Page 8 of Feral Tamed

Then the rapids had hold of us, ripping me from his grip and sending me under. I tried to follow my training, though I’d never had to put theory into practice. I forced my body to move along with the water, to find moments for air whenever I could. It was hard to subdue my instinct to fight against the currents. But we needed not just to survive these rapids, but for them to carry us far enough away from the snakes to be safe.

The cold was mind-numbing, it sapped all the strength from my already flagging body. I wanted to give in and just let the blackness claim me, but I wanted to survive and kiss Fierce again even more. It was crazy for that to be my sole motivation right now for survival but I hardly cared. It was the one thought I held onto while I battled to stay conscious, to stay afloat. I took far too many hits from unseen rocks that my body managed to find, but the cold had numbed me enough that I barely noticed.

I was like that, drifting along until a glimmer of light roused me enough from my desperate struggle. Something was happening up ahead. I remembered how to angle my body, how to force it into a breast crawl I could sustain just enough to head for the side of this rapidly streaming water. There were fewer rocks now, the water smoother. Then the rocks opened up around us, a rocky beach appearing to my left, the side I’d been swimming towards. We were in a canyon, cliffs rising up high around me on either side of this river.

I couldn’t care less, all I saw was the strip of beach, I had to make it. Clawing myself out of the water and onto dry sand was an effort, but the sand was warm to my too-cool skin. I was slipping into hypothermia, my thoughts going hazy. Where was Fierce? Where were his animals? Had they made it?

There was a snuffling sound right as I thought it, and my sluggish brain surged into elation. That had to be the hound. Tilting my tired head I lifted it just enough to aim it towards the sound. Oh, fuck no… That was not the hound, that was something else entirely. It was huge, a bit like a cross between a boar and a crocodile as it shuffled out of the water to my right and ambled my way. A long snout with protruding tusks snuffling along the sand, it appeared blind, with only remnants of milky white eyes.

I scrambled back, trying to urge my frozen body to do something, anything, to get away from that thing. I was so cold though, so cold that I could barely move at all. My eyes struggled to stay open, to focus on that creature. It opened its maw and roared, scuttling towards me on stubby feet. I thought for sure it was going to eat me, and then a flash of bright color accompanied by a high-pitched chirp. Fluffy leaped over me and straight onto that long snout, her slender tail curling up over her body like a scorpion and jabbing the crocboar in the eye with a long needle sticking out from the tip of her tail.

I was not sure what exactly happened next, just that the creature collapsed without making another sound. Then Fluffy was sitting on my chest, purring rapidly and rubbing her wet snout against mine. She was shockingly warm against my chilled body. I wanted to say thank you, I wanted to pet her, to check that she was fine. All I managed was a sigh, my body giving up the fight with the cold.

*

Fierce

I didn’t know where Hina was when I climbed out of the water as soon as the rapids had opened up to this canyon. Frantically I searched the rapid river streaming past me but I couldn’t see her anywhere. Snarl was climbing out a little further downstream, shaking his sleek black fur out with a disgruntled look. I had lost hold of the Riho, but they were avid swimmers, she would know how to take care of herself, probably better in that water than any of us.

Likely, Hina had been washed further downstream. My body was tight as a bowstring as I started sprinting down the shore, my eyes scanning the rapidly churning water for any sign of her pale skin and black hair. If she hadn’t made it… I couldn’t bear the thought, didn’t want to think about it, so I focused on finding her.

“Fierce’s Hina made it, she is strong,” Snarl reassured me, his long body stretched out as he streaked ahead of me across the sandy beach on this side of the now much more placid river. I hoped he was right, but when I spotted her prone form, I felt fear claw at my mind. She was right next to some kind of creature, a predator by the looks of it.

I went to my knees in a cloud of dust, only then spotting ‘Fluffy’ curled up on Hina’s chest. She had her eyes closed and the Riho was purring louder than I’d ever heard before, her small body spread out as much as she could across Hina’s respiratory system. “Good girl, good girl,” I told the Riho, while I desperately gathered Hina into my arms and curled my body around her. I had nothing to heat her with other than myself, the blanket in my bag was soaked.

“Fire?” Snarl asked me when I got to my feet with Hina in my arms. Fluffy was still curled against her chest, instinctively having supplied my female with exactly what she’d needed to hang on a little longer. I spotted a large slab of rock a little ahead of us, it had been in the sun for a few hours and was warm to the touch when I leaped on top.

Stripping her of all her clothes, I spread her out on the warm surface. “Find wood or bones,” I asked Snarl. He leaped away to search for what I needed, while I rapidly shucked my own soaked clothing and rushed to spread out the soaked blanket nearby so it could dry. Then I curled my body around hers and held her tight, trying to supply as much heat as I could. At least my temperature ran higher than hers and my body was strong, it was pumping out as much heat as it could.

Soon, she was shaking, shaking so hard that I had to hold her tightly so she couldn’t harm herself. This was a good sign though, and when Snarl returned with a pile of wood in his mouth I traded places with him. The Ferai beast crawled against her body, sharing heat, while I built a fire next to us, right on top of the rock. As soon as that was done, Snarl and I sandwiched her between us, Fluffy curling around the top of Hina’s head. She was starting to warm up, a little at the time but I was hopeful that she’d make it. Aside from some bumps and bruises, she didn’t otherwise appear harmed from the swim, we’d been incredibly lucky.

The hours it took for her to really wake up, were far too long. But when she stopped shaking, and her body went rosy in the cheeks instead, I knew it would be soon. Snarl shifted away, “I’m going to eat, want me to leave you some Fierce Hunter?” I didn’t need to look to know that he was headed for the body of the freshly felled predator. Soon I could smell the blood in the air, and hear the crack of bone as he ate. My stomach rumbled angrily as the delicious scents hit my nose. I was starving. Those ration bars hardly filled me at all.

With Hina feeling warm again to the touch, almost a little too warm, I went to check the blanket and the fire. The blanket had dried in the sun, near the fire, so I rolled Hina into it. I stoked the fire a little higher with the pile of driftwood and bones that Snarl had found for us. Only then did I allow myself to look at the flesh the Ferai beast was consuming.

“Warn me if anything changes,” I told Fluffy, who was still dutifully curled on Hina’s chest, purring gently. The Riho blinked bright green eyes my way as if in confirmation, though I still wasn’t sure how much she understood. Satisfied my female was going to be alright and was safe where she was, I leaped off the rock and jogged to where Snarl was eating.

Using my ax, I hacked free a few chunks for myself and tore into the strips of red meat with relish. Filling myself up with the soft flesh first before breaking free a bone and using my jaw to crack it and get at the soft bone marrow, the tastiest part.

Chapter 6

Hina

Everything ached when I woke up. I was sweating too, blisteringly hot wrapped up as I was in a blanket, and with Fluffy purring loudly on my chest. She was doing that thing that cats like to do, milking biscuits with her front paws. Massaging my chest. Thankfully she seemed to know how to do that without using her claws.

There was a loud cracking sound that echoed between the cliff walls surrounding us. It was loud enough to be a gunshot and I jerked upright in shock. My head was swimming, aching, as I turned it rapidly to figure out what the heck that was.

A fire was burning on the rock next to me, bathing me in heat. On the other side, I saw the carcass of the creature that had attacked me, the one that Fluffy had killed if I hadn’t imagined that part. Snarl was with his head digging into the creature’s rib cage. And Fierce was on the other side, naked as the day he was born, his skin in radiant tones of turquoise and darker blue, his long, strange hair black. I admired his muscled back, the curve of his ass, the faint glimpse of balls dangling between his legs as he squatted.

I started to greet him when another cracking sound echoed through the ravine. I gasped in surprise and Fierce turned partially my way, a bone dangling from between his lips and his front covered in blood. Holy Hannah, he was literally chewing on a bone? I knew my eyes were probably as big as saucers.

His expression shuttered, he tossed the bone to the ground, turned, and leaped into the water. My heart was in my throat at the response, was he ashamed that I’d caught him eating like that? I hoped not, but I was kind of relieved that he was washing the blood off.

Only he was staying with his back toward me in the water far longer than I liked. I struggled to move Fluffy off my chest and free myself from the suffocating blanket. My skin felt hypersensitive, pricking like pins and needles everywhere. “Fierce, are you okay?”

My legs were like noodles as I stumbled to my feet and tried to figure out how to get off this high rock I was on. “Fierce, it’s okay, talk to me alright?” I urged, I wasn’t trusting my legs right now to make it safely down. That severely hindered my options if I wanted to reach him, he had to come to me instead. My breath shuddered out of me in a sigh when he finally responded.

His shoulders were up around his ears when I spoke, but now they lowered when he waded out of the water towards me. Not in the least concerned with his own nudity. I had only just realized I was as naked as he was, my clothes spread out on the rock to dry on the other side of the fire. I had really been out of it, with the state my body was in now, I’d skirted very close to extreme hypothermia.