First though, she needed to get him the rest of the way to the cabin and out of this downpour. He was a big guy and leaned heavily on her as she guided him over the tangled, tall grass. But they made it and, as she shoved open the door, surprise washed through her at the coziness of the dwelling.
The entire far wall consisted of wooden shelves made from birch saplings. On the shelves were several shoebox-sized containers with lids. They had been made from strips of dry, bright-yellow grass and were decorated with braids of pale-yellow grass, porcupine quills and small blue jay feathers.
There were two cots, one against each side wall. The cots were also made of birch bark trees and the mattresses—if she could call them that—were woven straw. Just inside the door, on each side of the two windows, were several spears with very sharp, rock-like heads pounded into the tops. A stone fireplace had been built into one corner by the shelf.
Over the black, dead coals hung a single, heavy-looking metal pail, probably cast iron. And there was lots of wood piled nearby—dry birch bark, kindling and large branches, all broken and stacked nicely.
They had taken great pride and thought of every basic essential—except, unfortunately, matches. The lack of what she needed was quickly forgotten when Taylor leaned more heavily against her, almost making her lose her balance.
“Whoa, big guy,” she soothed and they stumbled to one of the cots. “Hold on while I test if it’s strong enough.” With her free hand she reached down and found the straw on the bed amazingly secure.
Taylor half fell, half stumbled onto it, his heavy weight making the straw crackle beneath his shivering body.
Gosh, he really was a huge man. She visually inspected the rest of him for any other injuries. Thankfully she didn’t see any. At least not on his front.
She winced as her gaze strayed to the raw, gaping slice in his side. Crimson oozed slowly from the clean cut. He winced as she poked and prodded around the wound. It wasn’t hard. That was a good sign.
During her veterinarian studies, she’d seen lots of pictures of injuries—broken bones, bites and burns. She’d worked on wounded animals as a volunteer at a clinic on weekends, so wounds in general didn’t freak her out. But seeing a wide gash like this on a human made her a bit uneasy. If she didn’t get the bleeding to stop, she might have to cauterize, but she didn’t want to think about that yet.
Okay, first she needed to clean the wound and with that came boiling water. She looked at the bucket, listened to the rain pelting the roof.
Good. Water angle is covered.
Grabbing the pail, she opened the door and let it sit beneath the rain for a few moments. After swirling the water in the pail, she dumped it out then left the container outside to collect the rain.
Fire. She needed to start a fire.
“God, please let there be matches,” she muttered as she crossed the room and began searching the boxes on the shelf. One contained a porcupine quill and what appeared to be thread, but she doubted it was. Other boxes contained herbs, probably for tea. There were boxes of dried fruit, seemingly preserved very well.
She shivered as a blast of cool wind wound its way through the two open windows and breathed against her flesh.
Fire. Heat. Where the fuck are the matches?
Man, what she wouldn’t give to be in a five-star hotel right about now. Nice marble floors—heated, of course—so her bare feet would be nice and toasty instead of bloody well cold and aching.
A soft moan erupted from Taylor and another round of anxiety ripped through her.
“Oh and a massage,” she mumbled, hoping her voice would soothe him. “A nice rubdown of our sore muscles, right Taylor?”
He was shivering, his teeth chattering. His eyes remained closed, but he was hugging his body as if searching for warmth.
“You wouldn’t happen to remember if there are any workable matches so I can start a friggin’ fire, would you, Taylor?”
Yeah right, like he would know.
“Over…door.”
She looked above the door frame and located a small box on yet another single shelf. Bingo…hopefully.
“Of course. Silly old me. Why wouldn’t they be by the door?” she joked and headed back to the fireplace.
God, they were so damned lucky. Matches on Paradise. Was this some sort of parallel universe or something? Or had her brothers’ presence somehow already changed how the natives did things around here?
Urgency to help Taylor made her get her ass in gear and, within a couple of minutes, orange flames greedily licked the birch bark and kindling she’d set in the hearth.
Moments later, she knelt down beside Taylor, who now had his eyes open and gazed at her with a glazed look of pain. Sadness tangled within her as she tried to offer him an encouraging smile.
“Spiders,” he mumbled, and then tight lines of pain appeared at the sides of his mouth. Already delirious. God, she wanted him to smile at her. Just once. Before he… No, he couldn’t die. She wouldn’t let him.
She touched his forehead…clammy.
Shit!
“Spiders,” he whispered again as her shaky fingers fiddled with the string on his loincloth. She needed to get it off as the woven ferns looked wet and uncomfortable.
His eyes were aimed at the ceiling. She glanced up at several fat, black creatures hanging in their god-awful webs. She shivered with revulsion. She hated spiders.
Yuck!
She’d have to find some way of cleaning them out…later.
First, she needed to get off his… Her eyes widened as she lifted away the covering.
Wow. He was big. She’d forgotten how big. Elevated scars and a web of veins lashed the length of his shaft.
She blew out a breath. Tried to ignore the flashes of memory.
Arousal, fevered heat, need. Her bending over in the river. Taylor grabbing her by the hips, his hot fingers clenching her flesh as he thrust into her vagina, filling her with his huge cock.
Have mercy!
It was getting warm in here.
She grabbed blankets off the shelf. They’d been knitted out of…hair? Pulling the loincloth free from Taylor’s body, she tucked the warm blankets around him as best she could, leaving his wound fully exposed. Hair falling into a wound was not a good thing.
Wiping wet, stray strands out of her eyes, she piled more wood onto the flickering fire. It crackled, smoked a bit, then caught. Blessed heat swept against her. Hope flooded her. Things were going to be okay now.
She opened the door to get the pot, only to have the howling wind blow her hair back into her face again.
“Friggin’ wind,” she snapped angrily. Thankfully though, the pot was already overflowing. A moment later she had it anchored over the roaring fire.
Hot air filled the cabin and she thought of stripping off her wet clothes and wrapping herself in that second blanket she’d laid on Taylor.
“Cobwebs,” he muttered again.
Oh God.
“I can’t clean out the place right now, Taylor. The cobwebs will have to stay a bit longer,” she called over her shoulder as she warmed her hands by the fire.
“Cobwebs…prevent…infection…”
Cobwebs prevented infection?
She squatted beside the bed, eyeing him. He looked feverish, delirious.
“Are you serious?”
He nodded.
“So what? Scrape the webs together and…”
“Press into wound…pack…”
Kayla closed her eyes as a wave of revulsion crashed into her. She hated webs just as much as the creepy creatures that created them.
“Spiders…soup…”
Oh God, he was definitely delirious.
His voice was growing weaker. “Black…white cross…juiciest…”
Oh my God!
She expected him to start laughing, to tell her he really was just trying to lighten this dire situation. She willed those luscious lips of his to lift into a grin.
Nothing happened.
“Did I mention I hate spiders?” she replied meekly.
He did not answer. Just kept staring at her. Like he was accusing her of being a wimp.
“How about you smiling for me, huh? Just once.” It would make her day a whole hell of a lot better.
He didn’t.
Her gaze flew back to the ugly wound. God, what she wouldn’t do to have the internet handy now.
“Okay, I’ll do it. Then I want a big smile from you for all my hard work. Okay?”
He nodded, but barely.
“And this spider soup… If I make you some, you are going to owe me something big. You got it, big guy?”
Again, another nod. The fact he understood what she was saying meant only two things. The guy was definitely not delirious and she was in one big heap of trouble.
Spiders. Ew!
* * * * *
Despite being the weakest he’d ever been in his entire life, Blackie’s blood boiled with lust and his body burned with need. He wanted to fuck these females in order to get release. It was unbearable. He needed them so badly he could hardly stand it. He could barely keep his knees from buckling as he stood in front of a giant, crackling fire with many Yellow Hair females staring at him.
He’d passed out for a while and discovered he’d been taken to a camp in a meadow consisting of several hide shelters. They’d tied his wrists and lifted his arms by a rope until he was almost on tiptoe. And then they began to massage his cock until he had no choice but to react.
Anger burned through him. Kinley must have deserted him because she was nowhere in sight.
“It will be a shame to eat him,” one of the Yellow Hairs said, a petite youngling with wide hips and a grin much too wide for his liking. She stroked his erection so sensually he almost came.
“I want to be the first one who eats him the other way,” one of them giggled, her cheeks flushing pink as she dropped to her knees before him and licked her lips in obvious delight.
“Touch me and you die!” he shouted. Relief slammed into him when surprise washed over their faces and they stopped touching him.
“He…he…speaks?” a female gasped. “I…have heard some can now speak.”
“All the more reason he needs to be killed. Talking males are not to be kept alive. It is the Law,” another of them muttered and she reached out to touch a whip scar that ran along the length of his lower belly. Her fingers trailed a sultry line of fire. The Passion Poison once again began to scream through his system.
He would die from the poison unless administered the antidote—a twenty-four-hour sex marathon with these females. But the Yellow Hair virgins would most likely kill him before then now that they’d heard him talk.
Even trying to escape would have him dead if he did not take one of these females with him to supply the antidote. But the thought of fucking anyone besides Kinley didn’t turn his mind to fire as it did when he thought about taking her.
“He must have been a difficult male for the Goddess of Freedom to leave him with such scars,” replied the female whose fingers caressed his scars.
“Where is the goddess? She will be angry at all of you for laying a hand on me without her permission,” Blackie growled, bucking his hips, trying to get a female’s hands off his balls.
The one stroking him so sensually he literally hurt glared angrily at him. “She is the Goddess of Freedom. She knows our ways. She will understand.”
Despite her anger, she continued massaging his cock and no matter how hard he tried not to, he just kept responding. He wanted these females riding him, fucking him.
He moaned as pleasure ripped through his entire being. She held a mug beneath his cock as he shot his release. Virgin Yellow Hairs took semen from their captured males and mixed it with their own blood, thus bonding him to those virgin females. Then they would seduce him. And he would have no desire to stop them from mounting him.
“What is the meaning of this? What are you doing to my slave?”
Relief sizzled through Blackie at the shrill voice belonging to Kinley. Thank the Goddess of Freedom. He wished he could gaze upon her, but she was somewhere behind him. The other females, however, frowned with disappointment.
Nonetheless they stopped caressing him and all the females grew quiet as they bowed to the ground.
Blackie blinked in shock. Perhaps she
was
the Goddess of Freedom.
“He is being prepared to give us the sacred drink,” the tallest of the females replied. She had been standing in the background, watching the other females. She spoke coolly and confidently as she and the others stood.
“I fully understand,” Kinley replied and hopelessness swept Blackie literally off his feet. The ropes around his wrists burned as his knees buckled.
“Since I am the Goddess of Freedom, I wish to have a night with him first.”
Gasps echoed through the virgins and Blackie instantly realized her mistake. It was said the real Goddess of Freedom owned no male slaves and never had sex with them.
The tallest Yellow Hair paled. “The Goddess of Freedom mates with males? ’Tis not allowed!”