Page 8 of The Hunter

She’d just…slapped him? Gods, but she’d become quick. Just as she had been with her spear.

“Ow! Fuck!” she cried. “Ow, ow, ow…”

Telok turned his face toward her and tilted his head. She was rocking back and forth, cradling the hand she’d hit him with against her chest.

His mandibles sagged. “Are you hurt, Lacey?”

She glared at him, tears glimmering in her eyes. “Yes, I’m hurt, you asshole. I thought Urkot was the one with the stone skull, but yours is even harder.”

Tucking his leg against his hindquarters, Telok reached up and rubbed the side of his face. The sting was gone, but the echoing warmth of her hand remained. “My head is not hard. Your hand is soft.”

“Your head is most definitely hard and thick as hell since you don’t seem to understand the meaning of simple words like no, stop, and let me go.”

“I know let me die,” he grated, barely keeping his mandible fangs from clacking. He gestured at her thighs. “You are hurt and bleeding.”

“I’m in exkroosheeayting pain and hormohnuhl. I have every right to be overly dramatic right now. It’s not my fault you took it literally.”

“It is your fault you hit me and hurt your hand.”

“Fine. Whatever. Now that it’s been established that I’m not actually wounded or dying, you can go.” She waved him away. “Shoo. Off with you. Let me suffer alone.”

His eyes dipped, narrowing at her gesture, before he met her gaze again. “No. Too dangerous. Come, I will take you back.”

Lacey crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going back with you.”

Stubborn female.

Standing, Telok strode past her and plucked up her soaked boots. He tipped one. Water trickled out onto the stone. He again flicked his gaze to Lacey.

Her cheeks, paler than usual, brightened with splotches of red, and her eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re looking at me right now. With…disappointment.”

“Not disappointed,” he said, carefully pronouncing the unwieldy word with its unnatural sounds. “Angry.”

Lacey threw her hands up. “Yeah, cause that’s so much better.”

He turned away from her, picked up her bag—also wet—and stuffed the boots inside, doing the same with the bloody cloth after rinsing it out under the waterfall. He tossed the clump of moss into the water and tied Lacey’s bag closed.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Telok slung the bag over his shoulder and grabbed her spear.

He was angry, yes, but he couldn’t deny the thread of pride woven into it. She’d brought her bag and spear even though she hadn’t ventured far from Kaldarak, which was more than he’d done. And she was so much faster and surer with her hands than she’d been when they first met.

I am proud she nearly stabbed me in the face?

A question he’d often heard from Cole seemed to fit the situation.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

“Telok…” Lacey intoned.

As he turned to face her, he made sure none of that pride showed in his eyes. “We go. Now.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to sit here and bleed to death.” Her eyes widened, and she threw her hands up to ward him off when he growled and stepped closer. “Wait! I meant that metaforiklee!”