“Yes, though to be fair, we were almost killed in the process.”
The two laughed, sharing a nice moment of levity, a spark of connection clicking between them. Maureen felt it, and she was pretty sure Bodok did as well.
It’s just a survivor thing,she reasoned.High-stress situations draw people together, nothing more than that.
But she couldn’t help but wonder if it might be something more.
“That ridge,” he said, gazing at the lowering sun, pointing out a protected rise up ahead. “It should be a good location to bed down for the night. At this pace we should reach it before the sun sets.”
“So, we’re sleeping rough,” Maureen grumbled.
“It will not be so bad. The weather is moderate, and there is ample cover.”
“Yeah. It’s just going from prison cell to a forced camping trip isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”
“Fair,” he replied, glancing down at her, a mischievous little curve creeping onto his lips. “But I am sure we will make the most of our circumstances.”
Maureen felt a little ball of warm tingles in her belly, and her cheeks flushed. Flirting with an alien? A damn sexy one at that? Oh, how her life had taken a most unusual turn.
“But I digress. You had a question of me, and it would be rude not to address it,” Bodok said as he lifted his shirt.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her pulse rising slightly at the sight of his beautiful body.
He stopped and took her hand, placing it on his flank, drawing her fingertips along the break in the tattoos.
“This is new flesh,” he said. “Healed from what the Raxxians did thirty days ago.”
“Thirty days? But I never saw you injured.”
“As I said, my kind heals quickly. More than that, however, we can regenerate large areas of flesh so long as the damage is not too severe.”
“So what happened?”
Bodok sighed and shook his head. “The Raxxians keep us as livestock, as you know.”
“Yeah,” Maureen said, not liking where this was going.
“Well, let us just say that in my case, the ability my kind are blessed with can sometimes also be a curse. Especially when one is captured by a race that enjoys playing with their food.”
Maureen felt her stomach flip, bile threatening to rise to her mouth. “You’re saying they cut bits off you andatethem?”
He nodded quietly.
“That…that’s barbaric!”
“Again, Raxxians.”
Maureen looked more closely at his skin, her prior arousal quenched, replaced with righteous fury at their captors as she saw his scars with fresh eyes. He had been cut up. Eaten alive, left to regenerate over and over again. And each time they cut his tattoos, his enhancements diminished.
Most of his runes had been left intact, from what she had seen, but the one he called his Infala, the one most important to his kind, had been damaged, separated from the other lines feeding into it.
He had explained it to her briefly, and as she understood what it was now, something considered utterly vital to his wellbeing. Her heart broke for his torment.
He gently took her hand from his skin, lowering his shirt, not meeting her gaze.
“Come. If we hurry we will be able to make camp as dusk falls. It is the best time to hunt for something more substantial than foraged fruits and plants.”
“Whatever you want,” she said, following him quietly, processing what she had just learned about the mysterious man.
