Page 74 of Caveman Alien's Heat
The effect is immediate. The bloodwings release him all at once, drifting upward in a slow, dark cloud. Some twitch, beating their wings weakly against the surface before going still. Others float, legs curled, carried toward the edge. The water clouds around Nator’ax, turning faintly pink.
I drop to my knees at the edge, reaching in blindly until I find his arm under the surface, solid and real. “Come up!”
For a heartbeat there’s nothing.
Then he rises. Water sheets off him as he straightens, his skin streaked with blood, small bites marking wherever the creatures found purchase. Pink rivulets run down his chest and arms.
“They don’t like water,” he says, his voice flat, almost distant.
“It’s the heat,” I say, grasping for something, anything. “They stay high over the springs. They don’t come down…” My voice breaks.
Up close, I can see how much blood there is, how torn the wrappings are around his neck, how many bites he’s taken. “Oh, Nator’ax…”
I move before I think. I step into the water and wrap my arms around him, holding on hard, not caring about the blood, the heat, or the trembling starting in my hands.
For a moment, he doesn’t respond. Then his arms come up around me, slow, heavy, but certain. “I asked you to stay in the cave.”
“Yes, I know,” I sob against his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know if I would protect you,” he says flatly. “You thought I would break my oath.”
“No! But… you were so… different…” I have trouble making the words. There’s a good chance he got half eaten by locusts because I doubted him.
His grip tightens around me, not enough to hurt, but enough that I feel it. “I was pretending. For them. For the Gar tribe.”
“I didn’t know that.” My voice shakes despite myself. “You didn’t tell me anything. You shut me in and just… walked away.”
“I told you to stay. You would have been safe.”
I let out a shaky breath and pull back just enough to look at him. “I would have stayed. If I’d known what you were doing… I would have trusted you.” My fingers tighten against his arm.“But you didn’t give me anything to hold on to. You just disappeared into it.”
He doesn’t answer at once. His gaze drifts past me, unfocused, like he’s still seeing something else. “Because you would’ve hated what I was going to do,” he says at last, his voice flat. “I know you would.”
A small chill runs through me that has nothing to do with the storm. I hesitate, not sure if I want to know this. “What… what did you do?”
His jaw tightens, just a fraction. “Not what I had planned,” he says. Then his mouth relaxes into a tight smile. “Thank the Ancestors for that.”
For a moment we stand there as the storm roars above us. It seems to me it’s less intense now.
“Why come here?” he asks.
“The wind pushed me this way. And the springs… they made sense to me. They’re warm and the storm couldn’t reach me.” I hesitate. “He was just here. I thought he was safe.”
Nator’ax’s jaw tightens. “He didn’t look safe.”
“And he wasn’t.”
The swarm still rushes overhead, but it’s beginning to thin, breaking into shifting bands. The sound eases from a crushing roar to something just short of it.
He studies me, then looks me over quickly, checking. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head. “No. Just… shaken.”
“This was not the plan,” he says. “But it may work out anyway.”
“They’ll come looking,” I say, glancing out into the storm. “Once the storm is over. They won’t let us go just like that.”
“But they may think we’re dead,” Nator’ax points out.
