“Enjoy the show, Doctor?” I asked her in a velvety tone.
She blushed harder and laughed, her hands going to her cheeks. “I’ve never even watched porn before and you’ve ruined it for me forever,” she confessed in a whisper.
Patty narrowed her eyes at her. “Never watched porn? What are you? A nun?”
Sam’s blush spread down her neck and chest and she cleared her throat. “Something like that.”
Oh no.
Patty gasped, her hand going to her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Oh my god, you’re a virgin aren’t you?”
Sam groaned and covered her face with her hands.
Patty laughed uproariously, hugging Sam to her. “Oh my god, Jack! She’s never had sex and her first pornographic experience is a werewolf fucking an alien right in front of her! She’s ruined for life! Nothing will ever compare!” She cracked up harder, shaking Sam.
Ohem shifted beneath me, uncomfortable with the situation.
“You’re welcome!” I howled, rolling to the floor clutching my stomach. Patty crawled to me, throwing herself over my back, crying with laughter.
Ohem murmuring apologies to Sam, probably making her even more embarrassed, and I laughed harder.
“What’s so funny?” a dry, scratchy voice asked, barely heard over the laughter. Callie had finally woken up.
Chapter 10
“Callie!” Sam jumped to her feet and dashed around us to kneel by Callie’s makeshift metal stretcher.
Patty rolled off me, crawling to Callie, and I grabbed the bucket and filled it with water, bringing it back to press the lip to Callie’s mouth while Ohem helped prop her up.
I let her sip it, making her pause in between each sip to make sure she didn’t drink too much and throw it all back up.
She pushed the bucket away from her with her hand and sat the rest of the way up without help.
“Oh man, I feel like crap,” she groaned, hunching over her legs.
Ohem stepped around us and crouched by her feet. “May I?” he asked, gesturing to her leg that had been broken.
Callie nodded her head yes and sat up straight. I kept my hand hovering behind her just in case.
Ohem unwrapped the metal splint and set it aside. He grabbed her foot and lifted her leg, gently rotating it one way and then the other, pushing her leg up, making her bend her knee. “Do you feel any discomfort?” he asked, putting her leg back down.
“No, it feels fine.”
Ohem nodded. “Do you feel any pain in your abdomen?”
Callie shook her head. “Nah, I feel fine. Just thirsty, and hungry, and my head is all fuzzy.” She looked around at the oasis, her face scrunched in confusion. “Where the hell are we? What happened?”
We filled her in on the crash, the lost women, the potential threat from the Councilor guy and whatever thugs he had working for him, and finally on what we’d learned about the Rijitera and my mating to Ohem. She’d cried for the women, the rest of us holding her. She’d known all their names. She’d taken everything else in stride. She was tough, or maybe it was like Sam, they just couldn’t muster the energy to be shocked anymore.
We had gathered around the fire after she bathed for over an hour in the pool, scrubbing the jelly from the tree skin into her hair and all over her body. Sam took her clothes and scrubbed them clean for her while she bathed and hung them next to the fire so they’d dry out when Callie was done luxuriating in the cool water.
Ohem had finished butchering the lizard camel, freaking the girls out when he’d opened his mouth wide, the seams of his mouth farther back on his face than was natural, and ate the heart and liver I’d saved for him.
Whole.
He’d thanked me for the gift, nuzzling my neck.
I’d been fidgety that they weren’t fresh and made a mental note to hunt for him again soon.
