HAVEN 6

by Misty Vixen

Catch up on the Haven series!

HAVEN

HAVEN 2

HAVEN 3

HAVEN 4

HAVEN 5

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

OTHER TITLES

ABOUT ME

CHAPTER ONE

“It may actually rain today,” Ruby murmured as she looked up at the dim gray sky.

David followed her gaze as they navigated the field beside the lake, making slow progress, keeping a wary eye out for vipers or other undesirables. It did look like rain. The sky had been replaced by a seemingly infinite gray cloud cover that spanned one horizon to the other. Occasionally, shafts of sunlight would filter through, but for the most part it was a gray day. He could smell rain on the air, too, though it was faint, and a cold wind gusted every now and then, kicking up dead plants and sprays of dirt as they walked.

“I hope it does,” David replied. “I’ve missed the rain so badly.”

“Same,” Ellie agreed with feeling.

He felt her tail brush against the back of his leg and glanced at her. She was favoring him with a smile, a surprisingly shy one. Normally the grins she flashed him were of the more feral and sultry variety. He smiled back at her, reaching out and trailing his fingertip down one blue-furred arm. It had been a little over a month since she’d come back. It had taken her awhile to gain her strength back, and she was beginning to get back to the look that he’d initially gotten used to her sporting. When she had returned, she’d looked awful: malnourished, her fur patchy, with a lot of injuries. But her fur was growing back in strong and she’d been eating a lot of good meals and working out a lot ever since she’d recovered from the stalker attack.

“Hopefully we can find her and get back before the rain starts. I like rain, but I don’t like operating in it much,” Ruby murmured.

He glanced at her as she led the way along the lake’s edge. Beyond her, in the distance, he could see the factory that he and a few of the others had fought a pack of rippers in a few months ago. He hoped they wouldn’t have to go back in there, but Ruby didn’t seem to think they would. They were looking for a friend of hers from the fishing village who should have been back by now, and Ruby was concerned they’d gotten themselves into trouble. Ruby looked as good as she always did: very tall, very trim, and very red.

And very attractive.

He still had no idea if she was into him or not, and her slightly off-putting, direct manner ultimately led him to allow her to be the one to make a move if she so desired. He was happy enough with their friendship nowadays. And he was glad he could call it that. He’d come to see her a few times over the past month, mainly to maintain a working relationship with the fishing village, but also just to see her. And each time she was happy to see him. Sometimes they went for a walk, sometimes they sat on the dock and fished.

David was getting into fishing. It was a relaxing way to pass the time, especially if you had someone you liked to make conversation with.

Ellie flicked him with her tail again.

He looked at her once more and she offered her hand. He took it, lacing their fingers together, and they walked closer together in Ruby’s wake.

It had been a good month.

In the wake of the assault on the mines, the stalker attacks had almost vanished. It hadn’t taken long for things to settle back into routine, for which David was immensely grateful. Aside from the occasional attack by zombies or stalkers and once, wildcats, his days had been filled with the calm normalcy of what he had hoped life in Haven would be like. He cut wood, he hunted game, he stood guard, he prepared meals, he checked fish traps and rabbit snares, he dealt with the occasional dispute that arose, he maintained relationships with the other settlements.

He fucked, a lot.

Although even that had changed. His sexual partners had dropped off considerably for a number of different reasons.

About two weeks ago, Amanda had, while taking him and Ellie out into the middle of nowhere for a fun-filled threesome, told him that she was temporarily closing her relationship. Her and her husband were becoming overwhelmed between their varied responsibilities, and something had to go, so the extramarital sex sessions had gone on the chopping block for now.

Although he’d slept with Lindsay several more times, she’d ended up getting into a monogamous relationship with Robert the previous week, so they’d ceased sleeping together.

Ashley was now almost exclusively sleeping with Ellie. The pair had, after some bitter fighting not long after she’d gotten back, mended and then deepened their relationship. They spent a lot of time together, although occasionally she pulled him or Cait into a threesome.

Lara would be sleeping with him a lot more, but he’d hardly seen her at all since the assault on the mines. She’d been extremely busy with Lima Company, more so than ever due to the losses they had suffered during the stalker incident. The one time they’d seen each other was during one of the weekly scouting missions of the mines that they had all agreed to, to make sure the stalkers wouldn’t return, she’d been clearly very tired. And he hadn’t even had a chance to see Catalina again after their initial fling.

He’d slept with Katya and Vanessa a few times since last he’d seen them, as they were still more than thrilled to hop in bed with him whenever the opportunity presented itself.

An interesting thing had happened with both Jennifer and April. Their sexual appetites had apparently been quenched, for the most part. Or, as Cait had explained it to him when it had occurred to him that their sexual interactions had dropped off a bit, they were like someone who had been craving something for years, like chocolate. And then, suddenly, they’d been given unlimited access to chocolate, and had gorged themselves on it, and now that they’d done so, they weren’t necessarily sick of it, but their need for it had been satisfied, and was being kept satisfied by regular access to it. And once you had a need that had been eclipsing everything else in your life satisfied, it made you aware of other things you cared about.

And he could see it in the way Jennifer and April were both going out more often, talking with people, solving problems. Both of them had been very reclusive, and David knew it wasn’t just the fact that they were both getting laid regularly, but the fact that they were now living in a community of people who didn’t just tolerate them, but liked them and welcomed their company. They’d both actually felt guilty, like they were neglecting not just their relationships with him, but with Cait and Evie as well, but they’d all told both women the same thing: it was fine, they should enjoy themselves! David wanted them to be happy.

Then there was Akila. She was still an enigma. Although she called Haven home, and they had indeed cleared out that old storage room for her and gotten her a bed and some simple furniture, she was gone more often than not. She explained it as having an intense desire to spend much of her time among the forest, especially now that winter was dying and spring was coming. He didn’t blame her. Cait said she had a wandering soul, and he thought that made sense. He was just glad to see her when he did, and glad he could count her among his friends.

And glad that she fucked his brains out whenever she returned to Haven.

Their reunions were always passionate and nearly ravenous and feral. She fucked him and Ellie and Cait and April and Evie, pretty much anyone who was around. She was a ferocious lover with a voracious appetite when the urge came to her.

At this point, the women he regularly slept with were Cait, Evie, and Ellie.

And in a way, he was grateful for this, because holy fucking shit, it was a bit much to handle even just between the three of them. Evie had what he thought was an average sexdrive. They usually fucked once every two days or so. But Cait and Ellie…

They were running him ragged.

They were going to kill him someday if they kept up.

Ellie had, from what he knew, always been very amorous, always down to fuck if you were on her good side. She fucked him a minimum of once per day, and their sessions were often vigorous, sometimes lengthy. He thought it might peter out eventually, or at the very least calm down to something like what he had with Evie, after she was used to being back and living in Haven again, or maybe deepened her relationship with Ashley even more. (Sometimes he wondered if Ashley was jealous of him, because of how much Ellie fucked him.)

But Cait took the goddamned cake.

She wanted sex all the time. She was so horny. They fucked at least twice a day, usually three or four times. Sometimes he couldn’t even get it up and he instead fingered her or ate her out until she orgasmed. She would come to him and just demand to screw. Not that he was complaining. Honestly, just thinking about it kind of made him want to hurry home and fuck her again. Although he tried not to put labels on his relationships…

He had to admit that Cait had kind of slid into his number one slot. Part of him felt like that was natural, given the fact that she was pregnant with his child, but he still felt kind of guilty, and he was careful not to give anyone preferential treatment over anyone else. They were all very reasonable, though, and he tried to be reasonable too. Relationships were different. How much he meant to Ellie wasn’t the same as how much he meant to Katya, for example. Cait’s and Evie’s relationship wasn’t necessarily the same as his and Cait’s relationship. And that was okay. Somehow, he felt like he still mostly had a handle on his varied relationships, mainly because all the people involved were decently reasonable and willing to be patient and listen.

Which was great, because he was pretty frightened of the future right now.

Specifically, the fact that he was going to be a father.

He’d talked to several people about it, mainly Amanda and Lindsay, who were themselves parents, and they’d assuaged the worst of his fears, but he was still fairly worried. He was at least happy to find that he had no urge to flee, no desire to get out of fatherhood in any capacity. He wanted this to happen, and that hadn’t changed since the night Cait had told him. He was more afraid of the dangers of the world around him, and all the bad things that might happen to his child. If anything, though, it just redoubled his motivation to prepare himself for the worst case scenario. As such, he was on his way to being in the best shape of his life.

Besides the everyday workouts he’d begun doing, the training he’d kept up with Cait and now Ellie again, he still went on excursions like these whenever he could. Something about the exploration of the wilderness called to him intensely. That and the fact that, much to his chagrin, he was becoming at least a little addicted to dangerous situations. And, well, when you were living in a world infested with asshole humans and dangerous monsters, it probably was a good thing to have such an addiction. At least in moderation.

“So you never really explained who this friend of yours is,” Ellie said.

“Oh, right,” Ruby murmured. She seemed distracted and, if anything, a little frustrated. It was unusual on her. “Her name is Linnie. She’s...a little like a younger sister to me. She’s stupid and reckless. But I like her, and I watch out for her. She’s a teenager. She runs off a lot to be on her own. Sometimes to explore, sometimes because she’s mad at her parents.”

“If I recall, you slip off on your own often enough,” Ellie said.

“Yes, but the difference is I know how to take care of myself. Linnie merely thinks she knows how to take care of herself. She isn’t helpless, but she’s no warrior,” Ruby replied.

“You definitely know how to take care of yourself,” David murmured. He’d seen Ruby in action more than once now and each time she proved to be an exceptional warrior.

“Where do you think she is?” Ellie asked.

“The first place I want to look is a cabin she likes to go to. That collection of trees up there? It’s just beyond that,” Ruby replied. “Hopefully she’ll be there. If not, there’s a few other places we can check. I just want to make sure she’s okay. We’ve been seeing a surge in viper activity recently and those things are so dangerous...”

David lost his smile. The vipers had indeed been a problem over the past several months, and he’d already drawn comparisons between the problem with the stalkers and the problem with the vipers. They’d been showing similar signs: a vast increase in numbers, attacking settlements with more frequency, showing up in places they shouldn’t. Although the vipers had dropped off a bit for a few weeks there, he had been running into more of them around the river, and the fishing village, Lima Company, and even the hospital had reported running into them. And he still sometimes had nightmares about his trip to the island.

Were they breeding, too?

If they were, he imagined it would be all happening underwater, and how could they deal with that? Were there any squids left in the lake? There had to be, or at least had to have been some at one point, because you couldn’t have vipers without squids. Maybe-

A gunshot sounded somewhere nearby.

Ruby took off running. “That’s coming from the cabin.”

Ellie let go of his hand and the two of them ran after her. David had his pistol out in a heartbeat and made sure the safety was off. They quickly closed the gap between themselves and the stand of trees, and as they hurried through them, heard more gunshots and shrieking that sounded familiar: vipers. Not something he particularly wanted to hear right now. They hurried through the trees and as they neared the other side, he finally got a glimpse of the situation they were going to have to deal with. A small cabin about fifty feet from the lake’s edge, the wood old and weathered, with vines crawling up one side of it, was infested with vipers.

There were three or four on the roof, looking for a way in, and the others were trying to get in through windows or doors, with yet still a few more coming in from the lake. Ruby took aim with the scoped pistol she apparently carried around with her and popped one of them right off the roof, then proceeded to put down the others up there. David and Ellie ran forward a bit, making sure to get clear to either side of her as not to get in her line of sight, and started carefully opening fire with their own sidearms.

Some of the vipers broke away from the cabin in response to this new threat and began sprinting towards them, shrieking, looking terrifying with their huge black eyes and their bulbous gray heads. David shot one right in its weird head and it popped like a zit, bursting in a spray of dark gray gore and sending its thin body flopping to the ground. He shifted his aim, tracking another as it came for him, and squeezed the trigger. Another bullet punched into another undead skull, ending its life. Ellie and Ruby fired beside him, as did whoever was in the cabin. Within another twenty seconds, the rest of the vipers had been put down.

A few more emerged from the lake, and David shot them as they came, emptying his magazine. He reloaded and waited for more to arrive, but none did. A cold wind blew across the lake, making him shiver.

Vipers really freaked him the fuck out.

They all freaked him out, but it seemed like each did in their own unique way.

And damn but vipers were creepy.

“W-who’s out there?” a voice called a moment later.

For the first time since meeting her, David got to see Ruby annoyed. “It’s Ruby, Linnie. Get your ass out here!” she called back as she reloaded.

A moment passed, then the door to the cabin opened and a human woman emerged. She looked sheepish as she first looked around at all the dead vipers, then began to walk towards Ruby. Slowly at first, but perhaps the paranoia that more vipers might show up, which was a possibility, got the better of her and she hurried up.

“Ruby-” she began.

“Your parents. Are livid,” Ruby said slowly, staring daggers at her. Again, David was surprised. He’d never seen her exhibit such emotion.

“I’m sorry,” Linnie replied, glancing uneasily at him and Ellie.

“Why were you here?”

“I...” she hesitated, then glanced at the lake, then down at her feet. “I wanted to come out here, and my parents said I couldn’t, and-”

“And what? Did you declare ‘you can’t tell me what to do!’ and run off just to spite them?” Ruby asked sharply.

“No!” Linnie replied immediately, but she still looked guilty.

“No, but that’s what it became, wasn’t it?” She heaved a sigh. “Why are you like this? Why are you so petulant?”

“I don’t know! It just-I get so pissed when they fucking try to control me, okay!?”

“Linnie, there are vipers all over the place.”

“I know! That just makes it worse! They get to tell me what to do and they even have a fucking reason to back them up! They didn’t want me to come out here because of the vipers, they just wanted me to obey commands!” she snapped.

“...how old are you, exactly?” Ellie asked.

“I’m nineteen!”

Ruby sighed. “Linnie, just stop. You’re coming back with me right now, and you aren’t coming back out here by yourself until the viper activity has settled down. And, for the love of fucking God, try trusting your parents. At least a little. I know your parents and...okay, well, I could see your dad being that petty, I’ll be completely honest. But your mom actually gives a shit about you, Linnie. It would break her if something happened to you. Please try to be more reasonable...okay?”

Linnie sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

“Good. Now come on.”

As they began walking back, David figured he at least knew why Ruby had been so frustrated.

…

They walked back to the village and dropped off Linnie without much trouble, though David had to admit he was glad to be rid of her. She complained most of the way back. When they were finished with that, however, Ruby beckoned them over to the edge of the village.

“What’s up? You need help with something else?” Ellie asked.

“...yes,” Ruby replied after a moment’s hesitation.

He and Ellie exchanged glances. “What is it?”

“I’d rather wait until we were elsewhere before telling you,” Ruby replied.

“Okay, now I’m really curious,” David said.

“Yeah...come on, what is it? You’ve never been reluctant to explain yourself before,” Ellie asked.

“It’s...” here, a small smile touched her face, “personal.”

That seemed to make sense to Ellie, at least, because a similar smile touched her face. “Oh! Okay. Yeah, come on, David,” she said, taking his hand. Ruby began to lead them.

“Wait, what is it? What the fuck does ‘it’s personal’ mean to you that it doesn’t mean to me?” he asked, honestly curious.

“Holy shit, you actually can be really thick sometimes, can’t you?” Ellie muttered. She laughed. “That’s fine. Surprises are fun. Just trust me, David.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

And so they walked, first retracing their steps along the northern side of the lake. The conversation was light as they first moved past the cabin they’d saved Linnie from, and then the factory, and finally came to another cabin by the lake’s edge. This one seemed to be in better condition, with the windows mostly boarded over.

“Is this yours?” Ellie asked as they approached it.

“Yes. This is mine. I found it last year. Sometimes I just want to be by myself, so I started coming out here. At first just to relax, eventually I began to fix it up, and finally I made it my own. Sometimes I come out here for a day or two. I fish, I hunt, I relax,” Ruby replied.

They took a few moments to make sure no one, human or monsters, was hanging around, inside or outside, and he got a look at the interior of the cabin as they came in. It was obvious that Ruby had put a lot of work into it. It had its own little kitchen nook, a place for gutting and cleaning fish, a couch beside a bookshelf that had several paperbacks on it, (at this point, April had two custom-made bookshelves in her bedroom, packed with paperbacks they had found for her), a small dining area, and a single double-wide bed tucked up into one corner, neatly made.

“Nice place,” David said.

“Thank you,” Ruby replied. Now she looked a little flustered.

“So, Ruby, why don’t you inform us all why you’ve brought us all the way out here to your personal, private cabin,” Ellie said.

Ruby huffed a little sigh. “This is difficult for me,” she said.

“Okay, okay, sorry. Shutting up,” Ellie replied, taking a seat at the table.

Ruby looked at David. “The reason I brought you out here is...well, like many women in your life, it seems, if what Ellie has told me is to be believed, I wish to...couple with you. Sexually.” She paused. “I want to have sex. With you. Is that direct enough?”

“Yes, that’s plenty direct,” David replied.

“You look surprised.”

“It’s just his face, he always look like that,” Ellie murmured.

“Shut up, Ellie,” David replied. He cleared his throat. “I am surprised. I didn’t think you were interested in me.”

“That’s fair,” she replied. “So you are interested in me?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I am very interested in you.”

“Duh,” Ellie murmured.

“Will you shut up, you blue-furred bitch?” David growled at her.

Ellie just smiled sweetly at him.

“I don’t have much of a sexdrive, I’ve learned,” Ruby said. “But it’s not nonexistent. I still feel arousal, and attraction to some people. Though, Ellie, just to temper your expectations right now, I am only attracted to men.”

“Fair enough,” Ellie replied.

“Good. I haven’t had sex in quite awhile. It’s hard for me to find...suitable partners. I am attracted to a few in the village, but I believe the concept of having sex with me, and only occasionally, and no other aspect of our relationship would change, to be too foreign or taxing for them to fully appreciate. But I have since become attracted to you, and you seem like a very suitable person to have sex with once, and maybe again in the future, but maybe just once. If that makes sense?”

“That makes sense,” David said. “You want to try me out.”

“Yes...I assumed that if it didn’t work out, it wouldn’t bother you because you have other women in your life...”

“Well, that’s a fair assumption,” David replied, with a small laugh. “Regardless, if we have sex and you decide you don’t want to do it with me again, you won’t have to worry about any negative feelings from me. If you want, we can have sex now, and things can continue exactly as they have been going between us.”

“That is what I think will most likely happen, though if this goes well, I will admit that it would be nice to have someone to make love with on occasion...if that is okay,” Ruby replied.

“That is very okay,” David said.

“I could’ve told you that...would it be too much for you if I watched?” Ellie asked.

“No, I don’t mind,” Ruby replied.

“Thank God,” Ellie muttered, settling back deeper into her chair.

“So, should we...” David began, shrugging out of his pack.

“Yes. I can spare an hour,” Ruby replied, doing the same. While they began to undress, she looked at him intently. “I’m curious...what do you find attractive about me?”

“I...” David hesitated.

“It’s not a trick question, David. You can take what Ruby says at face value,” Ellie offered.

“Why would it be a trick question?” Ruby asked.

“It’s...complicated. But okay, face value. Well, intangibly, your competence at survival and sharpshooting, your bravery, the way you keep calm in the face of danger. Physically? I love how tall you are, I love the fact that you’re not human, and your fur is beautiful.”

“Oh. Interesting. Most men are put off by my height,” Ruby said as she took off her shirt and then peeled off the bra she wore beneath it, freeing some really fucking sexy medium-sized breasts. Then she pulled her shorts down.

“David has a thing for tall women,” Ellie said.

“That’s extremely true,” David agreed as he finished getting naked and quickly began the process of washing up with a bottle of water, a rag, and a thin bar of soap.

“I guess that does hold true, although don’t I seem short by comparison with regards to Evelyn, or Vanessa?” she asked.

“I mean, directly compared to them, yeah. But they aren’t here, and you aren’t a goliath. You’re a jag. You’ve probably got a good four vertical inches on me, and that is really hot,” David replied.

“Why is that?”

He shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. I’ve never really heard anyone adequately explain why they are attracted to what they are attracted to. Tall women turn me on. Inhuman women turn me on. Tough women turn me on. It is what it is.”

“I suppose that is true.”

Ruby did some basic washing as he finished up his own, and the two of them crawled onto the bed. David felt an ironically familiar thrill that came from going to bed with an unfamiliar woman for the first time. He’d gotten to know Ruby over the past few months...sort of. She liked to fish, she liked to read, she liked to be by herself, and once she set her mind to a task she didn’t want to stop until it was finished. Could he satisfy her? Probably the question that bugged him the most whenever he was going to have sex with a new woman.

Fuck, she was really tall. It was weird that that was leaping out at him, but he supposed he was used to goliaths being tall because, well, they were goliaths. It was different with a non-goliath. She had a beautiful body, her hips and thighs trim and athletic, her frame long and sleek. She really did have seriously fucking hot tits and that was where his hand went first, almost on its own. She let him touch her breast, caressing it at first, feeling her soft, warm red fur against his bare skin, and then cupping it, groping it gently.

She leaned in and kissed him, and that quickly turned into making out. As they kissed and began to touch tongues together, and he felt her run her soft hand over his body, he was a little surprised. He’d thought she’d be more tentative or hesitant, but she was pretty much diving right in. Well, confidence seemed to carry over into sex with her. That wasn’t true for everyone. There was something hot, and very intimidating, about that.

It had been that way with Cait, and with Akila, and Ellie.

“You taste good, David,” she whispered into the kiss.

“So do you, Ruby,” he replied, sliding his hand down her side and coming to rest on her fit, firm ass. Her ass had a bit of a swell to it, a bit more padding than the rest of her, and it sent such a thrill of excited lust through him as he groped it.

“How badly do you want to fuck me, David?” Ruby whispered.

“Very, very badly,” he murmured.

She shivered gently. “I had forgotten what it feels like to be desired so intensely...it is such a good feeling.”

“Yes,” he agreed, kissing her again. He slipped a hand in between her fit thighs and began to pleasure her, eliciting a loud moan from her. “I desire you so intensely, Ruby. You’re such a beautiful, desirable woman.”

She moaned louder and he pressed harder, rubbing in hard, fast little circles on her clit. She bucked her hips against his finger, groaning in sheer pleasure. Her kissing intensified and she gripped his cock firmly, massaging it in her grasp, sending little shocks of pleasure into him, building up even more lust inside of him.

He kept fingering her for a bit longer, then slipped his finger inside of her and oh holy fucking shit she was tight. Her pussy felt so goddamned tight around his finger as he fucked her slowly with it, pressing up into her most sensitive spot, getting louder cries of pleasure from her. He kept that up for awhile, then switched back to stimulating her clit, and going through this cycle twice more got an intense orgasm from her.

Her long, lean, red-furred body looked marvelously beautiful as it twitched and writhed in the bed beside him, against him, as she came. He continued pleasuring her, stimulating her throughout the orgasm, listening to her moans and gasps of bliss. When she was finished, she placed her hand flat against his chest and pushed him onto his back.

“Now it is my turn to pleasure you,” she said, her voice sedate, her expression serene as she looked into his eyes. Then she kissed him and slipped nimbly down lower until she was between his legs. She slipped her lips slowly, carefully over the head of his cock and immediately sent a shock of hot pleasure into him. He groaned loudly and fought not to shift around too much as she continued taking his dick into her mouth. Her movements were slow and languid as she began to suck him off, putting her wonderful lips to use.

“You...do not seem inexperienced,” he panted as she began bobbing her head.

“I doubt I’m as experienced as most of the women in your life,” she said, and licked the bottom of his cock, making him shudder and groan, “but I know enough to get by.”

“Apparently.”

“You sure look good with his dick in your mouth,” Ellie murmured.

Ruby simply smiled and went back to giving him head. She worked up a good mouthful of spit as she sucked his dick, slipping her lips up over the head again and again, sending intense waves of bliss radiating out through his body. She coated his dick in a layer of her hot saliva and then took it out of her mouth.

“Can I be on top?” she asked.

“Hell yes,” he replied immediately, and she let out a small laugh.

“You’re very enthusiastic, aren’t you?” she asked as she mounted him easily.

“Who the fuck wouldn’t be?” he replied.

“Yeah,” Ellie agreed.

“The few experiences I’ve had with sex...well, I get the feeling that my partners were either intimidated by me, or too uncomfortable with emotional expression to properly convey how they felt about the encounter. I think they feared I would take them less seriously if they showed enthusiasm for the encounter,” she murmured as she straddled him.

“Definitely don’t have to worry about that with David,” Ellie said. “He just gets stupid happy about sex.”

“Because it makes me stupid happy,” he replied. “And-oh my fucking God...” he groaned as she began introducing his cock to her pussy.

Her very hot and wet, and exquisitely tight pussy.

“You doing okay there, David?” Ellie asked, laughing.

“I...oh wow...this is...oh fuck...” he moaned as she worked him deeper into her.

“You are bigger than I thought,” Ruby murmured as she rose up, lowered herself, rose up again, lowered herself again, her movements careful.

“Well, you’re pretty thin,” Ellie said. “And he’s got a good heft to him, make sure you don’t hurt yourself. You do not want tearing.”

“No, I don’t,” she murmured.

David waited while she eased him inside of her, basking in the hot bliss of her bare vagina. Holy fuck, she was seriously tight. And she seemed to tower over him. It was strange, as he was used to being ridden by Evie at this point, and Vanessa, who was even taller, and yet even with just four inches of height on him, Ruby seemed to also tower over him kind of like they did. He supposed perspective was sometimes a very in-the-moment kind of thing. She looked beautiful, though he didn’t quite feel that sense of connection he did with some of the women he took to bed. Well, you couldn’t connect with everyone.

As she finished getting him comfortably inside of her, Ruby reached down and grasped his hands. She held them between them, lacing their fingers, and began to ride him. Her breath began to come faster, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the pleasure, the physical sensations of their coupling. He did much the same, though he kept his eyes open, absolutely in love with the sight of her long, nude body as she rode him, her breasts bouncing in time with the rest of her, her hips and the way her thigh muscles shifted beneath her fur each time she pushed herself back up. And, best of all, the way his cock looked going into her raw pussy again and again.

Before long she let go of his hands and rested them on his chest, and his own hands slipped up her soft thighs to her firm hips, grasping them and pushing up into her. She began to ride him faster, moaning loudly, looking very sure of herself, very sexually charged. He had been fantasizing about this exact thing ever since he had first laid eyes on Ruby, and he was glad to find it was every bit as wonderful as he had hoped it would be. And then he slid one hand down, in between them, until his thumb found her clit.

She gasped. “Oh! That’s...oh wow,” she whispered as he began to rub it.

“I want to make you come again,” he replied, and started rubbing harder.

She let out a cry of bliss and he loved hearing it. That was another thing he had wanted desperately to experience: hearing her voice, which was normally so calm and subdued, yelling out in sexual bliss. It was a beautiful sound. She began to fuck him harder and faster, and soon switched to stirring his rock-hard cock around inside of her, getting herself off as he thumbed her clit, and within another minute of this he had a second orgasm going.

She reached up and grabbed his shoulders, digging in her fingertips as she began to come, and he groaned at that hot gush of sex juices coming out from around his dick. That fluttering of her inner muscles, the increased heat, the burst of extra pleasure as he thrust up into her orgasming pussy. About halfway through, he felt unexpected bursts of pain in his shoulders and he let out a cry of surprise. Ruby opened her eyes and then pulled her hands back.

“Sorry!” she panted, then moaned. “Sorry!”

“Oh my God, you clawed him!” Ellie said, laughing.

“I couldn’t...oh! Oh! Yes! I can’t help it!” she cried.

“It’s fine,” he moaned, still fucking her. “It’s fine, Ruby.”

She finished coming and relaxed slightly, then focused. “I’m sorry. We should stop and bandage them.”

“Not yet,” David replied. “Can I be on top now?”

“I...yes,” she said. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

His shoulders hurting, and bleeding a little now, he and she switched places, and she ended up on her back with her legs spread and her knees raised, and he settled in between those wonderful, athletic thighs of hers and began humping her, driving his rigid cock into her sweet, sweet pussy with a renewed intensity.

Ruby let out a long cry of bliss as he fucked her, and the pleasure began to overwhelm him.

“Can I come in you?” he moaned.

“Yes,” she replied. “Yes you can, David.”

He started to orgasm into that perfect pussy of Ruby’s not much later, and groaned at the intense ecstasy that exploded inside of him. He began shooting his load into her, filling her up, pumping her full of his seed. Each burst of it that escaped him generated a fresh wave of absolute rapture, and it was still the best feeling in his world.

Coming inside of a woman for the first time, with no protection between them at all, was still the best physical thing he had ever felt.

When he was finished, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then carefully pulled out of her and sat on the edge of the bed.

For a moment, they both stayed like that, him sitting on the bed, her laying beside him, staring up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” Ruby said finally.

“I forgive you,” David replied. “I don’t mind. It was worth it. Ellie’s done it to me, and worse than that.”

“Yep,” Ellie replied, almost sounding proud of it.

“You aren’t angry?”

“No, not at all.”

“Okay. Good.” She paused, then looked at him directly. “That felt amazing. Was that a very good session for you?”

“Oh yes,” he replied immediately. Ellie got up and began rummaging through her backpack. “That was indeed amazing,” he agreed.

“Good. Would you be amenable to trying again sometime?”

“Extremely amenable.”

She smiled. “I’m glad. I would like that, too.”

“Okay, David, let’s get you patched up,” Ellie said, coming at him with some medical supplies. He just nodded and let her go to work on his shoulders.

CHAPTER TWO

They left Ruby in her lakeside cabin, where she said she wanted to stay for a bit.

With gauze taped to his shoulders and some disinfectant cream on the wounds, David walked back to Haven with Ellie. She seemed amused. As they came into Haven, he felt that familiar, deeply comforting emotion of seeing people, his people, in that they were a group that he belonged to, that accepted him, moving about the space within the reinforced fence. Kids were running and playing, parents were talking, shifting gathered wood to bins for fireplaces, meals were being had at wooden tables some of the families had placed in front of their cabins, clothes hung out to dry, and a dozen other random things happening.

It was a really nice thing to come home to each time.

He and Ellie said hello to everyone they passed. He saw Jennifer laughing and talking with Amanda and her family, all of them seated around a wooden table in front of their cabin, and Jennifer and Amanda waved and smiled at him, and he and Ellie waved back. Inside the main office, up on the second floor, they found Cait and Evie in the kitchen, down on all fours, staring at a hole in the wall, holding bits of meat.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” Ellie asked.

“Shh! We’re trying to coax Frostbite out,” Cait replied. “David, he comes out for you, get him out here and...” she glanced at him, then smirked. “And I’ll fuck you.”

“You’d do that anyway, you pregnant slut,” Ellie said.

“Shut up or I’ll put that fucking mouth of yours to good use for once, bitch,” Cait replied.

“Okay, okay, everyone calm down,” David said. “He won’t come out if you’re all fighting.”

“We’re not fighting,” Cait replied.

“I know but he can’t tell the difference,” David replied as he took off his pack.

“Did you have a good time?” Evie asked.

“Yes,” David replied.

“You aren’t going to tell them?” Ellie asked.

“Tell us what?” Cait murmured, her eyes drifting back to the hole in the wall. She had become a little obsessed with the little white mouse that called their kitchen home. David couldn’t blame her, honestly, Frostbite was absolutely adorable, and he felt a little guilty. For whatever reason, he was the only one the mouse really seemed to like, though he’d been slowly, gradually warming up to the others over the past few months.

“David fucked Ruby,” Ellie said.

Cait snapped her eyes back over to him. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” he replied.

“Fuck!” she whispered. “I can’t believe I missed that.”

“It was wicked hot. Ruby looks great naked,” Ellie said with a smug smirk.

“Ugh, lucky bitch,” Cait muttered. “I get to watch next time.” She paused. “Is she...”

“No,” David said, “she’s not into girls. But she’s fine with being watched. And she seemed interested in fucking me again, so I promise, next time I’ll try to make that work. Now, shh,” he murmured as he took a bit of bacon from Cait’s hand and moved slowly over to the hole in the base of the wall.

“Frostbite,” he said, and tore a very tiny piece of bacon off, then dropped it at the entrance. Once it was there, he waited about two feet from the entrance, crouched, his left hand flat on the floor, with the rest of the bacon in it. “Come on, Frostbite, time to eat.”

The mouse might not even be in there. Normally Frostbite came out within a minute of him doing this. He still didn’t know why the mouse responded to him, but he was glad for it. About thirty seconds passed before he heard the cautious sounds of Frostbite. They were very tiny sounds, almost at the edge of hearing, but he’d gotten good at picking up on them.

“Is he coming?” Cait whispered.

“Shh,” David replied.

A bit later, a little pink nose peeked out of the hole and sniffed at the bit of bacon there. The nose twitched once, and then the mouse emerged. Frostbite sat, little and brilliantly white, as white as freshly fallen snow in the sunshine, and ate the bit of bacon. Cait made a tiny noise of excitement, but thankfully managed to restrain herself, lest she scare him off. Frostbite was, despite his propensity of crawling into David’s hand and even going for a little ride sometimes if David moved him elsewhere in the room, a bit prone to anxiety.

Frostbite finished the bacon and then stepped cautiously out of the hole in the wall. He looked around, taking in the people across the room, then sniffed at the air and picked up on the scent of more bacon. He scampered across the floor after a moment and came up to David’s hand where, after a moment’s indecision, he crawled into it. There he began eating the rest of the bacon. David carefully and slowly raised his hand up a bit, not too much, and turned it towards the others. Cait looked on with absolute adoration, her eyes wide, and Evie looked on with an easy smile, more amused than anything else. Though he noticed even Ellie was watching intently.

He didn’t know what it was about animals that elicited such a response, and not even from them, but from himself. He knew how they felt. Sometimes he watched the fish swim beneath the water, sometimes he watched the birds flying through the sky or hopping along the ground, prospecting for food or material with which to build their nests, sometimes he watched the rabbits or the deer or the squirrels, and he watched them all with a rapt attention, a fascination. He thought all the animals cute in their own way, even the fish, and in a strange way he couldn’t properly identify, simply looking at them going about their business was its own reward.

He felt this strongly for Frostbite, and even after months, he had no idea why he felt such an affinity for the little mouse, beyond the fact that it was very adorable and prone to crawling into his hand. He reached up slowly with his other hand and gently stroked Frostbite’s head.

“Can I?” Cait whispered.

“Slowly. Carefully,” David replied.

Cait slowly made her way over. Frostbite cast an uncertain eye at her, making her stop, but she finished her journey when the little mouse relaxed. Gently, slowly, she reached out and began stroke his head. “He’s so soft,” she whispered. “And so tiny.”

“That he is,” David replied.

She let out a little gasp as, after finishing off his food, Frostbite abruptly began scurrying up David’s arm. He laughed softly as he felt Frostbite’s little paws grasping at his shirt, clambering up until he reached David’s shoulder, where there he perched.

“Oh my God, that is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Evie murmured.

David began to respond, but stopped as he heard footfalls coming up the stairs from the ground floor. They all looked over, curious to see who had come to join them. He hoped it was April or Jennifer, as they would get a kick out of seeing Frostbite on his shoulder, but the face that poked through the open door from the hallway into the dining area, just visible from where they stood in the kitchen, was a familiar yet surprising one.

“Lara,” he said.

“David...what’s that white thing on your should-is that the mouse?!” she whispered.

“Yes. Frostbite. Don’t scare him,” David replied.

Their brunette, badass military friend stepped slowly into the room, her blue eyes wide, a smile of almost wonder growing on her beautiful face as she stared at Frostbite. She came into the room and joined them, marveling at the little mouse. After a bit, Frostbite let out a few squeaks and scurried back down into his palm.

“He wants to go home now,” David said, crouching back down and letting the mouse hop off his hand. They watched as he scurried back across the floor and into the hole.

“That mouse is so fucking cute,” Lara muttered.

David straightened back up and studied her. She looked as good as ever, still wearing her military fatigues, which sat nicely on her fit, tall body. Her hair was shorter, and pulled into a small ponytail. She was less pale now, sporting a little bit of a tan.

“How are you?” he asked.

She stepped forward and gave him a hug, then, after a moment’s consideration, a long kiss. “I’m...tired,” she replied. “But I’m glad to be here.”

She hugged each of them in turn, then looked Ellie up and down after hugging her. “Wow, you look so much better.” She paused. “Sorry, that wasn’t meant to be an insult.”

Ellie laughed easily. “It’s fine, I know I looked like shit the last time you saw me. You look as sexy as ever.”

Lara laughed and blushed lightly. “Thanks,” she said. “Um, how’s everything going here?”

“Great,” David replied. “What about on your end?”

She sighed and a sour look darkened her attractive features. She sat down heavily at the table. “Well, I’m afraid that’s something I need to talk to you about.” She hesitated. They joined her at the table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite mean to dive right in like this, but I’m not good with small talk.”

“It’s okay. What’s the situation?” Cait replied.

She smiled gratefully. “I’m so glad you’re all so direct. Things aren’t great. The vipers are attacking us more frequently. We had a major attack last night. They got into the base and we lost two people, we might lose a third if the infection doesn’t run its course.”

“I’m sorry,” Evie murmured.

“Stern sent me. It’s looking like the vipers are going to be as big a threat as the stalkers. We don’t have any proof that they’re breeding, but...well, we’ve been forced to consider that possibility, that other species can breed. We’ve been vigilant on the stalkers, and we’ve found a few nests in the making, and have destroyed them. Akila has stopped by a few times, giving us intel, so that’s been very helpful. But the vipers...we need to deal with them.”

“I agree, but what exactly are you proposing?” David asked.

Lara sighed. “I’m not completely sure. Stern has something in mind, but he’s been oddly evasive about it. I think he doesn’t trust me anymore, not completely. Not since I slipped off to help you with the assholes a few months ago. Although I’m wondering if he trusts anyone anymore. He’s been acting strange for a little while now. He’s snappish and difficult. It’s gotten worse recently, and I mean, I honestly feel for him. We lost a lot of people during the stalker incident. We’ve recruited a few more, but we’re not back to full strength, especially with the viper incursions. So Stern has authorized another cooperative initiative.”

“Huh,” David murmured, thinking it over. He looked around at the others. Ellie looked a little pissed, probably just at the mention of Stern, Evie looked a little worried, Cait looked curious.

“What, exactly, are you asking?” Cait asked.

“For the moment? I need your help tracking down a squid. We’ve already reasoned that the first thing we need to do is determine if there are any squids left alive in the lake and, if so, will they help us? Whatever plan might manifest will look very different depending on that answer, I think. So I’m here to ask for help with that, since you have an in with the fishers,” Lara said.

Ellie snorted. “David’s got an in all right.”

“What? David who’d you fuck this time?” Lara asked.

He chuckled. “Oh, you know...one of them.”

“She won’t mind,” Ellie said. “Provided we keep it to ourselves. He fucked Ruby.”

“Oh my God, she’s so beautiful,” Lara replied. “All that red fur...I imagine it was great.”

“Oh yes,” he replied, laughing nervously. “It was really good. It just happened, actually.”

“Well, hopefully she won’t mind seeing you again so soon,” Ellie said. “Because if we’re going looking for a friendly squid, she’s the one we’ll want to talk to.”

“Do you know of one?” Lara asked.

“I don’t,” Ellie replied. “But if anyone does, it’ll be Ruby. Unless you know something I don’t,” she said, looking at Cait.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t. You’re right, we’ll have to see Ruby.”

“Good. Um...” Lara hesitated. “I did say it was going to take most of the day in the hopes of budgeting some, uh...private time? Between us.” She looked at David.

“Fine by me,” David said.

“Can we watch?” Ellie asked.

“Yes, you three can watch. I’m more comfortable now with your, uh, inner circle here.”

“Fine, but David, after you get done with her, I need a turn,” Cait said.

“You are going to run that boy goddamned ragged,” Ellie said. “I’ll eat you out while they fuck, how does that sound?”

“Holy shit, will you? That’d be fucking perfect, your tongue is fantastic,” Cait replied eagerly.

“Let’s go upstairs. You gonna eat me, too?” Evie asked.

“I will if you ask,” Ellie replied as they started heading upstairs.

“I’m asking,” Evie said.

“Then yes. Just don’t crush my head.”

Evie laughed. “I haven’t crushed anyone’s head so far.”

They made their way upstairs, and David took Lara’s hand. She immediately laced their fingers and gave his hand a little squeeze, which he returned. It felt so good to be back around Lara again. In a way, it always felt weird that she didn’t live among them. She was just as comfortable around them as any of the others, and got along with everyone so well, and she seemed more unhappy with Lima Company every time he saw her. But after directly asking her about it last month, and she gave her reasoning for it, he decided not to push and respect her decision. Even if he wished that she’d embrace a happier life with them.

“How are you doing so far, Cait?” Lara asked as they came into his, Evie’s, and Cait’s shared bedroom. They all began stripping nude.

“Ugh,” Cait groaned as she took her shirt off. “Morning sickness kicked in. Puked four out of the last seven days. So that’s lame.”

“I’m sorry,” Lara said as she unbuttoned her shirt.

“Yeah, it’s irritating, but I’ll get over it,” Cait replied.

“Oh, you’re starting to show,” Lara said as Cait’s shirt and bra came off.

“Yep,” Cait replied, smiling as she looked down at herself and laid a hand over her stomach. It had bulged out just a little, and he would swear that her breasts and hips were just a bit bigger. “I’m definitely putting on a little weight. I have to be. I’m fucking starving recently. I’d feel bad for eating so much but everyone is so eager to point out that I’m eating for two now.”

David found it really difficult not to go over to her and cup her large, pale breasts in his hands and spend the next half hour groping and squeezing and sucking on them. She’d always had big breasts, but they were definitely bigger now.

And they were going to get even bigger.

So were her hips and thighs…

“David, I love you, and I appreciate it, but stay focused. You fuck me every day,” Cait said as she realized he was staring at her with an increasingly lusty gaze.

“Damn, he wants you,” Lara murmured. “I wish I had a guy look at me like that.”

“I’ve seen guys look at you like that,” Ellie said.

“I mean a guy I want to fuck.”

“David has looked at you like that,” Cait said.

Lara sighed explosively. “A guy I want to fuck that I could selfishly keep to myself!”

Evie laughed. “We don’t mind sharing, obviously.”

“Yeah, I’m just complaining because I’m stressed,” she said as she took her boots off.

“You need to make more time for yourself,” Cait replied. “You come around here more often, even once a week, and you could get laid, get a full-body massage, have conversations deep into the night, sleep in...”

“Those all sound like paradise...and, a full-body massage?” Lara asked.

“Oh yes. David gives the best massages. April too, actually. But David’s been rubbing me down almost every night for the past few weeks,” Cait said.

“I do need to make more time to come over here,” Lara murmured, then she took off her panties. “Found a razor,” she said, looking down at herself. Her pussy was smooth and bald. “I couldn’t remember if you liked that or not.”

“Honestly, I’m okay with pussy however it is,” David replied. “But yeah, shaved is nice.”

“Hey, what happened to your shoulders?” Cait asked.

For just a second he actually forgot and didn’t know what she was talking about, but as he glanced at his shoulder and caught sight of the gauze there, which was slightly stained red, it came back to him. “Oh! Uh, Ruby.”

“She hurt you?” Lara asked.

“Claws,” Ellie said, and raised one hand, then extended her claws briefly before retracting them. “She was, shall we say, caught in the throes of passion.”

“Oh!” Lara replied.

“That’s kinda hot,” Cait said, and Evie and Lara murmured in agreement.

“I’m glad you all think me getting hurt is so hot,” David said.

Cait snorted. “Sorry, babe. I mean, what, you didn’t think it was?”

He sighed. “Fair enough.”

They all finished getting naked, and Cait settled into one of the chairs while Ellie knelt in front of her. Evie sat in her own chair to watch them all, and David and Lara climbed into the huge bed together. Lara all but jumped onto him and began kissing him passionately, running her hands over his bare skin.

“Fuck, I missed you so much,” she murmured between the kisses.

“I missed you, too,” he replied.

“Yeah but you’ve got like five women you live with who would fuck you at any given moment, and that you want to fuck. I don’t have that. I just have my hand,” Lara replied.

“Like we said...”

“Yes, yes, I’ll come over more often,” she muttered, and resumed making out with him, pushing her tongue into his mouth, probing almost furiously with it. He moved his own forward to meet hers and they immediately began to twist and twine together. He found her body as beautiful and fit and sexy as ever. Her breasts feeling fantastically firm and hot in his grasp as he groped them, feeling her nipple press against his palm, then running his hand down her side to the firm curve of her hip, back around to the thick swell of her ass.

“Mmm...” he said as he groped it.

“What?” Lara asked.

“Would you take it as an insult if I said I thought your ass was a bit bigger?” he asked.

“No! Is it really?!” she replied, sounding excited.

“Yeah, it’s bigger-fuck!” Cait moaned as Ellie set to work pleasuring her.

“Ever since you all have come into my life, I’ve decided to actually try and be a little sexier and something I’ve always wanted for myself was a thicker ass, so I’ve been trying some strength training that’s supposed to do that, but I couldn’t tell if it was working.”

“Definitely working, definitely hot as hell,” David replied, running his hand over her bare ass.

“Awesome, I’ll definitely keep going with that, then,” she said, and a new wave of excited lust and passionate desire seemed to roll through her and she pushed David down again and resumed kissing him intently. “I’m actually really wet and really horny...” she murmured as she reached between them and gripped his cock. She began to tease it, rubbing the head against her indeed extremely wet opening, sending shivers of pleasure through him. “What do you say we just...get right on with the fun?”

“I’m totally cool with that,” he replied.

“I figured.”

“Wow, it is bigger,” Evie murmured now that Lara was atop him. “It’s always looked great but wow, it looks even better now.”

“Thank you,” Lara replied, and lowered herself. David moaned loudly as he slipped inside of another woman, his cock disappearing into that slippery, hot vagina as his hands found her broad, firm hips. Her smooth, hot skin felt so good against his own, and fuck how good it felt to be inside of her again. Lara moaned loudly as he penetrated her, and as she finished settling, she began to fuck him. She wasn’t joking about how horny she was, as she immediately placed her hands against his chest and began to ride him furiously, making the bed start to shake. She began letting out loud cries of bliss as she took his dick into her again and again, fucking herself with it intensely, sending waves upon waves of ecstasy blasting through his body with her bare pussy.

Her big tits bounced seductively in time with her, paler than the rest of her now and impossibly sexy. He heard Cait moan loudly and glanced over at her briefly. Ellie was going to town on her, licking rapidly at her clit, gripping her thick, pale thighs tightly. Evie was watching them all with a lusty smile, and he knew that she would want a turn next, which he was more than happy to give. He groaned as he ran his hands up and down Lara’s own thick thighs. They were marvelous, so fantastically sexual that it was hard not to come as he stared at her wonderful body, her thick thighs and broad hips and her smooth, pale pussy as it accepted his cock again and again. She was like a sex deity and her bare vagina felt absurdly good, coiled tightly around his dick, slipping up and down in an impassioned display of hot, wet, sheer pleasure.

“I have missed this so fucking much...” she moaned as she fucked him. “You lucky fucks fuck each other all the time over here, and I’ve got to be basically abstinent...”

“Anytime you want to get fucked...” David replied.

“I know, I know...fuck, I’ve gotta make more time for this...oh, I’m coming!” she cried in abrupt surprise and he groaned with a renewed intensity as her pussy began to convulse, releasing her hot sex juices onto him as she came.

He thrust up into her repeatedly, making her cry out, and he fucked her until her orgasm had run its course, and she sagged forward, panting.

“My turn,” he said, grabbing her and pulling her down against him. He kissed her deeply and then flipped her over onto her back, making her cry out in happy surprise, and once he had her on her back and she put her legs in the air, spreading them out, he resumed fucking her brains out. She screamed again, now in surprised pleasure, and then let out a long, happy moan of pure bliss as he hammered her pussy, driving deep and hard into her.

“Yes! Yes! Fuck it! Fuck my pussy!” she cried.

He fucked her and kissed her and groped her, reveling in the pure physical pleasure and intimacy of the experience, throwing himself into it and loving every single second of it, feeling her hot, fit body against his own, her bare skin against his own, her lips to his. The raw pleasure of simply being inside of her, moving with her in a blissful sexual unity. He fucked her until he felt his own orgasm welling up within him, and he didn’t push back against it, as he knew they were working on a bit of a timeline now. David let it happen.

And then he was coming, and that hot burst of pure bliss hit him like a tidal wave, like lightning lighting up his body in hot rapture as the first of his seed spurt out of him and into Lara’s willing, wet pussy. She moaned as he began to come inside of her, her voice joining his in total, mindless, feral pleasure as he pumped his seed into her. The pleasure washed through him like a typhoon, pounding his body again and again in increasingly powerful waves until it began to subside, and ultimately he was left panting and sweaty atop Lara, staring into her eyes.

She stared back up at him. She almost looked surprised.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured.

“I’m thinking that...I never thought I could be so intimate and trusting with someone that I wasn’t in a serious relationship with,” she said after a moment. “And that sometimes I wonder if what we have is more serious than I realize.”

“It’s as serious as you choose for it to be,” David replied.

“That’s not always true,” Lara murmured.

“She’s right. I didn’t choose to love you,” Cait said. “Though I would if I had the choice.”

“Yeah, I was actually against it but you fucking made me love you, asshole,” Ellie said, and Cait and Evie laughed.

“Well fuck, I’m so sorry,” David replied.

“No you aren’t,” Ellie said.

“Are you worried?” he asked Lara.

She seemed to consider that for a moment, then slowly shook her head. “No, I’m not. I don’t think you could hurt me. I don’t think it’s in you. I trust you.”

“I’m glad. I would never hurt you, Lara. I would never take advantage of you or pressure you,” he murmured, staring into her eyes. He laid a hand gently against her cheek.

She smiled and placed her hand over the back of his. “I believe you.” She kissed him and her expression shifted, and he knew that her ‘let’s get shit done’ persona was coming into place. “Come on, we have work to do.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, pulling out of her and getting off.

“You wash up,” Evie said as she walked over. “I want a quickie with my man.”

“Yes ma’am,” David repeated as Evie got on top of him.

She smirked, took his still mostly erect cock and slipped it inside of her. “Good boy.”

CHAPTER THREE

Forty minutes later, David, Lara, Cait, and Ellie were most of the way back to the fishing village. The skies were grayer than ever, though still it hadn’t rained. David kept expecting to hear thunder or see flashes of lightning.

He was glad to see that Lara was very happy, talking animatedly with himself, Cait, and Ellie, catching up on all the things she’d missed or that had happened to her since the last time they’d seen each other.

“Which reminds me, David, Haven is scheduled to do the mine sweep next week, are you going to be there?” Lara asked.

“Yes,” David replied. Lima Company, Haven, the fishing village, and the farmers had each agreed to, on a rotating weekly schedule, perform a sweep of the mines that had been home to the stalkers, to make sure it didn’t happen again. He hated doing it, but it wasn’t exactly a responsibility he felt like passing off to anyone else.

“I’m going, too,” Ellie said.

“Same,” Cait agreed.

“If I can manage it, I’ll meet you there and help out,” Lara said.

“That would be very much appreciated, I fucking hate going in there,” David replied.

They were coming up on the village now, which seemed alive with activity. Thankfully the good kind of activity. He noticed more people around. When he’d first found them, it seemed like there’d barely been a few dozen of them, but there seemed to be closer to thirty or forty people here, almost as big as Haven. People were fishing, preparing fish, cooking meals, washing things, chatting happily with each other.

Ruby was easy enough to pick out among them, as she was apparently the tallest person in the village, and one of the only jags, and definitely the only red-furred jag. She saw them as they were coming down the road and made her way over to them.

“Miss me that much?” she asked, then smiled at Lara. “Hello.”

“Hi, Ruby. It’s good to see you again,” Lara replied, a little cautiously, he thought. Things between the fishers and Lima Company were still poor, even if they’d at least come to accept Lara whenever she came around.

“And you, Lara. And Cait. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, but we need a favor,” David replied.

“I’ll help if I can.”

“Do you know if there are any squids left in the lake, and if so, would they be willing to talk with us, and possibly help us?” David asked.

Ruby frowned and glanced back over her shoulder, then stepped closer to them. “Help with what, exactly?”

“We’re trying to think of a plan to deal with the vipers just like we did the stalkers. They’re getting out of control,” Lara said.

Ruby’s frown deepened and she nodded gravely. “Yes, they are. Do you truly think you can deal with them?”

“Honestly, I don’t know, but we have to try something. And what we try depends heavily on whether or not there are squids we can work with. I imagine they would be able to offer insight into viper-related problems,” she replied.

“I imagine so...I can’t help you, not directly, but I can point you in the direction of someone who can. There’s a woman I know who lives by herself, sometimes she trades with us, and she at least tolerates me. I can’t go with you, there’s too much to do today. I didn’t quite realize it when I left for out little...foray, but I’ve got a lot of work to do. Walk past my cabin, to the far west side of the lake, basically opposite of where we are now. You’ll find a two-story lake house with old blue paint. When you see the woman, her name is Helen, tell her I sent you. She’s claimed to have dealings with the squids in the lake.”

“Thank you so much for your help, Ruby,” Lara said.

She nodded. “Good luck. And tell us if you need anything else. If you’re going after the vipers, then we want to help.”

“I’m sure we’ll need it. We’ll let you know when we have a better idea of what we’re doing,” David replied.

She told them farewell, and got back to work in the village.

David and the others began their journey around the lake.

…

For the third time, they trekked alongside the lake’s edge.

They made their way past the stand of trees and the cabin that Linnie had been trapped in, past the dark factory, past the cabin that Ruby sometimes called her home away from home, and pressed on until the lake curved back, and then they were walking along its western edge. There were more fields and plains on this side, though the region was a bit more hilly farther on, after a few miles. Sometimes it really struck David just how much land there was. He’d gotten good at navigation, and had a decent mental map of the region that was now his home, but it was a little easy to slip into the mindset that that’s all there was.

Or perhaps not all there was, but all that really mattered to you. It wasn’t exactly a conscious thought, but more of a background mindset he slipped into sometimes. Seeing miles and miles of land that he had never been in before kind of freaked him out, but it also excited him. He had no idea what was back there, it could be anything.

Finally, they found the lake house, and as they approached it, one of the windows opened up and a woman with a long-barreled, scoped rifle appeared.

“That’s close enough,” she said. Her tone was neutral, almost easygoing, but the threat was clear enough.

“We don’t want trouble,” David said, speaking loud enough to be heard, but also keeping his tone neutral.

“What do you want? You’re all armed, I can see that much,” the woman replied.

“Ruby sent us. We need your help finding a squid,” David called.

The woman paused. He expected there to be more questions, or resistance, but she just lowered the rifle. “Fine, come on up to the front porch,” she said, and shut the window.

They set off. Maybe it was Ruby’s namedrop, but he thought it was the fact that the group was three quarters female. It wasn’t exactly a hard rule, but in his experience, women tended to trust other women more than any other combination. That didn’t always pan out, but women on the whole seemed to be less violent, less devious, less prone to fucking you over. Again, not always the case, but it was a law of averages kind of thing.

Then again, it could be that they were such an unusual bunch that her curiosity was piqued.

They walked up to her front porch, which was wraparound and in good condition, the whole house seemed in decent condition for being so far out in the middle of nowhere for decades in a post-apocalyptic world. She opened the door as they walked up onto the porch and David got a better look at her.

She was attractive, in an aged, rough-around-the-edges kind of way. It was obvious she was older, probably into her upper forties, and human. Her skin was tan, like she spent a lot of time outside, and her hair was a very pale blonde, cut short, pulled into a rough ponytail, a bit like Lara’s. Crow’s feet gathered around the corners of her eyes, which were still sharp and clear and brown. She wore a simple t-shirt and some jeans that sat nicely on her big hips. She was a stout woman, looked like she did a lot of physical labor, and had some pretty big tits.

She was almost as tall as he was.

A pistol sat on her hip and a knife handle poked out of one of the heavy boots she wore. “You said you’re looking for a squid?” she asked. Her voice was a bit rough, but definitely not in an unpleasant way.

“Yes,” David replied.

“Hmm.” She stepped out onto the porch and set her rifle against the door’s frame, then pulled out a cigarette from her pocket and lit it up with a match. “How is Ruby?”

“Good,” David said. He wasn’t sure if she believed him, or was testing him, or something else. She sure was scrutinizing him. “Healthy, busy.”

“I imagine so, what with all the vipers coming out of the lake recently.” She pursed her lips as she studied them and drew on the cigarette, then breathed out smoke through her nose. “I don’t know you,” she said, looking at David, “but you’re part of that military crew,” she murmured, looking at Lara, “and you two...yeah, I’ve heard of you. The blue jag and the redhead with big tits. You two are supposed to be helpful. Ruby likes you two. She doesn’t much care for your kind,” she said, looking back to Lara.

“My superior and some of my people have given her and her people reason not to like us,” Lara replied.

“Well, at least you’re honest. Okay, first thing’s first, why do you want to talk to a squid?” she asked.

David glanced at Lara, who simply nodded once. No reason to hold back the truth. “We’re trying to deal with the viper threat, and we need their help, if there are any left.”

“Oh yeah, there’s some left. And deal with the vipers...how do you plan on doing that?”

“Honestly, we’re figuring it out. But if anyone knows the viper threat most intimately, it would be the squids,” Lara replied.

“Smart, and not too proud to ask for help. Not what I’d expect from the military types. I’ve run into your kind before, you know that? They were running a forced labor camp,” Helen said, the disdain obvious in her voice.

“All I can say is that I’ve come across such camps in the past, and I’ve put them down. I don’t allow them to continue if at all possible,” Lara replied, crossing her arms.

“Hmm.” She took another long pull on her cigarette, blew out more smoke. They waited. “Talk is cheap,” she said finally. “I’ll make you a deal. I know a squid, and I know how to get in touch with her. I can’t promise that she’ll help you, or even that she’ll listen, but I can at least get you to her. But I want two things in return.”

“What do you want?” David asked.

“The first thing I want is my gun back. Farther on down the lake, about a mile on, is a road. A little grave road that ends in a dock. Follow it away from the lake for a few hundred feet, you’ll find an old building there. Used to be a general store. It’s infested with wildcats. I lost my favorite pistol while fleeing that store. It’s got a black grip and a silver barrel, with my name etched on the side of the barrel. Bring it back to me.”

“And the second thing?”

She smirked and pointed at him with the hand holding the cigarette between two fingers. “You. The second thing I want is you.”

“What do you mean, specifically?” Cait asked.

“Oh,” she murmured, looking with interest at her, “I know that tone. You two are an item, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cait replied. “But I’m not against sharing.”

“Oh really?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Good then. What I want, specifically, is for you to, as soon as you bring my gun back, have sex with me and show me a good time. After you make me come a few times, I’ll take you to talk to the squid.”

David glanced at the others. Ellie looked like she was trying not to laugh, Lara looked a little uncomfortable, and Cait looked intrigued.

“Can we watch?” Cait asked finally.

Helen laughed. “All right, I like you...but no. You can listen, though.”

Cait sighed. “You don’t think that’s a little rude? I’m letting you fuck my boyfriend.”

Helen shrugged. “So I’m a bit of a sadist, but those are the breaks.”

“Yeah fine,” Cait said finally.

“Deal,” David said. “We’ll be back with your gun.”

“Don’t keep me waiting, handsome,” Helen replied with a smirk, then headed back inside of her house, closing the door behind her.

They lingered for a few seconds, then turned and began to walk away, towards the general store.

For several moments, nobody spoke. They walked along in silence, and finally Lara spoke up. “So, um, how do you feel about this, David?”

“Would it make me a bad person if I said I was happy with the arrangement?” he replied.

“I mean, I don’t think so,” Ellie replied.

He glanced at Cait and raised his eyebrows. She offered him a smile. “Don’t worry about me, love. I’m fine with it. You’ve fucked people that weren’t entirely comfortable with me watching before, although before it wasn’t a power play. I’m annoyed at that, but whatever. Fuck, I can even appreciate the sentiment. Plus, can’t fault her for wanting to fuck you.”

“Honestly can’t,” Ellie agreed.

“I just feel a little uncomfortable with this exchange,” Lara murmured.

“It would definitely be more uncomfortable if I didn’t already want to fuck her,” David replied. “I can appreciate where you’re coming from, but I’m okay with this.”

“She’s not a little aged for your tastes?” Cait asked, sounding honestly interested.

“No way, I love older women,” he replied.

“Good for me then. You’ll still be horny for me when I’m in my fifties or even sixties,” she murmured.

“I’ll be into you forever, love,” he replied.

“That’s sweet, though I think there’s a difference between ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m still fucking horny for you’. Don’t get me wrong, at this point I’d take love over horny, but it’d be really nice to have both.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Ellie said. “You’ll be banging hot in your fifties.”

“Hope so,” Cait replied.

They walked along in silence again for a ways after that. David found his mind focusing on Helen. He’d never been with a woman that was noticeably older than him. The closest he’d come was Amanda, and a decade plus a few years felt like an appreciable age gap, but he’d be surprised if Helen had less than two decades on him. He’d seen a lot of attractive older women. There was just something about mature women that turned him on in a way women his own age didn’t. He thought at least some of it was just the confidence that seemed to come with age, but that couldn’t be all of it. He’d met plenty of women around his age that were confident.

Maybe it was just the way they looked. The signs of aging that people often detested, for whatever reason, he found attractive on a certain level.

Well, whatever the reason, he was happy. He wanted to see Helen naked and he wanted to fuck her good and hard, and apparently she wanted the same from him. Although he wasn’t looking forward to seeing more wildcats. He found himself hoping that maybe they’d moved on since Helen had last been there and they could find her pistol with ease. Fighting was usually his least favorite part of these adventures, probably because the battles felt so fucking scary during, so miserable in the lead up to them as the anticipation built, and afterwards sometimes he felt a bit of an adrenaline high but mostly he just felt shaky and a little sick to his stomach.

They moved along the lake’s edge until they found the gravel road that Helen had pointed them towards, and then followed it for a little ways until, through the trees in the area, they caught sight of the structure they were looking for.

“All right, how do we wanna do this?” Ellie asked.

“Split up?” Lara suggested.

“Makes sense, just make sure you don’t shoot one of us,” David replied.

Lara sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll try not to.”

“Hey, teasing me is one thing, you might lose a finger if you tease Lara,” Ellie murmured.

“I like to live dangerously,” David replied.

Lara reached out and gripped his shirtfront, staring at him squarely. “Keep teasing me and you may find our next session more interesting than usual.”

“...is that a threat or a promise?” he replied.

She snorted and let him go. “You have gotten more confident,” she murmured. “I guess you’ll have to roll those dice and figure it out yourself.”

“I guess so,” he said, then he reached out and smacked her uniform-clad, fantastically hot ass. She looked back at him in surprise.

“Focus,” Cait said, grinning.

Lara sighed. “Yes, focus. Ellie, with me. We’ll go around back.”

“Looks like you’re with me, love,” David said as the pair broke off and began making their way around the back of the building. He lost his smile as his eyes dipped down to her stomach. She was wearing her leather jacket and he thought he could just make out the bulge beneath it. “Be careful,” he murmured.

“I will, David,” she replied. “Come on, let’s do this.”

They set off towards the building, which was large, old, and rickety. The windows were boarded over and only a few flecks of white paint were left along the exterior. It had two stories. The front door had been kicked open and the weak light from overhead didn’t proceed too far inside. He raised his pistol and slipped his finger onto the trigger as he slowly approached the front door. He decided to take a risk and call out, to see if anyone might be squatting. It was possible, and it wasn’t like they necessarily had a right to this place.

“Is anyone inside?” he called.

A wild shriek was his response.

“Fuck!” he snapped, barely managing to squeeze the trigger as a patchy-furred wildcat suddenly leaped out of the open door. He shot it right in the face, snapping its head back and killing it, but as it dropped, two more came out after it, all shrieking and claws and razor teeth. Cait shot one in the mouth, bursting out the back of its head, and David put a shot into the other’s neck, readjusted, then turned one of its bloodred eyes into an explosion of undead gore. Two more bodies flopped to the ground. They heard another shriek and a gunshot from around the back of the building, then nothing for a few seconds.

David slowly worked his way inside after that. He came into a room that was almost total empty. It was obvious that the place had been used by a lot of people over the years. He could just see the outlines of a few pieces of furniture that had been built into the floor, probably shelves and a front counter. They’d been dismantled, probably chopped up for firewood. There were a few zombie corpses and two dead wildcats inside. They looked like they’d been killed a few days ago, maybe a week at most. Probably killed by Helen.

David pulled out his flashlight and flicked it on, hoping to see the pistol in question. He hadn’t thought to ask if it was upstairs or down here, but this main room seemed empty. There was a door at the back and a shadow fell across the dim light coming through it. He tensed, ready for anything, but relaxed when he saw it was Lara.

“It’s clear, but there’s stairs going up and down,” she said.

“Great. Who goes up?” he replied, crossing the room to stand by her.

“You two go up, Ellie and I will take the basement,” Lara replied.

“Great,” Ellie muttered somewhere behind her.

“Thanks,” David said.

They split up. He passed through what looked like a back storeroom, pausing to double-check a bathroom and a cold case, both of which were empty, and then headed upstairs. Something shifted beyond the door that was closed at the top of the stairs.

“Something’s up there,” he murmured, and passed her the flashlight. “Here.”

“I’m ready,” she replied as she took it and aimed it up after him.

Making careful progress, David prepared himself for another battle. There was a tiny landing at the top of the stairs and the door was to the left. He got onto the landing, waited, listened. Again, something shifted, and he could hear heavy, uneven breathing. Definitely not human, not with that kind of breathing.

David opened the door.

The second he did, a wildcat leaped out at him and he pulled the trigger. The thing shrieked and he shouted as well as it crashed into him. He heard Cait shout his name as he hit the floor in a painful tangle of limbs, and he grunted as he shoved the body off of him. It was a lucky shot, he realized, since the thing wasn’t presently tearing him limb from limb.

“Are you okay?” Cait asked, covering the open door while he slowly picked himself up.

“Yeah, fine,” he muttered.

“Everything okay?!” Lara called.

“Fine!” Cait called back.

“Fucking hate those things,” David growled. He resisted the urge to kick the dead wildcat and accept the flashlight back from her. Holding both it and the pistol, he peered into the next room. There was at least some light slanting into it from between the boards. There was a skeletal bed frame tucked away in one corner with no mattress or bedding, the remains of a fire from long ago, a gutted dresser with no drawers or clothes and nothing atop it, and a scattering of trash across the dusty wooden floor. The place looked barren.

They checked out a single closet and spent a moment pulling aside what little furniture there was, but ultimately their search proved fruitless.

“You think she’s gonna be a good fuck?” Cait asked as they headed back down to the ground floor of the general store.

“Probably,” David replied. “I bet she’s got a lot of experience.”

“She’s got some big tits. I bet she looks pretty good naked,” Cait murmured.

“This is a weird conversation.”

“What, you’re not used to it yet? Come on, we met and fucked within an hour, and at this point you’re no stranger to sex,” she replied with a smirk, nudging him.

“I know, I know. I’m still getting used to the idea that I’m going to go fuck other women and you or Evie or April or Ellie might not be directly involved. I still feel kind of guilty, you know? Not as much, not nearly as much as before, but it’s still there, a little.”

“It may always be there, especially if you really like the pussy you’re getting, like even more than you like mine or Evie’s or April’s...you look guilty,” she said with a smirk. “You like someone else’s pussy more, don’t you?” she asked, giving him another teasing poke.

“No,” he lied.

“Come on, spill...wait, no, I don’t even need to guess, it’s obvious: Akila.” He sighed. “It is! Don’t be guilty, my love, I don’t blame you. That’s nymph vagina. It doesn’t get much better than that from what I understand, and she is the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Good God do I love having sex with her,” Cait said.

“It still feels weird,” he replied after a moment.

Cait laughed and gave him a hug. “I know. But you’re doing fine.”

“Found it!” Ellie called. A moment later they emerged from the basement. “God, it stinks down there,” she complained, but she held up the pistol in question, and it looked exactly as Helen had described it, if a bit dirty.

“Okay, let’s get back, get you laid, and find this squid,” Cait said, and Ellie giggled at that.

“Yep, at least she’ll let us listen,” she replied.

They began heading out of the general store.

…

David felt an anticipation growing within him as they made their way back to Helen’s place. By the time they had it in their sights again he had a steel erection and he couldn’t stop thinking about what she might look like naked, taking his cock, wondering if she’d let him bust inside of her. Fuck, how good it was to bust inside of raw pussy.

Triply so if it was a woman he’d never slept with before and had basically just met.

Then again, maybe he’d go in her mouth. Going pussy-to-mouth was fucking awesome.

It was amazing how many women he’d run into over the past few months that were willing to just hop into bed with him, and more amazing that it was apparently keeping up. Was it just luck or something else? Had it always been this easy and he just didn’t know it? Now there was a frustrating thought: he could have been fucking at this rate for years before now. Then again, maybe it was for the best, as he could’ve gotten several more women pregnant. On the one hand that had its own appeal, but on the other hand, it wouldn’t be right.

“Nervous?” Ellie asked.

“No,” he lied.

“You’re always nervous with someone new,” Cait murmured. “You were so nervous when we first hooked up.”

“You are one of the most attractive women I’ve ever seen in my entire life, why would I not be nervous?”

“I practically opened my legs for you in invitation,” Cait replied.

“Which doesn’t scream trap to you or something?” he asked.

“You did get her pregnant,” Ellie murmured.

“Luckily for him he wants to stick around,” Cait said.

“Whatever, yes, obviously I’m nervous. She’s already intimidating enough as it is, and I’ve actually gotten to the point where I feel better with at least one of you watching. It’s going to be weird to be going in alone.”

“We’ll be right outside, love,” Cait replied. “You’ll do fine.”

“Make her yell,” Ellie said.

“You two are such fucking perverts,” Lara murmured as they came up to the house.

“Like you aren’t,” Cait replied.

She just sighed. As they approached, the front door opened up. Helen had taken the time to wash up and change since they’d been gone. Her hair was damp, her face scrubbed clean, and she now wore a faded but fluffy white robe that was a bit open at the chest, revealing a lot of her breasts. David held up the gun, grip-first.

“Well, you work fast,” she said, accepting it. “Hopefully you take a bit longer in bed.”

“He’s got a lot of endurance,” Cait replied.

“I’ll bet. Come on, handsome,” she said, turning and walking back into the house. Fuck, she had a big ass. He walked in after her and she stopped by the door. Glancing out it, she said, “Don’t worry, I’ll get him back to you in one piece.”

Then she closed the door.

“I’ll show you to my room,” she said, walking deeper into the house.

“You live out here alone?” David asked as he followed, looking around. They passed a neatly organized if sparse living room, dining room, and kitchen.

“Yep,” she replied. “I like it that way.” She led him into her bedroom, which held only a dresser and a king-size bed. “You can freshen up over there. I think it’s only fair given that I did already,” she added, pointing to a washbasin tucked in the corner he’d initially missed.

“Okay,” he agreed, and walked over to it. David began the process of stripping and washing.

“So, where are you from? What’re you doing walking around with three badasses, one of them wearing a uniform?”

“You’ve heard of Haven?” he asked.

“The new settlement? Yeah.”

“Cait, the redhead, and Ellie, the blue jag, and myself, as well as a few others, founded it. We built it up from an abandoned campground over winter,” he replied.

“Oh. Wow. Well, that’s impressive,” Helen murmured, sitting down on the edge of her bed. She studied him as he undressed and washed. “You’re in very good shape. How old are you?”

“Twenty five,” he replied.

“Hmm. I’m almost twice your age...I thought you were older. Ruby likes you.”

“How would you know that? I thought you said you didn’t know me.”

“I didn’t, not at first. Ruby’s one of the few people I talk to with any real regularity. We see each other maybe once a week, once every two weeks. I like her. She’s direct, but kind.” She laughed. “Not like me, I’m direct, but a bitch. But she talks about people, and ever since mid-winter she mentioned a cute man who helped create Haven. She says you’re very brave, and a natural leader. I can see that. She says you’re her friend.”

“I am,” he replied. “Ruby is a good friend.”

“Turn around, I want to see what we’re working with,” Helen said.

David turned around as he finished washing, grabbed a towel, and began to dry. “Hmm, nice,” she murmured, looking at his dick. She smirked. “Your redhead doesn’t mind sharing...I bet that means you fuck a lot of women.”

“More than I thought I would, that’s for sure,” David replied. “Why are you interested in me?”

She snorted. “It’s a mystery? You’re young, your handsome, you’re in great shape. The only thing I can’t get for myself out here is fucked. I don’t want relationships, and generally I’m good with getting myself off, but nothing really beats getting my pussy beaten to hell and back by a handsome young man with a rock-hard cock,” she replied, and grinned fiercely at him. “You like older women, don’t you?” she asked, shifting so that her robe fell open a little more.

“I do,” he agreed. “A lot.”

“I could tell. I wouldn’t have made the deal I did if you weren’t eye-fucking me from the moment you saw me. Believe it or not, I don’t try to force men to have sex with me.”

“You could’ve asked,” David said.

“I know. But...I’ll admit to being petty. I kind of wanted to get one over on all the sexy young women you’re traveling with. Just a little. And I like being in charge.”

“They aren’t that young. They’re all older than me. And it’s not like you’re any less attractive than they are,” he replied.

“You’re a sweetheart to say so, but being young and hot isn’t the same as being old and hot,” she replied.

“I don’t know, maybe. I mean, they aren’t the same but they can be equivalent. It’s just hot in different ways.” He walked over to her.

“Perhaps. But let’s see if you feel the same way when you’re my age,” Helen replied. She stood up, her eyes level with his own, which would make her about six feet tall. She stared into his eyes for a moment, smiling, and then she shrugged out of the robe, letting it fall down her body and pool around her ankles. He glanced down at her, briefly. She was a hefty woman, in decent shape, but also quite curvy, quite thick.

And she did have some seriously big tits.

Her arms and face and neck were heavily tanned, while the rest her was paler. They stood there studying each other for a bit, and then she kissed him. Her hands ran up and down his arms as she slipped her tongue into his mouth. She tasted mainly of fruit of some kind, something she must have eaten while he was gone, but also of nicotine. He made out with her, settling his hands on her hips at first as they twisted tongues and found a rhythm of kissing. He let her explore him, running her hands across his body, and wondered how long it had been since she’d last gotten laid. She seemed eager, which, he had to admit, felt good.

He was quite eager himself.

She deepened the kiss and let out a soft moan, and he slid his hands around to her ass. Fuck, she definitely had a huge ass.

“Okay, kid,” she murmured, pulling back slightly, “make me come with your mouth.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and opened her legs.

David dropped to his knees and looked at her pussy. She had some darker blonde pubic hair above it. He leaned in and got to work, tonguing her clit and getting a loud moan of out her. She widened her legs a bit and settled her hands on her knees, took a deep breath, and let it out heavily. “That feels better than I remember,” she murmured.

She let out a series of loud moans and cries of pleasure as he ate her out, gradually building up speed and pressure with his tongue.

“You eat your girlfriend out a lot?” she murmured.

“Uh-huh,” he replied.

“I bet. You two-ah!...ah yeah...look like a good couple.” She laughed. “And I get you all to myself for now.”

“Uh-huh,” he repeated, and slipped a finger into her.

She let out a loud cry of ecstasy as he did this. She was very wet inside, quite pleasantly slippery. It was going to feel amazing to fuck her. He began fucking her with his finger as he kept licking at her pussy, first with one finger, then with two. He pressed up repeatedly into her most sensitive area, and she began crying out, her voice going up in pitch each time, and he knew he was on his way to getting her to come.

It happened barely twenty seconds later and she grabbed his head and screamed in rapturous release as a hot spray of sex juices came out of her. He continued fingering her furiously and eating her out as she came, and she yelled and moaned throughout the whole thing. It lasted almost a good minute or so, and when she was done, she let go and fell onto her back, panting.

“Goddamn, you can eat pussy,” she said after a moment.

“Yep,” he agreed, taking a moment to clean himself off. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“I can tell. All right, get over here and I’ll suck your dick,” she said.

He finished up and walked back over to the bed. She laid down on her stomach at the edge of the bed, facing him, and he presented his cock to her. She studied it for a moment, then stuck out her tongue and began to drag it slowly across the head. He shivered and groaned, watching her work with an intense arousal. She looked confident and self-satisfied. She licked and licked, sending waves of hot bliss shivering through him. And then she pressed her lips together, put the head against them, and slowly opened them up as she slid it into her mouth.

The pleasure was electric.

“Holy fucking shit, Helen,” he groaned.

She let out a muffled laugh and took his dick all the way into her mouth, her lips going right down to the base, and he could feel his head hitting the back of her throat. She kept it there for a moment and swallowed. The wet muscles tightened around his head, giving him a burst of pleasure, and he groaned louder.

“Fuck!” he panted.

She started sliding her lips up and down his shaft, lingering each time she reached his head and sending hot, buzzing waves of pleasure into him.

She kept this up for several minutes, until he had a coating of her saliva on his rigid cock, and then she took it out of her mouth and got back up.

“Okay, now we fuck,” she said, laying on her back and spreading her legs.

“I take it you’re okay to go raw?” he asked.

“Yep, no reason not to,” she replied.

“Where do I come?” he asked.

She smirked. “I’m glad you thought to ask. I like you, so wherever you want.”

“I want to come in your mouth,” he replied as he climbed onto the bed and got on top of her.

“I normally don’t go pussy-to-mouth, but...well, like I said, I like you, so I’ll make an exception,” she said, grinning up at him.

“I really appreciate it.”

“Good. Now fuck me hard.”

David slipped his cock into her wet opening, and cried out at the unfiltered pleasure of her hot, slippery, mature pussy accepting his cock. He worked his way into her, and soon had his whole length buried within her. She moaned and cried out, louder than he thought she might, and figured she must be performing at least a bit for the benefit of the women outside.

Or rather, for her own benefit.

“Oh yes! Oh fuck me, David!” she cried, begging for more as she stared up at him, grabbing at his back. He had himself propped up, staring down at her huge tits bouncing and swaying as he thrust furiously into her, quickly increasing the pace so that within ten or fifteen seconds he was really giving it to her, just driving deep and hard into her pussy.

She moaned with an intense pleasure and yelled his named several times. He was glad to see that her ecstasy seemed genuine. Even if she might be glorifying her reactions, the pleasure he could see written on her features was plain enough.

He fucked the tall, thick, mature woman and reveled in every unprotected second of that sexual gratification. He drove into her again and again, the sounds of their skin slapping together filling her bedroom, and within another few minutes he had her orgasming a second time just from penetration alone.

“Oh yes I’m coming! Fuck you made me come!” she screamed, nearly incoherent with bliss at that point.

He pounded her orgasming vagina, making a mess, until she was finished, and then he kept pounding her.

After some five minutes of furious, frantic sex, she said, “Switch. Doggystyle.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, eagerly pulling out of her.

She flipped over and got up onto her hands and knees, showing him her enormous ass and glistening pink pussy, and he immediately got up against her and slipped back inside of her, desperate to be within that pocket of perfect, wet heat again. He grabbed her hips and resumed pounding her, and she resumed screaming her pleasure.

David kept at it until he had made her come again, and it took quite a bit of self control not to start coming along with her. At one point he had to stop moving because it just felt too fucking good, and when she was finished with that third orgasm, she glanced back at him over her shoulder. “About to come?” she asked.

“Yep,” he replied, running his hands over her big ass.

“Fuck me until you do, let me know and I’ll take it in the mouth,” she said.

“Thank you,” he replied, and resumed pounding her.

She moaned and pushed back against him, forcing his dick deeper into her, and he pounded her until he was right at the edge of orgasm.

“Go!” he yelled, pulling out.

She immediately turned around and took his dick into her mouth, then started sucking and bobbing her head, slipping her lips up and down over the head repeatedly. He immediately triggered and cried out in pure blissful ecstasy as he came in her mouth. Helen sucked him dry, taking every last drop out of him, draining his cock into her wonderful mouth. She moaned as he came in her mouth, as he grabbed her head and held her in place almost without thinking, his hips jerking forward with each fresh spurt released.

He fucked her mouth and shot his load until he’d been totally emptied.

Then he released her head and as she took it out of her mouth, sat down heavily.

“Well,” she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, “you certainly held up your end of the bargain. Catch your breath, then I can take you to see Azure.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“Do you really think you can deal with the vipers?” Helen asked.

They were walking towards the lake now, making their way actually back the way they’d initially come. He and Cait held hands as they walked. She looked flustered, though he imagined it was because she was horny after listening to the sex he’d had with Helen more than anything else. Lara was blushing and Ellie was just smirking when he’d emerged.

“At this point, I don’t know,” Lara replied. “I just hope so.”

“Fair enough...okay, here it is,” she said, leading them right up to the water’s edge. It was near the corner of the lake, and it didn’t look too different from the rest of it.

“Why here?” Ellie asked.

“Just the spot we chose to meet at. It’s easy to remember, at least.”

“How’d you meet her? You said her name was Azure?” David asked.

“Yeah. I was fishing last year, got attacked by some assholes looking to rob me. Azure heard the fight and she came up out of the lake and helped me. She never told me why, and I, being one who always looked for opportunity, asked her if she was interested in trading. She was a little reluctant, but she has a weakness for rabbit, which she finds hard to get on her own. She can land-walk pretty easily, I think she’s a bit of a mutant among her kind. They can survive on land, from what I understand, but not indefinitely. Not more than a few hours. She can, I think. Her people have access to stuff that’s fallen in the lake. So that’s what we traded for. She told me if I ever wanted to talk, to come here, to this spot, and she’d know and come if she could.”

“How does she know?” Ellie asked.

“No idea, and she won’t say. Just a squid thing, I guess. She’s very slow to trust, so, you know, be patient,” Helen replied.

David nodded. They waited another five minutes. He looked at the sky again. Rain seemed closer, and even as he thought that, quite distantly, thunder cracked and rumbled. He looked back down at the water, and suddenly saw a face, a pale gray face, beneath the water, staring up at him. His heart jumped, but he made himself relax.

“She’s here,” he said quietly.

They all looked. As they did, slowly, the squid emerged from the water.

She only put her head above the waterline. She stared at them and they stared back. She had pale gray skin, and teal colored hair, which was short and wet, clinging to her head. Her eyes were large and dark, reflecting the light. Her expression was neutral.

Finally, she spoke. “Helen...you brought company.”

“Yes. These people want your help. Ruby sent them, you remember I’ve mentioned her?” Helen replied.

“I do. Do you trust them?” she asked. Her voice had a curious, slight accent to it, and it was soft. It was a strange voice, though not in a bad way.

“Well, I just met them today, but I’ve heard good things about most of them. I trusted them enough to bring them to talk with you, I think you should at least hear them out.”

Azure was silent for a long moment, staring at them. She looked at each of them in turn for close to half a minute before finally speaking again. “Very well, I am listening.”

“We represent a few different groups of people that wish to deal with the growing threat of the vipers, and we would like your help,” David replied.

Azure looked at them for another long moment. “What is your plan?” she asked finally.

David looked at Lara, who sighed. “At the moment, we do not have a solid plan. What we intend hinges on whether or not we have your help. In honesty, we thought that your people might have some method of dealing with the vipers, but might not have the numbers or locations or technology to do so. Officially, we are offering a peace and a unity to deal with this threat,” she said.

Azure was silent yet again. Her face was unreadable. Finally, she shifted in the water. “Before we can even begin to determine a plan, or if we are willing to work with you, you must prove your commitment to the cause, and your trustworthiness,” she said.

“What would you ask of us?” David replied.

“There is a medicine developed for our kind, they called it Aquazine. Find some and bring it to this spot. If you do this, that will open the path of communication between our two peoples. Do you find this acceptable?” she asked.

David looked at the others, who nodded tightly to him. “We do, though it may be difficult to track down. But if we can find some, then we will, and we’ll bring it back as soon as we can,” he said. He wanted to say more, something, anything about his good intentions, about wanting to build a trusting and working relationship in the same way he had with the other groups, but he didn’t think it would work. If anything, it might hurt.

Talk was cheap, as Helen had said, actions bought you trust.

What you did mattered more than what you said.

And so the best possible thing to do right now was what she asked.

“I hope to see you soon,” Azure said, and disappeared back into the water.

“Well that went better than I expected...they must be desperate,” Helen murmured.

“There have been a shitload of vipers,” Ellie said. “They’d be the hardest hit, like Akila and stalkers.”

“Akila?” Helen asked.

“We dealt with the stalker threat last month. You’ve heard the news that they’re breeding?” Lara asked.

“Yeah,” she said, looking sour. “I heard about some big operation in some caves.”

“That was us. But we couldn’t have done it without Akila’s help. She’s a nymph. As far as we know, the last nymph in the area.”

“Interesting. Well...I have work to do. Best of luck to you, and if you ever find yourself in want of some mature pussy, do not hesitate to come back,” she said, looking at David.

“I’ll definitely be back, that was really good sex,” he replied.

She laughed, then turned and began heading off, back to her house.

“You and your admirers,” Ellie murmured.

“I’m very lucky,” David replied.

“Yep, you are. Now, let’s go to talk to our doctor friends and see if they can help us,” Cait said. And with that, they began making their way back towards the opposite side of the lake.

…

Going to the hospital was always a bit of a coin toss.

It was isolated enough that they found themselves falling under attack more often than most other places, and whereas the other settlements in the area were actual settlements, or close to, the hospital was just a crew of around a half dozen people. David had offered to have them come stay in Haven, but they had refused, politely at least, and now it was a moot point. There literally wasn’t room for them anymore. Maybe a few of them, but not all of them, not unless they did some major overhaul to the settlement.

While David wanted their doors to be open to new people, he wasn’t interested in packing people in like sardines.

This time, however, the hospital was in good condition, and when Katya greeted them at the door, she seemed in good spirits.

“It’s so good to see you all,” she said, and she hugged them each in turn. Except for Lara, who she simply shook her hand. David wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t know each other as well at this point, or maybe they had some kind of understanding, or maybe something totally different. She smiled at Cait. “You’ve got that pregnant glow.”

“Do I now?” Cait asked, beaming in reply. She had been getting showered in attention and while initially he’d worried she might get annoyed, if anything she seemed to like it.

“You do. Although you’ve always glowed, girl,” Vanessa said as she came into the room. “How’s everyone going?”

“Good,” David replied. “I feel a little guilty for just jumping right into it but...we need something,” he added.

“What’s up?” Katya asked.

“We need Aquazine.”

She Katya frowned. “That...is rare. And we don’t have any. At least, I’m almost sure we don’t. Why do you need Aquazine, you banging a squid now?”

“No,” David said.

“Not yet,” Cait murmured. “We met one today, though, and she was so pretty.”

“Well, if you’re lucky...why’d she wanted Aquazine?” Katya asked.

“She didn’t say. We’re trying to deal with the viper threat, and we want the squids’ help. She says to even consider a union, we have to get her Aquazine, so that’s why.”

“Shit, the vipers? You need help? Because they’re getting bad,” Vanessa said.

“If you can get us Aquazine, that would be a big help. And I’m sure we’ll be doing something stupid and dangerous before this is over, several times, and we could always use your help with that,” Cait replied.

Katya turned towards the back of the entryway, which led deeper into the building that the doctor group called home. “Donald!” she called.

A moment later, the middle-aged leader of the group appeared. “Yes? Oh, hello everyone,” he said as he came to join them. “Is all well?” He looked at Cait. “You haven’t had any abnormalities or complications have you?”

“No, just morning puking,” she replied.

“I believe we have something that can help with that...”

“I’d definitely appreciate it, but that isn’t why we’re here,” Cait replied.

“Do we have any Aquazine?” Katya asked.

Donald frowned, considering it, looking down at the floor for a moment and resting his chin in his hand. “I really don’t think so,” he replied finally. “There are some places we could check, just in case I’m wrong, but I’m almost certain we don’t have any. Why do we need it?”

“Looking to build an alliance with the squids,” David replied. “They requested it.”

“I see. That would make sense.”

“If we can’t find any here, do you know where some might be?” Lara asked.

Donald sighed and looked like he was about to answer in the negative, but his eyes lit up suddenly. “Wait, maybe,” he said. He looked at Katya. “Do you remember the hospital we passed on the way in? It had that room we couldn’t get into, and I had a chance to look over their inventory. I believe Aquazine was listed.”

“Yeah...that’s quite a walk,” Katya murmured.

“How far are we talking?” Ellie asked.

“I’d say a good three hours there, three back. It’s an old clinic. I remember how to get there, so I could take you,” she said.

“There’s nowhere else?” Lara asked. Donald shook his head, and Katya agreed with him. She sighed. “I guess we don’t have much choice if we can’t find it here.”

“It’s too far to walk and make it back safely before dark at this point,” Cait said. “If we don’t find any here, can we set out first thing in the morning?”

“Yes,” Katya said. “I’m game.”

“Though...” Donald said, sounding a little reluctant, “since we are offering help, would you be so kind as to help out here? There are some things we need...”

“We wouldn’t mind at all,” David replied.

…

They spent the rest of the day and all night at the hospital, and it seemed there was a lot to do.

Besides some basic stuff, like gathering wood, trading with the fishers for food, and getting some water from the river, there were more complicated things, like patching holes in the walls and the roof, making repairs to the windows, and fixing a few of their broken guns, which Lara was quite good at. Ellie managed to duck most of it by volunteering to pass along the news of what had happened and what was going to happen to Evie and the others back at Haven, and she took her time going there and getting back.

Though she made up for it by providing oral to David, Cait, Katya, and Vanessa, and David had a very nice threesome with Katya and Vanessa, then had sex with Lara afterward. That night he slept on a spare bed in between Cait and Lara, and overall it was a fantastic night. They didn’t manage to find any Aquazine among the doctor’s supplies, and so the next morning, they got up bright and early, ate a quick breakfast, then packed up and went off.

They struck off north, towards the trailers where they had originally found Lindsay and her people, with Katya leading the way.

David felt a little bit in a foul mood, as it had rained while he was sleeping. The first rain of the year and he had missed it. Now everything was damp and the skies were still gray, so he was hoping that at least at some point in the near future, he would actually get to see the rain. He wasn’t sure why he liked it so much, only that he did, he relished being able to watch the rainfall, to listen to the soothing sound of it.

“So what’s the story with this place?” Ellie asked as they walked on.

He, Cait, Ellie, Lara, and Katya were now following a simple path that extended for quite a ways, through a few forests, over a few hills, past several abandoned buildings. They’d only had to shoot a handful of undead so far.

“We came across it while we were traveling, looking for a place to call home. We thought that would be it, but it turned out to be too dangerous. We spent the night there, managed to get some decent supplies, as it was obvious that someone within the past year or so had had similar ideas. Unfortunately, it turned out that the area was home to a lot of stalkers. We lost two people when they attacked the hospital in the middle of the night, and ultimately we had to move on,” Katya explained.

“I’m sorry,” Cait murmured.

“Yeah, it seemed like our bad luck streak would never leave us. Even when we did find the place where we’re at now, we still had stalker attacks and we had to deal with those assholes. But now that you’ve stabilized the region, things are going so much better.”

“You helped, a lot,” David replied.

“I suppose, but your group was definitely a catalyst. Someday, I hope we can join you,” Katya said.

“You still think it’s possible?” Cait asked.

“I don’t know, I hope so.”

“Yeah, although it will have to be under different conditions. There just isn’t room in Haven anymore. I mean, in a pinch, we could definitely take you all in, but as for a permanent move? Well...it wouldn’t be great, we’re a little crowded,” David replied.

“Seemed that way last time I visited.”

They walked on for a long while, and overall it was a very pleasant walk. Spring wasn’t quite here, but the land was slowly beginning the process of coming back to life. There were more animals around and the trees were getting their leaves back. Soon everything would be green again and the rain would come with more regularity and it was going to be fantastic. In a way, David couldn’t believe it. It had been roughly a year since the virus had mutated, a year since the stalkers and vipers and other horrors crawled seemingly out of the depths of hell to torment them, and somehow they had survived it all. They had endured that first winter.

Would it get easier?

Certainly it felt easier, but he had his doubts. If anything, he was concerned about the long-term survival of any race now, because of the breeding. If even just stalkers were breeding, let alone the vipers or other types, then they could easily overrun their sentient counterparts in a few years. In all honesty, the only thing that was keeping him from really freaking out was the notion that they might somehow collapse under their own weight, or they may end up fighting each other more often than humans or inhumans.

Still, it wasn’t looking great.

Although he had to admit, as far as things had been going recently, he knew he was very lucky. Technically speaking, things could continue going smoothly for him...theoretically forever. Of course the longer the timeline, the less likely that became.

David tried not to let these thoughts plague him as they walked along, making good progress. Instead he thought about Helen. That had been quite the experience. Or about what Cait was going to do to him the next time they were somewhere they could fuck. They’d done it this morning but clearly she was not satisfied by the encounter and wanted more. Actually, now that he thought about it, what he really wanted was another threesome with her and Akila. He did feel guilty about the fact that Akila was, physically speaking at least, the best partner he’d ever fucked in his life, but Cait genuinely didn’t seem to mind.

He supposed she was aware enough of the fact, logically and emotionally, that there was more to life than pure physical pleasure. In their own way, they all loved each other, but the way he loved Akila wasn’t the same as the way he loved Cait, and he wasn’t sure if it ever would be. Which wasn’t a failing on either of their parts. Akila seemed to prefer at least some distance, even though she’d warmed considerably to most of them at Haven. Though she seemed to have warmed to him and Cait more than anyone else.

“So, Katya, what’s the tactical analysis on this place?” Ellie asked as they walked on.

“Three stories, east face is crumbling, big holes in the second and third story outer wall. Three entrances, south, east, and west. Most of the windows were broken when I was there. The doors were broken off, too. It’s an old building,” Katya replied.

“Wow. That’s some memory,” Lara murmured.

“I’ve got a tactical mind. Don’t forget, I used to do your job. I was trained as a combat medic, but I was XO more often than not.”

“I believe it,” Lara said.

“We’ll want to search the whole place, but the place we were trying to get into that will probably be holding what we’re looking for is in the basement,” Katya said.

“Why did you never go back? I mean, it’s a long walk, but it doesn’t seem that long,” David asked.

“Too dangerous, and then far too dangerous when winter came. I was actually going to come to you and ask to do this next month or so, provided things were looking good,” Katya explained.

“Makes sense.”

They walked the rest of the way there without running into much more than some zombies and, at one point, a small pack of wildcats that were dispatched easily enough. Katya was just as quick and good of a shot as he remembered from working with her before. They emerged from a stand of slowly resurrecting trees, some of which had a decent amount of greenery back, and came to the edge of an old, crumbling, asphalt parking lot littered with dead cars. To the right was a similarly made road that meandered away ahead of them, to the north, where he could see the outlines of a few other structures. Maybe something worth investigating eventually.

“How do we want to do this?” David asked as they studied the building. It looked about as Katya had described it.

“We should split up into two teams,” Lara replied. “I’ll-”

“Hey!” They all drew their weapons as a man appeared in a second story window, holding a hunting rifle. “Don’t fucking move!”

“We don’t want any trouble!” Cait called back.

“Oh I’m sure!” the man snapped. David was immediately off-put by him and his tone. Even from a distance he could see the way he was leering at the women in the group. “I’ll tell you what I want! I want you four bitches to throw down your guns and get in here, pronto!”

“Yeah, that’s not happening!” Katya called, stepping forward. “Either act like a decent human being or I’m going to shoot you in the fucking face! First and last warning!”

“Fucking bitch!” the man snarled. He fired a shot. They shouted and scattered in surprise, and Katya cried out. David saw that it had winged her shoulder. “That was a warning shot!” the man shouted. “Now-”

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Katya screamed, and shot him dead in the face.

The man didn’t even get a chance to scream as he fell forward out of the window. Immediately, other men appeared in several of the windows and opened fire.

The five of them immediately got behind the cover of the nearest abandoned vehicles scattered across the lot.

“Now what?!” Ellie snapped.

“Cait, Ellie, stay here! Provide cover fire!” Katya said, shrugging off the rifle she’d brought and tossing it to Cait, who caught it easily. She took aim and fired. Someone screamed and she ducked back down as a hail of gunfire came her way. “David, Lara, we’re hitting the building! Get inside! Kill everyone!”

“What if there’s prisoners?” Lara asked.

She heaved a sigh. “Fine, kill everyone who’s armed! Just be ready! Lara, you’re with me. We’ll go in through the front entrance, David, wheel around to the left side entrance, got it!?”

“Got it,” David replied.

He’d brought his shotgun and he was glad for it now. This was going to be exceptionally dangerous, as they had no idea how many assholes had holed up in the hospital or what they might be packing. While Cait and Ellie opened fire, Cait with her rifle, and Ellie with her pistol, since she had the best eyesight of them all, he, Katya, and Lara broke from cover and advanced to the next bit of cover. With bullets raining down from half a dozen windows as the attackers inside alternated between shooting and ducking, and occasionally getting shot, David broke away and sprinted to another vehicle, an old truck missing its wheels.

He got behind it, ducking, and heard as much as felt the frame rattle with a hail of gunfire. Holding his pistol, he shifted to the back end of the truck, then popped up and opened fire on the nearest attacker. Three of his shots punched into the brick of the second story wall, but one nailed the man in the throat and he let out a gagging scream as he fell back away from the window. Perfect. David sprinted towards the building and slipped around the side of it. He switched to his shotgun and readied himself for close quarters combat.

There was the entrance. David hustled along the side of the building, moving past decades-old, weather-worn brick, and skidded to a halt as someone rushed out. It was a man in grubby clothing with long, greasy hair and a look in his eyes that was half crazy, half enraged. He held a pistol and right as he began raising it, David aimed the shotgun and fired. The shell took the man in the gut, throwing him backwards.

He screamed in agony as the pistol flew from his hands. David shot him again, feeling his stomach churn as he blew most of the man’s head off and put him out of his misery. With the chaos of gunfire ringing behind and above him, David slipped into the hospital after making sure no one else was waiting for him beyond the doorway. He came to a dim hall that stretched away to either side. Given Lara and Katya would be coming in through the main entrance, which laid to his right, he broke off left.

He moved down the dusty, dim corridor, stopping twice and peering into open doorways as he passed them. He wasn’t sure what the rooms had once been before, but now they’d been transformed into makeshift sleeping and cooking areas. They were empty. David moved on, hitting the end of the corridor and peering around the corner. It led to a stairwell with peeling white paint across brick walls and a rusty handrail that was half off its track. He scurried up it, shotgun at ready, trying not to think about the man he’d just murdered.

He’d killed people before, more than he cared to think about, and knew he would again. Fuck, he was about to kill more people right now. But there was such a difference between killing a mindless, screaming monster and a sentient being. David shook it off. Women he loved were out there, fighting for their lives, one of them pregnant with his child, and if it was a question between them and these assholes, then it was no question at all.

He’d blow each every one of them away in a cloud of blood.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he found a door half open. As he watched, he heard running footfalls, and the door was ripped open as another man with a long beard and wide eyes appeared. David didn’t give him a chance, seeing he was brandishing a submachine gun. He blew the man’s head off and splattered the hallway with gore. Pumping the shotgun, he fired again as another man stepped out and screamed in rage, raising his pistol. He managed to get off one shot that came dangerous close before David shot him in the heart, turning his chest into a crater of blood and gore. He pumped the shotgun and listened again.

The gunfire was dying down.

There was a corridor waiting for him, with several open doors. Any of them could hold a threat, a man or woman holding a gun, waiting to end his life. He checked the first room and found it empty. The second room yielded nothing as well, just another makeshift kitchen area. As he headed on, the gunfire fell silent. He waited, listening, and when he heard nothing, pressed on. After a few more rooms, he got to some that held bodies from the shootout with Cait and Ellie. He made sure they were dead and no one was hiding out, and then found another stairwell leading up. Heading up it, he arrived at the third and final floor.

Despite his anxiety, it was a relatively easy process to clear it out. He checked a bathroom, a storage room, and half a dozen offices, and found no survivors hidden away. Making his way back downstairs, he ran into Lara on the stairwell.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine. It’s clear up here, how’s Katya?” he asked.

“Pissed, mostly. She’s patching the wound now. We cleared out the first floor and the basement,” Lara replied.

“Perfect, let’s get the others in here, do our search, and get out of here in case these assholes have friends hanging around,” David said.

Lara frowned. “There’s an unpleasant thought.”

They got to work after that. Katya’s wound was superficial and indeed she seemed more pissed than anything else. After gathering Cait and Ellie, they searched the place. David and Lara went up to search the top two floors, while Katya took the ground floor, and Cait and Ellie headed into the basement. Given those two had the most experience picking locks, they would be the ones best suited to get through the locked door down there.

An hour passed. There was nothing of any real value on the third floor, save for a pair of guns and some simple supplies that the men who had been up there had been holding on them when they’d been shot by Cait or Ellie. The second floor yielded a bit more. Several more guns, not a lot of ammo, some food and water, an assortment of other useful things like tools and matches and some bedding that was half-decent, some soap, a few pencils, a book, all of which they gathered and put into their packs, taking them off of dead men or out of the attacker’s backpacks or finding them tucked away in cabinets or other convenient hiding spots.

It was slow work, and it felt a bit more frustrating when, by the time they had finished their topside search, Ellie and Cait had not found a way into the locked room. And there was no Aquazine anywhere else in the hospital.

“So now what?” Lara asked as they gathered in front of the locked door. It was solidly made, with a bulletproof window in the middle that had a few cracks in it from where probably the guys who’d lived here had beaten on it.

David peered in through that window. The room beyond wasn’t very big, but there were a lot of shelves in there, and although about half of them were bare, there was still a fair amount of medical supplies in there.

He studied it closely, there had to be something he was missing…

“Wait, there,” he said, angling the flashlight he was holding up.

“Where? What?” Katya asked.

“I see it. A vent,” Cait murmured.

“It’s not very big,” Katya said.

“Let’s find it. I can wriggle in there,” Ellie said.

“You sure?” David asked uncertainly. It wasn’t a big vent.

“Yeah, I’m still a little on the scrawny side and certainly I’m the smallest of all of you. Besides David, you’ve all got big-ass hips,” Ellie replied as she got out of her backpack. “And I’m the most dexterous of you all. So it’s me or no one, and that lock is too complicated. At best, we could walk back and get Jennifer, which we might have to if I can’t fit, or we can try this.”

“If you’re willing, then we should try it,” David said.

The others ultimately agreed. After a bit of hunting, they found a vent that led down at an angle from the ground floor that ultimately let out into that room. Ellie got down into it, and found that there was adequate room to maneuver. They heard her muttering and cursing to herself, her voice echoing back to them, for several minutes. Eventually the noises subsided, then there was a metallic bang, and a second one, then a grunt.

Then, she called back up to them, “I made it!”

“Can you open the door from the inside?!” Cait called back.

“Just a minute!” A pause. Half a minute went by. Then: “Yep! It’s open! Come on down!”

They hurried back downstairs, though Katya opted to remain behind to watch out in case anyone or anything else showed up. David stepped into the small room and looked around. The place was a treasure trove. He shrugged out of his pack and started studying whatever he could find on the shelves before tossing them into the bag. It would all be useful, and even if it wasn’t, if it had gone bad, he couldn’t determine that, but the doctors would have plenty of time to figure it out. He saw a lot of names printed on glass bottles with different colored liquids inside or pills that he didn’t recognize and couldn’t pronounce.

After a few minutes, he’d gotten so used to failure at finding what he was looking for, that he nearly passed it over. “Oh shit! Got it!” he said, holding a small bottle of little white capsules. It was full, with maybe thirty or forty of them.

“I hope that’s enough,” Cait said, accepting the bottle and slipping it carefully into a padded container that they’d found and appropriated for the occasion.

“It’ll have to be. Now let’s finish up and get out of here,” Ellie replied.

CHAPTER FIVE

They made it back to the hospital with only a few more easily dealt with assaults from some wildcats. Donald was overjoyed with the supplies they had managed to bring. They spent a good ten minutes getting it all out of their packs so that it could be properly inventoried.

“This is amazing,” he said as he looked over the stash. “I mean, some of this is definitely expired and we can’t use it, but some of the stuff I’m seeing here, we haven’t had in months! Thank you so much for helping out like this.”

“You’re welcome. I was hoping we could have some of the more basic supplies for Haven?” David replied.

“Oh yes, of course, of course.”

They portioned off a fair measure of painkillers, antiseptics, antibiotics, bandages, and other, simpler medicine to deal with more everyday problems. At this point, if someone had something a bit more serious to deal with, they went to the doctors or had the doctors come to them, so it made sense to leave the more complicated medicine in the hands of those who knew how best to wield it. Once they’d gotten it all portioned out and packed back up, David, Lara, Ellie, and Cait had headed out, promising to come back if and when they needed help regarding the vipers. After a brief discussion, they decided to swing by Haven and see if Akila was there.

David wanted to enlist her help. He didn’t exactly want it to seem like he was trying to manipulate Azure, even if, he supposed, technically he would be, but he thought the pair might have a kinship that no other species would share between each other. From what little he knew of them, the squids and the nymphs seemed similar in that they were separate from all the others, and that they were a bit mysterious and guarded.

As it happened, Akila had indeed returned back to Haven that morning. After updating her on the situation, and updating April and Evie and Jennifer on the latest events, Akila had agreed to help, and had joined them on their trek back to the lake.

“So how have you been? What adventures have you been having, Akila?” Cait asked as they walked. She seemed particularly enamored of their latest addition, and from the way she reacted, Akila either wasn’t sure how to react to the affection, or liked it a lot and didn’t exactly what to let on that she liked it that much.

“I have done much as I have since joining Haven,” she replied with a small smile. “Exploring, mostly. Hunting and foraging for food. Training myself with my bow, and with the pistol and the rifle you gave me. I believe I am an adequate shot now, though Jennifer is still teaching me how to properly maintain the weapons.”

“Are you really comfortable out there by yourself?” Ellie asked. “You spend a lot of time away from Haven.”

“I’m finding a balance,” Akila replied. “I’m sorry if my presence is missed, though admittedly with spring coming on I feel the urge to roam the land far more powerfully. It will lessen in the summer and dwindle in the fall, and you will have me all to yourselves in the winter. I look forward to doing nothing more than sleeping and mating and eating,” she said, smirking and looking at David, then at Cait.

“You and me both,” Cait murmured.

“Yeah, I really need to catch up on sex with you,” Ellie said.

“I would enjoy that. Your tongue is particularly pleasurable,” Akila replied.

“You all are so weird,” Lara said.

“Why? Because we’re horny?” Cait asked.

“No. Everyone’s horny. Well, most everyone. It’s just that you’re so open about it. You are literally pregnant with David’s child, as much his wife as you could be without actual rings, and yet every woman here, myself included, has fucked both of you, multiple times, sometimes at the same time. And I mean, how many women has David slept with at this point?” she asked.

“Like...a dozen?” Cait asked.

David thought about it. “With Helen and Ruby now...fourteen...wow wait, really?” He thought again, carefully counting up. There were his three girlfriends, Cait, Evie, and April. There was Ellie and Jennifer and Akila, what he considered ‘regulars’. Katya and Vanessa. Ruby and Helen now, one-offs. Ashley, Amanda, and Lindsay. And Lara. “Yeah...oh wait, no, fifteen. Catalina. How is she?” he asked, glancing at Lara.

She laughed and shook her head. “She’s fine. Fifteen partners. That doesn’t seem...I don’t know, just weird?”

“It seems impossible to me, but I’ve been wanting this since I hit puberty so...” He shrugged.

“David’s on birth control now and half the women he fucks are either unable to get pregnant or inhumans anyway. And STDs basically aren’t a thing anymore. Why not fuck a lot of people?” Cait replied with a shrug. “What’s the risk?”

“Heartbreak?” Lara replied.

“I mean, yeah, but you risk that whether you have sex or not,” Cait said. “You can have sex with someone without being heavily emotionally invested in them, and you have become heavily emotionally invested in someone without having sex with them. Sex isn’t what determines whether or not you might get your heart broken.”

“I...suppose that’s true,” Lara murmured. She sighed. “I guess I just have difficulty doing it so...casually, you know?”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Cait replied. “Don’t take our casual demeanor relating to sex as any kind of indictment of the opposite. I’m a highly sexual person, so is Ellie, and clearly so are David and Akila, but we wouldn’t have a problem with you if you were celibate, or in a monogamous relationship, or just wanted to fuck one of us, or none of us. The key thing is this: you get to set your own pace and boundaries. Those of us that feel comfortable with it will offer you sex, but just once, no pressure, and typically that door remains open. That’s what we’ve tried to get across to you, Lara. I hope you feel comfortable and safe around us, sexually and non-sexually.”

“I do,” Lara replied. “I don’t want to give that impression. I’m comfortable, I trust you all. Honestly, at this point, I trust you all more than most of the people in Lima Company. And, well, it’s been really, really nice testing the sexual waters with you and David again. I’m still...well, trying to figure out what exactly it means that I like women in a sexual way. It’s something I guess I’ve danced around or just outright ignored for years and years now. But you’ve helped me a lot, and honestly, giving me a comfortable, safe place to explore my sexuality, without fear of heartbreak or judgment or reprisal...that means a lot to me. I don’t know if I’ve ever properly thanked you for that, so, you know, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Lara. You’re a good person, a competent warrior, and a really sexy woman that I’m thankful I got to share a bed with,” Cait said.

“Seconded heartily,” David murmured.

“Hope I can share a bed someday...no pressure,” Ellie said.

“I...almost certainly will sleep with you, Ellie. I keep hearing things about jag tongue...”

“They’re all true. Tell me, are you attracted to me?” Akila asked.

She looked over at their nearly nude nymph friend, (for the sake of some of the villagers, when she was among Haven, she had agreed to wear at least as much as Ellie, though when she left she often stripped down to panties and a ripped off shirt just barely big enough to cover her big tits, which is what she wore now), and blushed deeply. “Uh...yes,” she managed.

“Oh. A lot or a little? If it’s a little, I will understand,” Akila replied.

“It’s...not a little,” Lara murmured.

“I think she really wants to fuck you and it’s making her uncomfortable,” Cait said.

“Oh. Okay then,” Akila replied.

They were past the fishing village and moving along the side of the lake by then, and so it didn’t take all that much longer to get to the meeting spot. Once there, they waited. David found himself again wondering how it was that Azure knew. What if she was deep in the lake? On the other side? How would she know? Could she sense it? If so, how? He supposed he’d never know. As it was, they ended up having to wait about ten minutes before she showed up. She reappeared in the same spot, just her head above the water again.

“You’ve brought another new person,” Azure murmured.

“Yes. Her name is Akila. She’s a friend,” David replied.

“Do you have it?”

“I do.” He reached into his pocket and held up the bottle. They’d made sure it was sealed and waterproof, though Donald had explained that the pills themselves were designed to be submerged, given they were for squids.

“Toss it to me,” she said.

He did so and she caught it easily.

“Can we talk?” Akila asked.

“Yes,” Azure replied after a moment. “Talk.”

“I, in a way that no one else can, understand your reluctance to work with outsiders, let alone humans.” She glanced at David, Cait, and Lara. “No offense.” She looked back at Azure. “But I trust these humans, and the jag. I obviously don’t know for sure, but I imagine you are going through, right now, what I went through already: your people are turning into monsters, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Your numbers are dwindling. If that’s your situation, then I know how you feel, and I wish my people had gone to these people sooner for help.”

“How many of your clan are left?” Azure asked after a moment.

“Only me,” Akila replied softly.

“I am so sorry,” Azure whispered. She was silent a moment longer, her dark eyes slipping among them, back and forth, until finally settling on Akila. “You trust them with your life?” she asked.

“Yes. I do. I live among them now. I am...close, with them,” she said, reaching out and running a hand down David’s arm.

“...I see.” She looked at the pills in her hand, then made a small sound that might have been a sigh. “I will consider it. For now, I must return to my own kind and deliver this medicine. Return to this spot when the sun next rises. Know that it is not my voice alone that will make the decision whether or not to work with you.”

She looked like she might say more, but then closed her mouth and disappeared back beneath the water.

“What do you think our chances are?” Ellie murmured.

“Good,” Akila said.

“Really?” Lara asked.

“Yes. We aren’t terribly different, her and I. I believe that she wants to trust us, or at least to trust me. Whether or not the others she must convince, on the other hand? Who can say? For now, all we can do is wait. And I believe I have a place where we can wait without having to return home, and we can indulge in some...personal time,” Akila said.

“We should let Evie and the others know we’re going to be out all night...” David murmured, though he found it difficult to focus with how Akila and also Cait were looking at him.

“Actually, Catalina has been looking for an excuse to get out and visit Haven. I can have her relay the message,” Lara said.

“Fuck, why don’t we have a radio?” Ellie muttered.

“Still haven’t found any yet,” David replied. “You don’t think Stern will think that’s a waste of time?” he asked.

“I don’t care. He wants a working relationship with Haven? Well, relationships are give and take. It’s time for him to give. Akila, show us to this place you know of,” Lara replied as she pulled her radio out.

“This way,” Akila said, walking away from the lake, towards a thick stand of trees off to the northwest. While they walked towards it, Lara updated Stern on the situation. He sounded a little frustrated with the perceived lack of progress, and a little more when she asked to send Catalina out. But she stood up to him, told him basically the same thing she’d told David just then, and he relented and agreed to let Catalina go to Haven.

Akila’s mystery location turned out to be an abandoned house she had discovered while exploring. It was still in decent condition, though it obviously hadn’t been used in quite awhile. Perfect location for a lot of hot sex, which was exactly what they did. After making sure it was safe, David surveyed it. It was single-story, with a basement that was mostly empty. A living room and kitchen took up the main portion, with a bedroom and a bathroom taking up the rest. It was mostly empty, though thankfully two beds remained, one large enough for three of them, the other large enough to hold two more of them.

“So...what exactly are we doing here?” Lara asked as she took off her pack.

“Well, we’re stuck here until tomorrow,” Cait said.

“We aren’t stuck here,” Lara replied.

“And so I think we should just fuck. A lot. Like a lot,” she said, grinning broadly.

“I mean I’m always down for that,” David said.

“Obviously I am,” Ellie agreed, taking off her shirt and freeing her wonderful, blue-furred breasts.

“As am I. The only drawback of spending so much time alone is that there is no one I can turn to for pleasure or comfort,” Akila murmured, quickly getting out of her own simple garments.

“Lara?” Cait asked.

“Well, I knew this was coming. I’m still a little anxious about being naked around so many people, and doing some of them, but...I know now that it’s not real anxiety. As far as I know, I have nothing to fear from any of you. So yes, I want to indulge in some sex. I want to orgasm a lot and I want at least to try to do some things with you and you,” she said, looking at Ellie and Akila.

“This pleases me greatly, you are a very attractive woman,” Akila murmured.

“You know, people compliment me on my looks more often than I care for, and it often feels...I don’t know. Fake. Or like it’s part of something else. Mostly they’re just saying it because they’re hoping there’s sex at the end of the compliment, but I never feel like that whenever a compliment comes from any of you.”

“It’s because some of us have already fucked you,” Cait said. “But mostly I think it’s because we like you and think you’re pretty whether or not you have fucked us, or ever will fuck us. There’s no ulterior motive.”

“Really? You never tried to fuck Lara?” Ellie asked.

“Oh I tried, it’s just that motive wasn’t ulterior. I never tried to be sneaky about it with her. And my compliments were separate from my desires,” Cait replied.

“She has a point,” Lara said. She hesitated briefly as they all stripped down, then, after a moment, she quietly muttered fuck it and began to get out of her uniform. David broke out the bottles of water and soap and rags while she got naked, and as he finished getting them ready, soon found himself surrounded by four nude women all cleaning up with him. He studied them each in turn, finding it once again difficult to believe that this was really happening.

“You’ve got that look on your face,” Cait murmured.

“What look?” David asked.

“That ‘I’m in a dream’ look.”

“Can you blame him? Look at us,” Ellie replied.

“All of us are lucky,” Akila said. “We all get to have sex with attractive people.” She looked at David, then at Cait, as they washed up. “You know, you surprised me. Both of you. In my experience with humans, they seemed to be the most ill-suited to interacting amicably with the other races. For the most part, it seems that inhumans get along. It has been a pleasure working with you, getting to know you, and being intimate with you.”

“It’s been quite the pleasure to you as well. If we break the mold with our inhuman-fucking ways, then I’m happy about that, too,” Cait replied.

“How do we want to do this?” Ellie asked.

“Can I have David and Ellie first?” Lara replied.

“Fine by me,” Ellie said, walking immediately over to her. “Let me know if anything is making you uncomfortable,” she said, then settled her hands on Lara’s big ass and started to kiss her on the mouth. Lara let out a slightly startled sound and immediately leaned into the kiss, reaching up between them and grasping Ellie’s furred breasts.

“I suppose that leaves you and me,” Akila said, stepping up to Cait and tracing a fingertip around one of her vividly pink nipples.

Cait shuddered. “Good,” she replied, then took Akila and led her over to the smaller bed.

David finished cleaning up and then guided both Ellie and Lara back over to the large bed. The trio crawled onto it and he watched the two women continue making out with an intense passion. He ended up against Lara’s backside and reached between them, cupping one of her large, bare breasts in his grasp and massaging it gently. One of Ellie’s breasts pressed against the back of his hand, and there was a tremendous pleasure in being in between the two, in feeling Lara’s hot, smooth skin and Ellie’s warm, soft fur.

Watching the two women passionately make out was a study in pure sexual euphoria. They were both so fantastically beautiful in that rough, almost violent way that badass warrior women seemed to be. He continued groping her breast until she broke away and began to kiss him. He immediately fell back into love with her hot, luscious lips and the intensity with which she made out with him, the way her hands ran across his body, the sensation of her skin to his, and just the sheer, excited sexual energy he could feel pulsing through her, just like himself.

“Spread your legs and I’ll show you what the fuss is all about,” Ellie said.

“Oh fuck yes,” Lara replied immediately, laying flat on her back and opening her legs. Ellie laid down in between them and buried her face in Lara’s crotch. She spread the smooth lips of her pussy and began to lick, slowly, pressing hard, against her clit. Lara let out a scream. “Oh my God!” she cried, sounding genuinely surprise. “Oh that’s-oh! They weren’t fucking...kidding-OH! YES! OH FUCK, ELLIE!” she yelled.

David chuckled and kept kissing her and groping her big tits. She resumed making out with him intensely, writhing and twisting and squirming on the bed, almost like she could barely stand the absurd amounts of pleasure Ellie was lavishing her pussy with. She was able to make out for another minute or so, and then just lost it completely as Ellie slipped a finger inside of her and began fucking her with it. A moan from across the room caught David’s attention, and he glanced over. Cait and Akila were sixty-nining now, both of them licking at each other’s clits, both of them giving intense pleasure and drawing sounds of sexual satisfaction from the other.

He returned his attention to Lara and began licking one of her breasts, dragging his tongue across her nipple and around it, across the pale skin there. Then he started sucking on it while groping the other one, and she moaned and screamed and then she popped and start coming. David and Ellie continued to pleasure her as she orgasmed. If anything, Ellie intensified her actions, and Lara sounded like she was being murdered from how loud she was screaming in pure bliss. They kept at it until she was finished coming, then let her get her breath back.

“There, now you know,” Ellie said, looking very satisfied with herself.

“Yes...oh my God...oh fuck...” Lara panted. After a moment, she asked, “Now what?”

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to have both of you give me head at the same time,” David replied.

“Fine by me,” Ellie said.

“Yeah, I can do that,” Lara agreed.

A moment later, he was sitting on the edge of the bed while the two naked women were crouched on the floor in front of him, staring up at him, each looking painfully sexy. Ellie, in all her nude, lean, blue-furred glory, her tail twitching behind her, her eyes wide and a little wild. Lara, flushed, pale on several parts of her body, her short brown hair a mess, and her big tits looking just amazing. He especially loved how her pale thighs looked, pressed together like that as she crouched before him. Ellie gripped his cock and both women leaned in and began to lick the head. David groaned as he felt the intensely powerful pleasure begin to crackle into him. It wasn’t just their tongues, but how fucking erotic they both looked doing it.

Two women, two tough, older, seriously badass and insanely hot women were giving him head at the same time.

And he was going to fuck the hell out of them both very soon.

The thought came to him that whatever bullshit he had to put up with, whatever intense labor or terrifying battle or irritating job awaited him in the future, and all of those he had endured up until now, it was the intensely erotic moments like this that made it worth it. Maybe it was kind of crass or base to think so, but he hadn’t found anything better than having sex with really attractive and enthusiastic women that he loved.

Both of them licked and licked, first just the head, then all over, down his shaft, and Lara ducked down and licked his balls, and sensation was beyond amazing. They kept going until Lara took his cock into her mouth and started bobbing her head smoothly. As she sucked his dick, he glanced over at Cait and Akila. They were still pleasuring each other, and as he looked, Cait went into an intense, frenzied orgasm that wracked her whole pale body. She cried out in furious passion and nearly threw Akila off of her.

But the skilled nymph pleasured her throughout the experience, maintaining a stable hold on his redheaded lover.

He groaned, his attention forcibly returned to the two women pleasuring him, as Ellie took her turn, slipping his dick smoothly between her lips. She slowly moved down his shaft, back up again, down again, the ecstasy of her oral sex burning into him. She moaned as she sucked him off, and he moaned along with her. She kept going for a bit longer, then she passed it back to Lara. He watched the women with almost obsessive attention as they took turns sucking his dick. There was something exquisitely powerful about watching two hot, naked women crouching next to each other passing your cock back and forth between their mouths.

Finally, Ellie stood up. “Okay, no more, I want to get fucked.”

“On your hands and knees,” David replied.

“You got it.”

She got onto her hands and knees at the edge of the bed and he stood up, getting behind her. “You too,” he said to Lara, pointing to the spot beside Ellie. Lara did as she was told, getting onto her hands and knees right beside Ellie and presenting her thick, pale ass and glistening pink pussy to him. Her ass actually was bigger, and hotter.

He slid smoothly into Ellie, his cock coated in their saliva. As she let out a satisfied cry of bliss and he grabbed her hips and started stroking into her, he glanced over as he heard both Cait and Akila moan in shared pleasure. They were on their backs now, locked at the hips, rubbing their pussies together with looks on their faces split between ecstasy and concentration. It was an absurdly erotic sight as they both had broad hips and thick thighs and just huge fucking tits. Again, David’s attention was forcibly returned to Ellie as he got comfortably inside of her.

Her pussy was so fucking wet.

He groaned as he settled his hands on her firm, furred hips and really started fucking her. She let out a loud grunt and a moan and pushed her fit ass against him. Her tail began to thrash back and forth as he began fucking her harder.

Ellie liked it hard.

He screwed her, driving deep and hard into her wonderfully tight, inhuman vagina, until Lara complained that it was her turn.

“Fair point,” David said, pulling out of Ellie.

“Ugh! Come on, no! I’m not done yet!”

“You can wait your turn, slut,” Lara snapped.

Ellie laughed. “You do have guts.”

“That was-oh!-in question?”

“I meant in bed,” Ellie replied, watching as they fucked.

David settled his hands on her much broader hips and began ramming her, fucking her brains out and making her scream.

“Holy shit, that looks so hot,” Cait moaned.

He glanced over at her. “I think that looks hotter,” he replied as he watched her and Akila scissor, rubbing their crotches together intensely. Their big breasts swayed and bounced with the rhythm of their sex and they both looked so confident and sure of themselves as they fucked. Cait grit her teeth and began to go harder and faster, and Akila matched her.

“Come on, David! My turn!” Ellie complained.

“Okay, okay,” he replied, fucked Lara for another few seconds, then gave her big, pale ass a hard smack and pulled out. Slipping back over to Ellie, he gripped the base of her tail as he slid back into her. She let out a little shout. “You still like that, huh?”

“Yes...” she moaned.

He gripped her tail near its base, where it sprouted from her lower back, a bit more tightly, then pulled on it gently as he fucked her harder.

“AH! DAVID!” she cried.

“You gonna come?” he asked.

“If you keep doing that I-AH!” she cried as he pulled again.

He turned her into an incoherent, babbling mess about ten seconds later when he made her orgasm intensely. He’d forgotten about that tail trick. She screamed and moaned and cried out as she came all over his dick, her hot sex juices spraying out across his thighs and balls, her vaginal muscles clenching and fluttering wildly around his cock. He moaned loudly as he pounded her brains out, relishing the pure pleasure of it.

When she was finished, he let her fall forward, then moved back over to Lara. Something occurred to him as he looked down at her huge ass. “Hey, Lara...”

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Can I fuck you in the ass?”

She hesitated for a few seconds, considering it.

“That would be really hot,” Cait said, panting now, as she and Akila had temporarily exhausted themselves. “No pressure though you aren’t into anal.”

“No, I’m kinda into it...I’ve masturbated up my ass before. If you have lube, and you’re careful, then yes,” she said after thinking about it for a bit.

“Thank you so much,” he replied, immediately going for his bag.

“Wow, you’re that desperate to fuck my ass?” she asked, watching him.

“Obviously. You have such an amazing ass,” he replied.

“You really do,” Cait said.

He found the lube that he carried around with him just for such an occasion, lubed his cock up, then hurried back over to her. He spent a few moments carefully getting into her fat, pale ass. She moaned and cried out as he penetrated her, slipping carefully into her ass. All three women now watched intently.

“Fuck, you are big!” she moaned.

“You complaining?” he asked, fighting against the urge to fuck her hard and fast.

“A little,” she replied.

“I know how you feel,” Cait said. “He can’t get enough of my ass.”

“Ever since we’ve met you ask to do that at least one time every time you see me,” Akila murmured, smirking at him.

“That’s because you two have got such hot, fat asses...ah...fuck...” he groaned as he finished getting inside of her.

He settled his hands on her huge ass and began fucking her in the butt. She moaned loudly, hanging her head, as she took his cock. He enjoyed every second of it, finding the absurd tightness and texture of her ass clenched hard around his cock to be a perfect pleasure. He knew he wouldn’t last long, not with doing first time anal with Lara, and not after fucking Ellie like that. He doubted she would mind though. She seemed to be riding the line between enjoying and regretting it.

“I thought you were tough,” he said, unable to help but tease her a little.

“I am you fucker!” she snarled. “You’ve just got such a-oh!-such a fat fucking dick...oh fuck...” she moaned.

“So you’re saying you can take it harder?” he asked.

“Yes! Goddamnit! I can fucking take it harder!” she snapped.

He laughed and slapped her ass, then started going harder. She cried out.

“You sure?” he asked.

“YES!” she screamed at him.

He started really pounding her, gripping her broad hips more tightly and just fucking her ass like crazy, really pounding her. He listened to her cry out and scream and moan. He didn’t last a whole lot longer. Gripping her big hips tightly, his fingertips sinking into her soft, smooth skin, he started coming in her ass. David moaned and grunted, his hips jerking forward automatically as he began to shoot his load up her ass, his cock held firmly in place by its tightness. He spurted his seed into her hard and fast, pulses of pleasure blasting through him, and for a little while, he lost himself completely in her and in that orgasm.

When he was done, he carefully pulled out of her and found that he was still pretty hard, still pretty horny.

Which was good, because he had two other women to fuck.

“Okay, Cait, Akila, you’re next, lemme take a leak and wash up,” he said.

“God, I love how much endurance you have,” Cait murmured.

“It is quite nice,” Akila said.

“We’ve been helping him build it up,” Ellie said, grinning fiercely.

He took a leak out one of the windows, then moved over to the cleaning supplies and washed himself off thoroughly. By the time he was finished, the two pairs of women had swapped places. Now Ellie and Lara were making out on the smaller bed, while Cait and Akila awaited him expectantly on the larger one.

David quickly and eagerly joined them.

As he got onto the bed with them, Cait pushed him down onto his back. “We decided we wanted to take turns riding you,” she said.

“Oh, awesome,” he replied.

“Good boy,” Cait said, and mounted him. She slipped him fairly easily into her extremely wet, pregnant pussy and started to ride him, thrusting him deep inside of her. “God fucking dammit I’m so fucking horny since I got knocked up!” she complained as she fucked him.

“Lucky for you that you are surrounded by people sometimes almost as amorous as you are,” Akila said as she laid beside David and began to kiss him.

He kissed the nymph back, loving her natural taste, loving to take one of her large, firm breasts in his grasp and massage it.

“Yes! I! Am!” she grunted as she fucked his dick, putting her big, powerful hips to use.

Looking up at her, he could definitely see some change in her now. Her tits were a bit bigger and her stomach stuck out a little now. And she wasn’t even at the halfway mark yet. He couldn’t stop imaging what she’d look like in two or three months, how much bustier and curvier she would be, how much hornier she would be.

She was like a redheaded fuck goddess or a sex demon. Her huge, pale tits bounced and swayed as she rode him, and before long he found himself drawn to her, reaching and cupping them, groping them, squeezing them.

“Fuck I love you so fucking much,” she growled at him as she fucked herself with his rigid cock, the pleasure burning into both of them.

“I love you too, Cait. I love you so much,” he moaned as he started thrusting up into her.

For a few moments they were little more than two rutting, feral things, fucking furiously, reveling in the sheer, raw pleasure of sex, staring hard at each other, grasping each other as they screwed hard and fast.

Eventually, she came back to herself, working the most immediate of her sexual tension out, and letting Akila have a turn. Cait dismounted, Akila mounted. He groaned again as the exotically beautiful, curvaceous nymph took his dick into her and began fucking him the same way Cait had just been. Now his hands found her broad, firm hips, then back to her thick, well-padded ass. He touched her all over, so grateful to be reunited with her. Akila was a zesty, intense lover, he had been very glad to find, and each time they fucked it always seemed to surprise him again. She was so reserved otherwise. But not in bed, or wherever it was they were fucking.

The two women went back and forth like this for several more minutes, riding his dick hard and fast, screwing themselves with it, sending waves upon waves of pleasure burning into him until finally he couldn’t take it anymore and he began letting off inside of Akila. She moaned as she accepted his seed inside of her, pushing him all the way inside of herself, lowering herself as much as she could as he grasped her hips and thrust hard up into her. He cried out in pure mindless ecstasy as he orgasmed into that perfect nymph pussy.

He filled her up and it was glorious and gut-wrenchingly good.

When he was done, he fell back against the bed, going boneless, slicked with sweat and panting, gasping for breath from the exertion of the back-to-back threesomes. Akila got off of him and laid beside him, while Cait laid on his other side, and he put his arms around each of them and held the two nude, beautiful women to him.

They stayed like that for awhile before Cait pounced on him again.

CHAPTER SIX

“I hope everything’s all right,” Lara murmured.

“She’s probably busy,” David said.

“How long do we wait?” Ellie asked.

“Until she shows up,” David replied.

Ellie sighed but held her peace. It was morning now and they were waiting to meet Azure again. They had fucked, eaten, and lounged around for the rest of the previous day, long into the night, until finally sleep had found them. David was feeling very refreshed after a long and deep sleep. All of them were tired enough from the strenuous sex and lengthy journey yesterday that no one woke him up for some midnight sex. Not that he didn’t appreciate fucking in the middle of the night, but he also sometimes really appreciated a long, unbroken sleep.

They’d fucked in the morning, then had a quick breakfast before packing up and heading back over to the lake.

It had been almost an hour since they’d arrived, and still Azure hadn’t shown. David wondered what she was doing, and hoped that she was okay. He appreciated her effort, and her situation, if it truly was as he understood it. Trust was hard to come by, it seemed harder still to come by for squids and nymphs more than anyone else. He glanced at Lara. She’d had a conversation with Stern over the radio on the way there and from what he could gather of it, it sounded like he’d shared at least a little more of the plan with her.

Lara said she would explain it once Azure was there.

David looked up at the skies again. The gray clouds were leaving. It had rained last night, and he had made it a point to stand on the place’s front porch with each of the women. He and Cait stood together and held each other for a long time before finally going to bed. The rain was as wonderful as he had remembered it. If anything, it was better now. He was in love and doing things with his life he would never have genuinely thought likely or even possible. In a way, the rain felt like it was welcoming them into spring, out of the winter.

When he looked back down, he saw that Azure had appeared.

“Azure,” he said, drawing the others’ attention.

“I apologize for the delay,” she said. “I had other duties to attend to, and there was a viper attack on my home. But I delivered the medication and we confirmed that it was, indeed, Aquazine. You delivered on your promise, and so, after some deliberation, my people have agreed to open a path of communication.”

“Okay,” David said. “Lara?”

Lara stepped forward. “I spoke with my own leader this morning. At the moment, he’s determined that, unless you have a much better idea, any plan we formulate will be best executed on the island,” she said, looking past Azure for a moment at the island that resided in the center of the lake. David followed her gaze, he remembered that awful place.

“This makes sense,” Azure replied after a moment’s consideration. “Do you have reliable transportation to the island?”

“Well, we’ve got the fishing village...” David said uncertainly, although that wasn’t exactly what he’d call reliable at this point. Two of their motors had broken recently, and they’d sunk one of their boats after accidentally lighting it on fire. They were having a bit of a bad luck streak at the moment and he wasn’t sure how much he could rely on them.

“That was another part of what Stern said. The next phase of our side of the plan, at least, is to take over those abandoned dockyards, on the far side of the lake, closer to the military outpost. He’s done some recon and there’s a boat there, a good-sized, sturdy one we could use to ferry people to and from the island. There’s a lot of vipers around, though,” Lara explained.

“Okay. It sounds like we both need time to make progress. I need to coordinate with my people and determine the best course of action. How many people can you produce for this operation?” Azure asked.

David thought about it. “Well, between us, our allies, and Lima Company...two dozen?”

“Probably,” Lara said.

“Very well. That might be sufficient. Will you return to this spot in two days’ time?”

“Yes. That should be enough to secure the docks and fix the boat, which it will probably certainly need,” Lara said.

“Very well.” Azure disappeared back beneath the water.

“Now what?” Ellie asked.

“Now,” Lara said, “we have a little chat with the boss and get the logistics on this operation to retake that dockyard he was referring to.” She activated her radio and turned it up this time as they gathered around. “This is Hale to Stern, over.”

The radio bleeped and crackled with static, then Stern’s voice came back. “Stern here. What’s the situation? Over.”

“Squids are willing to work with us, but they need two days to figure it out. I figured we could use the time to take over the docks and fix the boat. Over.”

“Perfect. David, you there? You listening?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m here Stern,” David replied.

“Okay. Unfortunately, since Lima Company shouldered the majority of the losses among all the groups involved in the stalker situation, our numbers are down, and we haven’t exactly been able to build them back up. So I’m going to have to ask you to muster the numbers to shoulder the brunt of this particular op,” Stern said.

“How many will we need and how many can you commit?” David replied, not liking where this was going.

“Three teams, I’d say at least four people per team. I will personally lead one of the teams, and provide my own soldiers for my team. I’ll let you keep Lara for the moment, though. I want to make the assault today, as soon as possible.”

“Fine. We’ll need at least an hour or two to muster up some people,” David replied.

“Fair’s fair. Meet us in the woods east of the dockyards. We’ll be there,” Stern said. “Any questions?”

“No,” David replied after looking at the others.

“Okay then, out.”

“Well, great,” David muttered as Lara put the radio away.

“Sorry, he didn’t mention that earlier,” she murmured.

“On the one hand I get it, he makes a valid point, you guys lost like at least a dozen people in those attacks, maybe more. But the difference is Lima Company was a fifty-person unit, each a trained soldier. Most of us aren’t,” David said.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Lara replied.

“It’s not your fault. Well, Ruby said she’d help us. We can almost certainly get Vanessa or Katya to come along. That’s seven. We’d need at least one other person...”

“We should snag Jennifer. She’s a way better shot than before, and she wasn’t bad before, and more suited to combat. And we’ll probably want her there anyway to take a look at this boat they’ve seen,” Cait said.

“Makes sense to me. Anyone object? Have other plans?” he asked, looking around. They all shook their head and agreed with the plan. “All right, first stop: Ruby.”

…

This time when they came to talk to Ruby, Murphy, the village leader, who had apparently noticed their coming and going over the past few days, decided maybe it was high time for him to actually get involved.

They met at the edge of the village.

“Okay, Ruby told me you’re doing something about the vipers,” he said once they had all gathered. “What, exactly, does ‘something’ mean?”

“We’re working on a plan with Lima Company, some of the people from the hospital, and the squids still alive in the lake,” David replied.

“Shit, that must be some plan.” He made a face. “Can’t say I’m all that pleased at working with the fucking military types again.” He looked at Lara. “Honestly, no offense, you seem pretty on the level, but the rest of your people...”

“We’re not all bad, but...yeah, some of them are assholes, and Stern hasn’t done much to engender good faith between our two groups,” Lara replied.

“Very true.” He paused for a moment, looking around at them all slowly, no doubt taking time to measure things out in his mind. After a moment, he finally sighed. “Well, I guess I don’t have much choice in the matter. I’ve probably got more skin in this viper problem than anyone else. Except the squids. So I’m game. What do you need from me?”

“Right now, just Ruby. Later, men and possibly parts to repair a boat,” Lara said.

He frowned. “I can supply the men, but probably not the boat parts. We’re tapped out as it is just trying to fix our own boats, unfortunately.”

“Fair enough. We’ll keep you updated,” Lara said.

“All right. Good luck.”

“You ready Ruby?” David asked. “We’ve got places to go.”

“Let me get my weapons,” she replied, and headed off back to her cabin.

…

This time, it was Vanessa who opted to go with them for their outing. Katya would have gone too, but they’d had another attack of vipers since last David and the others had been there. After Vanessa had grabbed her gear, they struck off to Haven. It was a fairly quick walk, as they all seemed to be full of energy, ready to tackle the next big project that had landed in front of them. David had to admit, getting shit done was addictive. Not just on the small, day-to-day stuff, which was certainly satisfying in its own right, but in these big, giant, and admittedly dangerous projects that helped to better the entire region.

It was, in a crazy sort of way, highlighting the reality of getting shit done to him. Functionally speaking, there wasn’t much difference between who he was now and who he was a year ago. Sure, he was fitter, stronger, faster, probably a bit smarter. Really, the biggest thing that had changed was how decisive he was. Was literally the only thing that stood between him and getting shit like this done just a matter of doing it?

Although he knew the answer to that question was a bit more complicated, as his most major actions had resulted heavily from other people’s actions as much as his own, that was really just a bigger version of the same solution: people doing things. He supposed the problem he was having with this notion was that he had come across a lot of situations where it seemed like people were just stuck with a problem, and although he knew some problems could never be solved, no matter what, those problems were actually kind of rare.

He supposed the difficulty in accepting this view of reality was this: if all it took to solve problems, hell, even most problems, was people working together and doing shit, then why were there so many problems?

Were that many people really just...lazy? Apathetic? Frightened? Defeated?

He supposed that was the case, it had to be the case.

David shook off these thoughts as they came into Haven and found Evie, Jennifer, and April together in the dining area, talking over the remains of lunch.

“Hey! You’re back, and you’ve brought friends, and...you’ve all got that determined look on your faces,” Evie said. “I take it the wheels of progress are in motion?”

“Hell yes,” David replied. “Is Catalina still around?”

“No, Stern called her back an hour ago,” Jennifer replied.

“Figured,” Lara said.

“The short of it is: we’re assaulting those old dockyards. They’re overrun with vipers. We need at least Jennifer’s help, and we’d welcome yours if you want to come, babe,” David said, looking at Evelyn.

“Yeah, I could help,” Evie said, and Jennifer nodded.

“Does that mean I’m in charge?” April asked.

“Yeah,” David replied. “Are you comfortable with that?”

“Honestly...yes. I’ve made so many friends and learned and done so much over winter, I actually feel pretty confident in handling it,” April replied. She laughed. “Plus, well, if anything does happen, I’ve got Ashley, Lindsay, and Amanda to help. Lindsay and Amanda are both pretty authoritative and good at getting shit done.”

“That’s very true,” Cait agreed.

“When do we leave?” Jennifer asked.

“Now,” David replied.

“Okay, let’s grab our gear,” Evie said, getting up.

…

David was feeling good.

Things were coming together. They were now nine strong and ready to take on the mission at the dockyards. He’d stocked up on ammo, making sure his pistol was loaded and ready for action, as well as a submachine gun he’d brought along. Both had a good ten spare magazines of ammo. He’d also brought a combat knife that he’d taken to sharpening and maintaining over the past few weeks. It was a solid, six-inch piece of shiny, razor sharp metal that he’d gotten decent at fighting with. Everyone else seemed to be in good spirits, too.

He hoped it wouldn’t all fall apart when they got to the docks.

As good as he felt about their odds, he knew it could go very badly very quickly. He remembered seeing those dockyards, closer to the southeast side of the lake, a little ways away from the cabins that served as a sort of secondary village to the fishers. He thought back to the time when they had first gone to the fishing village and helped them reclaim it from the vipers. That seemed like ages ago. Fuck, what would he be doing a few months from now?

They found Stern, Catalina, and a few other soldiers crouched at the edge of the treeline directly across from the dockyards. They joined them and David studied the yards for a moment. They looked just as he remembered them: large, ominous, forbidding. Dangerous. Even now he could see viper movement among the buildings.

“Is this everyone?” Stern asked, looking across the group.

“Yes,” David replied, trying not to be curt with the man. Stern always sounded just a little disappointed or condescending whenever he was talking to...well, anyone nowadays. David wasn’t sure if it was just the way he was or it was intentional.

“There’s four primary structures,” Stern said, staring at the dockyards. “The first two you can see on the right side there. That’s a storage warehouse and, behind it, a bunkhouse. To the left is a utilities building and a handful of supply sheds. The middle is the big one, the dry-dock. That’s where the boat is. The plan is simple: we split up into three groups and each take one of the outer buildings. We kill anything that moves and once that’s done, we all hit the dry-dock simultaneously. We’ll want to be very careful with our shots, and we can’t have any explosives or fire. There’s just one boat in there and it’s in good condition and big enough to hold a dozen or so of us and the less damage we can do to it the better. Any questions?” he asked.

There were no questions. Everyone was ready to attack.

They split up into three groups: Alpha, Beta, and Charlie. Stern led his group consisting of Catalina and three others from his company. Only one of them he recognized: Corporal Cole, the stern-faced, short, stocky man he’d fought alongside during the stalker situation. David headed up Beta Team with Lara, Ruby, and Vanessa backing him up. The others went with Charlie Team, who Ellie ended up leading.

They made sure their arsenals were good to go, and then they began heading for the dockyards.

Their approach was quick at first, but they lost speed as they split up. A parking lot buffeted the front of the dockyards, host to just a handful of rusted-out hulks of metal that used to be cars. Stern’s team circled around wide to the left and disappeared from view as they slid behind the utilities building. David and all the others continued on towards the two other structures. There had once been a fence surrounding most of the dockyards, but it was long since destroyed. David had the impression that some great battle must have occurred here at one point, as the buildings had a lot of makeshift repairs attached to them.

As he and the others moved among the wrecked vehicles, they began to see vipers. The bulbous-headed things with ugly gray skin and disturbing, huge black eyes started shrieking the moment they saw the interlopers on their territory, and they began rushing at them from out of the dockyards with a singleness of mind that was terrifying to witness. Everyone stopped and opened fire. Over half a dozen guns spoke at once, mostly pistols with a shotgun, two rifles, and David’s submachine gun thrown in for good measure.

There had to be two dozen of the things. They ran with an awful speed and dexterity over the cracked pavement that served as the foundation of the dockyards and then onto the asphalt parking lot. David targeted one of the nearest ones and squeezed the trigger. A burst of fire spat out of the SMG and split the thing’s head into pulpy pieces of gore, instantly killing it and sending its oddly small, almost withered looking body flopping to the ground. He shifted aim and fired again, and again, killing two more as he threw more bullets their way.

All around him the others fired as well, their bullets found their marks, and within ten seconds the initial battle was over.

“All right...that was the easy part,” Lara said as they reloaded.

“Yep,” David replied. “We ready to do this?”

They all called back that they were ready for war. They left the parking lot, moving over what remained of the fence that served to divide the dockyards from the parking lot, stepping over the dead vipers. They split up, Ellie leading her team off to the right, to get to the building behind the one that David was going to take on.

The warehouse.

It was a huge, dark, imposing structure. A thing of solidly built, graffiti-stricken brick with old metal grilles over the windows, most of which had been broken open violently. They got up to the front of the building and moved along it until they had reached the main way in. They were in an open area between the warehouse and the dry-dock. He didn’t like the look of the dry-dock. Well, he didn’t like the look of any of it, but they could get hit from the back pretty easily.

“Okay,” he said as he finished checking the situation out, “Ruby, cover our back. Vanessa, you’re going to stand right here in front of the door with your big assault rifle, ready to shoot anything that comes out. Lara and I are each going to grab one of the two doors and open them at the same time. As soon as they are open, we will join you in shooting anything that comes out.”

They all nodded and got into position. David took up the right door and tested the handle, it was functional and apparently not locked. Lara did the same and she nodded tightly to him. “Ready? Set...go!”

They both pulled the doors opened. They gave way with a tremendous squealing that made him wince. There were holes in the ground near where the corner of the doors would line up, and David quickly realized that a little metal pole attached to the base of the door was meant to be dropped, so that they could be locked in place. He kicked his and saw Lara do the same. Almost immediately, Vanessa opened fire.

David gripped his SMG and stepped around the door, careful to stay out of her line of fire, and for a second felt a bolt of pure fear.

There had to be thirty of the fucking things in there, running right at them, barreling towards them like a tidal wave of gray undead flesh.

“Contacts!” Ruby shouted as she began to fire.

“Fuck! How many?!” David called as he opened fire, sweeping the SMG back and forth as he held the trigger down, the gun rattling violent in his grasp.

“A dozen!” Ruby called back.

“Lara, help her!”

“On it!”

The four of them stood roughly back-to-back, each facing an onrushing horde of monsters. He could hear gunfire elsewhere in the dockyards. The other teams must have found their own unpleasant surprises. Not that it was exactly a surprise. He didn’t know why but he kept being surprised by how many of them there were. He went through the whole magazine, ejected it, slapped a fresh one in, and then went through that second one. He didn’t even have to aim beyond trying to angle the bullets into their heads. There were that many of them. Vanessa seemed to be having a great time. She was shouting and laughing as she ran through every round in her magazine. She’d brought a very large assault rifle that could hold custom-made seventy round magazines, and the huge thing definitely fit her massive, eight-foot frame.

More vipers came at them and it took David three whole magazines before they finally stopped. As soon as he reloaded and he saw that there were no more coming, he turned around and checked to see how the others were doing.

“Clear?” he asked.

“Looks that way,” Lara replied.

“Let’s get inside,” David said. “Slowly.”

They finished reloading their weapons and then David and Lara went carefully in through the entrance. There was at least adequate light here. Besides most of the windows being broken open, there had been skylights, and they were also broken. A lot of rain and snow had gotten in over the years and it showed. Most of the stuff that was even left in the warehouse was heavily rusted over. It didn’t look like they’d be clearing much from the place. But that didn’t matter. In the moment, all that mattered was killing every last viper.

He scouted out the geographical situation of the warehouse. There were a few clusters of large crates to his right, and some big giant shipping containers ahead and to the left. Also left were stairs that led up to a second story. Unlike the original warehouse he’d been in, this was less of a makeshift second story and instead was a real one, with the rooms up there taking up half of the upper warehouse. He considered it.

“Vanessa, you and Ruby check around down here. Lara, with me upstairs. Shout if you need help,” David said.

“On it,” Vanessa replied, and headed off towards the crates. Ruby went after her.

He and Lara headed over to the stairs. As he approached, a clutch of vipers suddenly came out from behind the shipping containers, some going around them, some clambering up over the top of them. Cursing, he aimed and fired, blasting a bloody line of bullets up the nearest one’s thin, taut-skinned torso and ultimately putting a bullet between its eyes. Its shattered body collapsed to the floor. He switched targets and scored a headshot on a second one. Lara opened fire with her pistol, carefully punching holes in their big, weirdly-shaped heads and spraying their old blood across the metal sides of the shipping containers.

As soon as the clutch was dead, he led the way up the stairs. It ended in an open doorway, the door itself missing, probably broken off and used for kindling at some point. David looked through the doorway at a little hall that turned right after just a meter or two. He carefully moved into it. Thankfully there was light from windows in the hallway. Outside, in the distance, he heard more gunfire. As he reached the turn in the corridor and peered slowly around the corner, he nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard more gunfire, this time much closer. Either Ruby or Vanessa, they were both armed with automatic assault weapons, had found something. In that same moment, he caught sight of several creatures in the hallway.

“Shit,” he muttered, and stepped out, gun at ready.

They began coming for him, shrieking and leaping at him. He put them down with burst fire from his SMG, his bullets exploding their heads in ugly, disgusting displays of gore and bits of brain. Their innards splattered the hallway walls as they died. From there, it was a relatively simple process of moving down the corridor and stopping to clear each room as they passed. They took turns doing it, one covering the other, and within fifteen minutes, they had killed everything in the warehouse, reunited with the others, and gone back outside after double-checking that all of the vipers truly had been wiped out.

The gunfire largely had died down by then. As they began to head around the other side of the building, to check on Ellie’s team, Lara got in touch with Stern. And they didn’t make it too far before running into Charlie Team.

David quickly studied them, checking for wounds. They all seemed okay, except for...Akila. She had a bloodied bandage over the side of her lower right leg. “What happened?” he asked, immediately worried that one of them had gotten her.

“Just a stray round nicked me,” Akila replied. “I’ll be fine, David.”

“I...all right,” he replied. He wanted to ask if she was sure, he didn’t want her pushing herself, but he also figured she was the kind of woman who might react as if he was insulting her capabilities or strength, so he just took her at her word.

“Stern’s squad has finished cleaning up,” Lara reported. “He’s ready to begin the last part of the assault.”

“All right, let’s get into position,” David replied.

They split up again as they approached the dry-dock. Coordinating with Stern over the radio, they agreed to hit it from three different sides. David’s team would head up to the top side, while Ellie’s team would take the right, and Stern’s team would take the left. They’d be careful not to hit each other in the crossfire and would kill anything inside, then sweep the building and make sure that nothing was hiding.

And that was exactly what they did.

By then, they had apparently killed most of the vipers who had been hiding out in the area, as all the gunfire had drawn them out of their hiding places. They hit the dry-dock and found barely a dozen of the things still lingering inside. They were careful with their shots, as the boat that Stern had been talking about was hung from the ceiling, suspended by chains and in surprisingly good condition. Once they had cleared the whole structure, they posted guards on the exit and David gathered with Lara, Stern, Cait, Jennifer, and one of the soldiers he didn’t recognize. A tall, thin woman with glasses and a frown on her face.

“Now what?” Cait asked.

“Now, Corporal Lina here takes a look at the boat,” Stern replied.

“We have a genius engineer of our own,” David said, nodding to Jennifer. “We brought her along to help.”

“More the merrier,” Stern said, though a small hint of annoyance showed through. “You two get cracking on this and figure out what it’s going to take to get it running again. I’d like it ready to go by tomorrow night, if at all possible.”

“I won’t know that until I look at it,” Lina said. She stepped up to Jennifer. “Are you going to be comfortable working with me?”

“If you’re comfortable working with me, then yes,” Jennifer replied. David was glad to see that she’d either honed or regained much of her people skills since they’d first met. She was damn near standing up for herself, something she seemed to have difficulty with before.

“Good then. Let’s get to work.”

“What about the rest of us?” David asked.

“We should make sure these dockyards stay secure. I would appreciate your help in either patrolling the area or making the buildings more defensible. I noticed there’s metal siding and welding gear around. We could seal up a lot of the windows...” he said.

“Yeah, although the warehouse will be a bitch with those skylights,” Cait said.

“Let’s get to work then,” Stern said.

And so they got to work.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The rest of that day felt pretty productive.

Securing the utilities building wasn’t all that difficult. They just had to patch a pair of windows, and ended up welding some iron bars into place. The bunkhouse was a bit more of a pain. The warehouse was the real bitch of a problem, and although they made progress on it, David imagined that it was going to take a lot of time and effort to make it actually secure. They paused for meals and breaks three times before the sun set.

Jennifer and Lina crawled all over the boat, found a pair of clipboards, some paper and pens, and began writing down everything that was wrong. As soon as they had a complete list of problems that needed to be fixed to make the boat seaworthy, they assembled a little task force consisting of themselves, Cait, David, and Ruby to check the dockyards over for these parts. That was what they ended up doing until the sun went down and that was what ultimately made the bulk of that day feel productive, if a bit tedious.

“So where are we at?” Stern asked after they had completed their search of the dockyards.

The dry-dock had transformed since they’d first found it. The bodies had been cleared out, the windows covered up and secured, the refuse and broken furniture gathered and tossed away after determining whether or not it could be used, and a quartet of big, metal tables had been set up in a circle around the boat. The tops of these tables were now scattered with all manner of nuts, bolts, scrap metal, spare parts, diagrams, drawings, tools, and a random assortment of other things that the pair of engineers thought they might need.

“The boat is in surprisingly good condition,” Lina reported. Her face was smudged with oil and grease at this point, as was Jennifer’s, and their clothes were dusty and greasy as well. It didn’t seem to bother either of them. “We need to patch the hull, but that’ll be easy. It seems like whoever got it in here did so within the last year and patched it up, but left the job undone for some reason. Maybe they died. Anyway, the engine is the real problem. We’ve managed to find most of the parts we need to repair the engine and the electrical system, and I know we’ve got almost all the rest back at base. But there’s one part missing and I don’t think we have it. Right now, I need to go back to base to gather the parts and look for that one missing part. I’ll come back with Mitch and Copper tomorrow and we can get to work.”

“And I can travel with some of you,” Jennifer said, looking at David and the others. “Tomorrow we need to head around, talk with the other settlements. There’s an outside chance that they might have the part we’re looking for, but it’s unlikely.”

“What do we do if we can’t find it?” Cait asked.

“Maybe Azure could help then,” David said.

“Maybe...I imagine a lot of stuff’s fallen in the lake,” Lara murmured.

“If it’s been rusting in the lake, I don’t think we can use it,” Jennifer said.

David sighed. “Well...we’ll figure something out. We always do.”

“All right, then. Lara, stick with them so we can coordinate via radio. Keep me appraised of the situation,” Stern said.

“Will do,” Lara replied.

He ended up taking just Lina with him to go back to the base, leaving the other three soldiers there to watch the boat overnight. Catalina approached him after Stern was gone.

“Hi,” she said, with a surprisingly nervous look on her face. “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since...I, uh, last saw you.”

“It’s okay, I know you’ve been really busy,” David said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine...do you still, um...like me?” she asked.

“What? Yeah, why?”

“I’ve just had experiences where I’ve-” She glanced at the other soldiers, who were over across the way, setting up for the night, “you know, been with a guy, and he pretty much just ignored me after that. I mean, I get it, sometimes you just want to bang once and be done with people, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be like...I mean, you wouldn’t be completely done with me.”

“I told you, he’s not like that,” Lara said.

“Catalina, I like you. And I’m happy to talk to you and work with you whether or not we’re sleeping together,” David replied.

“Oh. Good. And, I mean, for the record, I do want to do it again,” she said, grinning.

“Me too,” he said.

“We should be going,” Cait said. “It’s getting late...”

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense, you still have to walk back to Haven. I just have one request, um, could someone stay and help guard this thing? There’s just the three of us...”

“I’m pretty comfortable hanging around here,” Ruby offered.

“Yeah, I don’t really feel like walking all the way back home tonight, so I could definitely use guard duty as an excuse to hang out here,” Vanessa said.

“Oh wow, that’d be great,” Catalina replied. “Thank you!”

“We’ll be back tomorrow. Radio if it’s an emergency,” Lara said.

“I will.”

They left after performing one more, quick sweep of the area, and David’s group then returned to Haven. By the time he got home, he was beat. It had been a full, exhaustive day. He checked in with Amanda, who was on guard with a few others, and after getting the news that things were fine at home, he went and found April. She was sitting in the main entryway of the office that was their home and where they ran Haven from, reading a book.

“How’d it go? Oh, Akila, you’re hurt. Lay down,” she said as she set the book aside and got up. She went to grab some medical supplies.

“I’m fine,” Akila replied.

“Lay down and let me look at it. What happened?” April replied.

Akila let out a small sigh but complied, laying down on the couch they had there for guests. “A bullet ricocheted and nicked me,” she said.

“Is everyone else okay otherwise?” April asked as she came over with a small medical kit.

“We’re all fine. Just tired,” Ellie said. “And on that note, I’m going to bed. For once, I’m too tired for sex. See you in the morning.”

They all told her goodnight.

“I should go see to our guns,” Jennifer said. “I imagine they’ll be seeing a lot more use over the next few days, so they need to be in top notch condition.”

They all thanked her for that, and gave her their guns, and she put them downstairs, then ran up to get Ellie’s and look after it. April peeled away the bandage, inspected the wound, then cleaned and re-bandaged it.

“Am I to understand that you will require my help until this operation is finished?” Akila asked while April worked.

“We would definitely appreciate it,” Cait replied.

“Very well. I won’t go on any of my wandering forays until we’re done. Though I would like at least one of you in my bed tonight,” she said.

“Dibs,” April said immediately, and they laughed. “What, I haven’t had much of a chance to sleep with her yet.” She glanced up at Akila from where she crouched by her leg. “If, you know, you’ll have me.”

“Of course I will, you know I am attracted to you,” Akila replied.

“Excellent.”

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Lara asked.

“Yes,” David replied. “If there’s nothing else, I need sleep.”

“Well, there’s something else, but it’ll help you sleep,” Evie said with a sly grin.

He took her hand and they headed upstairs. Cait made sure everything was secure and locked up for the night, then she and Lara followed after them.

…

If that first day was productive, then the second day was the opposite.

David felt like he damn near wasted an entire day by the time he was done with it. After waking up and having some really nice morning sex with first Cait and then Evie, (Lara was already up, exercising by then), and grabbing some breakfast, he set out with Jennifer, Cait, Lara, and Ellie. They first visited the farmers and asked them if they had the part in question. They didn’t, and they also had a job they needed doing. Ellie ended up agreeing to stick around and take care of it, and said she’d meet them back at Haven.

From there they had walked to one of Cait’s stashes, where she stored old tech and gear she used to come across while out wandering, but that was a no go as well. So was the hospital. Vanessa had returned home by then and she assured them that things were progressing smoothly down at the dockyards. Lina and her engineering friends had arrived with a bit of backup and had promptly got to work on fixing the boat and securing the dockyards more firmly. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the part they were looking for.

They swung back by Jennifer’s old place, just in case she had it in store somewhere, but that turned out to be a dead end as well. From there, they made the trek over to the fishing village and found that Ruby had returned to her people as well. And they’d showed up just in time, too, because a viper attack was being mounted. They rushed in, guns blazing, and helped the fisherman take the creepy little monsters out as they swarmed out of the lake. Although it was a good defense and everyone was okay, David was more than a little frustrated to find that they didn’t have the part that they were looking for either.

As they headed back to Haven, Lara confirmed once more with Lina that she hadn’t found it at their outpost, and so they were stymied.

“Now what?” Cait asked as they walked back to Haven. It was already getting dark, they’d basically walked the whole day away at that point.

David sighed. “Fuck, I don’t know. We have to go talk to Azure tomorrow morning, maybe she’ll have some kind of an idea.”

“I hope so,” Jennifer muttered.

They walked on.

…

“I hope she’s got some good news for us,” David said as he led them along the lake’s edge. The morning sun was out and they were making for the meeting spot.

“There’s something we haven’t asked her yet,” Lara replied.

“Whether or not the vipers are reproducing?” he asked. She nodded. “I intend to ask her this time around. I didn’t want to overwhelm her with questions or requests last time. Honestly, I feel like we’re lucky just to be getting to talk to her. Her people seem very...secretive, and slow to trust. I’m just hoping I don’t fuck this up somehow.”

“I think you’re being a little overly cautious,” Akila said. She had joined them again, walking alongside himself, Lara, Jennifer, and Ellie. Cait had been frustrated to learn that her endurance was beginning to wane a little bit, as she’d been nearly unable to get out of bed following the previous two days’ exertions. She’d wanted to keep going, but David and April had basically bullied her into staying in bed. She’d been pissed, but ultimately had relented, so she was still asleep back at Haven. David felt a little bad leaving her there, but they had work to do.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Based on our limited interactions, I can say that squids and nymphs aren’t all that dissimilar, and, more importantly, I believe that Azure and myself are quite similar in personality. And although she seems guarded...I think she likes you.”

“Don’t say you find that hard to believe,” Ellie said, interrupting him.

“Why not?” he replied immediately. “She’s a squid, why would she have any interest in me?”

“Consider the facts,” Akila replied. “The first is that I know what I’m talking about. The second is that she is apparently the only one of her entire clan who has chosen to have any kind of regular contact with outsiders. I could be wrong, but I think the evidence bears that out. And if she is one of the few of her kind who finds herself in the way of attraction to those not of her own race, which, again, I was rare in that regard as well, then it would make sense. I could be wrong, don’t go making advances on her just because of what I’ve said, but be a little more...comfortable, around her. Relaxed, I guess. When you tense up, even if you hide it well, those of us that are more sensitive can pick up on it, and we tend to tense as well.”

David sighed. “I’ll try.”

By the time they reached the spot, Azure was already there, waiting for them. “What news do you bring?” she asked.

“Well, we’ve taken over the dockyards and secured transportation to the island, and we’ve gotten enough people involved to gather strength in numbers. But we need to actually repair the boat that’s going to take us to the island, which we can’t do without a specific part,” David explained. “We’ve hunted all over for it since we last spoke and can’t find it. We were hoping that you might somehow know how to help.”

Azure was silent for a long moment, looking down at the water, thinking. They waited. Suddenly, her eyes widened a little and she looked back up. “Yes! I believe I can help. I traveled up the river once, awhile ago, and I came across a structure that housed a boat. Would that be a possible location that may hold what you are looking for?”

“Yes,” Jennifer said. “That’d be a pretty good bet.”

“Can you take us there?” David asked.

“I can,” Azure said. “Let me inform my people. I will return as fast as I can.”

They watched her disappear back under the water.

“Well, that went pretty well,” David murmured.

“Told you,” Akila said.

While they waited, Lara updated Stern on the situation, and had him again send Catalina as a runner to Haven to update them as well. After about twenty minutes, Azure resurfaced. She appeared a little flustered as she came up out of the water and they got a good look at her for the first time. David figured she would be attractive, but he secretly wondered if there was any type of inhuman that he wouldn’t find attractive, and if that type might lie in either the squids or the AVs. And apparently the answer was: hell no.

Because Azure was very attractive.

As she emerged from the lake, the water slid smoothly down her taut, smooth, gray-skinned body. She was almost as tall as he was and had a very athletic build, with well developed thighs and pleasantly broad hips. She had a medium-leaning-towards-large chest, her firm breasts topped by darker gray nipples. Her vagina was a taut slit between her thighs. She was completely naked. He noticed a few more interesting features to her body as she came to stand before them. Namely she had webbing between her toes and fingers, which made sense, and also a trio of narrow gill slits above each collarbone.

She regarded them all for a moment as she no doubt got used to standing on land again. Her face was narrow and a bit angular, her eyes still dark and almost luminous beneath her messy, wet, short teal hair. Her body was long and smooth, and he kept coming back to what good of shape she was in. She was very toned, and that also made sense, given that while how he normally got around on land was pretty basic, she had to swim everywhere. Even doing that at a leisurely pace, if you did it all the time it would make you very fit.

“Before we go, I will need some simple clothing and a weapon, a gun, preferably,” Azure said.

“I can help with the clothes,” Ellie said. “Your hips are a bit bigger than mine but it should be okay.” She shrugged out of her pack, crouched, and began digging around in it.

“I can give you my pistol,” David said, detaching the pistol from his hip, holster and all. “I assume you can use one?”

“Yes. I have trained myself to survive up here. Although I can fight with a number of weapons, I have found myself most suited to using your firearms,” Azure replied. She accepted a pair of cargo shorts and a tanktop from Ellie, and the holster, pistol, and spare ammo from David, and thanked them. A moment later, she had dressed and situated the weapon. “Okay, I am ready.” She turned and began walking back the way they’d come along the lake.

“Any idea how long it will take to get there and back?” Lara asked.

Azure was silent for a moment. “If I remember your time-telling correctly, it is a four-hour walk,” she said.

“Wonderful,” Ellie murmured.

“Just be happy we have this opportunity,” Jennifer said. “That part is rare.”

“Apparently,” Lara said. “Thank you for helping us, Azure.”

“You are welcome,” she replied.

“Azure, I have a question,” David said.

“You may ask.”

“Are the vipers breeding? Not infecting your people, but specifically reproducing?”

“...yes,” she said.

No one spoke for several seconds. David felt fear, like a cold, heavy stone, settle deep in his guts. He glanced warily at the lake.

“Are you certain?” Akila asked.

“Yes. I have seen their burrows in the muck. I have led raids against them. But by now they are too many and we are too few, and this is not a thing we can call on land-dwellers for help against, unfortunately, as you are too ill-suited to survive underwater, let alone make attacks,” Azure explained unhappily to them.

“So what’s the plan, exactly?” David asked. “How are we going to deal with this?”

Azure looked reluctant. “I cannot tell you. Not yet.” She paused and glanced at them, and she looked actually regretful, almost embarrassed. “You must understand, my people are extremely slow to trust. It wasn’t even a unified decision that we should work with you. Besides the fact that we have a history of keeping to ourselves, and a few unfortunate incidents with land-dwellers, we have also been pushed to the brink of extinction by the vipers. We have all seen our friends, our families, our lovers die or be turned into mindless monsters. Although I want to work with you, and I believe you, my people have demanded a bit more time before we finalize this arrangement. Personally, I see no reason to, but...I am reluctant to go against their wishes.”

“It’s okay, I understand,” David said. “I want to respect your wishes and your people’s wishes. Although it would be nice to have a finalized agreement probably by tomorrow, provided this little endeavor of ours goes well today.”

“I have similar hopes,” Azure said. “Once you have your transportation ready, I really do not see any reason not to speak openly about it. If it comes down to it, I will try to force my people’s hand, because in truth, we can scarcely afford to wait as it is.”

For the next hour or so they walked along in silence, leaving first the lake behind, taking up the path that ran alongside the river, and then leaving the boundaries of the familiar region behind. They all seemed content, or at least unable to do anything else but mull over this latest bit of information. The vipers were breeding. It was stomach-churning news, and David wondered if they would be able to pull off a second miracle. If they could, it was going to require them to get their shit together, act quickly and decisively, and work with the squids.

Right now, it was all looking pretty iffy.

But he tried to keep a positive mindset.

“David,” Ellie said after awhile, “isn’t this the road you and Evie initially came down? When you first walked into the region?”

“Yes, it is,” he replied. “We’re not far from where I first met her. She was fighting some undead and I helped out and we decided we wanted to walk together.”

“How long did it take for you two to fuck?” Ellie asked.

“Actually like a week. It didn’t happen until after River View was burned down and we were alone together that first night that it happened.”

“Wait...so if I understand the situation correctly, you made love to Cait before anyone else?” Akila asked.

“Yes.”

“How did that happen?” Lara asked.

“Well, I was stumbling through the woods, lost and terrified and pretty fucked. Then Cait saved my life from a stalker. She brought me to one of her hideouts. We ate dinner and she basically jumped me. Then I didn’t see her again for awhile,” he replied.

“That’s about what I expected,” Lara murmured.

“So...I am confused,” Azure said. “Cait is the red-haired woman I met before?”

“Yes,” David said.

“You are...coupled with her? And another woman named Evie? Unless I have misunderstood the word ‘fuck’.”

“Oh, uh...well, that word can mean a lot of things, but you understood it in its context correctly in this particular case. I am, as you would say, ‘coupled’, with several women,” David replied. He had definitely gotten too used to casually discussing his sex life because he had somehow completely missed that this was going to happen.

“I...see,” Azure replied.

“He’s coupled with me, too,” Ellie said.

“As he is with me, though it is a more...casual coupling,” Akila said.

“I...do not understand,” Azure replied after a moment. “Coupling is...two people.”

“Is there not casual sex in your clan?” Akila asked.

“Not openly,” she replied. “It is understood that casual sex for pleasure will occur between the younger of us, and occasionally the older, but it is also understood that you do this privately, and also that you will couple only with one other to produce offspring.”

“Do you...like that?” Ellie asked.

Azure was silent for several moments. “I have found it difficult,” she admitted after a moment. “I suppose I could tell you, given there’s little chance of you telling my people, and even if you did, I could easily deny it and they would believe me over you.”

“Whatever you say to us, you can trust that it will be kept in confidence,” David said.

“We respect privacy,” Ellie agreed.

“I...believe you, I think. I think my problem is that I have not found anyone I believe who will sufficiently satisfy all my needs. As a life partner. I am an aberration among my kind. I am as suited to living on land as I am under the water, although I prefer underwater. My kind typically can survive out of water for a few hours, but I can survive indefinitely, provided I have a sufficient supply of drinking water. I do not know if this factors into my feelings, but it seems as though everyone I have considered for coupling has come up short in some way...”

“I mean...that’s true of everyone,” Ellie said.

“What?” Azure replied, startled. “What do you mean?”

“It’s almost impossible to find someone who will satisfy every need. David and Cait love each other, they’re procreating, they’re probably going to be together for the rest of their lives and they fulfill each other deeply, and yet...there are things that it would be impossible for them both to satisfy for the other,” Ellie said.

“Why? What is lacking?” Azure asked, looking at David.

“What do you mean, precisely?” David asked.

Ellie laughed. “Don’t worry, David. I’m not talking shit on you. I mean, for one, both of you are just too horny to stick to fucking one person.”

“Yeah, but most people are. And most people just...get over it and only fuck one person. At least at a time, in terms of relationship,” David replied.

“No. In my experience, most people are miserable and pretend to fuck one person. Either they stick to their guns and they’re just miserable forever, or they cheat. Or they break up and, at best, are a serial monogamist,” Ellie replied.

“Wait, so everyone is either single, miserable, or cheating?” David asked.

“Not everyone, but most people, yeah. Or in a polyamorous relationship.”

“A what?” Azure asked.

“Polyamorous. That’s the word for the type of relationship that we all have. Well, okay, some of us. David and Cait and myself and two other women and to a certain extent Akila and Lara, are all part of the same tangled relationship. We have sex with each other, we trust each other, we are friends with each other, we work with each other. I mean really, functionally speaking, it’s like a group of close friends who also all happen to have sex with each other,” Ellie explained.

“I don’t understand. All of you have sex with all of you?”

“No, not quite. Some of us only have sex with one or two others. Though that’s changing,” she murmured, glancing at Lara.

“How does it function? How do you not all...kill each other?” Azure asked uncertainly.

“I guess because there’s no reason to. We’ve all got personal issues, but we all trust each other. If there’s jealousy, it’s handled quickly and fairly, inasmuch as it can be. I mean, it’s not perfect. Sometimes we get into fights, but...that’s gonna happen between friends,” Ellie said. Azure continued staring at her uncertainly. “Trust me, I actually really understand where you’re coming from. I had a very difficult upbringing. I was betrayed and abused and traumatized for years and years. For most of my life. Trust was very difficult for me. But here’s something to help put it into perspective: what we have isn’t really the norm up here. We’re unique, at least in my experience. Most other people ‘couple off’ as you say, or stay single and just fuck people sometimes. And this wouldn’t work with most other people. I specifically trust David and Cait and Akila and Lara and some of the others because they’re good people, they’re patient, trustworthy people who have spent months working with me, showing me I can trust them...does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Azure replied after a moment. “I just...am still having difficulty. No one among my clan treats sex so...casually.”

“Why?”

“It just...isn’t done?”

“Why?” Ellie pressed.

“...I suppose I don’t know. It is a social taboo. I guess it’s seen as being weak, being controlled by your more basic urges,” Azure replied.

“Do any of us seem ‘weak’ in that regard?” David asked.

“No. In fact, you all seem quite strong.”

“We are. In a lot of ways. We don’t let sex get in the way of responsibility. And we’re always careful to ensure that all people involved in any sexual acts are treated with kindness, patience, and respect,” he replied.

“I see. Do you ever find yourselves in situations where you make love with a stranger in passing?” she asked.

“Technically that’s how a lot of the relationships began, so yes,” he replied.

“Hmm.” She fell silent. “Would you tell me your history? All of you? If we are going to be working together, I wish to know.”

“Got nothing better to do, although I’m skipping over most of mine. It’s miserable and painful and will just bring the mood down,” Ellie said.

“I understand,” Azure replied.

“I guess I’ll go first,” Ellie said after a moment. And she started telling her tale.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Thanks to the fact that it was decently nice out, they had a lot to talk about, and the undead attacks they did run into were dealt with without too much trouble, the walk up the river turned out to be fairly pleasant. Although Azure had been somewhat reluctant to share much of anything about herself, she did seem a lot more comfortable around them by the time they reached the place that they were looking for.

It turned out to be an old boathouse set back maybe twenty feet from the river’s edge on what had once probably been a private plot of land. The windows were broken out, the main door was long gone, and the exterior was heavily weathered and had holes in several places, but the basic structure was intact.

“All right, let’s see if we lucked out,” David said. “Akila, why don’t you circle around back and see if anything nasty is hiding back there? Lara check the right and Ellie check the left. Jennifer and Azure and I will go inside while you do that.”

“On it,” Akila said, slipping nimbly off as she drew her bow. Ellie and Lara headed off, and David led the others in through the large, open doorway in the front of the building. It wasn’t a large building, but there were a lot of shadows and places to hide inside. There was, in fact, a boat taking up the center of the building, though this one was on a trailer, locked into place. It looked about as old as the structure. Around the edges of the building, though, was a lot of junk. Shelves and chairs and boxes and a big workbench.

They spent the next ten minutes making sure the building was safe, inside and out, and ultimately discovered that they didn’t need to worry. The place was vacant. The others came inside as soon as they had checked the area.

“I didn’t see anything but there’s a lot of trees around, something could be hiding,” Akila said. “Azure, would you walk the perimeter with me?”

Azure hesitated. David noticed she did that a lot, and he thought that at first it was a matter of trust, and though it still might be, now he thought that she might be looking for frame of reference. There was probably enough cultural dissonance to make her have to double-check to see if she was missing something.

“Yes,” she said.

“Thank you.”

As Jennifer set upon the boat, Lara and Ellie came to stand by him. They watched the two inhuman women go, both of them unique in that they were normally quite apart from all the other races, Azure especially so. They walked out of sight, heading to the left of the building. David wondered if Akila was actually wanting to check the perimeter, or, more like, she wanted to talk privately with Azure.

Maybe she wanted to put her more at ease, or compare notes on how weird the non-nymphs and non-squids seemed to be.

“She’s a lot nicer than I thought she’d be,” Ellie murmured.

“You thought she’d be mean?” Lara asked.

“I don’t know. Cold is a better term, I guess. I’ve dealt with a few squids. They’re always so distant and hesitant. I guess I can’t blame them.”

They stood there for a few silent moments as Jennifer hunted around for the part. Then Ellie flicked his leg with her tail. He glanced over at her. She had that look on her face.

“David...” she murmured, tilting her head down a little and looking up at him, a small smile on her face.

“Now? Here?” he asked.

“Come on,” she said, and flicked him again with her tail.

“This place is filthy and we’re a little busy,” he murmured, but he did immediately feel the stirrings of an erection coming on.

“What are you two talking about?” Lara asked.

“Are you really going to make me beg for sex?” Ellie asked.

“What, here?” Lara asked.

“I know, right?! I don’t know...” David said.

“Come on! There are six of us, we’re all armed, this place is pretty inactive...and didn’t you once fuck Cait in the ass right outside of that old train station?”

“All right, all right! Just...okay, yeah,” he replied, looking around. “Uh...where?”

“That table’s pretty clean,” Ellie said, nodding to a wooden table that was still pretty sturdy and didn’t have much on it. “I’ve got a blanket, actually.”

“You’re actually going to have sex here?” Lara asked.

“We’ve fucked in worse,” Ellie said as she got her backpack off and pulled out a little blanket. She unfolded it and put it over the table, then began getting out of her shorts.

“Really?” Lara asked, looking around.

“Okay, maybe not worse, but definitely as bad as. It’ll just be a quickie,” Ellie said as her shorts came off. She hopped up on the table and spread her legs, revealing her glistening pussy and her blue-furred, athletic thighs. “I’m really wet.”

“Fuck,” David whispered as he hurried over to her and began unzipping his pants.

“You really can’t say no to her, can you?” Lara asked.

“He can never say no to any of us,” Jennifer murmured while she worked.

“Just...keep watch,” David said as he got his dick out. Ellie spat into her hand and began rubbing it down, reaching between them. “And you be quiet, okay?”

“I’ll try,” she replied. “You know how you make me.”

“Yeah.”

As soon as she’d rubbed his cock down he got up against her and she helped him get it inside. They both moaned quietly as he penetrated her. She was fucking wet. He pulled her tanktop up over her tits, getting them out and groping them as she draped her arms over his shoulders, staring at him with a broad grin now.

“You really can’t get enough of me, can you?” she whispered, her voice husky.

“Fuck no, I can’t,” he groaned as he started fucking her, sliding in and out of her. Immediately that familiar, hot pleasure burned right into him, right to his core. That pure, uncut, perfect ecstasy of Ellie’s raw, unprotected, inhuman vagina in all of its hot, wet, tight glory. As he started fucking her, staring into her beautiful, exotic eyes, he couldn’t help but feel like she had some ulterior motive to this spontaneous sex session. It wasn’t impossible that she really just wanted sex randomly, she did often enough, but there was just something in the way she’d asked, a sort of deliberateness. Or it could just be that she liked manipulating him.

She’d once told him that tempting him into sex was its own reward, and he had to agree with her. He was sure enjoying it. He kissed her hard on the mouth and she moaned, wrapping her legs around him and kissing him back with a fiery passion. He continued making love to her, thrusting into her deep and hard, feeling her pushing against him again and again, until he sensed that someone else had joined Lara in watching.

“Wow, you weren’t exaggerating about how casual you were about sex,” Azure said.

“Oh, wow,” David said, looking over sharply. “I’m sorry, uh, maybe we should-”

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” Ellie growled. “You are finishing in me, got it?”

“I, uh,” he glanced at the others, now Lara, Azure, and Akila were all standing by the entrance to the place, watching the display intently, “okay.”

“Please, do not stop on my behalf. I am not offended,” Azure said mildly.

Well, then. David continued fucking Ellie, going harder and faster, letting the pleasure build in him, wash over him, and he came more quickly than he thought he would. Probably because he had an audience and because one of them was a new, really attractive woman. He felt a groan escape him as he began to shoot his load into Ellie.

“Mmm...yes...” she groaned. “That’s it, David, fucking come in me.”

“Oh fuck, Ellie!” he cried, hugging her tightly against him, thrusting hard and fast into her with each concussive blast of his orgasm sending pulses of absolute bliss rushing through him. He drained his cock into her and was left panting, his legs shaking. Slowly, he pulled out of her and tucked himself away, zipping his pants back up, then he sat down on the floor.

“Oh hey, I found it!” Jennifer said suddenly.

They all looked up. Ellie was in the process of cleaning herself up.

“How’s it look?” David asked, struggling to his feet.

“It’s going to need cleaning and maybe a little maintenance, but I can definitely use this,” Jennifer replied. She sounded happy as she hopped down from the boat.

“All right, let’s get home, I really want to see Cait,” David murmured. He found it difficult to shake a vague uneasiness ever since she’d been too tired to get out of bed this morning.

They headed out of the boathouse and started making their way back downriver.

…

They made it back to the dockyards with a few hours of light still left in the sky. It seemed that Stern had pretty much moved into the area. David counted over a dozen soldiers moving around, working to secure the structures. They had made significant progress on the boat, or so Jennifer assured him after she’d presented the part and had a chance to look over their work. Stern told them that it would be ready by tomorrow morning ideally. Jennifer offered to stay and help, but Stern assured her that they had the situation well in hand. David wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Something about them just completely taking over the situation at the dockyards, and maybe even the dockyards themselves, made him uneasy.

But ultimately he saw no reason not to let them handle this part of the mission, so he and his people headed back to Haven. After a bit of convincing, Akila and Ellie finally talked Azure into coming with them to Haven to spend the night and get to know the people she was working with more, and also to see this community she’d heard so much about. She seemed only slightly reluctant, and David had the idea that that reluctance perhaps came from a combination of mild society anxiety, which would be fair, and a feeling of obligation to return to her people, even if she might not personally want to do so. They’d gotten a little bit more out of her on the way back home, and she made it sound like she didn’t really fit in too well.

So they walked back to Haven.

He was glad that they’d gotten some clothes for her like they had for Akila. As they walked in through the front gates, several people stopped to look at her, and some of them came over and introduced themselves. David was glad to see that all the interactions were friendly and curious, no one seemed scared of Azure or apprehensive of her. She seemed pleasantly surprised by the interactions and while Ellie went to see Ashley, and Jennifer and Lara headed for the main office, David, Azure, and Akila spent almost an hour moving among the people of Haven. There were a lot of questions, most of which Azure answered with a surprisingly deft evasiveness that never actually made anyone annoyed or upset at not getting a straight answer.

He wondered how much she had actually interacted with outsiders.

Eventually, he could tell it was wearing her down a bit, and so he made excuses which weren’t entirely excuses that they had to rest up for tomorrow. It was heading for darkness by the time they got inside and found the others upstairs, just finishing up making dinner.

“Is that...rabbit?” Azure asked as they walked into the dining area. Evie, Cait, and April were in the process of setting the table. It seemed that they had cooked up a huge meal of rabbit, veal, vegetable beef stew, and mashed potatoes.

“Yes it is,” Evie replied. “David mentioned he’d heard you liked rabbit, so I thought it would be nice to have some ready for you in case you wanted some.”

“I...appreciate that. Helen must have told you,” Azure murmured.

“Yes, she did mention it,” he replied.

For a moment, Azure stood there halfway across the room, looking at the food on the table, then around at them. “I...this is all very different...than what I thought would happen,” she said after a long moment.

“Would happen when? With regards to what?” David asked.

“When I came to your settlement. I...thought it would go differently,” she murmured, and then slowly walked over to join them as they sat at the table. She sat in between David and Cait. “I feel guilty,” she admitted hesitantly. “You all have been kind to me, but I thought...I do not know, perhaps at least uncertainty, perhaps fear, a little hostility among your people. But everyone here is so kind and considerate and respectful...”

“Much like our own personal relationship, our settlement is not representative of most others,” David said. “I mean, in my experience. It’s not like all the other places are shitty cesspits of human garbage, but we have gone out of our way to find people who are kind and tolerant, and to cultivate a sense of community and respect and just generally a positive atmosphere. And, somehow, so far we’ve been very lucky.”

“We have been,” Evie agreed.

“Regardless, I appreciate the reception I’ve received.”

“We try,” Cait said. She grinned. “Given David’s mention of our ‘personal relationship’ I imagine you know of our...unique interracial polyamorous relationship?”

“Uh...” Azure glanced at David, then Ellie. “...yes.”

“She stumbled onto us fucking,” Ellie said, sounding proud of herself. Akila laughed softly.

“You were doing it practically out in the open,” Azure murmured.

“You slut,” Cait said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh like you wouldn’t have been doing the same damned thing if you’d been out there you fucking pregnant whore,” Ellie replied, rolling her eyes right back.

“Oh, yes. I believe congratulations is the thing to say? Or...well, whatever the phrase, I wish your offspring good health and good fortune,” Azure said.

“Thank you, Azure. The sentiment is very appreciated,” Cait said.

“Speaking of which...how are you doing now, babe?” David asked.

She gave a rueful smile. “Fine now. Still kind of tired. Ugh. I was tired all day today. And April, doom-bringer that she is, tells me it’s going to get more common.”

“It might,” April said. “I’m just trying to-”

“I know, I know. You’re trying to be helpful and I appreciate it.” She looked at Azure. “So, I take it you like it here? Visiting our village?”

“So far, yes, it’s been a very pleasant and enjoyable experience.”

“Good! So what can you tell us about yourself? I imagine I missed quite a lot during your trip to and from the place you went today.”

“Ah, actually, I didn’t talk much about myself,” she murmured. “I want to, though. I feel more comfortable around you all. I’m a little bit of an...not really an outcast, though sometimes it feels that way, but certainly an aberration. I’m a mutation. I can survive on land just as much as I can survive underwater. Naturally, this has led me to exploring the land. Something my friends and family do not approve of. But sometimes we need things, things like Aquazine, and sometimes we want things we cannot get in the lake, so this has led me to have some adventures on the land. Though this is definitely the most interesting thing I’ve experience so far. I’ve only had a handful of direct interactions with those not of my own species, and most of them were...awkward at best, hostile at worst. Some humans tried to kill me once,” she explained.

“That sucks. I think at this point some humans have tried to kill all of us,” Evie said, and the others murmured in agreement.

“But you all are not like that. Honestly, this interaction alone makes up for all the poor ones I’ve had in the past,” Azure said, smiling at them.

She told them a few stories as they ate. Mostly she had gone west of the lake, into a part of the region that David hadn’t been to yet. After that they shared some of their own stories, and as they did, he noticed that Akila shared a few oddly meaningful glances with Azure, though he had no idea what the meaning was. Ellie was glancing at each of them as well, and occasionally they would look over at him. He thought back to his paranoid suspicions that Ellie had some kind of ulterior motive for spontaneously fucking him earlier and wondered about it and the glances. Though at this point he was getting fairly tired.

The day had been long, and tomorrow was certainly going to be even longer. In fact, if the boat was fixed, then there was a very good chance that it was going to be the longest day yet. And the most dangerous.

They sat around talking for almost an hour after the meal.

Azure was in the middle of responding to a question when she stopped mid-sentence and stared with a mixture of interest and surprise into the kitchen.

“What is it?” David asked.

“There is a...small white...creature, moving along the floor,” she murmured.

“Oh! That’s Frostbite,” Cait said happily. “Have you encountered a mouse before?”

“No, I do not believe I have...”

“Well, that’s a mouse. It’s a little furry creature. He lives here with us,” Cait explained.

“I see...what does it, um, do?”

“He. Well, he...is very cute.”

“And that is...desirable?” Azure asked uncertainly.

“You could say he boosts our morale. We become happier when we see him,” Evie said. “He’s a pet. Do you not have cute fish in the lake?”

She considered it. “I suppose this is a fair analogy. There are some fish I have become fond of that can usually be found around my home and they are distinct enough that I know them and my mood is lifted usually when I see them.”

Frostbite sniffed the air, scurried closer, came to the edge of the kitchen, and issued a squeak. David laughed. “He’s hungry and he wants some food.” He picked up a scrap of rabbit meat, got up, and walked slowly over to the little white mouse. Crouching, he set the meat down. As soon as he did, Frostbite began to eat it.

David returned to his seat. “So you provide food for it? For him?”

“Yes. He finds his own, but sometimes he asks and we don’t mind feeding him.”

“Interesting.”

They watched Frostbite finish his meal, linger for a bit, then scurry back along the floor into the hole in the baseboard. Something occurred to him. “Where’s Catalina? I thought we sent her over here to deliver the news about our trip?”

“She had to go after an hour or so. Stern called her back. I’m beginning to get the feeling that he doesn’t like her being over here for long,” Evie replied.

“I’ve been getting that feeling, too,” Lara murmured. “It makes me wonder why he’s so quick to pawn me off onto you all so often. Then again, I did say that I feel like he doesn’t fully trust me anymore after helping you out.” She sighed and stood. “I guess I should call them and check and see how everything’s going.”

She headed downstairs. As she did, he saw Akila share a meaningful glance with Azure again, though he didn’t think it had anything to do with what had just happened. Akila slightly raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. Azure looked away and flushed a little. It wasn’t dissimilar from what he’d been noticing between them all night.

He decided maybe instead of letting this pass like he always had whenever two or more of the women in his life were doing something like this, he should actually try to figure it out. “Akila, Ellie, what’s going on?” he asked, a little pointedly.

“What? Nothing,” Ellie replied, then giggled. She’d gone through about a quarter of a bottle of wine over dinner and apparently was a bit of a lightweight.

“God, I can’t wait to drink again,” Cait muttered.

“It’s going to be a long time,” April said apologetically.

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me, I see you with your little looks, what’s up? I know it involves me because you keep looking at me,” he said.

“Yeah, come on, spill girls,” Evie said with a smirk. “I noticed it, too.”

“It’s...personal,” Akila said after a moment.

“No, it is okay,” Azure said. She cleared her throat and then looked around at them all. “Akila and I and Ellie and I discussed, at length, while we were walking back...um...sex. I have some difficulty with the subject, because my people are traditionally so reluctant to speak about it openly. But my abilities to survive on land aren’t the only thing that make me an aberration among my kind. I have often found myself...” She shifted in her chair, but continued facing them unflinchingly, almost like she was preparing to go off into battle. “I have found myself attracted to others not of my own species. I imagine, given the nature of your relationship and your openness with each other, that this should come as no surprise when someone tells you this, but you must understand that it is something I have always, for my entire life, had to hide, something I have never acted on, never even thought it would be possible to act upon.

“But...Akila and Ellie have been very encouraging and kind since we have met. And they have encouraged me to...” She looked now at David. “Proposition you for sex.”

“Would have been nice if someone had mentioned this to me,” David said.

“Hey, we would have, but you’re the one that jumped the gun,” Ellie replied. “Besides, is there even the tiniest chance that you aren’t hopelessly lusting after Azure? She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you,” Azure murmured.

“Fine, fair enough.” He looked directly at her. “Do you wish to proposition me?”

“Yes. I want to have sex with you. I am asking to now.”

“I accept, and I really want to have sex with you,” David replied.

“I...okay, good.” She let out a small laugh. “Very good. I only thought it fair to let you all know this at the same time, given the nature of your relationship...” she murmured, looking around at them.

“I think we’re all fine with it,” Cait said.

“Definitely,” Evie murmured, and April nodded.

“There’s just one question,” Cait said, leaning forward. “How do you feel about being watched while you make love?”

Azure didn’t seem surprised by the question. She just smiled. “Ellie said you would ask that.”

“She knows me well,” Cait replied.

“I have had time to consider it and...I must admit that it has always been a, um, fetish of mine, the idea of being watched while being intimate. So I am willing to consent to this. Everyone here, and Lara, if she wishes to, may watch.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll want to,” Ellie said, laughing.

“I heard my name, what’s happening?” Lara asked, coming back into the room.

“David and Azure are going to fuck and they’re going to let us watch,” Cait replied.

“Oh! This is...quite the development. Great! I must admit, I really want to see that,” Lara said.

“I don’t see any reason to wait, does anyone else?” Ellie asked, shooting to her feet.

“I’m ready if you are,” David said, looking at Azure.

“I am ready,” she replied.

“Then let’s go. We’ve got a nice, big bed upstairs. Very comfortable.”

They all got up and headed upstairs. David felt anticipation flowing through him like an electrical current, exciting, but also nerve-wracking. At this point he was mostly just excited about sex with a new woman, but Azure was...something else. Like Akila, she was mysterious and exotic and intimidating. Although, maybe because she came from not just a different culture, but practically a different world, she was even more intimidating. And there was something about her dark eyes, something that seemed to encapsulate that duality of allure and...almost threat. Desire and danger. The few times they’d been attacked today, he or one of the others had dealt with it, so they hadn’t really seen her in action yet, but David had the idea that the first time he saw her in action, he’d find her very effective, very lethal.

Five minutes later, David found himself naked and washing up alongside Azure with seven women gathered around him, situating themselves and getting settled for what was about to happen. He looked at Azure’s smooth, gray, nude body again.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“A little,” she murmured. “I have faced many...challenges, though.”

“Is that what this is?” David asked.

She offered a small smile. “No. I’ve felt the urge to do something like this for a long time now. And, I must admit, you are the most attractive prospective partner I’ve ever found outside of my own species...” she paused. “Admittedly, based off what I have seen so far, perhaps even inside my own species. You are very...appealing.”

“Fuck yeah, he is,” Ellie said.

“I suppose that is obvious, given how many...admirers, you have,” she murmured.

“Well they aren’t all here for me,” David said. “They like each other just as much. I’m not the center of this web.”

“That’s a fair point,” Cait said. He glanced over. April was sitting in her lap, the two of them hugging happily. Cait ran her hand lovingly up and down April’s smooth, scaly arm, and April shivered and smiled.

He finished cleaning up and turned to face Azure. She was ready. She looked at him, studying him as they stood there beside the washbasin, and he studied her. With her clothes off again, he once more found himself marveling at her long, lean body, her smooth, ultra-fit athletic build. All of her gray skin and her nice padding. He offered her his hand, and she took it, and let him lead her across the room, to the huge bed that he slept in most nights. That he had shared with many women, and was now about to share with another.

They got down into the bed together.

“Before we begin, I want to emphasize that if I’m doing anything that makes you uncomfortable, physically or emotionally, or that you aren’t into, or if you change your mind, please tell me, and we’ll stop, at any moment,” he said.

She smiled warmly and reached out, running a hand up and down his arm. “Though I am often quiet, I am very good at being heard when I want to be, so that will not be a problem. But I thank you for the sentiment. We can begin.”

Azure leaned in and kissed him.

Her lips were wonderfully full and warm, and they pressed against his own in such a pleasurable way. It sent a thrill of lust and desire blasting through him, like a pulse of hot pink energy. His want of her had been stirring within him ever since he had seen her, even when she’d only put her head above the water, thrumming like an idling engine, but as they first touched and kissed, and his hands began to explore the soft gray smoothness of her body, the engine stopped idling. It revved hard, and that want turned into need.

He touched her amazingly fit body, running his hands across her smooth gray skin, feeling a very slight moisture to her. As she slowly probed his mouth with her tongue, he settled a hand across one of her medium, firm breasts and groped it gently. Another shiver of pure lust rolled through his body. He desired her desperately. Leaning closer to her, pressing himself against her, he began to twist his tongue with her own as he let go of her breast and reached down to her hip. He ran his hand across that hip, around to the swell of her padded, firm ass. She pressed herself to him as well and her touch, her tongue, her lips, they were all electrifying. His erection pressed in between her thick thighs and she began to rub them slowly against it.

He groaned and shuddered once more at the spark of pleasure that ignited. He let her do that as they made out for another minute or so, and then he gently pushed her onto her back. He fit his hand in between her thighs and she parted them for him. He kissed the side of her neck and moved his hand slowly up to her pussy, trailing his fingertips along her inner thigh. She shuddered and exhaled hard as he did that. A good sign. Here was the moment of truth. Each time he made it with another type of inhuman, he always worried that something would be different, that the way he had learned to pleasure women would be invalid this time around.

His fingertip found her clit.

He began to gently massage it, making small, slow circles.

A loud groan escaped her and her whole body twitched in response.

Nope, no need to worry about that. Feeling more confident, David continued to pleasure Azure. The squid began to moan and writhe as he rubbed her clit, slowly applying more pressure, gradually building the speed he rubbed the circles onto it.

“Ah, David! You are...oh! V-very skilled!” Azure panted.

“He’s had a lot of practice,” Cait murmured.

“Yes, that-ah!-that makes sense...oh my...this is...oh...OH!” Her hips bucked suddenly and he felt a hot spray of liquid escape her pussy, getting onto his hand and the bed. He stopped rubbing her clit and slipped a finger inside of her, and she let out another moan of pure bliss as he stimulated her, fucking her fast and hard with his finger. Oh how amazingly tight and wet her pussy felt inside! He fingered her through her orgasm, and then she lay panting after it had run its course, shuddering occasionally as an aftershock of the event ran through her, and he let her get her breath back. After a moment, she looked at him.

“This is going well,” she said.

He laughed softly. “Yes, it is. What would you like to do next?”

“I would like to do a lot more, but with our long walk behind me and the no doubt arduous tasks we face tomorrow ahead, I am tried, and I think it would be best if we slept soon. Would you be okay with making love now?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “How would you like it?”

“I have admittedly never experienced sex while on land...would I be able to remain on my back?” she answered.

“Yes. Just open your legs,” he replied.

She did so, and he got on top of her, rigid and almost thrumming with sexual energy now. As he got into position and laid his cock at the entrance of her inhuman pussy, he hesitated. “I should ask now: can I orgasm inside of you?”

She considered it for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Thank you so much,” he replied, and began to slip inside of her.

She gasped softly as he entered her and worked his way carefully into her. She was exquisitely tight and wet, and there was a wonderful, ecstatic heat to her pussy. David groaned deep in his throat as he finished getting inside of her.

“Wow, that must be excellent pussy,” he heard Ellie say.

“It is,” he moaned as he started to make love with Azure. Their new squid friend moaned loudly as he fucked her, as he slid smoothly in and out of her, and she reached up to him, gripped him and pulled him down against her with an impressive strength. He laid against her, feeling her slick, smooth, hot body, and kissed her, and felt the pure unbridled bliss of their raw, unprotected sex rolling through himself.

Being inside of her was phenomenal.

Her texture was unlike anything he had experienced before. It was slicker and smoother than all the other women, and her inner heat was rivaled only by Akila’s. But oh how wet she was! It made sense, given her race, but he didn’t realize just how fucking good this was going to feel. Before long he found himself making furious, impassioned love to her, driving into her hard and fast and intensely, and she moaned and cried out as she kept trying to make out with him. He made out with her back, hugging her to him as he fucked her brains out.

He made her come again a few minutes later, and she bucked hard as she started to orgasm, almost throwing him out and off of her, but he held on, and began to voice his pleasure as he felt her vaginal muscles constrict crazily around his rigid length, massaging it while simultaneously growing even hotter and wetter. That was it, that was too much. He began letting off almost right away, groaning in pure, blind bliss as he orgasmed into that sweet, perfect inhuman pussy. They came together and reveled in the harmonious rapture that offered. His orgasm seemed to go on and on, all of his seed blasting out of him as he moaned and cried out and held Azure against him, and he could feel her doing much the same through the haze of his physical pleasure.

He came for ages, and felt his dick dry-kicking for awhile after he had run out of seed.

And then, finally, he was finished and left floating in the afterglow of the orgasm.

“Goddamn, I felt that,” Cait said.

“Yeah, wow,” Ellie murmured.

“That was very intense...and arousing,” Akila agreed.

“Whoever gets me next...I need a few minutes,” David groaned, still laying atop Azure, still inside of her.

“Give them their space,” Cait said.

“How was that? Are you comfortable with everything?” he asked, looking down at her.

“Yes,” she replied dreamily, smiling up at him. He felt her running her fingers over his sweat-slicked back. “Yes, it was wonderful. That was the best sex I have ever had.” Staring down at her, he thought she looked shockingly beautiful. Her face was lit partially by moonlight, partially by the candles they had in the room. Her teal hair was a mess, her face flushed, her eyes wide and luminous. She was a vision of inhuman beauty.

“May I sleep in this bed tonight, with you?” she asked sedately.

“Yes, though Evie and Cait sleep here normally, too...and Lara does whenever she spends the night,” he replied.

She looked around for a moment. “It is a big bed,” she said.

“Yes it is,” he replied with a small laugh.

Cait gave him about three minutes before she jumped him.

CHAPTER NINE

“So...how does it look?” Lina asked.

David stared up at the boat. “Seaworthy,” he replied.

“Good. Because it is.”

The sun shined in through the open bay doors that let out onto the lake and there was a nice, cool breezing blowing. David looked out through the open doors, past the boat, across the lake to the island that was their destination.

Despite the sun and the breeze and all the bustling, proficient activity surrounding him, David felt a chill whenever he looked at that island.

At least last night and this morning had been very pleasant. Azure had warmed to him even more after their intimate encounter. He’d been sad to see her go when they had parted ways after eating breakfast and walking down to the lake, but he knew she would return before too long. He hoped that her people saw reason and wouldn’t need too much prodding from her. This plan, which he was still vague on how it was actually going to work, hinged on the squids. She had reassured them that there was, in fact, a way they could deal with the vipers in a fairly effective way, and he was honestly surprised that they’d gotten this far without actually discussing the specifics of it. That was the nature of trust, he supposed.

“So where’s this squid of yours?” Stern asked, coming over from a clutch of soldiers gathered on the other side of the room.

“She’ll be here,” David replied. “She’s talking with her people right now. She should return with the plan, and ideally we’ll be able to enact it.”

“Hopefully. I managed to work out a map of the island based on some surveys we’ve been conducting over the past few days and coordinating with Ruby,” he said. “I want-” He paused as someone called for him from outside.

He headed out the door and David and some of the others followed. He immediately saw what had garnered the call: Azure was there, in the parking lot, having been stopped by two of the people standing guard.

“Let her through!” Stern called.

They stepped aside and Azure walked over to them. “I thought this a more intelligent approach than coming up out of the lake over here,” she said.

“Yeah, that might’ve gotten you shot,” Stern muttered.

“I see. Am I to understand that you are in charge of the other group?” she asked. “You are the one known as Stern?”

“Yes I am, on both accounts.”

“Good. I can speak with both of you then,” she said, glancing briefly at David. “I have spoken with my people and we are ready to reveal our plan to you. If you act fast, we should be able to carry out the most dangerous portion of it today, and your part in the plan. We have among our people a few of those who possess a unique ability: the ability to draw the vipers to them, like a beacon. We believe that if you can provide the strength in numbers and firepower, then we can use this ability to draw the vipers to designated kill areas, ideally on the island. You can establish these kill areas. I must warn you though that we must draw out and kill as many of them as possible, ideally all of them, for this plan to work. For after they are dead, we squids will be able to move among the lake bed and destroy all of their breeding grounds, effectively ending the threat.”

Stern was nodding. “Yes, this is something we can definitely do. There’s a few spots over on the island that would be perfect for this kind of thing. It will definitely take a serious commitment of manpower and firepower, though.”

“Indeed. And, there is one more thing. My people wish to relocate. There has been...too much death and slaughter here. We have a spot picked out up the river. It would take most of a day to get there and return here. Our demand is that we are provided an armed escort to this new location once we have confirmed that the viper threat has been vanquished.”

“I agree to these terms,” David said.

“Fine,” Stern said. He looked at David. “We’re going to need to send your people over as an expeditionary force to secure a beachhead while my men mobilize and gather enough munitions and equipment to make this operation happen. How soon can you all be ready?”

“Ideally, within the hour,” David replied. He resented being sent over first to a certain degree. More and more it was feeling like Stern was wanting to share in the benefits of the mission but not the actual danger, but he made himself relax. So far, it still made sense. The soldiers would be ideal to set up the kill areas and do the heavy lifting, and he and his people would make sense to be forward scouts. Stern left to start coordinating and David remained with his group. He had already gathered up all the guns, ammo, supplies, and people that he had intended to bring with him to the island before leaving Haven this morning.

Ellie, Jennifer, Cait, who was feeling stronger and sturdier today, and Akila would be joining him. Lara was going to stick with them as well and head over to the island. Akila, who was the fastest among them, agreed to run down to the fishing village to have Ruby come back over to help them with the initial mission, and to have a squad of their own people sent to help with the later parts of the mission, and then to the hospital to get either Katya or Vanessa to come and help them out. Ideally both, but at least at first one of them would do. And Azure would go with them as well. While Akila went off to gather more people, David and the initial forward scouting team went about preparing themselves for the arduous task ahead.

…

Corporal Lina piloted the boat.

She stood on the bridge, running the ship towards the island. They had managed to get it down into the water without too much trouble. Ruby had made it back, and Akila had returned with Katya not too much later, both women ready for war. Katya looked excited. David now stood on the deck of the boat, feeling the engine thrum through the material of the deck up to his feet, and swayed with the boat as it cut through the water. He checked over his weapons. He’d brought two pistols and his assault rifle, and a shitload of ammo.

It was going to be a long day.

He finished checking over his gear, found it satisfactory, and then looked over at the others. They all seemed pretty ready for what was happening. Cait was talking with Ellie and Katya, probably about either the upcoming battle or old battles they’d fought. Ruby was by herself, looking over her assault rifle with a calm, methodical precision. Jennifer and Akila were back near the bridge, talking quietly with each other. They seemed to have gotten along pretty well since Akila had joined up with Haven and he was pretty glad about that. Given everything they’d both been through, they could both use more friends.

Lara was in the bridge now with Lina, talking to her about something.

Azure stood at the front of the ship, staring at the island. David moved over to stand beside her. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good, actually,” she replied. “Last night was very...comforting. For a number of reasons. I finally was able to satisfy my most intense personal desire, and in a way that was deeply satisfying, in a very comforting environment. In truth, I felt more comfortable and welcome last night than I have for...a very long time. I wanted to thank you for that, actually. So: thank you. For giving me that gift last night.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you, too. I also had a fantastic time. You are, ah, very good in bed,” he murmured.

She smiled. “I think it is a product of my body, not my skill. In truth, I am...inexperienced. But I would be open to gaining more experience...if you would be open to it,” she replied quietly.

“I would be very open to it.”

She laughed softly. “I am glad.” She lost her smile as she looked again at the island. “This will be a very difficult day. Perhaps it will be the most difficult thing I have ever done.”

“I know how you feel,” he murmured, staring at the island as well.

They continued on for another few moments in silence, the island swelling in size as they drew closer to it, and as David prepared to go speak with the others, a splash drew his attention. As he turned, he heard several shouts of surprise. He drew his gun and Azure did as well. A viper had latched onto the side of the boat, clinging to the railing, it drew itself up, mouth open in an awful shriek. Ellie drew and fired, putting a bullet right in the thing’s mouth and blowing out the back of its bulbous head. More splashes sounded as a dozen vipers leaped up onto the sides of the boat. It rocked back and forth as they emerged from the water.

Immediately, everyone opened fire. David twisted back around as he heard one of them haul itself up over the railing. It swiped at him. He leaped back, nearly falling over, and opened fire, shooting the thing twice in the head. It flopped back into the water and disappeared with a meaty thump as the boat went over it. Hearing another shriek to his left, he turned and fired, missing by an irritating margin, adjusted and fired again. This time the bullet clipped the thing’s shoulder. Cursing, he fired twice more. One round took it in the chest, the second in the chin. That did it. The rocking of the boat was throwing off his aim.

Another two leaped up in his field of view. He emptied his pistol trying to take them down. One took a shot in the neck and fell back into the water in a spray of blood. The other made it onto the deck and came at him. David aimed and fired, sure that he had a good shot. The gun clicked empty. David snapped a curse, stepped forward, and kicked the thing right in the chest. The impact drove it backwards and the creature stumbled, trying to get its footing, until it flopped bodily over the railing and back into the water. He hastily reloaded and turned to check on the others. They were putting down the vipers as they came up.

Within another half minute or so, the last of the things were killed off, and no more of them showed up to replace them.

“Fuck, I hate those things,” Ellie muttered as she reloaded.

“We all good? Anyone hurt?” David asked.

Everyone reported back that they were all undamaged, and Lara had kept Lina safe in the bridge, so by then they were almost to the island. They were going to drop everyone off at the same spot as where they’d come last time. They had a pair of inflatable rafts that would be able to take everyone to shore. Lina would drop them off and then head back for another batch. The plan, at least the first part of it, was simple: David’s forward scouting team would make their way up to the house and garage where he had initially found the hydroponic garden back during the winter. They would clear the beach, the path there, and the two buildings.

Once that was done, they would use it as an outpost. Stern and others would come over with equipment and guns in several trips and get to the outpost, then spread out from there. Besides being an operation to take out all the vipers, this was also going to be a search for supplies, as no one had effectively been on the island, as far as they could tell, for awhile. Though the hunt for supplies would be secondary to the main objective. As soon as they got within range, they all got into their inflatable rafts and began paddling for the shore.

He expected a bunch of vipers to show up, making the landing that much harder, but they remained alone as they hit the shore and pulled the rafts up out of the water. When Lina came back a second time, two of them would have to paddle them back out there to get more people to shore. David felt a cold chill pass through him as he looked around the area, at the paths that led up away from the shore, the trees, the handful of viper corpses that lingered from that last battle in winter. He’d had nightmares like this.

At least it wasn’t snowy this time around.

“Let’s go,” he said, and set off.

They all followed after him as he and Lara took point. She pulled out her radio. “We’ve made landfall. Had some trouble with the vipers on the way here. They jumped up onto the boat. We’re heading for the intended outpost now. Over.”

The radio crackled and bleeped. “Understood. The fishing village people are here. I’m sending them over with a few of our own in the next batch. Out.”

She replaced the radio. They reached the fork in the path. It continued on ahead of them up into the forest, leading deeper into the island no doubt, broke left, to where a cabin was, and right, to where they needed to go. As they made their way up the path, David couldn’t help but remember the furious, terrifying, running battle that he’d endured the last time he was here. The vipers had attacked by the dozens, and he doubted it was going to be any better this time around. If anything, it might actually be worse, given the fact they were breeding. He tried not to think of that, just tried to clear his mind as he led the way up the path.

They managed to reach the house and the garage without incident. Though snow had come and gone a dozen times since they’d last been here, and rain as well, there was still evidence of their desperate battle fought a few months ago. There were still a few bodies, and a lot of spent shell casings scattered around. Even as they looked, though, he saw a viper moving along the ground between the house and the garage. It froze as they came into the clearing, stared at them with its huge dark eyes, and issued a shriek.

Lara shot it and killed it, cutting its shriek off abruptly, but the alarm had been sounded. A dozen more bulbous gray heads suddenly appeared inside and around the structures, and there were even more in the forest surrounding them.

“Kill them!” Ellie snapped.

Everyone opened fire, making a rough circle to cover every direction. David and Lara covered the house. He saw one coming through a broken window and put two shots into its narrow chest, killing it and splattering its blood across the weather-worn siding. He drew a bead on another up on the roof and put a bullet in its brain. As it flopped over the edge and splattered to the ground, more of them came. David twitched to the left, shooting one in the throat as it came around the side of the house. Lara was firing on more of them as they emerged from the windows like angry bees swarming out of a shaken hive.

He rattled through every bullet in his rifle’s currently magazine, tossed away the spent mag, and slammed a new one in. One of them let out a piercing shriek from his far left and he twisted, barely getting the gun up in time to put a round through one of its big eyes. It flopped to the ground and rolled until it came to rest near his feet. Another two were coming at him from around the side of the house now, and the others were firing away still. How many were there!? David fired off two quick bursts, eliminating the razor-toothed horrors, then blasted through another one that appeared behind those. He ran through another magazine, reloaded, and waited. The gunfire all around him choked off as no more new targets presented themselves.

“So is that fucking it then?” Katya growled.

“I think so,” David replied after a few seconds of loud silence. He sighed. “Ellie, Katya, Lara, check the perimeter and see if there’s any hanging around the trees. Ruby and Jennifer, in the garage. Akila, Azure, Cait, with me. We’ll get the house.”

They split up. David checked over his rifle one more time before heading in through the front door of the house. The house was a big, two-story affair and looked like it had been custom-made by well-off people, though much of that elegant shine had been reduced by the last half-century. The porch creaked loudly as they walked up onto it and the door let out an awful shriek of rusty hinges as David pushed it open with the tip of his barrel. A large room with a big stairway directly ahead and large, open doors to either side awaited them.

“Azure and Akila, take the second story. Cait and I will check out down here,” David murmured.

“On it,” Akila replied, and the two inhuman women slipped nimbly up the stairs. He looked at Cait, who looked back at him, a grim smile on her face. He felt a bolt of fear pass through him and it must have shown on his face.

“Don’t worry, love. We’ll get through this,” she said.

“I...yeah,” he muttered. There was a lot he wanted to say. Part of him wanted to take her back to one of the rafts and just start paddling for shore and go back home to Haven and not leave. He hated doing this sometimes, hated it worse now that she was pregnant and there was more on the line than there ever had been before in his entire life. The prospect of losing her was terrifying, and that only grew with each passing day. But that was why he was doing this, why he had to do this. Why they all had to commit to keeping the region safe, not just because he wanted to keep her and the others safe, but because of all the people that deserved to be safe and happy. They were united in this, and that fact offered at least some comfort.

“Let’s clear the house,” he said, getting control of himself.

He and Cait set off, moving to the left and sticking together. They came into an almost totally empty room. He wasn’t sure what it was once, though judging by the smashed-out floor-to-ceiling windows, it could have been a reading room or lounge of some kind. Now all that remained was refuse and broken furniture. It was clear. They moved on, passing through a short hallway and checking out a small closet that was empty and a little bathroom that was equally empty. The next door brought them to a dining area. All that remained of it was a half-destroyed table and a single chair, rotted so badly that it probably wouldn’t even support April’s thin frame. Nothing but glass and blood on the floor otherwise.

They came into a kitchen area and spent a few minutes hunting through an old refrigerator, several cabinets, and a large, walk-in pantry. As David opened up the pantry, he and the viper that had been either hiding or trapped inside screamed at the same time. He snapped up his rifle and put a shot through its head, spraying its brain matter and blood all over the wall behind it where it slowly began to dribble down to the floor.

“Fuck,” he whispered, getting his breath back.

“Is all well!?” Akila called down after a moment.

“Fine!” Cait called back. “You okay, babe?”

“Fine,” he replied, and looked into the pantry. It reeked but was otherwise empty. He left it gladly behind. They finished their search of the downstairs after checking out another two closets, a bedroom, and a living room. They ended up back in the main entryway with everyone else. They all reported that there were no more vipers in the area.

“All right, Lara, call it in,” David said.

She nodded, pulled out her radio, and made the report to Stern.

“That’s great news. I’m on my way over now with the second batch. Why don’t some of you start getting to work on securing those kill areas?” he suggested.

“Yeah, we’ll get on it,” Lara replied.

“Excellent. Out.”

“What is it with him?” Cait muttered. “Why does his tone always suggest ‘yeah how about you do something useful for a change and stop being such a fucking waste of space’?”

“I don’t know,” Lara admitted. “He didn’t use to be like that. I want to say it’s stress, but...fuck, I don’t know. The more I’m around him, the less I’m liking him. Although I guess it doesn’t matter so long as he gets the job done.”

“I’m a little more reluctant to believe that than I once might have,” Ellie said. “I used to be a bitch ninety percent of the time, but now...well, let’s just say it’s become obvious that I could’ve mostly gotten the same results with being even just neutral, let alone nice. I’m beginning to think that people who try to claim that being an asshole or cruel is just ‘tough love’ and everyone else needs to just ‘toughen up and stop being so fucking sensitive’ are just...assholes, and they get off on being assholes,” she added.

“And they’re being hypocrites, too,” Cait said. “Those same people who will tell someone to ‘get over it’ whenever they’re a dick to them tend to lose their shit and threaten violence if someone talks to them that way. Why don’t they fucking ‘get over it’?”

“Yeah, but for now we have to get this done,” David said. He paused. “It just occurred to me that I’ve been throwing out orders, but we’ve never really agreed that I’m in charge. Am I being an asshole or...”

“I think you’re doing fine,” Lara said, and the others nodded in agreement.

“So no one else wants to be in charge?” he asked.

“I sure fucking don’t,” Ellie muttered.

“Well, that sucks because I was going to put you in charge of a smaller group for this next part,” David replied.

She sighed. “Fine. I’m actually decent at it, I just don’t like it.”

“None of us like this,” Cait muttered.

“Speak for yourself,” Katya said.

“You are such a fucking weirdo,” David said.

“And that’s exactly what makes you hop into bed with me,” Katya replied with a smirk.

“I think those things in your bra help,” Ellie said.

“We should focus,” Ruby said.

“Yes. Focus. Sorry,” David replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the map they’d sketched based off of Stern’s own map. “Okay, we’re here...I want Jennifer, Ruby, and Lara to stay here and hold down the fort, and help the second team over with the rafts.” He studied the map. A bit to the north and west of their current position were some campgrounds. That was going to be the first of the kill areas, as there was a beach there and it would make for a good staging area. He pointed to it. “Cait and Azure and I are going to take these campgrounds. We’re going to go there and kill everything in the area and secure it for Lima Company.”

He shifted his attention down to the opposite side of the island. The path that broke left from the initial one they had followed in and led to a cabin continued on for quite a ways and then began to drift southeast. “Here,” he said, tapping the map, “is what seems to be a little cluster of structures. Scouts said it was a boating rental area and fishing store and some docks. Ellie, I want you to take Akila and Katya and secure that area.” He growled. “I wish Stern had given us some fucking radios.”

“I don’t know why he’s so hesitant to give them out,” Lara said, equally frustrated.

“Because he wants to maintain superiority over us,” Ellie replied. “I thought that was obvious. We have a radio, we can listen in on everything they say. Stern doesn’t trust us.”

David just sighed. “I’m not so sure I trust him, but...it doesn’t matter at the moment. We still have a job to do. Lara, as soon as they get there, I want you to have Stern send at least one person with a fucking radio to the campgrounds and the docks, ASAP.”

“And if we get in trouble?” Akila asked.

“Then we’re on our own for now. We don’t even have any more of those flare guns,” David replied unhappily.

“So be it, let’s do this,” Katya said, clearly eager to get a move on.

They began heading out.

CHAPTER TEN

David, Cait, and Azure set out from the house that would be their outpost.

The skies were turning gray, the sun slowly beginning to diminish as a cloud cover rolled slowly in. He wondered if it was going to rain. That would make things a bit harder, or at the very least a bit more annoying.

“David,” Cait said as they followed a simple path through the trees that should, ultimately, take them to where they wanted to go.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I wanted to thank you. For not trying to talk me into staying at Haven, or even staying back at the outpost,” she said.

“Would it have worked?” he asked.

She laughed softly. “No, not at all. But I appreciate that you didn’t. I know this is very difficult for you, and I just wanted you to know that I appreciate how you are handling it. You’re doing a pretty good job, actually.”

“I’m trying,” he muttered. “I know you’re like Ellie and Katya. You’re tough, and independent, and you’d take me trying to keep you from doing anything as an insult.”

“I...would,” she admitted after a moment. “I wouldn’t mean to, and I’d know that isn’t how you would mean it, but it would be my natural inclination. Especially because of my history,” she murmured.

“What do you mean?” Azure asked. “Sorry, if I am intruding on a personal conversation. It is just that, we are all together...”

“It’s fine,” Cait said. “I grew up, uh, well-off. For most of my young life, I didn’t want for anything. People gave me what I wanted, unless it involved doing something remotely dangerous. Then they would tell me no, I would get hurt, I was a girl, and girls don’t do dangerous things. Girls don’t climb trees, girls don’t explore the countryside, girls don’t fight, girls don’t get their hands dirty, and all of that.”

“What? That does not make sense. The women I have encountered have all been extremely capable survivalists and warriors,” Azure replied.

Cait laughed ruefully. “In reality, yes, you are right. But there are still places in the world where women are thought inferior. They are to be, at best, protected, because they are weak, at worse, used...because they are weak. Only we aren’t weak. Not all of us, anyway.”

“I think I see now,” Azure murmured. “I have heard of this, in my travels. Looking down on someone due to something outside of their control. Like how some think less of me simply because I am a squid, or even just an inhuman.”

“Yes. Exactly. Though it comes with its own...flavor of bigotry, I guess.” She sighed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore, because those aren’t the people in my life, and that isn’t the life I live. I haven’t lived it for a long time. And I don’t ever intend to again.”

“All that being said...you do know that there will come a time when you won’t be able to do things like this for awhile, right?” he asked.

“Oh yes, I’m well aware. God, I’m getting there right now. I would’ve been able to handle all this no problem before the pregnancy. Now I’m getting exhausted. I’m definitely not going to be able to keep this up, especially when I get all fat and lazy.”

“Yeah, you’re just going to want to lay around and fuck all day...”

“Stop saying that like it’s so tantalizing,” Cait complained.

“Oh like it isn’t?” he replied.

She sighed. “Fine, I admit it: there’s certainly a part of me, one that’s growing, admittedly, that really looks forward to the time when I’ll be able to laze about half the time and have people do things for me and have you just fucking drill my pussy all day.” She paused. “Uh, speaking of that, Azure...are you into women at all? Sexually?”

“No, I am afraid not. It is not that you are not a beautiful woman, Cait...”

“Oh no, don’t worry, I’m not upset. You’re into someone or you aren’t. I just had to ask. You are a shockingly beautiful woman. I’m glad one of us gets to fuck you. Speaking of that, do you see that happening again anytime soon?”

“Yes,” Azure replied, smiling at David. “I do. Most certainly.”

“Good, because that was amazing to watch.”

“You yourself are quite pleasurable to watch making love with David as well,” Azure said.

Their conversation died away as they came out of the trees and found themselves looking down at some sprawling campgrounds and, beyond them, the shoreline that would hold their kill area. The place was crawling, literally, with vipers.

“Fuck,” David muttered. “That’s a lot of them...”

“You know, we’ve got a pretty good vantage point from up here, and you and I have scoped weapons. Why don’t the two of us pick off as many as we can from a distance, and Azure protects us in the short range if any get close enough?” Cait suggested.

“Fine by me,” David said.

“I agree to this plan,” Azure said.

Cait knelt down and aimed her rifle. “Let’s do it.”

David joined her and took a look at the campgrounds. There was a main structure at its head, farthest from the shore: a wilting, weather-worn thing with a partially-collapsed roof and a lot of broken windows. Four cabins were spread out in a rough orbit around it, and they were mostly in a similar condition. Farther on, between the cabins and the shoreline, were a cluster of a half-dozen or so areas once meant to support campsites. There wasn’t much left but the occasional grill and wooden table or chair, rotted away almost completely by time and weather. And there were a lot of vipers. David drew a bead on the nearest one, a skinny little beast sniffing along the ground next to the main structure.

He fired.

The gun twitched in his hands and the shot was good. It connected with the side of its bulbous gray head and sprayed chunks of its bloody brains all over the side of the wall. Cait fired at almost the same time and killed another one. A general alarm went up among the others and they all immediately stood and turned to face this new threat that was encroaching on their territory. With an overlapping wave of shrieks, they began sprinting right towards them. David controlled his fear as he looked out over the sea of them and began bringing them down, just as quick and as smooth as his trained reflexes and steady hands would allow.

There had to be thirty or forty of them.

And they were fucking fast. But he and Cait were fast shots by now. He sighted one, shot it in the forehead, shifted aim, sighted another, felt the rifle jump in his grasp as he put a round right through one of its eyes and turned it into a ragdoll. Both of them were silent, calm, and deadly as they worked their way through the onrushing horde. Bullets flew and blood spilled and bodies slumped to the ground. By the time they had each finished off a magazine, the wave of vipers were dead and Azure had only needed to fire off a few shots as some of them had gotten close enough. They waited as they reloaded, watching the campgrounds.

No more emerged.

“All right,” David said, getting back to his feet, “let’s go clear the buildings.”

The trio moved down the incline. They made their way past the dozens of corpses they had just made, the only sound that of the lake gently lapping the shore and the wind through the trees. They began the process of clearing out the campgrounds, taking the main building with the partially-collapsed roof first. It was old, decrepit, and pretty empty. It looked like someone had definitely been through at one point and chopped up most of the furniture for kindling. The three of them checked it out, killing a pair of vipers they found hidden away in one of the side rooms, and then moved through the cabins, one after another. David began to feel better as they made quick work of the cabins, and then performed a sweep of the immediate area surrounding the campgrounds. This wasn’t going as poorly as he’d worried it might.

Although that could always change. He had to remember that.

Things could go to shit at any moment, with no warning.

That was the nature of life.

Occasionally, they heard a distant gunshot, though nothing to indicate a full-on attack. They finished their sweep of the area and then went to sit on the most intact table left on one of the campgrounds.

“Ugh, my feet,” Cait complained. She sighed. “I’m getting so fucking whiny.”

“From what I understand, pregnancy is very harsh on the body,” David replied.

“It varies, but yeah. Generally.” She smiled and slipped an arm around him, hugging him to her. “I’m so glad you got me pregnant. You’re so supportive and understanding. And you’re going to have to be when I get really bitchy, which I’m sure I will.”

“Well, at least you’ll know how to make it up to me,” he replied.

She laughed. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Cait...” Azure said, though she sounded hesitant.

“Yeah?”

“I have a question, but I do not wish to offend you...”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be offended,” Cait reassured her.

“Hmm. Very well. You strike me as exceptionally...adventurous. How do you plan to...I suppose, my question is, with how much attention a newborn requires...how do you plan to rectify these two things?” she asked.

“That’s the question I have been asking myself, and have been asked, a lot. The short answer is: I’ll just have to grin and bear it when the wanderlust comes onto me for a little while. But I’ve got a lot of people in my life who I trust to help raise my child, and to leave them alone with for periods of time. I’ll be able to get out, even if it’s just to go exploring or wandering for half the day. Although, to be totally honest? I’ve been feeling the desire to explore and do crazy shit much less since I met David.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I think he began the process of domesticating me. It probably helps that this fucker knocked me up the first night we met.”

“That’s your fault,” he murmured.

“Oh! My fault!?” she replied.

“Yes. I mean, you jumped me. And be honest: how could I possibly have not taken the opportunity you gave me? Of course I was going to fucking nail you like crazy. Granting, it is partially my fault, even though I genuinely thought I couldn’t reproduce, but that was like...ninety percent you, Cait,” he said.

She let out a long, annoyed sigh. “Yes, fine, fair point. My point, however, is that I think the urge to wander is leaving me, and the urge to settle down is finding me. I doubt I’ll ever be free of it, nor would I ever want to, but even the fact that I have a place to live, that I’m dating three different people and living with them and seeing them on a daily basis...that says a lot about how much my desire to settle down has grown. If this were a year ago, I’d be long gone by now. I...can’t really decide if that’s a good thing or not.”

“Really?” David asked. “You can’t decide?”

She sighed again. “Not like that, David. Obviously it’s a good thing that I’ve stuck around and we’re all in this big, wonderful relationship. I’m just...wondering if I like that I like settling down, you know? It’s...kind of a fundamental shift of who I am as a person. I thought, you know, maybe someday, when I’m in my forties, I might do something like this. But I’m like thirty two. That’s a lot sooner than I’d predicted. But don’t get me wrong. I’m happy here. I love Haven, I love you, I love Evie and April and Ellie and Akila and Jennifer and all of the awesome, wonderful people that are a part of our lives now. I loved what we’ve done, how we’ve built our own home and helped so many people, how we fight to protect our friends, our family, our home.”

“I understand,” David said.

“I hope I did not upset either of you with my inquiry,” Azure murmured.

“No, Azure, it’s fine. It’s a fair question,” Cait replied. “Best answer I’ve got is: I’ll figure it out as I go and I’ve got good people to help me with that.”

“That is good. It is important to have people you trust in your life,” Azure replied.

“What about you? I don’t mean to pry, but you make it sound like you aren’t very welcome among your people...” he said.

“Oh, no. I suppose I should not have given that impression. The more accurate description of the situation is...my people like me, a lot. They rely on me for some unique things, and they know it. They treat me well. I just...have desires that I know if they came to light, my people would probably like me a lot less.”

“That’s not a great way to live,” Cait said.

“I know. In truth, I am considering leaving them. Though not anytime soon. They need help. Once we get to our new location, and the sick are healed, and we have a new generation coming, and things feel safe...then I will consider it. There is much I want to see of this topside world. Much I wish to do and explore. At the very least I want to spend some time in Haven with you. But, again, it will take time. If I’m lucky, then by this time next year, I can leave. Or, at the very least, I can go on an extended vacation.”

“We’d like a visit,” David said.

Azure laughed. “Well, I know you would. But I appreciate it.”

They saw figures emerge from the same treeline they had, coming down from the same hill they had shot all the vipers from, not too much later. Corporal Cole and Catalina were leading half a dozen people all not wearing military uniforms. Those from the fishing village. They were heavily armed, at least, and looked ready to do this.

“Is the area secure?” Cole asked.

“Yep. What’s next on the list?” David replied.

“Here.” Cole passed David a radio. “Lieutenant Hale finally forced the issue, so we’re giving your people radios for the duration of this mission. We’re going to start setting up the kill zone here, but Stern wants your squad to secure the third kill zone now. The lighthouse and the beach.”

“All right, then. We’ll get on it,” David replied, accepting the radio and studying it. He looked at Cait and Azure. “You two ready?”

“Yes,” Azure said.

“I’m ready, love,” Cait replied.

“Then let’s keep this show going.”

…

The gray cloud covered was rolling in more steadily as they trekked across the island, making their way along a narrow path between stands of trees and over grassy hills. David could smell rain on the air and distantly thunder cracked the sky, followed by lightning. It lit up an area to the far west. They listened to the radio chatter as they made steady progress over the island. In an odd sort of way, it was comforting. There were people on this island with him, professionals who knew how to fight, how to defend themselves, and who were planning on dealing with this latest growing threat. He just wished they got along better.

As they walked, David considered his relationship with Lima Company. For the most part he seemed to have gotten along decently well with the ones he had the most contact with. Obviously he got along well with Lara and Catalina, but Lina and Cole and a handful of other soldiers all at least treated him neutrally. And yet, even putting aside the unfortunate way that Stern interacted with people, which Lara insisted had changed since the new monsters showed up, and he believed her, there was hostility there. It wasn’t that he was unreasonable, he imagined the job must be stressful, but there was just...something. He and his group had managed successful alliances with every other group in the region, but even after months Lima Company still felt distant.

Maybe the work they were doing together on the island would change that. Then again, the incident in the mines hadn’t changed much of anything.

“This structure we are going to, the lighthouse, based on what I remember from observing the island, it is up high and back from the shoreline, correct?” Azure asked.

“Correct,” David replied.

“Why are we securing it then? I cannot imagine it would make a good kill area.”

“No, the beach will be the kill area,” Cait said. “The lighthouse will provide an excellent position to snipe from. I imagine they’ll want Ruby and one of their own people up there.”

“Oh, long distance shooting, like what you and David just did,” she murmured. “That makes more sense.”

They came to the lighthouse in question not much later. It seemed to have held up pretty well, built on a rocky outcropping overlooking a shoreline some sixty feet down. The trio walked slowly up the path that led to the outcropping, keeping an eye open for anything hostile. They came up to the fenced off outcropping and moved towards the entrance. The door to the lighthouse was gone and the interior was lit only by narrow shafts of dull gray light. David took point. After a moment of fiddling, he finally turned on his little flashlight and stuck it in his chest pocket. Not exactly ideal, but it would provide light and leave his hands free. He swept the interior of the main room, which was the size of the entire lighthouse in terms of length and width, the wooden ceiling was about ten feet up. It was clear. All that remained was a lonely chair and table.

There was a reek, though. And it wasn’t from vipers.

“What is that smell?” Azure asked softly as they came in.

“It’s familiar,” Cait muttered. “I think...”

“Rippers,” David said, trying to remain calm. Every time he ran into the rep-turned-monster rippers it went poorly. Well, more like he got lucky each time and it was a terrifying nightmare. He’d be happy never to see the things again. “Be ready,” he said, checking that there were no nooks or hiding places in the ground floor.

There wasn’t. They were clear. For now.

He led the way with his assault rifle tucked up tight to his shoulder, finger on the trigger, up a narrow set of metal stairs that ascended to the next story. The stairs creaked loudly under his foot. Something shifted overhead and he heard a sharp intake of breath, then something sniffing the air. Well, fuck. He kept the gun trained on the opening at the top of the stairwell, trying not to tense up too much. The sniffing cut off abruptly. David halted, about two thirds up the stairs now, and waited. His patience was rewarded.

Footfalls sounded, built up speed, and a shadow fell across the doorway from the gray light up above. A second later, a mottled dark green face appeared. The ripper’s eyes widened as it saw them standing on the stairs and it issued a piercing shriek, bringing the rest of its body around, its long, curled, black claws glinting in the flashlight’s beam. Jack fired. Three bullets pumped into the thing’s malformed face and took apart its head, spraying the walls to either side of it with its gory innards. The body dropped, but he didn’t let himself relax as he heard more wailing shrieks coming from overhead. They were coming now.

More rapid footfalls.

Then, suddenly, Cait cursed. “They’re coming in from the back, too!”

“Both of you get back down there and cover the fucking door!” David snapped. Barely as he finished speaking another ripper bounded into view. He fired and the thing flopped to the floor as a portion of its skull was ripped away. Another one appeared and received a similar treatment. It fell forward and began to roll down the stairs. David cursed as the thing rolled towards him. He ignored it as it bumped his legs and fired again, sending a spray of bullets into the throat and face of yet another shrieking mutated monster.

Behind him, Azure and Cait were opening fire. He glanced back for just a second, more out of instinct than of anything else, and as he looked back, yelled in shock as he saw another ripper had already appeared and was coming through the door. He tried to move as it came for him, but the ripper corpse around his feet tangled them up and the thing ended up pouncing on him. They both went flopping back down the stairs. David yelled as a dozen pains assaulted his body as he banged down the stairs, wrestling with the godforsaken thing. If one of those claws got into him he might be fucked. His rifle flew from his hands and he abandoned it, instead reaching up and snagging the thing’s wrists as he landed heavily on his back at the foot of the stairs.

The breath driven from his lungs, he gasped for air, pulling his head back as he pushed the ripper up. It snapped in his face several times, barely centimeters from biting his fucking nose off, and its breath made him want to vomit.

“David!” Azure shouted, and suddenly the thing was lifted off of him as she wrapped her hands around its neck. There was a sharp snap and the thing went limp.

“Look out!” David wheezed as he drew his pistol and fired, putting two rounds, and then three more, into another pair of rippers coming down the stairs. One was killed outright but the other was just injured. It snarled and thrashed as it fell down the stairs. It reached for him as he tracked it with his pistol and he just barely avoided shooting himself in the foot as he put a shot into its head. Shaky from the adrenaline surge of near-death, he kept staring up the stairwell, waiting for another target to appear. None did.

Azure came instead and offered him a hand. “Are you injured?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied, taking her hand and letting her help him up. He looked at Cait. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said, coming over to him.

He quickly checked himself over for wounds. Besides some sore spots that would no doubt turn into bad, bad bruises tomorrow, and a pair of cuts that he quickly patched up, he was fine. “Got a bad headache now, but I’ll be okay,” he said as he picked up his rifle and checked it over. It still seemed to be in good condition.

He reloaded and began to head back up the stairs.

“Azure, guard the bottom. Cait and I will finish up,” he said.

“Understood,” she replied, moving back to the center of the room where she had a good view of the whole area.

He and Cait made it to the second story, kicking at the bodies until they tumbled back down the stairs in a messy pile. On the second story they found the remains of a living area. The skeletal frame of a bed with a shredded mattress was pushed up against one wall, a chair and small table sat beneath a broken window, a toilet was tucked away in a little niche beneath the next set of winding stairs going up, and the rest of the wall space was taken up by cabinets, counters, and a sink. It had all been either ruined or cleaned out, so they moved on to the third story. Here was what might have once just been a storage area.

There were mostly just boxes, and the boxes were mostly empty and shredded. The few that were still intact didn’t seem to hold anything of any real interest. The top floor was where the light in the lighthouse rested, and it was long since broken. They had apparently killed the pack of rippers that had claimed the lighthouse as home, so once it was clear, they went back downstairs and reunited with Azure, who reported she’d seen nothing.

David pulled out the radio as they stepped back outside and looked out over the lake from the great view offered by the outcropping. “Stern, this is David. We’ve cleared the lighthouse. How are things looking on your end?”

“You’re supposed to say ‘over’, over,” Stern replied after a moment.

David sighed. “Over.”

“Everyone’s here now and the outpost is secure. The first kill zone is being established as we speak at the campgrounds. Now that you’ve reported the lighthouse as secure, I’ll send a team over to start setting up. I want you to take your people and go investigate a ranger’s station. There’s a decent chance that there might be a cache of supplies there. Over.”

“Fine, we’ll get right on it. Over. Ellie, can you hear me?”

A pause, then. “Yeah, David, what’s up?”

“How’s it going?”

“Fine. Things got heavy there for a bit. There were a shitload of the fuckers hanging out by these docks, but I think we’ve got them all and we’re all okay. Although we haven’t actually finished searching the buildings yet.”

“All right. Good luck.”

“You too.”

He replaced the radio and pulled out the map. The ranger’s station in question was farther across the island, to the south, tucked away in the southwest corner. They were near the middle of the southern edge of the island, and by the look of it, they might be able to get there within half an hour or so if they didn’t run into too much trouble on the way there.

“All right, we ready?” he asked.

“We’re ready,” Cait said as Azure nodded.

Once more, they pressed on into the unknown.

…

“What is a ranger’s station, anyway?” David asked.

They’d been making their way there for almost half an hour now and besides a clutch of vipers that had come at them from out of some trees, they’d hadn’t seen anything threatening. There was a lot more sporadic gunfire echoing over the island now.

“Some kind of like...I don’t know, like a help place? From what I’ve gathered, it’s where trained professionals would stay in remote locations to help people in the wilderness. Like if they got hurt or were being harassed by a dangerous animal or something. And also to keep assholes from trashing nature, I think,” Cait replied.

“Huh. Okay, yeah, that definitely makes sense that there’d probably be supplies there,” David murmured.

“Probably some medical supplies, maybe even a few bullets or a gun, if we’re lucky.”

A moment later, they caught sight of the structure in question. It sat on a rise of land, up on a wooden platform that no doubt gave it a commanding view of the area. It had a lot of windows, and most of them were broken. Those that weren’t were smudged and covered in dirt and grime and nature. They made their way slowly over to it, following a natural path that led to some stairs leading up to a wraparound deck. There didn’t seem to be anything in the area, though David couldn’t shake a feeling of being watched.

There were probably vipers or maybe more rippers in the damned building. Well, he still had a good stash of ammo and a steady aim, so he was more than ready for anymore undead fuckers that might be coming his way. As they approached the ranger’s station, a shadow appeared on the ground ahead of him.

David looked up instinctively.

“Oh fuck me, hunters!” he screamed, already aiming up. “Get to the station! Go!”

He fired off a burst and clipped the wing of the massive undead avian that sailed high overhead. It let out a monstrous squawk and began to come right towards him. He heard Cait and Azure bounding up the stairs as he kept firing at it, trying desperately to hit it. A few of his rounds landed and then it landed directly in front of the door right as Azure followed Cait inside. David skidded to a halt as he crested the top of the stairs. The hunter stood and roared as it faced him, bleeding from half a dozen different wounds but still ready to rip him in half. Fuck, the thing was massive! David aimed his rifle at it and squeezed the trigger.

The gun jammed.

“Oh fuck!” he screamed, dropping it and going for his pistol.

“David! Drop!” Cait screamed.

He didn’t think, he just dropped down onto the deck and, subsequently, fell back down the stairs he’d just climbed up. As he tumbled back down, desperately trying to get a grip, he heard gunfire and shattering glass, then another enraged monstrous roar. He finished tumbling back down to the ground and laid there groaning in a throbbing tangle of limbs. Something heavy began thudding, and it was getting closer.

David looked up. The hunter was coming down the stairs after him, or what was left of it. It was riddled with holes now.

Grunting with effort, he threw himself to the side. It landed in a heap right where he had been two seconds later. And then another shadow fell across him. He looked up and felt real fear take hold of him. There were three more of them. Struggling to his feet, David pulled out his pistol and took aim as he started moving back up the stairs again. Inside. He had to get inside, he had a better chance of fighting them off inside and with Cait and Azure. The shadow fell across him once again as he scurried up the stairs.

David suddenly had great sympathy for how Frostbite might have felt in this particular situation, if a hawk or other bird of prey had ever hunted him.

“David! Hurry!” Cait yelled.

He dove through the open door and felt the whoosh of air and smelled the fetid stench of decay as another hunter missed him by inches.

Cait and Azure opened fire on the creature as it passed and David hit the floor. He rolled and got back to his feet between them, trying to ignore the fresh waves of pain that assaulted him from his second tumble down some stairs.

“How many?” Cait asked.

“I saw three,” David replied.

One of the hunters landed with a heavy thud that shook the entire building right where the first one had. It shrieked madly as it spotted them and began trying to get in through the door. All three of them aimed and fired. David emptied his pistol into the fucker as Cait and Azure hosed it down. When they were finished, it toppled over backwards to join its brother.

“Okay, that’s two,” Cait muttered.

David hastily reloaded and they waited a few seconds more. Hunters! Why did it have to be fucking hunters?!

What else was on this goddamned island?

When the other two seemed content to continue wheeling above, David growled in frustration. “Cover me,” he said, and stepped closer to the exit. He studied their movements by the shadows they printed on the ground, took a few deep breaths, steadied his hands, then he stepped out onto the deck, aimed up, and fired once.

It was a perfect shot, nailing one of them right through the bottom of its elongated head and blowing its brains out the top of its skull.

The thing sailed to the ground, off into a clutch of trees.

David pulled back and waited.

“Holy shit, that was an amazing shot,” Cait whispered.

“Lucky shot,” he replied.

“Do you think you can repeat that action?” Azure asked.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” David replied.

He went to watch the shadow that the final hunter printed. He couldn’t see it. Where had it gone? He stepped right up to the open door. He could hear it flapping around up there, but where-

The hunter landed right on the roof and came crashing down through it behind them.

All three of them screamed as the thing roared, throwing bits of the ceiling away from it as it shook and spread out its wings. David immediately opened fire, as did the other two, spreading out as not to get in each other’s way. The thing shrieked and thrashed wildly as the bullets smashed into its body. David tried to draw a bead on its weird, elongated head and as he did so, the thing suddenly leaped at him. He squeezed the trigger and then the great beast smashed into him. He cried out as he was crushed by its immense weight.

He heard Cait yell his name as he struggled to get it off of him, and judging by the fact that it wasn’t currently ripping his guts out, David had to guess that he’d made the shot. Cait and Azure appeared and pulled the hefty creature off of him.

“Another good shot,” Azure said.

“David, they keep jumping on you. I’m starting to think your attractiveness is apparent even to the monsters,” Cait muttered.

“Great,” David replied. He groaned as he got up and went about checking himself over again for anything worse than bruises. He’d accrued another pair of cuts, one of them kind of nasty and on his forehead, and Cait helped him clean and bandage it. He hissed in pain as she applied the antiseptic. Once that was done, they got back to work, searching the now wrecked ranger’s station for supplies. They tore through the place for a solid twenty minutes, opening every cabinet, every drawer they could find, as most of it had remained surprisingly intact. But the drawers and cabinets that did have things were often useless.

Long decayed food, broken office supplies, stacks of paper with useless data on it ruined by moisture, random bits of crap. The gun locker was empty. The bathroom was vacant. The emergency medical cabinet was cleaned out. David was just about ready to give up when he remembered something, something that had been nagging at him ever since his encounter with the hunters. He’d seen something outside, something under. Under what? The wraparound porch, he realized. And so they went back outside, down the stairs, and sure enough saw a heavy rock pressed up against the dirt beneath the porch.

Although it looked like it had been there for quite awhile, it also looked oddly...intentional. Like someone had put it there.

They dug it out and then pried it away from the heaped dirt.

“Jackpot,” David muttered as he shined his flashlight into the hole. Packed in the dirt were two metal footlockers. They took a few minutes to dig them out. They weren’t even locked. David and Cait worked to get them open, as the closing mechanisms were caked in dirt and some rust, but they finally got them both open. One held a pair of pistols and a sawed-off shotgun with a lot of magazines and shells, and the other held a cache of medical supplies.

“Fucking jackpot,” Cait agreed.

David pulled out his radio. “Stern, you there? It’s David. Over.”

A moment went by before he got a response. “I’m here. Just dealing with a viper attack at the campgrounds. They’re coming up out of the lake. Over.”

“Not surprising. We’re done with the ranger’s station. There were hunters here. They’re dead now. We found a cache of guns, ammo, and medicine in good condition. Over.”

“Good. I’ll send a few people over from the lighthouse kill zone to retrieve it. Once they get there, I’ve got another few places I’ll need you to check. By the time you’re finished, we should be ready with the killzones. Over.”

David sighed softly. “All right, lay it on me. Over.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It took three hours to finish up the various tasks on the island.

Most of it was spent searching over an old hotel and a few outbuildings surrounding it. They also checked out a few cabins. They managed to find another decent-sized cache of survival gear that someone had hidden and left probably years ago. They linked up with Ellie’s team at the abandoned hotel and fought a couple of packs of vipers hunting through it, then split up again after. Ultimately, he ended up at the dockyard kill area. As he’d approached it, David had found himself wondering why they hadn’t been dropped off there, but once he actually caught sight of it, he realized why: it was way too shitty to support them.

After getting there, David had helped them establish their kill zone, which mostly consisted of creating makeshift barricades with anything they could find: sandbags, crates, barrels, logs, sheets of metal. But they were good at it, and the work was simple enough that David just had to lift a bunch of heavy stuff.

By the time they had the kill areas set up, it had begun to rain lightly.

Everyone was split between the three areas, and David pieced it together from listening to the chatter over the radio.

Ruby, her allies from the fishing village, Katya, Corporal Cole, and a handful of soldiers from Lima Company were at the lighthouse kill area. Ruby and Cole would provide sniper support from the actual lighthouse.

Stern and most of the rest of his soldiers that had come to the island had ended up over at the campgrounds.

David ended up with Cait, Ellie, Jennifer, Azure, Akila, and Lara over at the docks. Stern had wanted to pull the rest of his soldiers back to him after they’d established the kill zone, but Lara had been pretty pissed about that, so, in the end, he left Corporal Lina, Catalina, and two other men, Privates named Roberts and Match. They seemed fairly on the level, though a bit green. Lara revealed that they were among those who had signed up since the stalker operation. David wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Once everything was more or less in place, Azure went off to gather her people.

And now they were waiting for her to get back.

“You know, I’m glad he left us some help but...your boss...” David murmured.

Lara sighed. “I know, I know. Match is actually a pretty decent shot and fairly competent. Roberts is...less so.”

David just frowned and looked out over the area they had set up shop in. Behind him was the crumbling remains of the boat rental place and what might have been a fishing shop, as well as a simple storage shed that was partially collapsed. Ahead of them was the lake and the remains of the dock. To either side of them were stands of trees. They’d created roughly a circle of random items, debris, and sandbags in the grassy area between these four areas. It was about twenty feet wide and would, ideally, protect them long enough for them to kill everything that was going to try to kill them. David was trying not to think about it too much.

“How bad do you think this is gonna get?” Cait asked as he walked over to the center of the kill zone. They had found four tables and dragged them out there, forming a diamond in the middle of the barricade, and placed all of their guns and ammo and other survival gear they thought they might need to stay alive through this nightmare. They had a fair amount of bullets and shells, and Stern had even sent them a box of a half-dozen grenades. David had snagged one of them. He’d also restocked on ammo and run some maintenance on his weapons.

“Pretty bad,” he muttered. “Azure was warning us that we’d probably be facing hundreds of the things. Not to mention, all this activity is likely to draw some extra unwanted attention. Between the rippers and the hunters, I’m not sure what else might be hanging out on this goddamned island.” He grabbed another few magazines.

“You think we can handle this?” Cait asked.

“Yeah...I mean, do you think so?” he replied.

She laughed. “I hope so.” She looked around. “I mean, probably. We got through those fucking mines all right. We’re out in the open, there’s light, they’re coming to us, not the other way around. Yeah, I think we can do this.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” he replied.

They spent another twenty or so minutes waiting and checking over their gear before Azure returned with another squid. A slim woman, shiny and nude and shy. Her eyes seemed a little bigger and a little darker than Azure’s. They emerged from the lake and came to join the others in the middle of the makeshift barricades.

“I have brought the others to the two kill zones,” Azure reported. “This is Hazel. She is one of the three that has the ability to call them.”

“Hello, Hazel,” Cait said.

“Thank you very much for helping us,” David said.

“You are welcome,” she murmured, looking vaguely uncomfortable.

“Did you get the water?” Azure asked.

“Yes,” David replied, directing their attentions to the tables. In the space between them were five single-gallon jugs filled with lake water.

“Good. We do not know how long this will take, Hazel, so we have prepared water for you in case you need any,” Azure said, leading her to the spot between the tables.

“So can you give me the specifics of how it’s going to work?” David asked.

“The true specifics? No. It is...a secret, among our people, of how this ability works,” Azure replied uncomfortably. “However, how it will relate to our operation? Yes. In short: Hazel will essentially be completely vulnerable. She will not be able to defend herself at all while calling the vipers to us. It requires total concentration.”

“Well, that’s good to know, at least,” Cait murmured.

“Will you...am I going to be safe here?” Hazel asked as she got between the tables.

“Yes,” Cait replied. “We’re all going to be defending you, Azure included.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Hazel,” Azure said, taking her hand. She looked at them. “I would like to remain beside her, to ensure nothing happens.”

“That works,” David replied. “That will be your job: keeping her safe from anything that slips past us. Ideally, nothing will. We’re all pretty good at killing vipers by now.”

“Yes,” Azure agreed. She leaned in closer to Hazel and gently rubbed her arms. “As I told you, these are friends. I trust most of them with my life. You can as well.”

“I...all right,” Hazel murmured.

“Hazel and I discussed the plan on the way over. We believe doing it in waves will make the most sense. She will engage in her ability for five minutes when we are ready, then disengage. We will kill everything that shows up, take a short break, and then repeat this action. We will do this until no more vipers come to us, and then, after a longer break, Hazel will activate her ability to the fullest, most powerful extent that she can and hopefully, this will draw in any survivors,” Azure explained.

“That makes sense to me. You hear that everyone?!” David called.

Everyone had begun gathering at that point. They went over the plan one more time, and fielded a few quick questions, then Lara pulled out her radio and began coordinating with the other teams. They were in the final phases of getting set up.

“All right, Azure’s sticking to the middle. She’s Hazel’s bodyguard. Now, I imagine most of them are going to be coming out of the lake, but there’s a great chance that they could come from any other side, so I’m assigning people spots. Myself, Cait, and Ellie will take the lake. Corporal Lina and Privates Match and Roberts are going to cover the rear. Jennifer and Akila, cover the right side. Lara and Catalina will cover the left. Everyone do a weapon’s check now, and make sure you are fully stocked up on ammo. If you see an opportunity to use a grenade, do so during this first round, as I imagine we’re going to get hit the hardest the first time, though be fucking careful with them. Remember: we’re going for headshots. Don’t waste ammo. And this is probably going to be an endurance test, so be ready. If you have to take a leak or you’re hungry or thirsty, take care of that right now, before we begin,” David said.

They split up after that, getting ready.

“You’re getting really good at this,” Cait murmured as they walked over to the lake side of the barricade.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” Ellie murmured. “It’s turning her on.”

“You sure?” Cait asked.

“Duh. It’s turning me on and you and I are really alike,” Ellie replied.

“You’re both too easy to turn on,” David muttered. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Cait replied. “I can’t tell you how many ‘tough guys’ I’ve seen, trying to impress me by being loud and pushy and bullying other people, and nothing turns me off quite so fast. You aren’t arrogant, you’re confident now. Arrogance is loud, confidence is quiet. Most of the time.”

“Seconded,” Ellie said. “When this is over, we’re having a fucking two-day orgy.”

“That alone makes it worth surviving this mess,” David replied, laughing.

They spent another five minutes getting ready and then coordinated with the other kill areas. Finally, the plan was set. Everyone got into position, stocked up, weapons triple-checked and ready to go. Azure and Hazel stood in the center of the protected area.

“Go,” David said, shouldering his rifle and aiming at the lake.

For several minutes, nothing happened. He heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing change. The tension mounted. The wind blew, rustling the trees and the new plant life proliferating around them. The lake lapped gently at the shore. David fought the urge to look back at Hazel and see if she was actually doing anything. He trusted her and Azure to get this job done, and mostly trusted the people around him to hold up their end.

Something disturbed the water.

“Contact,” he whispered.

“I see one,” Lara said quietly.

“I’ve got a few over here,” Akila muttered.

“What are they doing?” Cait asked as they began to see bulbous gray heads emerge from the water. David thought they would be running, but they’re weren’t. They were slowly coming out, their movements almost trance-like.

“Just standing there,” Lara replied. “Fuck, there’s more of them. I’ve half a dozen-no, now ten. Shit, baker’s dozen...”

“Same over here,” Jennifer said.

“Yeah, same,” David said, feeling his pulse racing. There were easily twenty coming up out of the water now. No, thirty, and more behind them. “Now would actually be a perfect time to use a few grenades. Catalina, Jennifer, use yours. I’ll use mine. We’ll go all at once, then everyone ducks down, got it?”

Catalina and Jennifer reported back in the affirmative. David pulled out his grenade. “Okay, go,” he said. He pulled the pin and tossed it. It landed among the forest of the pallid gray legs and rolled into the first few inches of water in the lake. They all ducked down behind the barricade, covering their ears and ducking their heads down.

A triplet of explosions burst into existence, sending a painful blast of concussive force through him and leaving his ears ringing. When he stood back up to the muted sounds of shrieking, bringing his rifle to bear again, David saw that his grenade had taken out a good thirty of the things, and probably forty more had been killed to either side.

That was when the attack he had been expecting began.

A fresh wave of shrieking gray terrors boiled up out of the lake and through the trees and came at them, all claws and teeth and murderous intent. Everyone opened fire and a dozen guns spoke at once. David began letting out short, controlled bursts. He watched viper skulls snap back as sprays of gray gore escaped them. They flopped to the ground and were trampled by their brethren, scrambling to get to the barricade.

At first, it went well.

He made headshot after headshot. So did the others. They put down the second wave of shrieking, onrushing vipers without a problem. But as they reloaded, another wave was already cropping up to replace the first, and David could see even more behind them. Holy fucking shit, how many were there?! He finished the reload and resumed fire, trying to keep a calm and steady aim for as long as he could.

The seconds ground by. The bodies began to pile up, along with the spent shells. The blood flowed into the lake and stained the ground as they vipers tried desperately to get closer. And they did get closer. At first, David and the others could keep them pretty much at the shoreline. But within a minute or so, they were gaining ground, first a foot from the shoreline, then a few feet, and finally, as he reloaded for the fifth time, they were getting over halfway to the barricade. David began to get really worried as he reloaded again.

This time he just aimed and squeezed the trigger, hosing the fuckers down and spraying the bullets back and forth in a wide arc. There were so many of them that he didn’t even have to aim. He, Ellie, and Cait laid down overlapping waves of gunfire.

“Tell Hazel to stop!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Okay!” Azure yelled back.

He didn’t know how quickly that would stop the vipers from coming, but this was rapidly becoming too much. He rattled through another pair of magazines, his hands starting to go numb from the constant firing, his gun heating up, before finally they began to relent. As he reloaded yet again, he was able to switch back to making individual headshots. Another minute or so went by as the tide of vipers finally stemmed and they put down the last of them. For several seconds, everyone waited after the last shot was fired.

Finally, David slowly, shakily lowered his gun.

“Holy fucking shit,” Ellie said finally, breaking the silence. “Fuck me that was terrifying.”

“Is everyone okay?” David asked.

Everyone reported in one by one. No one had been injured. Only a few vipers had managed to breach the perimeter, and Azure had killed them all. Hazel looked shaken and dazed, but otherwise unharmed.

“Okay, Cait, Akila, Ellie, Catalina, Match, Roberts, Azure, ten minute break. Everyone else stand watch. Then we switch. Grab ammo,” David said.

He stood guard with the others while the rest of them moved to the table. They had also laid out canteens of water and some food among the ammo and medical supplies. It took a few minutes for the shaking to subside, especially when a few other vipers showed up and he had to put them down quickly. After a bit, Ellie wandered back over with a canteen and some pills.

“Here, painkillers,” she said. “Cait said you took two bad falls today, and you look like hell.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, downing three of the painkillers with a good swallow of water while she kept watch. He ended up draining the canteen, then passing it back to her. “Fuck, I hope that was the bulk of the goddamned things.”

“Ugh, me too. I can’t believe there are this many of them. Maybe we should check in with the others,” Ellie replied.

“I will once it’s my turn for a break.”

“Go now, I can take over.”

“You sure.”

“Yeah.” She gave him a kiss.

He kissed her back and headed over to Cait and the table. There he took the time to replenish his ammo. He’d gone through nine whole magazines for his rifle. Holy shit. “You doing okay?” he asked, looking at Cait.

She smiled, but it was a weary one. “Yeah. I’m getting tired, though. I’m...” she hesitated.

“What?” he asked, worried.

“I’m just wondering if maybe this was a bad idea. Don’t worry, I can handle it, I just...I’m beginning to wonder if I’m pushing myself too much. I’m really tired...”

“If you need to, you can fall back with Azure and Hazel,” David replied. “I can pull one of them from the back to help.”

“Ugh, I hate feeling so fucking weak like this...”

“You’re pregnant, babe. Not to mention, even under optimal circumstances this shit is goddamned fucking exhausting. I mean fuck, I’m exhausted, too.”

“Are you doing okay? You’re starting to look pretty battered.”

“I’ll be fine. Ellie gave me some painkillers.” He hugged her and kissed her. “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

“Yeah,” she said after the kiss, “we’ve got this.”

He pulled out his radio after that and checked in. Ruby’s team reported that things were going pretty well. Ruby and Cole were excellent shots, and everyone else had mowed the vipers down as fast as they’d come up. Stern was less thrilled. He’d lost one of his men to a pair of vipers that had managed to surprise them somehow, and another had been injured, so now the injured man had to roll the dice and see if he survived the infection.

David wondered if they’d lose any others.

After they’d had a break and restocked and felt ready to take on another wave, they had Hazel begin to use her ability again, taking their places. This time around, it went closer to how David had hoped it would. About two third the amount of vipers as before arrived and they opened fire and started clearing house. By then, the rain had picked up a little bit, more than a mist now, and cast a gloomy pall over everything. David pumped bullet after bullet into the ever encroaching gray horde of dark-eyed horrors emerging from the lake like something out of an old horror novel. He went through half a dozen magazines this time around.

And that was how the next three hours went. It was a fucking endurance test. Though the waves were diminishing in number, they weren’t diminishing as much as David had hoped. By the time they had finished their sixth wave, no less than about a hundred of them had been dredged up out of the lake each time, or attacked them from elsewhere on the island. He was starting to get disheartened. How many were there?! By now, Cait had finally gone back to stay with Azure, too tired to hold her place. Given that almost none were coming from the back now, he’d brought Lara forward and replaced her with Corporal Lina, and hoped the Privates could cover the back.

And then, as they finished a long break, got an update from the others, (they were doing about the same, one of the fishermen had been killed, but otherwise they were doing surprisingly well), David set up for the seventh wave. They all prepared themselves, but this time, barely a dozen of them showed up. They had Hazel keep up her call for five solid minutes, but only a handful more arrived before two full minutes of nothing.

“Holy shit, is that all of them?” Ellie asked, her voice heavy and a bit hoarse.

“I think so, turn it off, Hazel,” he said, glancing back.

Azure placed a hand gently on Hazel’s arm and murmured in her ear. The woman opened her dark eyes slowly. She looked very haggard now.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

“Only about a dozen and a half showed up this time,” Cait replied, now sitting next to the woman. “I think it’s time for the end.”

“Oh finally,” Hazel whispered. “I will need to rest again before I do this.”

“Understood,” David said.

He spent the next forty minutes coordinating with the others and preparing for what would ideally be the final assault. They had used up most of their ammo by now, which amazed him. There had been hundreds, maybe even thousands of rounds and shells on the tables, which were almost totally barren now. Hazel slept on a bedroll by the tables, passing out almost the second she settled down. He finished up coordinating with the others, and then decided to give her, (and themselves), a full hour to rest before the last bit.

“Hey, love. How are you holding up?” David asked, coming to sit with Cait.

“Miserably,” she replied. “I’m soaking wet by now, my feet and my lower back are fucking killing me, I’ve got a bad headache. But I’m so glad we’re almost done. I want to go home and sleep more than anything.”

“Same,” he replied, yawning and rubbing one eye.

They sat there together, and he surreptitiously checked the others. They were in varying degrees of exhaustion. He thought they would hold together though. They were all, in their own ways, tough. They had all endured a lot to get this far, not just the past few days or weeks, but their lives. All of them had grown up in a post-apocalyptic world of monsters and misery and decay. They would do it. David sat there with Cait, holding her hand, letting her doze against him, until probably about an hour and ten minutes had passed and Stern called out on the radio. David answered the call, roused the others, and got Hazel back on her feet.

This was it. One more push, one last fight.

Everyone checked their guns, made sure their gear was ready, then got into position. The sky was beginning to darken. They had to finish this up soon or deal with fighting in the dark.

“Okay, do it, Hazel,” he said.

She didn’t respond, merely got to work. She sat down, folded her legs, closed her eyes, and went into her trance-like state of summoning the vipers. He had to admit, this raised a lot of questions about the squids. Were the somehow telepathic? Or was it something else? Was she emitting something, maybe even some kind of sound, that they couldn’t hear but vipers could? Was it something else entirely that he didn’t have an accurate concept for? He doubted he’d ever find out, as Azure had said, even though they were friends, close friends, she could not betray her people’s confidence, and he hadn’t pushed.

They waited.

And then the vipers began to come.

There were a lot of them, almost as many as the first time. David gave the call to use the rest of the grenades. He’d made sure to save three of them for this last part. They tossed them, then ducked down. The grenades blew. Plumes of dirt and water mixed with gray blood and broken bodies and severed limbs and heads went flying. And then the vipers attacked in force. David opened fire once again, feeling tired adrenaline coursing through his body. By that point, he almost felt like he was going into a trance himself as he fought the vipers.

He stared down the length of his barrel through the sight. Line up a shot, squeeze the trigger. Rinse and repeat. The bullets went in, smashing bone and spraying brains back out the other side. A dozen vipers fell before him, then two dozen as he, Ellie, and Lara fought for their lives. To either side of him he could hear the others fighting as well, all of them firing and firing, blasting through whole magazines as they killed dozens more vipers. This had to be it. This had to be last batch of the awful, nightmarish fiends.

It had to be.

Minutes passed like days. His whole body throbbed in agony from all the abuse it had taken. He fought on, shoving it from his awareness. The gun clicked empty. Automatically, he ejected the spent magazine and slammed a new one in, then kept firing. That happened twice more before he realized that the vipers were finally beginning to thin out. Oh fuck was this it?! Were they finally at the end of this agonizing nightmare?!

As he reloaded once more, seeing even fewer vipers now, a sense of dread settled over him. Why? Was he worried that something would go wrong? No, he realized as he kept firing, not daring to take his attention from the vipers. He’d become aware of something. Something was happening, something his senses were warning him about. What the fuck could it be? Nothing he heard, he couldn’t hear a damned thing besides shrieking and gunfire. Same with smell, nothing but viper blood and gunsmoke.

And he saw nothing out of place besides the vipers.

Felt. He felt something. What?

Thudding, he realized at once. Something thudding. Heavy, like...footfalls.

What the fuck could have footfalls that would be making that heavy of-

“Giant!” Match screamed. “Giant! Behind us!”

David felt pure terror blast through him as he spun around and caught sight of an immense, twelve-foot monster coming from around the structure behind them. A titanic beast cast in decayed flesh, rippling with muscle, wearing the shreds of its clothing from when it had been a goliath adventurer before.

“Fall back! Fall back!” David screamed at the top of his lungs, unable to tear his eyes from the immense beast as it lumbered towards Match and Roberts.

Several things happened then.

Match dove away.

Roberts tried to get away, but the thing swung an arm that was as solid as a log or a battering ram into the side of his head and took it clean off. His decapitated head flew away in a shockingly powerful spray of bright red blood.

Everyone scattered, still firing on the vipers, of which there were still a few dozen.

Azure scooped up Hazel and sprinted off towards one of the buildings.

David found himself running for Cait, who was next on the giant’s kill list. He ran forward, ignoring everything else, took aim, and unloaded whatever was left in his magazine into the thing’s huge chest. It roared and staggered as his gun ran dry.

“Cait! Go!” he screamed.

She began to move but stared at him with sudden terror in her eyes. “Behind you!”

David began to turn when he felt a burning explosion of pain on his shoulder.

“DAVID!” Cait screamed.

“RUN! NOW!” he roared as he twisted around, pulling out his pistol, and shot the viper that had bitten him on the shoulder in the face. He shot three more in swift succession, then began staggering away, drawing a bead on the giant again.

He was infected.

Already he felt hot, an awful liquid heat rushing into his body from the wound, and as he took aim at the giant, his vision began to swim. He opened fire, he had to kill this thing. It was going after Cait again. He heard Ellie and Lara screaming at him to move, but he needed to make this shot. He stood still, aimed, and put six rounds into the thing’s big, misshapen head. The giant’s roar cut off abruptly as he killed it.

Good. It was dead. Cait was coming towards him.

“Cait, go!” he groaned, staggering around to face the vipers that remained.

He raised his gun and fired. The first shot was good, but the second one missed by a wide margin, and suddenly he found it nearly impossible to hold up his pistol. He gritted his teeth as Cait appeared at his side and opened fire. Ellie and Lara were there too, keeping the vipers from him. He heard shouting and gunfire. His vision was swimming badly now, darkness gathering at the edges of his eyes, and he felt so hot, like someone had tossed him in front of a roaring fire after wrapping him in several layers of heavy clothing.

“Cait...” he managed, knowing that he was going to pass out very soon. “I love you.”

He passed out.

…

The next time David opened his eyes, he did so to a world of agony.

Hands were touching him, and he was on fire, and he was being moved. He tried to say something.

“I think he’s awake!”

“I doubt he’s coherent.”

“Stop! Stop moving!”

“We have to get him back to the boat!”

And then the darkness returned, and David sank gratefully into it.

When he opened his eyes again, he was still in burning agony. His entire body hurt in a way he’d never felt before. It was like he was swimming in razor blades. His throat was dry and he couldn’t hardly move. Everything was swaying, but he had just barely enough of an idea of what was happening that he realized he was on a boat. All he could see were clouds. Gray clouds. It was raining and every time a drop touched his skin it felt like a needle.

Cait’s face appeared. “Oh, David, you’re awake. Don’t worry honey, you’re going to be okay,” she said. But how could she know? He might still die. And he could see the worry in her eyes. He wanted to say something to her, to reassure her, but the pain of the infection and the rain and the motion of the boat became too much and he cried out hoarsely, and then the darkness began to come for him again, and he disappeared.

There were fever dreams, but the next time he opened his eyes, he was staring up at a very dimly lit ceiling of gunmetal gray. He was more coherent, but that just made him aware of how much pain he was in.

He felt like he was dying.

His stomach felt shredded, his whole body was aflame, his head throbbed in unbridled agony, he felt like he wanted to rip his skin off just to cool down.

He croaked weakly.

“David, I’m here.” Cait again appeared in his field of vision. She looked haggard, with dark bags under her bloodshot eyes. He felt her hand against his, her skin blessedly cool. “You’re at Lima Company’s outpost, David. We’re going to move you to Haven when you’re stable enough.”

“Hot,” he gasped. “Thirsty.”

“Here.” She put something metal to his lips and frigid water filled his mouth. He drank deeply, but the sensation was so intensely wonderful that the darkness returned with a vengeance, and he was out like a light.

The next time he opened his eyes, he was much less hot, now merely uncomfortably warm, no longer ablaze, and although he felt like perhaps a few minutes had passed, he was now in a completely different room. His room, to be specific.

Someone shifted nearby.

“David?” April appeared this time. “Oh, David, you’re awake.” He tried to say something, but his throat was too dry. She put a canteen to his lips and let him drink. “Don’t try to talk,” she said. “Don’t move, don’t do anything, David. You’re through the worst of it, and your fever has broken. You’re going to be okay, but you need rest.”

He just drank the water she gave him, and before he knew it, he fell back asleep.

…

David opened his eyes.

He was laying on his back, in his bed, staring up at his familiar ceiling. There was morning sunlight slanting in through the windows. He laid there for several moments, afraid that moving would bring about pain or some other undesirable shift in his reality, because right now, he didn’t hurt. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. His body had a vague ache all over, his muscles sore, and he was tender in a few areas, especially his shoulder, but he wasn’t on fire, he wasn’t in agony, he didn’t feel like he was fucking dying anymore.

He was very thirsty though, and he had to piss like hell.

That was what ultimately drove him to get up. He began to shift, and someone shifted beside him. He looked over.

“Oh, David.” Cait was there, laying in bed, reading something. “Oh my goodness, you’re awake. Oh thank God.”

“Hi,” he managed. “I need to piss.”

“Of course.”

He got up and pissed into the bucket that had basically served as a chamberpot in the bathroom that was attached to the bedroom. Someday, he thought as he voided his painfully full bladder, they were going to have working plumbing again. Someday. Eventually, he was done. As he made his way back to the bed, he realized he was completely naked. Slowly, he looked down at himself. Two things occurred to him. The first was that he was a lot fitter than he’d ever been before, and he could actually notice it now. The second was that he looked like shit. There were bruises and cuts and scrapes all over his body.

Cait had a canteen of water waiting for him as he climbed slowly back into bed. He drained the entire thing.

“What happened?” he asked finally, grimacing as he glanced at the gauze that enveloped most of his right shoulder.

“Well, a viper bit you on the shoulder after you saved me from that giant,” she said. “Do you remember?”

“Yeah...”

“That was two days ago.”

He blinked. “What?”

“You’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for two days, David,” she said slowly. He blinked a few more times. She pressed on. “We spent the rest of that night getting you first off the island, to the boat, back to the mainland, and then to Lima Company’s outpost.”

“Yeah...I vaguely remember that,” he murmured.

“We stayed there the first night. Lara stayed on the island, so did most of Lima Company, though Lina and Catalina went back with us. Azure didn’t go, she had to stay and coordinate with her people, though I could tell she wanted to come with us. Ellie, Jennifer, and Akila all carried you back with me. Katya and Ruby ended up following after learning what happened. They came to the outpost and the next afternoon we finally moved you to Haven. Akila ran to Haven and told Evie what had happened, and she and April walked down to check on you, and she carried you back while we provided protection. You’ve been here in this bed ever since. You were out all the rest of that day. Your fever finally broke sometime during that night, and then you just slept for all of the second day, that was yesterday. It’s a few hours after sunrise now,” Cait explained.

“Is everyone okay? Did everyone make it?” he asked.

“Do you remember Roberts?” she asked hesitantly.

David closed his eyes, seeing the giant killing the poor man. “Yes. I remember what happened to him,” he murmured.

“Stern lost a few other people, and one of the villagers from Ruby’s camp died from an infection. But everyone else is okay. Battered and tired, but okay.”

“So...did we win?” he asked.

Cait laughed softly and shifted closer to him. She hugged him to her. “Yes, honey, we won. Lima Company is working with the squids right now to ensure that there’s no more vipers left. Stern and Lara and the others are sweeping the perimeter of the lake, and Katya and Ruby and some people from the fishing village are moving up and down the river, checking for vipers. Azure is leading her people in a raid against the viper nests, which are unguarded now. It’s probably going to take another two days to do it right.”

“I should be out there...” he murmured.

“No, honey,” Cait said, smiling. “We earned our rest for now. You need to sleep, regain your strength, okay?”

“...yeah, okay,” he said, relenting after a moment. She was right. He had serious doubts that he could walk downstairs right now, much less to the lake. His stomach growled. “Fuck, I’m goddamned starving...”

“Well, you haven’t eaten in two days, babe. Stay here, I’ll get someone to make us breakfast in bed,” Cait said, kissing him and then getting up.

He watched her go, then he laid back, and actually relaxed.

They had done it. They had won.

EPILOGUE

“This. Is. Bullshit!”

David felt a wave of concern roll through him as he, Cait, and Ellie approached the dockyards. It was Lara he was hearing, and he’d never heard her so genuinely pissed off before. The dockyards were abuzz with activity, Stern’s people moving all over it.

It had been two days since he’d woken up. That was how long it had taken him to recover, and even now he felt winded from the walk from Haven. Damn near everyone in the entire village had come to visit him at one point or another while he’d been laid up in bed. So had Katya and Vanessa, and Ruby, and even Azure at one point. Lara and Catalina had made the pilgrimage to visiting him once during their busy schedule.

From these visits, he pieced together an idea of what had happened since then.

Azure’s people had, after three solid days of painstaking effort, swept the lake. They felt confident that they had gotten every last viper and every last nest. Hazel and Azure had moved up the river for quite a ways with Ruby, Ellie, Lara, Katya, and a few others from Lima Company to make sure that they killed any vipers that might be lingering, and yesterday Hazel and the others who had their special ability had used it in a few key spots around the region, trying to lure in any vipers that might have possibly made it away.

Finally, David felt good enough to make the journey at least to the dockyards and see how things were going in person.

Apparently, not well.

“Hold it...oh my God, it’s you,” one of the soldiers standing guard by the parking lot said. David recognized him as Private Match. “You’re not dead.”

“Barely,” David replied. “How are you, Match?”

“Uh...you know, alive,” he replied. “Can’t say the same for Roberts...”

“I’m sorry about him,” David said.

“Yeah...”

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking deeper in. Lara, Stern, and Azure were standing in the open area between the warehouse and the dry-dock, with a handful of soldiers lingering around, watching the display.

“I don’t know,” Match replied.

“I need to talk with them,” David said.

“Okay, hold on. Colonel!” he called. All three of them looked over. “Got some visitors!”

Stern sighed. “Let them in!” he called back.

“Good luck,” Match said as the three of them walked past. They hurried over to join Lara, Azure, and Stern.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Glad to see you made it,” Stern replied, though he sounded less than authentic. “I was just explaining that, due to the significant resources we invested in the operation, and the fact that we lost five people in the process, combined with the fact that we now have two structures to look over, I’m afraid that we simply cannot afford the manpower to help relocate the squid group up the river to their new home. And my executive officer is less than pleased with this decision-”

“Oh bullshit,” Lara said. She was fuming, and more enraged than he’d ever seen her.

“So you are saying you will not help us?” Azure asked, her tone frigid.

“That is correct, regretfully. But David and his companions seem more than capable-”

“No,” Lara said flatly, interrupting him and stepping closer. “This is it, Stern. This is the final fucking straw. I’m sick and tired of you using people, disrespecting people, discarding them as soon as you’re finished getting anything useful out of them. You were a good man once, but I’ve watched you turn into a disrespectful asshole. Your father would be ashamed.”

That struck a nerve. Stern lost any expression and he looked sharply at Lara. “If that’s how you feel, then you are free to leave this outfit, Hale.”

“I am. I quit. Goodbye,” she snapped. She turned to Azure. “I will help you, Azure. I will help you and your people.”

“And I will, too,” David said. “Don’t worry, we’re going to make this happen.”

“Make it happen off my property,” Stern said.

David sighed. “Goodbye, Stern.”

They quickly left, before one of them, (Ellie was almost quaking in rage), said or did something stupid. They walked until they were a good distance away from the dockyards, then stopped by the edge of the forest that held Haven.

“I’m assuming that your offer to let me live at Haven is still good?” Lara asked.

“Yes, of course,” David replied. “We’ll figure out a place for you to call your own.”

“Thank you,” she said, then let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, Azure. I thought he was going to follow through.”

“It does not matter. What matters is that you all are my friends, my true friends,” Azure replied, regarding the four of them warmly.

“I promise I will get your people safely relocated,” David said. He yawned suddenly. “Although, um, I’ll need at least another day of rest.”

“Of course,” Azure said. She hugged him. “I am so glad that you are safe and recovering. I was so worried about you.”

“Same,” he replied, then he looked at Lara. “I can’t believe you just quit.”

She sighed and shook her head angrily. “I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner. He’s been really insufferable over the past few days, but this is too much.” She glanced back in the direction of Lima Company’s outpost. “There’s some things I’ll need...”

“I’ll go with you,” David said.

“So will I,” Cait said.

Ellie sighed. “I should go home. If I see Stern again I might hit him.”

“I am afraid I must go to my people and prepare them for the journey ahead. I will return to Haven tomorrow afternoon,” Azure replied.

“We’ll be there,” David said.

They hugged again, and then went their separate ways.

…

David looked out over the new lake as the last of Azure’s people slipped into the water. They had, each of them, taken the time to thank him, Ellie, Cait, Lara, Jennifer, Evie, and Ashley, whom had operated as their escort.

It had been a good six-hour journey.

After getting Lara’s stuff, they’d gone back to Haven and he’d basically slept the rest of the day away, all of the night, and most of the next day. He woke when Azure showed back up, saying that her people were ready to go when David was. He felt better by then, and even better after having sex with Azure again while several of their friends watched. They agreed to head out the following morning, provided nothing went wrong.

Nothing did, and they’d had a relatively pleasant walk up the river.

He was surprised to see that there were barely thirty people left in Azure’s clan, some of them injured or ill, but they were all grateful.

The other lake that they ultimately came to was about three-quarters the size of the last one. It looked peaceful. There were no buildings in sight, and no evidence that anyone had been around. It was fairly off the beaten path.

Now, he and Azure and the others stood at the lake’s edge.

“So...now what?” David asked.

“Now, I go to my people, and we begin to heal. You have made a powerful alliance with my clan, and a strong friendship with myself. All of you have. You have saved our lives, and we will never forget that. I promise I will come to visit sometime. If I can manage to slip away, maybe next month, but at some point, I will come see you all. Now, I’m afraid I must leave. There’s so much to do,” Azure replied.

She hugged each of them, and gave David a quick kiss after looking around and ensuring none of her people were still around, and after saying goodbye one more time, she slipped into the lake’s surface and was gone.

David and the others lingered for a moment, looking on as the waters stilled.

Then they turned and began to make their way back towards their own home, back towards Haven.

Hello, Misty Vixen here!

If you’ve made it this far, then thank

you so very much for finishing my book!

I’m here to ask you if you wouldn’t mind

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OTHER TITLES

Haven 7 will be out Summer 2020!

THE MISTY VIXEN STARTER PACK

Get ready to experience over 100,000 words of hot, filthy fucking. This starter pack features four original novellas, each from one of my shared universes, and a whole lot of passionate, human-on-inhuman sex.

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POST-APOCALYPTIC SHARED UNIVERSE

SEX & SURVIVAL

Welcome to a post-apocalyptic world where a virus, once meant to be a scientific revolution, has ravaged the planet and turned most of the population into inhuman creatures. Some have become mindless zombies, others have morphed into new species. Some can fly. Some can breathe underwater. Some exhibit animal characteristics. Enter Mike Walker, a survivor and adventurer. In this brave new world, Mike often finds himself in the company (and beds) of beautiful, inhuman women.

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SCIENCE FICTION SHARED UNIVERSE

HELLCATS

Ryan is a socially awkward, young technician who takes a leap of faith and joins up with a mercenary crew called the Hellcats. What he finds is a squad of alien or otherwise inhuman women who are looking for a boytoy to live on their ship with them and fuck them hard. Ryan fits the bill perfectly.

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ALIEN HAREM

James is a failing author who is friends with Aria, a beautiful alien woman who is also a failing author. She happens to live with three other attractive alien women who are creative types of varying degrees of success. Everything changes when they invite James to live with them and help them shoot human-on-alien porn to help pay the rent.

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DESIRE

Derek is a technician fresh out of college. Unsure of what to do with his life, he feels adrift as he stares down the barrel of adulthood. But all that changes when he gets the opportunity of a lifetime: he is invited to come live and work on Desire, a city-sized space station that caters to every sexual fetish imaginable.

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FANTASY SHARED UNIVERSE

DEMONESS

When John Greenfield heads into the forest outside his home village, pissed off and hungover, the last thing he expects to find is an injured and unconscious demoness. When he rescues her, it starts him on a path he no longer thought possible, and into a romance he didn’t think could exist.

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WANDERLUST

Owyn Fisher has just come of age and decides to leave his small village and start adventuring out into the world at large. But instead of danger or riches, he finds that his greatest adventure is all the beautiful monster women he encounters that wish to experience the taboo thrill of sex with a human.

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LUST & ADVENTURE

When Alan Wilde, a magical healer living a quiet life in a small village, begins having a personal crisis, wondering if he’s missing out on leading such a life, he meets Layla, a beautiful, cat-woman felis adventuress. She and her friends are on a dangerous journey and need a healer. The chance meeting feels like fate, and so Alan begins his journey of adventuring and, he is happy to learn, sleeping with several attractive adventuresses…

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PARANORMAL SHARED UNIVERSE

PARASEXUAL

Alex considers himself a failure. After losing his job, losing his roommate, and coming close to losing his mind all in the same day, he goes to hang out with his best friend, who happens to be a particularly attractive werewolf woman. In an attempt to help him out and also to alleviate her own growing wanderlust (and regular lust), she has sex with him and then decides to take him on a road trip to Thorne: a giant coastal city that is home to a huge concentration of paranormals. And on the way, she begins hooking back up with several of her old girlfriends, who are apparently interested in hopping in bed with her and Alex.

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PARANORMAL PASSIONS

Jason is a regular, twenty-something human who feels adrift. After trying to radically alter his life, all that really changes is that he now lives next door to an incredibly hot, redheaded vampire. When they hook up, she leads him into a world of hot sex with paranormal women.

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ABOUT ME

Hello, I’m the author! There isn’t too much to me personally. I live somewhere in the United States and I like to write stories about people having sex and people having adventures!

So what makes me special? What sets me apart from most of the other thousands of similar authors out there?

Well, a few things that I can think of.

I write about reasonable, more down-to-earth guys. I’m honestly sick of all the billionaires and NAVY Seals and cowboys and firefighters. Most of all, I’m fucking sick and tired of all these BS ‘Alpha Male’ types. I don’t really want to bring down anyone who is writing or reading that, but I thought it was high time we started hearing about guys who aren’t like this.

Another big focus of mine is human guy on inhuman lady sex. There are certainly tons of stories about hot chicks getting laid by werewolves and dinosaurs and even Bigfoot! But there’s not enough out there, in my opinion, about regular guys fucking hot alien or monster or otherwise inhuman ladies. I love writing about human guys getting laid by mermaids and dryads and sexy aliens and genetically engineered female super soldiers and robots and even more.

Finally, I like emphasizing sexual encounters, casual and longer engagements, that focus on consent, communication, trust, and respect. I like both parties getting what they want out of the sex. (Or I should say all parties, given how many people are fucking at once!)

If you want access to extra content, to get news about my progress on upcoming stories, or pictures of hot, naked inhuman ladies featured in my books, then here’s some places you can check out.

This is my WEBSITE, (www.mistyvixen.com). Here, you can some free content, a monthly newsletter, alternate versions of my cover art where the ladies are naked, and more!

This is my TWITTER, (www.twitter.com/Misty_Vixen). I’ll post updates and pictures of hot, naked alien, monster, or otherwise inhuman ladies I find on the internet. Also, I respond to pretty much everyone, so feel free to say something!

This is my PATREON, (www.patreon.com/MistyVixen). There, you can get early access to the first two chapters of my in-progress works, and early access to alternate versions of my cover art where the ladies are naked! They will be released to my website after one month.

Finally, if you want to talk to me directly, you can send me an e-mail at my address:

mistyvixen@outlook.com

Thank you for reading my work! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

HAVEN 6. Copyright © by Misty Vixen. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.