instead, it fills me with something that might be anticipation.
I refill my water containers and leave the spring. But as I walk away, I can feel eyes tracking my movement. Somewhere beneath that still surface, he's watching.
Letting me go. For now.
MARA
Day 3
The oasis shouldn't exist.
Two days I've been stumbling through this hellscape, finding nothing but sulfur-tainted springs that burn my throat and dried creek beds filled with the bones of things I don't want to identify. My lips are split open, bleeding despite the tonic's healing properties. Sand has worked its way into every joint, every fold of skin, grinding me raw with each step. The suit is destroyed—more suggestion than clothing, held together by sweat and desperation.
And now this—a perfect circle of clear water surrounded by those strange metallic plants, their leaves catching light like chrome but bending soft in the wind. The leaves overlap to create actual shade, the temperature beneath them probably twenty degrees cooler. The water is so clear I can see the bottom, volcanic rock worn smooth as glass by centuries of flow. No sulfur smell. No questionable floating things. Just clean, pure water that makes my dehydrated body scream with need.
It's absolutely, obviously, definitely a trap.
But I'm beyond caring.
Three days without real water. Three days of the tonic working through my system, changing me, making me need things I shouldn't need. The physical changes are obvious now—my skin has that subtle shimmer, catching light wrong. My nails are harder, longer, with an iridescent sheen like oil on water. And between my legs...
Between my legs is a constant, humiliating disaster. The tonic has turned me into exactly what they promised—a creature in permanent heat. The need builds constantly, an ache that goes deeper than physical discomfort. My body produces responses I don't want, reactions that follow me everywhere. The smell of my own arousal mingles with sweat and desert dust.
I circle the pool three times, looking for signs of him. The sand around it is unmarked—but wind could have erased prints. The metallic plants show no broken branches. Even the water sits perfectly still, surface like a mirror reflecting the orange sky.
Too perfect. Too convenient.
I strip anyway. The fabric tears like wet paper, destroyed by sweat and sand and those thorny plants I pushed through yesterday. My boots are the worst—completely full of that obsidian sand that's ground my feet bloody. When I pull them off, skin comes with them, my socks fused to the wounds. The pain is sharp, clean, almost a relief from the constant ache elsewhere.
The first touch of water on my ruined feet makes me moan. Out loud. The sound echoes off the rocks, announcing my position to anything listening. Don't care. The relief is too intense.
I wade deeper, and the water is the perfect temperature. Not cold enough to shock, not warm enough to be unpleasant. Just cool enough to soothe sun-scorched skin. The bottom slopes gradually—no sharp edges, no hidden drops. Designed for safety. Designed to lure someone exactly like me.
When the water reaches my thighs, I have to stop. The mineral content makes it tingle against my skin, and where I'm oversensitive, it's almost too much. But I force myself deeper, gasping as the coolness reaches my core. The relief makes me clench involuntarily.
I duck under completely, letting it wash the accumulated filth from my hair, behind my ears, between my breasts. My hands run over my body underwater, cataloguing damage. Scraped knees from falling. Bruised ribs from scrambling through rocks. Thorn scratches across my back. And between my legs, tissue swollen and sensitive from constant need.
Under the water, I spread my legs slightly, letting the coolness soothe that relentless ache. Just that small relief makes me sigh with something approaching contentment.
“Enjoying yourself, little female?”
I don't startle. Some part of me knew he was here. Has been waiting for this.
He stands at the pool's edge like he materialized from the stone itself. Probably did—those crimson scales would blend perfectly with the volcanic rock when he's still. He's not trying to hide his body's response to my presence. The obvious signs of arousal create suggestions beneath those leather wrappings.
“It's adequate.”
“Adequate.” He tilts his head at that impossible angle. “Your scent suggests you find it more than adequate. You've been soaking in my pheromones for several minutes now.”
“Your—” I look at the water with new understanding. “The entire pool?”
“I've been marking this territory for years. Every surface you've touched, every breath you've taken since entering this oasis, is saturated with my scent markers. The water especially.”
The implication makes my stomach flip. I'm bathing in water he's claimed. Marked. My skin has been absorbing his pheromones through every pore.
Should disgust me. Instead, my core clenches hard enough to hurt, my body responding despite my mind's protests. His nostrils flare immediately, those yellow-orange eyes darkening.
“The tonic has made you wonderfully receptive. You're responding even faster than anticipated.”
“Go to hell.”
“I'd rather educate you. Eventually. But first, you need to understand what your body is telling you.”
He wades into the pool still dressed. The leather darkens immediately, clinging to muscles that shouldn't exist on any humanoid frame. Each movement shows different muscle groups flexing. His abdomen is segmented with scales that move independently, creating a hypnotic ripple effect.
He stops just out of reach, but his body heat radiates through the water. Alien metabolism burning hotter than human, turning him into a furnace. The water between us actually warms from his presence.
“Three days you've been running.” He circles me slowly, predator sizing up prey. “Three nights you've been trying to find relief that won't come.”
Heat floods my face because he's right. Every night, desperate attempts that bring me close but never over the edge. My body refuses to respond fully to anything but the specific stimulation it's been programmed to crave.
“Your body knows what it needs. Only I can provide it.”
His hand shoots out faster than thought, grips my throat. Not choking, just possessing. His palm covers my entire throat, fingers wrapping around to the back of my neck. His thumb finds my pulse—no, pulses. Pressing against rhythms that shouldn't exist.
“Two hearts already. Nearly three. Your body is changing to survive here. To accept what I'm going to give you.”
His other hand moves under the water. I think he's going to touch me where I need it most. But his hand hovers inches from my core, close enough to feel the heat but not making contact. The water current from his hand's movement creates the ghost of a touch that makes me whimper.
“Ask me.”
“No.”
“Ask me to touch you. Your body is screaming for it.”
He's right. My hips are trying to move forward without my permission, seeking contact. My muscles clench repeatedly, trying to grasp something that isn't there. But I won't beg. Not yet.
“Then I'll make you ask.”
MARA
He drops to his knees in the water, bringing him to eye level. His hands grip my thighs, spreading them wider than comfortable. The position leaves me completely exposed, but he still doesn't touch where I need. Just studies me.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “Your body knows its purpose even if your mind denies it.”
“I'm not—”
He leans forward and breathes warm air across oversensitive flesh.
The response is immediate, overwhelming. My vision whites out, my knees buckle, and sounds tear from my throat that I've never made before. He catches me before I go under, holds me while I shake through the intensity, my core clenching desperately on emptiness.
The waves of sensation seem to go on forever, leaving me gasping and disoriented when they finally fade.
“So responsive already,” he says against my ear. “Let's see what else your body can do.”
His tongue emerges for the first time—longer than any human tongue could be, forked at the tip like a serpent's. The ridges that pattern its surface aren't decorative; I can see them flexing, designed for a friction that would be overwhelming. It moves independently, both forks testing the water around me.
“Please.” The word escapes before I can stop it.
“Please what, little female?”
“I don't—I mean—”
“Be specific. Tell me exactly what you need.”
The tip of one fork barely grazes my inner thigh. The sensation is electric, sending shockwaves through nerves already hypersensitive from the tonic. My skin burns where it touched, the sensation spreading in waves.
“Touch me—”
“Where?”
“You know where—”
“Say it. Name the place you need relief.”
“Between my legs. Please.”
But instead of giving me what I begged for, he pulls back completely. Stands, water cascading off scales that have shifted from crimson to deeper red. His body's response is obvious now—anatomy designed for claiming, already prepared for what won't happen. Yet.
“Not yet. You're not desperate enough.”
“I just begged—”
“Your mouth begged. Your body needs more preparation. When you're truly ready, words won't come. You'll just be need incarnate.”
He turns to leave. Panic flares, hot and sharp.
“Wait!”
He pauses at the pool's edge. “There's food cached to your left. The purple fruits. They'll ease the worst of it. Slightly.”
Then he's gone, leaving me trembling in his pheromone-saturated water, my core empty and aching, that brief moment of relief having only intensified everything else.
I find the fruit—dark purple things that taste like copper and ash. They do help, barely. The desperate edge softens to merely unbearable. But I can still feel his pheromones working through my system, his territorial marking soaking into my transformed skin.
That night I don't even try to sleep. I lie beside the pool on sun-warmed stone, legs spread, hand working between my thighs. Nothing helps. Two fingers, then three, trying to approximate what my body craves. But my fingers are too short, too smooth, wrong temperature, wrong texture.
I try grinding against the smooth rocks, finding one with a ridge that almost helps. The pressure brings me close, so close, but I can't tip over. My body refuses. It knows what it needs and won't accept substitutes.
“Please,” I whisper to the darkness. “Please come back.”
Nothing. Just wind and my own desperate sounds.
By dawn, the ground around me shows the evidence of my struggle. Scratches where my new claws dug into earth. The stone is dark with sweat and the evidence of my body's constant preparation. My fingers are cramped from hours of futile effort, my core sore but still desperately empty.
He said tomorrow. The promise hangs in the air like a lifeline.
But there's something else in the air now. Another scent, fainter than his but definitely male. Different. Younger.
Something else is hunting these grounds, and my scent is drawing more than just my intended mate.
MARA
Day 4 - Dawn
I wake to evidence of my failed night—the ground around me destroyed by desperate clawing, blood dried under my fingernails from scratching at stone and skin alike. The rock beneath me shows deep gouges where my new claws tore through volcanic glass in frustration. Dark stains mark where I ground myself against anything that might provide relief, finding nothing but hollow friction.
My body screams with need that goes deeper than thirst, deeper than hunger. The tonic has rewired every nerve ending, made me hypersensitive to everything while denying me the specific stimulation I crave. Three days of this torture, and I'm coming apart.
“Morning, little female.”
The voice comes from above. I look up to see him silhouetted against the orange sky, balanced on the ledge like he's been watching me destroy myself all night. Probably has been.
“Khor.” His name tastes strange on my tongue, alien syllables that the translator makes familiar.
“You remember. Good.” He drops down to my level, landing silent despite his size. This close, I can see the ridge of spines along his back flexing with subtle movement. “You look... desperate.”
