“Survival requires preparation.”
“Survival here requires surrender.”
“Surrender to what? You? Chemistry? This torture you call preparation?”
He moves slightly closer. Still shadow but now I can make out more. Tall, maybe seven feet. Broad in ways that aren't human. And something moving behind him. A tail, thick and powerful.
“Surrender to need. Body knows what it wants.”
“My body wants lots of things. Doesn't mean I give in.”
“No? Then why do you leak for me? Why do you clench on nothing? Why do you scream my scent?”
Heat floods my face. He's watched everything. Every desperate moment. Every failed attempt at relief.
“Because chemistry doesn't equal choice.”
“Choice.” He makes a sound that might be laughter. “You think you have choice? After two days? Wait until day five. Day ten. Day fifteen. Watch choice disappear as body takes control.”
“Is that the game? Wait until I'm mindless with need?”
“Game is more complex. But time favors hunter, not hunted.”
He sets something down at the cave entrance. Another bundle.
“Eat. Drink. Tomorrow gets worse.”
Then he was gone, absorbed back into the jungle's darkness.
Inside the bundle: meat seasoned with something that makes my mouth water. More of the clear liquid that dulls the edge of need. And something new. A piece of fabric that smells intensely of him. His scent concentrated enough that holding it makes my pussy clench in violent spasms.
A comfort object or a torture device?
I spend the night alternating between trying to sleep and writhing through waves that come every ten minutes now. My body is exhausting itself with constant arousal. Muscles fatigue from clenching. Dehydration from the fluids I'm losing. The human body isn't meant to be this aroused for this long.
Twenty-eight more days.
The impossibility of it sits heavy. My body is already breaking down. The inflammation alone will cause damage. But the alternative is surrender. Giving in to what the tonic has programmed me to crave.
I hold the fabric he left, breathing his scent while my hips grind against the cave floor. The smell makes everything worse and better. Worse because my body recognizes him as what it needs. Better because at least there's something real to focus the need on.
Not just anonymous chemistry but him. Specific. The hunter who provides medicine with the torture. Who gives tacticaladvice while watching me fall apart. Who could take me anytime but waits.
Waiting for what?
For me to beg? Or for something else?
The questions haunt me as another wave builds. I grip the fabric, breathing his scent as my body convulses with need. The empty ache has become my entire existence, broken only by waves that provide no relief.
But I'm still thinking. Still planning. Still maintaining who I am despite what my body has become.
The game continues.
And I refuse to lose.
Even if winning might be impossible.
ZKARI
