Descend- Seeing Stars by Sean Oswald (the ebook reader .TXT) 📕

      “I have trouble deciphering your facial expressions, lord husband, but it looks as though you are truly worried. You care deeply for your people, don’t you?” Eesa asked.

      “I love my wives and have strong feelings for all those that I’m fused with. We and the others with us are the last of our race. It somehow falls to my shoulders to save them all,” Jay said and then he stood up from where they had been laying together in the grass. He shook his head. “I was a history student and if you don’t count the time dilation, I’m not even twenty-five years old yet.”

      “So young, I had no idea. And you were a scholar before the A’snkarnt took you?”

“Yes, maybe I should ask you how old you are. Although it is a joke amongst humans that it is rude to ask a woman her age.”

      “Oh we have no such convention. I have lived one hundred and five years.”

      Jay was startled for a second and laughed, “So you really are a cougar.”

      She stared at him obviously not understanding the meaning of his words, but Jay just laughed and said, “Never mind it is just a juvenile joke. How long do your people normally live?”

“Many have died in war between the clans, until the A’snkarnt came to my world. But makers and breeders often live to be four hundred. What about humans, how long do you live.”

      “Normally, only around eighty years,” Jay replied.

      “That makes me sad. We have only known each other a short time, but you seem like a good man.”

      “You have nothing to worry about. The evolutions that my people have undergone due to the A’snkarnt, have changed all that. As far as we can determine we will live thousands of years, perhaps far longer. Oh, and now that I have made those changes to you, it is likely that you will also live longer. I have probably doubled your life span. Depending on what further changes I can make to you, I may be able to extend that further,” Jay said.

“Well, what will be, will be. Now, I’m hungry. This area you chose for us is good. There are fish in the river, antelopes on the savannah and that bit of forest over there will have an assortment of small game,” Eesa said.

      Jay said, “We also have access to a terminal here. It can produce whatever type of meal you would like.”

      She scoffed, “I am not prey to eat my food where it grows or have it served to me. Yes, there are times that we must eat rations, but my people always prefer to hunt or share in the kill of another.”

      Jay stared at her, not quite sure if she was serious. He thought that just maybe she was. Then pondered if it mattered. The Tamoori customs might be quite different. She was clearly an alpha predator and even more so after the improvements that he had made for her.

      “You strike me as being more like a Leon than a Lepar. Leon males are great fighters but tend to leave the hunting to their females. All you need to do is take your leisure and I will hunt with you,” Eesa said.

      “And what do Lepar males do?” He asked.

      “It is common but not required for mated pairs to hunt in tandem,” she replied.

      “Then teach me, I would learn your ways.”

The next four hours were spent with her teaching him how to hunt with her. At first, he would often spoil the surprise, but she simply said that he was like a cub with paws too big for his body. Eventually they brought down an antelope and Jay watched as she pounced upon it.

      Her new strength crushed it and its head was flattened before it even hit the ground. She was a wonder to behold. Her beauty and majesty stood out as he watched her skill. That made her next action all that much more shocking to him. She leaned in and buried her sharp teeth in the meaty portion of her prey’s shoulder. Her powerful body rippled as she jerked back with a mouth full of raw meat and blood running down her chin.

      Jay watched in shock as this trained fighter pilot, well spoken, woman who was essentially a princess to her people feasted upon raw flesh. It was almost like there was a disconnect between this advanced of a people and what he was seeing now.

      After she finished chewing, she looked over at him without bothering to wipe the viscera and gore from her savagely beautiful face. “You wanted to learn our ways. This is what it means to be Tamoori. We hunt and then the blood of our prey makes us stronger. Come partake with me.”

      Jay didn’t want to refuse her, and he admitted there was a certain primal draw to what she was saying, but everything that generations of human society had drilled into him rebelled. “I tend to prefer my food cooked.”

      “So, do I, but this is the ritual of the hunt. There is another ritual that follows after this amongst the Lepar. One which I am now looking forward to. There is a saying amongst my people about what the size of a male’s paws means, and you my lord husband have exceptionally large paws.”

      Somehow this savage woman with her blood smeared face became the singular object of his desire. It wasn’t love like with his other wives, this was raw primal desire. She was his mate. They had hunted together. He had only to partake of their kill and then he could partake of her.

      Conscious thought gave way to the primal