- Caroline -

“Hey!”

He suddenly just lunges at me, lifts me like I'm a piece of fluff, places me face down across his upper back and just runs, holding one arm and one leg. One part of my consciousness registers that he must be insanely strong while another part of me panics. This is much closer to any caveman than I ever wanted to be.

I reflexively try to slap him off me, but in this position the only part of him I can reach is covered by his pants. His motions while he's running throw my aim off, so my angry stroke ends up being a gentle caress of his crotch. Shit, that's the hardest, biggest bulge I've ever come across. This guy definitely has some unhealthy ideas.

I'll make sure they're unhealthy for him, not for me. There's no fucking way I'll become this cavedude's sex toy. I'll slit my wrists or throw myself into a nest of raptors if he tries to rape me.

Another one of those strange sounds makes me turn my head. I've never heard a sound that made me so curious. It must be behind us.

It's hard to move when I'm being carried like this, but I manage to twist enough to see behind us. There's nothing there except the hill where I spied from. For all I know, that weird sound could be completely innocuous. It sounded friendly to me. Like a mild chuckle.

Then I turn to look forwards, and my blood freezes.

The caveman is running fast, and it makes my vision shaky and blurry. And I'm seeing everything sideways up. But that thing down there in the shiny riverbed has to be as big as a car. Easily. A Mercedes, at least. And with that head... surely that's a dragon?!

It's body is sleeker than most dinosaurs, longer and less round. It has only one head on a long neck, but it doesn't look as ungainly as, say, the sophiasaurus or most of the larger ones I've seen. There are scales and claws and a spine with irregular spikes going all the way back to the tail. And the colors! It shines like a rainbow. I can't see any wings though. So it can't really be a dragon.

But the head makes me doubt that conclusion. It's small and elegant compared to the rest of the body, and it has horns and even visible ears. There are nostrils and a mouth that appears to be smiling. And eyes, luminous yellow, staring right through my soul.

It's a beautiful thing like nothing I've ever seen on this planet. It also radiates horrific menace that makes the raptor seem about as dangerous as a newborn kitten.

“Why you run towards?!” I scream as I writhe and kick over the broad caveman shoulders. “Run away!”

He doesn't reply, just speeds up, going straight for the monster. And he runs fast, zigzagging wildly, making me worry about him dropping me right in front of the creature as some kind of offering of food. I grab a good hold of the rough fabric close to my hands. If he tries to dump me here, he'll lose his pants.

The dragon raises its head as if to study us closer. It’s below us, down in a trench that now looks less like a riverbed than before.

Once more I hear that sound, a gentle laughter that's both reassuring and absolutely bone-chilling. It's the laughter of an immensely powerful enemy who's surprised and amused that you're even trying to offer resistance. From this close, it makes my chest resonate with the deep tones.

We're so close I can see the star-shaped pupils in the dragon's eyes. But now the eyes aren't yellow but red. It lowers its head in a snaking motion and casually reaches one clawed foot out of the trench as if to trip us up.

The caveman jumps over it, and we have to be airborne for three seconds at least. Fuck, he's strong.

And suddenly we're past the head of the dragon. We're so close I could reach out and stroke the scales with the ever-shifting rainbow colors, and my nose is filled with the stench of burning sulfur.

Still the caveman is running in an unpredictable, zigzagging pattern along the rim of the trench. Yeah, he's worried about something.

I writhe like a worm to turn around and look back at the dragon. It's not that I want to, but something makes me want to not lose sight of that beautiful thing.

It's looking at me, and I get a feeling of sadness that we're leaving it. I have something in common with that being, something profound. Maybe it just wanted to be friends?

Then I scream as a wall of blue fire erupts from its mouth and shoots towards us. There's a soft whooosh, and I tumble off the caveman's shoulders and hit the hard ground. I expect to be burned to a crisp, but the next second, the caveman lifts me up, grabs my hand, and sprints towards the jungle further ahead. I have no choice but to follow him, running fast. That breath of fire was pretty good motivation.

I expect another whoosh at any moment, one that will fry me to a crisp. Then we’re in among the trees, and the caveman slows down slightly.

I'm out of breath already, but I'd be willing to keep running to get away from that dragon. And the caveman is still holding on to my wrist, hard.

It's the first time I've ever been relieved of having the dense jungle around me with all its terrible dangers. I totally understand why he ran towards the dragon now. If he’d run in any other direction, we would have been within easy range of that fire it spewed. This way, he won some time.

“What. Was that?” I manage, wheezing and panting.

“Troga,” the caveman says tightly, as if that's explanation good enough.

“What. Is Troga?”

He just points behind us. “That.”

Okay. I'll ask more later. Right now, I want to get my breath back.

Just one more question. “My name. Is Caroline. What's yours?”

“Xark'on,” he grunts, with that throaty sound the cavemen use for the 'x'.

We walk fast through the humid jungle, and Xark'on looks up and to the side, being perfectly on his guard, the way you learn very quickly on this planet.

I steal some glances at him while we walk. He's huge, of course. Because they all are. He lifted me as easily as if I weighed the same as a bag of nachos. His eye movements are quick, which is something I usually associate with intelligence.

“You left your hammer back there,” I observe.

“Yes.”

It’s remarkable. Iron is the most valuable substance to these guys. Leaving at least a hundred pounds of it behind like that is pretty extraordinary. “No time to pick it up when Troga appeared?”

“That's right.”

“Will she take it?”

He glances at me. “No.”

Okay. Not a talker, this one. Of course, none of the cavemen back with the girls are chatterboxes, so it doesn't surprise me. And this guy has had some interesting experiences recently, so I suppose he needs time to process having met his first woman.

That's fine, he can take all the time he needs. I'll just make sure he knows the score.

“I come from Earth,” I state. This is a speech I've rehearsed a few times. “It's another planet, far away. Me and my friends were taken by Plood and dumped here. We live in a cave with four cavemen in that direction.” I point vaguely towards where I think the cave might be. “And,” I say, having saved the most impressive thing for last, “there are six of us. Six women.”

I would have expected a more awestruck reaction from Xark'on after that revelation. Six women on a planet where as far as he knows there are zero should knock his pants off. But all he does is glance at me before he goes back to looking for dangers around us.

Maybe math is not his thing. “Yes,” I try again, “six women and four cavemen living together as a tribe. As many women as this.” I hold up six fingers, but he's not even looking.

Hm. That was supposed to be the shocker that would make him understand that:

1. I'm special and very rare, and 2. I have friends and a tribe and cavemen who'll come looking for me if he tries anything.

But he just keeps walking.

I'm walking too, now that I notice. Walking along with him, when in fact I should probably be going home. Why am I still following this guy?

I stop and look at the sun. If I could see Bune, I'd have a pretty good idea of where the cave is. But the jungle is too dense. I can see six feet in either direction, and that's it.

I lost my spear when I took off to escape that rekh, so I'm pretty defenseless if I were to come across another dino. On the other hand, Xark'on lost his sledgehammer too. But of course he can run so fast it's not even funny.

Xark'on throws a glance over his shoulder then continues on his way. He doesn't seem to care that much one way or the other what I do.

Somehow, that reassures me. He's not going to force me to come with him to wherever it is that he's going. He's letting me make that choice myself.

And I have to make it now, before he disappears into the greenery forever. Thing is, after the encounter with a damn dragon, I'm not feeling all that brave. If that thing followed us, or if it has wings after all, then I'd rather be with someone than alone. And I have no idea which direction I should go.

I walk fast after Xark'on's back. Somehow, his green stripes are even more vivid now than before against the skin.

I gasp. “Stop!”

He spins around and checks the jungle in all directions, alarmed by my call. “What?”

I run up to him. “Your back! It's all... red!”

He tries to look at his own back and then touches it with his hand. His violet eyes glitter in the dark jungle. “Troga burns hot.”

I reach out to touch his skin between the stripes, which seem to not have been damaged. It's hot and dry but thankfully not crispy. It does smell a little singed though.

Or is that me? If he got burned by the dragon's fire, then certainly I did too. I was on his back, after all. The backs of my legs seem okay though, as do the parts of me that I can see.

“I burned also?” I turn my back to him, steeling myself for what the answer might be.

He gently touches the exposed skin of my back. “No burning. Only smooth skin.”

I turn to face him again because I get it now. “You shielded me from the fire.”

He just shrugs. “Better that one burn than two.”

I place a hand on his stringy forearm, noticing the hardness of the muscles. “You come with me to our cave. We have way to heal.”

Trak'zor did bring a magic medical gel from Bune, and I'm sure it will work here too, and not just for making difficult births easier.

He looks at my hand on his arm, and I quickly withdraw it, embarrassed to have taken that liberty with this guy I hardly know.

“Troga's fire heals easy if it's not too deep,” he says. “It's not supposed to injure. It kills or you heal in a few days.”

“You got burned pretty bad. The skin is dark red. Come with me! We can fix this in hours, not days. And you can see my tribe. Some of us can ride on irox as they fly through the air.”

For a moment he just stares at me. Then he chuckles and keeps walking. “Flying on irox sounds like a dangerous business. Not much different from talking too much in the jungle.”

Okay, so I'll shut up. It would have been nice if one of us girls could bring home a caveman that she wasn't pregnant by, for a change. And this one is growing on me. He's saved my life about three times now, and he doesn't seem to think it's such a big deal.

But if he doesn't want to come, I can't force him. I know I'll be going home the first chance I get after I calm down a little, get a weapon of some kind, and catch my bearings so I know which way to go.

I follow his broad back, red and burned in between the sturdy green stripes that feel like suede to the touch. I can probably help him a little with the healing, even without Trak'zor's magical gel. I can make some soothing paste from the aloe-like juice of a bush that's pretty plentiful in the jungle. It'll be hard for him to apply it himself too. And it's the least I can do after he put himself between me and that dragon so the fire would only hit him.

He moves with a fluid ease that I suppose comes from living his whole life in this jungle. He's clearly alert but not nearly as highly strung as I am right now. His hair is darker than that of the cavemen I've met so far, which I can only guess has something to do with his violet eyes. Now that I can look closer, it does look like there's a violet or indigo tint to that thick, luminous hair. I suddenly have an urge to run my hand through it and feel the silkiness and the warmth...

I close my eyes for a second. No, no. Let's not think in those terms. Sure, he's sensationally hot. Fine. But I'm not attracted to cavemen. I like brainy nerds with quizzical looks in their eyes and an intensity about them. This guy? Okay, he's pretty intense in his own way. But no caveman will ever be nerdy or able to talk about philosophy or even history so you find yourself spellbound.

Not that I've experienced that too much in my life. Just once or twice. But that's enough to discover what you want in a guy. And I want someone who knows his stuff.

We make our way through the jungle, and I can only assume we're going to his tribe. I'm not super thrilled about that. Four of the other girls have met their husbands' tribes, and it mostly turned to drama. Of course, we should get as many allies here as we can if it turns out that we'll not be able to go home. I know a few things about their beliefs and culture, so I can probably defuse most of the danger. I’ve made sure to learn their language to a pretty advanced level.

I should find out. I speed up a little and touch Xark'on's huge arm.

“We going to your tribe?” I whisper.