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Bella stood with her spear poised and ready. The cruel bronze tip gleamed half a metre in front of her eyes; the smooth wooden shaft felt perfectly balanced in her hand.

Arrek had taught her how to handle a spear. The memory of his lessons slipped vividly into her mind, almost as clearly as though he were once again standing just behind her. She could imagine his chest warm against her bare back, his breath whispering across her shoulder, his hands touching her here and there as he guided her gently but firmly into the proper posture.

‘You must break down the barrier between you and the spear,’ he’d said. ‘Touch it. Feel the merciless sharpness of the tip. Run your fingers down the straight, proud shaft. Know it. Trust it. Love it. When you throw it, you are not hurling a mere object. You are sending forth a part of yourself.’

She let the memory fade, and she stood alone once again... except that she wasn’t. Arrek was somewhere close. Hidden. Watching. Judging how she handled this test of her skills.

With some effort, Bella pushed him from her mind and concentrated on becoming a part of the forest. This was important, Arrek had said. If she felt conspicuous, she would be conspicuous.

Deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out. I am a tree.

Her feet were rooted firmly on the earth. Wind whispered across her bare breasts. The spear tip hovered motionless in the air. Birds sang and insects chirped all around her, but she didn’t make a single sound or move a single muscle. Her concentration was fixed on a small tangle of bushes a little way in front of her.

Something rustled.

Her heart pounding so loudly she was sure it must betray her, Bella took a slow step, planting her foot soundlessly and easing her weight forwards. And then another step, as silent as the first, with almost geological slowness. Nearly there. Just one more step...

A twig snapped under her foot, sounding as loud as a shotgun blast in the quiet forest.

Suddenly, several things happened in quick succession. The furbeast which had been sheltering in the bushes shot out like a bolt of lightning and thundered into the undergrowth to her left. Instinctively Bella twisted round and hurled the spear towards it, uncoiling her body like a spring to launch it fast and - she hoped - accurately. Barely had the spear disappeared into the greenery when a short, agonised scream stabbed through the quiet air, rousing the birds from their roosts. She had only the briefest moment to reflect that this was a noise most unlike anything a dying furbeast was likely to make before a huge lizardman materialised out of the forest behind her and knocked her violently to the ground.

‘Hzakj!’ he shouted down at her in fury and loathing, placing one foot roughly between her shoulderblades to pin her down. ‘Ptjaddkufz errbok gree purrumjisklak!’

His name was Zker. Out of all Arrek’s warriors, he had rapidly become her least favourite.

There was a rustle to their left, and the top half of Arrek appeared out of the undergrowth, looking at Zker with a sternly questioning eye. Zker barked something in Rootsong in answer to the unvoiced question. After several weeks in the lizardmen’s company Bella had absorbed a very little of the complex language, and between that and some educated guesswork, she managed to deduce that what Zker had said was:

‘Eskarog! I caught the human with a weapon in its hands! I’m certain it was trying to kill you! You see now what it’s really like? You see now what happens when you give it too much freedom?’

‘I gave her that spear,’ Arrek replied. ‘I’ve been training her how to use it.’

From her position pinned to the ground, Bella couldn’t see the expression on Zker’s face. And yet she could clearly picture the sneer that would have given his clear opinion on that particular piece of intelligence. He said a few things to Arrek in a blunt voice, but the only thing she managed to translate was, ‘I heard a scream. Why?’

Arrek held up two items; one in each hand. One was a familiar spear, its tip red with blood. The other was the bleeding corpse of a furbeast. ‘Animals can make such strange noises when they’re hurt. She’s a natural with a spear, that girl.’

‘All the more reason not to let her near one, Eskarog.’

There was a short silence. At last Arrek said, softly but firmly, ‘let her go, Zker.’

Zker did not immediately remove his foot. Bella winced as he applied more pressure, his claws pricking painfully into her back.

‘I said let her go, Zker.’

The two lizardmen glared at each other. Zker was a giant, and built like a castle; Arrek looked small and slight in comparison, the top of his head reaching only as high as Zker’s shoulders. But after a few moments Zker yielded, removing his foot from Bella’s back and storming off towards the camp without a further word, his tail flicking angrily behind him.

Bella pulled herself to her feet and brushed herself off. ‘Wow. He has a knack for turning up at the worst possible moment, doesn’t he? But enough about Zker. I can’t believe I hit that furbeast!’

‘You didn’t. I did.’

She deflated.

I thought that was too wild a shot to land. Oh well. At least I don’t have to feel bad about taking some poor creature’s life. Besides... wait. Hang on. Arrek, what in the world is wrong with you?!?

The lizardman eased himself out of the undergrowth, leaning heavily on the spear, wincing in obvious pain. Now that his full body was visible, she could see bright red blood trickling down his left leg. With a sinking stomach she suddenly understood the scream she’d heard after throwing the spear.

‘You were quite wide of the mark,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘But at least you hit something.’

Bella stood aghast. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...’

‘I know. You didn’t know where I was. You’ve learned another lesson: never throw spears around willy-nilly.’ He pulled off his pelt to reveal a vivid gash across his inner thigh. The spear must have shot straight between his legs.

‘And speaking of willy-nilly, I’m extremely glad you didn’t aim just a little bit higher. Let me just clean this up...’

He grabbed a handful of soft moss and began wiping the blood from his legs. Bella quickly took over the job, thinking it was the least she could do after inflicting the wound. Kneeling in front of him, the scarlet blood washed easily from his green scales with just a few sweeps of the moss up and down his tightly-muscled thigh. Once his leg looked clean, that left only the wound itself. Arrek winced in discomfort as she gently dabbed the blood from around it.

‘It’s not deep,’ he said, ‘it’ll stop bleeding soon. Just hold a clean piece of moss against the wound and apply some pressure for a minute or two; I can bandage it properly back at camp.’

Bella did as he requested. Arrek grunted in pain as she put pressure on the wound; then it was just a matter of waiting. She tried not to think about his flaccid cock and balls hanging just centimetres away from her fingers. And she pretended not to notice when, gradually, as the minutes passed, it became less and less flaccid, twitching into semi-erectness in response to her touch, even through what must have been considerable pain.

Arrek made no comment on it, and neither did she. It didn’t need any. It was just a physical reminder of how he felt about her, which was something they both understood perfectly well, just as they understood that these feelings would never be acted upon. When the wound was clean and no longer bleeding, Arrek replaced his fur skirt and they walked together back to the camp, the lizardman leaning slightly on her shoulder for support while trying hard to look as though he wasn’t.

* * *

Back at camp, Bella looked about for a way to make herself useful. As Arrek was fond of pointing out, the lizardmen didn’t have the resources to feed useless mouths, and if she expected to eat her fair share, she was expected to work her fair share. In exchange for this, she received a fair degree of personal liberty.

There was always something to do. In just over three weeks she’d learnt an enormous amount about cooking, cleaning, butchering meat, tanning leather, fire-building and a hundred other little tasks. After years of soft living in Davis where everything was done for her whether she wanted it done or not, the feeling of being useful was a liberating one.

Her first few days in Aurelheart had been hard to endure. A majority of the lizardmen had held her in contempt and hadn’t been shy about making their feelings known, despite Arrek’s insistence that she should be shown a certain minimum courtesy. But as time went by, and they saw she was trying to work hard and fit in as best she could - and that she was willing to take on all the jobs that no-one else wanted to do - most of them softened somewhat towards her. They still didn’t like her, or trust her - she was, after all, from where they stood, one of the enemy - but now only a few die-hards like Zker actively went out of their way to make her life difficult.

She slept in Arrek’s tent. Perhaps it was because he wanted to keep an eye on her, or perhaps because he didn’t trust anyone else enough to leave her in their care. Or it might just have been the only tent with space to spare; Arrek had a whole tent to himself as a unique privilege of being Eskarog. Whatever the reason, it was an agreeable arrangement. Her bed of ferns and other soft things, across the tent from Arrek’s, was surprisingly comfortable. Arrek didn’t snore and his habits were scrupulously clean. As a courtesy to his efforts to make her imprisonment more comfortable than it might otherwise have been, she made no attempts to repeat the seduction she’d almost pulled off on their first night together, despite the constant temptation of his naked body a few metres away from her own.

It was hard not to slip into thinking of Arrek as a friend. She had to constantly remind herself that he was her captor, holding her against her will. The camp didn’t feel like a prison, but nevertheless it was a very secure one. There were always guards around the perimeter, hidden discreetly up in the trees - she never knew which trees - who were ready and willing to shoot her dead if she put one foot over the boundary without an escort. Within the confines of the camp she was more or less allowed to wander wherever she pleased. The only time she really got outside was when Arrek took her out for the (until now) secret spear-throwing lessons he’d been providing whenever he got an infrequent free moment. These were a welcome break from camp life for Bella, and she suspected for Arrek perhaps even more so. She noticed a weary, beleaguered look in his eyes when he was bustling about camp being Eskarog that melted away when he was alone with Bella amongst the trees.

And still no response from Eddie to Arrek’s demand. She knew, although Arrek refused to give her the specifics, that there must be some time limit within which Eddie was to make good. She guessed that the deadline couldn’t be too far in the future. When it came, one way or another, her life in the camp would be over.

And whatever happens, it’s not good news for me. If Eddie refuses to hand over the Dessinger Corporation then Arrek will - however reluctantly - end my life. But if Eddie caves in then I’ll be packed off to Davis to pick up the same loveless, superficial bauble of a life that drove me close to insanity last time. However imperfect life here might be, it’s paradise compared to that. Isn’t it odd that here - as a prisoner - I still feel more free than I ever did back home?

Bella was roused from her reverie by a brief snatch of conversation drifting from the nearest tent.

‘...You don’t fool me, you know...’

The words caught her attention immediately because they were spoken not in Rootsong but in English. It wasn’t hard to guess who was speaking to whom; the only person other than Arrek and herself who spoke English was a lizardwoman named Mrenva, and it was from her tent and in her voice that the words had come.

And why would Arrek and Mrenva be talking in English and not their native Rootsong? I can think of a reason: they don’t want to be overheard. It’s none of my business really... I should just walk on by... but it does rather tickle the curiosity, doesn’t it?

Reminding herself yet again that Arrek was her captor and not her friend, Bella decided to eavesdrop. As quietly as she could, she settled into a discreet spot just outside the tent where she could hear everything without much risk of being seen. Better yet, there was a slight rent in the fabric here. She pressed her eye to the gap and peered inside.

Arrek sat on the edge of a bed, naked. Mrenva was kneeling down in front of him, her hand reaching in between his open legs. Bella reeled backwards in surprise.

What? What strange illicit little affair have I discovered here? You’re playing with fire here Arrek, Mrenva is Zker’s partner... wait... no... ha! I’ve got this all wrong. This isn’t a sex thing. She’s just doing a proper job of cleaning up the war wound I gave you earlier. See? She’s got a wodge of moss and a bowl of water. And look, you’re as floppy as anything. Not like you were when I was touching you in the same place.

But isn’t it a little worrying that just for a moment back there, I felt so desperately, pitiably jealous?

Bella had come to know Mrenva quite well. She was one of the few who’d been kind to her, right from the start. And as the only English speaker besides Arrek - who was usually too busy - she’d born the lion’s share of inducting Bella into the many intricacies of camp life.

‘Do you imagine I’m blind?’ she asked him as she mopped up the last of the blood. Arrek winced at her touch.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘You’re the single most observant person I know. But right now I think you’re imagining things.’

‘Oh come on now. I’ve seen the way you look at her. You used to look at me like that once.’

‘In your case, I did a lot more than just look.’

‘Mmm, I remember it vividly.’

Mrenva smiled to herself as she began wrapping a clean bandage around Arrek’s thigh.

‘And I’ve seen the way she looks at you,’ she said. ‘All I’m saying is...’

‘Don’t say it. It is forbidden.’

‘Since when did that stop you taking what you want?’

‘It stopped me from being with you.’

‘And do you regret that?’

‘Sometimes. Do you?’

She shrugged. ‘What happened happened. It was a long time ago. I am content.’

‘Then what are we arguing about?’

‘About Bella. You know her days are running out.’

‘Possibly.’

‘You can’t seriously believe that Edwin’s going to give you what you asked for?’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Then what are you going to do when the moment comes?’

Bella was interrupted by approaching footsteps. As much as she desperately wanted to hear what was said next, she knew that it would be a bad idea to be caught eavesdropping and removed herself to a safe distance until the lizardman - who turned out to be Zker - had stomped by. But before she could steal back to her vantage point she saw Arrek emerge from the tent, alone, and limp back towards his own. The conversation was obviously over.

Damn you, Zker. Damn you to every hell I can think of. And I can think of quite a few...

* * *

That night, Bella dreamt she was back in Davis. She was lying on her bed - her big, exquisitely soft bed - and she couldn’t get up because her hands and feet were tied to the four bedposts with golden chains. She couldn’t breathe very easily either; she couldn’t breathe because she was wearing one of those tight, body-hugging dresses - the kind that Eddie loved her to wear but that she couldn’t stand - and it seemed to draw tighter with every breath.

There were footsteps outside the room, sounding sharp and loud on the marble tiles. She tried to call out for help, but the dress seemed to pull even tighter around her, suffocating the words in her chest before they could surface. She saw the door handle turn - once, twice - and someone rattled the doors. But they didn’t open.

‘Help!’ she managed to call in a whisper that took all her strength.

For a couple of seconds nothing happened, and then the doors exploded inwards. And standing there framed in the wreckage of splintered mahogany, a wild forest behind him where there should have been a room, stood Arrek, dressed in his minimal warrior garb, his scaled chest heaving in exertion. Seeing her, he strode over to the bed, thrust both sets of fingers under the hem of her dress where it strangled her cleavage, and ripped the horrible garment off her in a single powerful movement of his arms.

Bella gasped for breath, letting her breasts rise and fall as she gulped in deep lungfuls of cool sweet air. Arrek stood motionless at her side, his orange eyes gliding ravenously up and down the length of her naked body.

‘Arrek!’ she cried as soon as she’d recovered her breath. ‘Unchain me! Quick!’

He shook his head slowly. ‘No, Bella. Did you really think I would let you go?’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

By way of an answer he tucked a thumb under the waist of his skirt and pulled it smoothly from his hips. His manhood stood every bit as green and large and ready as it had that first night when he’d nearly taken her in the forest. Except tonight there was going to be no “nearly”.

Bella took a deep breath and let her eyes drift shut as she felt a scaled hand stroking circles across her belly, and another reaching over to touch her cheek. When she opened them again he was leaning over her, his fierce orange eyes staring hungrily down into her own. She lifted her head to kiss him, his eyes drawing closer and closer, like two perfect circles of fire dropping over her to engulf her in their wild heat...

She woke up with a start.

She was lying on her bed in Arrek’s tent. It was still dark. Looking over, she saw the lizardman himself lying on his own bed, naked but sound asleep.

Thanks Arrek. Thanks a lot. Even in dreams you bottle out just when things are getting interesting. Do you have any idea how wet and horny you’ve just left me?

Oh, how much I want to wake you up and slide in beside you right now! Take me now, Arrek you bastard, because I think I’m in love with you! Me and you, just one night, what do you say?

I know what you’d say. You’d say no. And then you’d turn around to face away from me to stop me seeing the evidence that you want me just as much as I want you.

I wish I had a little privacy. I have some needs that need attending to; a private matter between me and my fingers. Hmm. Just how deep asleep are you, Arrek?

She studied the sleeping lizardman carefully. He lay on his side, facing her, with one arm tucked under his head. His chest swelled with the slow rhythm of his breath. His eyes were closed and he wore a slight frown on his face as he slept. There was nothing to suggest that he might wake up any time soon.

Bella decided to risk it. There was even something about the danger of him waking up that sent a tingle of thrill down her spine and deepened her arousal. Slowly she slid her right hand down to rest on the wetness between her thighs, her fingers teasing the needy flesh around her womanhood.

She looked over at Arrek once more. Still sleeping peacefully. She could see the bright green curve of his penis hanging down unashamedly between his legs, standing out vividly against the duller green of his scales. Even flaccid it was a sight to behold. But she pictured in her mind the way it’d been on that first night, the way it’d been in her dream: long and solid and straight as a spear, and mercilessly broad.

What would it feel like to have something that huge push its way inside me? Just imagine it: my juices flowing in abundance; that great rod of flesh easing its way inside... but it’s so big, and I’m so tight, surely it can’t... no, there it goes. I can almost feel it stretching me, sliding deeper and deeper inside me...

Bella plunged three fingers into her agitated pussy and began to work herself furiously. She turned away from Arrek and faced the canvas ceiling, but in her mind’s eye he was right there on top of her, gazing into her eyes, stroking her face with his scaled fingers as his hips ground industriously, in and out of her, sending her fast towards the edge of ecstasy...

By a monstrous effort of will she managed not to cry out loud when she came, biting down on her lips to stop the torrent of pleasure breaking out in an audible sound of delight. Finally she lay there panting in the delicious aftershocks of orgasm, her heart racing in the darkness and a smile upon her face.

‘Why do you pleasure yourself so silently?’

Bella jumped so violently at the sound of Arrek’s voice that she nearly fell out of bed. She whipped her head round to look at him and two fiery orange eyes stared back at her. She tried to speak but no words came out.

‘Orgasm is the one moment in our lives when we are briefly in tune with the wild spirit of the universe,’ he continued in a quiet, steady voice. ‘To call out at such a moment is to say a prayer of thanks to all that is free and good. To stifle that voice is unnatural.’

Bella didn’t know what to say so she said nothing.

‘If you fear that in calling out you’ll be heard and let other people form false assumptions about our reasons for cohabitation, then try not to worry about it. I’m confident they already make those assumptions.’

Bella, embarrassed, continued to stare at him in wide-eyed silence until finally he turned around to lie on his other side, with his back to her; apparently the one-sided conversation was over.

She lay still for a few minutes, staring at his broad green back while her heartbeat gradually slowed towards normal. Then, an impulse came upon her. She knew, although she didn’t understand how she knew, that it was the right moment. She climbed out of bed, crossed the floor to Arrek’s, and climbed in behind him. The lizardman made no complaint. She tried to snuggle up to him, but the scales on his back were hard and coarse and uncomfortable, with a slight ridge of pointed scales running along his spine. Perhaps sensing her discomfort he turned over to face her, and pulled her close to the smooth, warm, comfortable scales of his muscle-padded chest. Thus she found herself drifting into sweet sleep, with his arm around her shoulders and her face pillowed against his breast, letting the rise and fall of his breath lull her into unconsciousness.

* * *

Two days after this incident, Arrek announced that he was leaving.

‘Your husband has made no pause in his war against the forest while he makes up his mind,’ he explained to Bella, ‘and therefore we must not pause in our efforts to protect it.’

She knew that the lizardmen had performed a number of small raids and ambushes over the course of her stay with them, but this seemed to be something different: a major offensive. Arrek was taking fully three quarters of his force with him. The lizardmen (and lizardwomen) who were leaving - and even those who were not - were bustling around the camp in what looked like tightly disciplined chaos: packaging tools and supplies; sharpening weapons and decorating them with feathers; daubing each other in warpaint.

Warpaint. This wasn’t the drab, practical camouflage she’d occasionally seen some wear on scouting missions and sentry duty. This was bold, vivid art written in the medium of red, white and gold paint onto the canvas of green scales. This was designed not to blend in but to leap out and terrify their enemies. This was an expression of pride. The fact that every warrior ran naked was a statement of pride as well. A way to show Eddie and his goons that they had nothing to be ashamed of.

‘No warpaint for you, I see?’

His mouth twitched in a hint of a smile. ‘It’s bad luck to apply your own paint, and everyone else is too busy.’

She snorted at the transparent request. ‘I’m not to busy. Sit yourself down. I’ll turn you into a masterpiece.’

There were three colours: a white the colour of a winter sky, a yellow the colour of an autumn sunrise and a red the colour of fresh-drawn blood in summer sunlight. There were no brushes; paint was applied with the fingers.

First, the face. She daubed her fingertips in yellow and began to paint strong vivid lines over his green scales, radiating out from the twin orange suns of his eyes like beams of golden light. A little red, too, daubed over and under the eyes to make them stand out. He sat motionless, trusting her judgement without offering advice or restriction as she applied the paint with an excess of care.

‘When are you coming back?’ she asked as she began on his arms and shoulders, tracing out a network of vine-like white curves which she hoped would accentuate the already pleasing muscular swells beneath.

‘It’s bad luck to speak of a return journey before the battle is won.’

‘Right. Just try not to kill anyone if you don’t have to, won’t you?’

‘Unless the humans are sufficiently foolish to value their masters’ machines over their own lives, they have very little to fear on this occasion.’

‘Good.’

On the chest, a bold, abstract design in white and yellow. She found she was working almost as much by touch as by sight, feeling the gentle swells and valleys that made up the rolling green landscape of his chest and steering the lines of paint around their contours like canals winding through a range of hills. She could feel his breath too, and his heartbeat, slow, solemn and steady.

Bella glanced up from her work. She noticed a lot of people move their eyes away, as though they’d been watching.

What was it you said that night, Arrek? That people already made assumptions about you and me? And now they’re seeing me run my fingers up and down your body, out here in the open for all to see. Confirmation for the suspicious mind.

She lingered slightly longer than necessary over the golden curves sweeping over his shapely buttocks, and then Bella started to cover his thighs with more white and yellow lines. Rough scales flashed under her fingers. Orange eyes watched her work with keen interest. And the green snake of his cock stood slowly to attention in response to her touch, for everyone to see.

And you’re not going to make any effort to hide that, are you? They already assume, so what does it matter if they have their confirmation? I understand now. It’s a kind of power you have over other people, letting them think they know a secret about you, when really, they don’t have a clue.

With a flourish of white all along his tail, she was finished.

There. Just look at you, Arrek! I must be quite an artist, but then, I had a superior canvas to work on. Look at the way the paint frames your eyes, making them look even fiercer and harder than they already are. Look at the way the lines on your arms and chest trace your muscles, making them stand out even stronger than they already did. Look at the way the patterns on your legs and groin guide the eye, so that I find myself staring at your rigid cock even more than I already would have been.

‘How do I look?’

‘Magnificent. But... there’s something missing.’

She’d only used a single splash of the bright red paint, around his eyes. spreading some more on her fingertips, she reached down to his erect cock and painted the whole thing a shocking scarlet, from the base where it emerged from the green scales of his groin to the broad bullet-nosed head. She took her time rubbing the paint into the slippery flesh of the tip before she stood back to admire the effect. She didn’t have to turn around to know that the whole camp was staring at them now. She didn’t care. Arrek’s bright red cock was a message of pride written in paint.

There was silence as the two regarded one another. Arrek nodded to her in silent approval. And then suddenly, Bella found herself blurting out the question, ‘can I come with you?’

The lizardman gave her a long, hard look, coloured perhaps with slight amusement. She squirmed inside.

Go with him? What in the wide world possessed me to ask that_?!_

OK I admit it: I don’t want to be away from Arrek. I’m attracted to him, like a moth to a flame. But it’s more than that. I had this vision of myself - just for a moment - butt-naked, painted up in bright colours, screaming as I charge towards a line of Dessinger Corporation thugs with a spear in my hand. Wouldn’t that just be a fine thing?

‘No,’ said Arrek firmly, squashing the dream before it had time to blossom. ‘I can’t spare a man to guard a prisoner.’

‘I could fight.’

‘No you couldn’t.’

‘Yes I could!’ she replied indignantly.

He laughed. ‘I stand corrected. You could. Of course you could. You really are a remarkable woman, Bella. But my answer remains unchanged. You will stay here.’

The last words were spoken with an iron inflexibility. Arrek had made up his mind, and the matter was settled.

* * *

The camp was quiet after Arrek and his army left. But not quite quiet enough. Zker was amongst those chosen to stay behind to tend the camp, much to Bella’s (and his) disgust. Without Arrek to keep an eye on him, he was becoming an increasingly brazen nuisance. Bella found herself planning her day around the single principle of putting as much distance as possible between her and wherever Zker happened to be.

Mrenva, as Zker’s partner, stayed behind as well. Bella started to become a regular visitor to their basic but homely tent: strictly only when Mrenva was there alone, of course. This was quite often, since Zker was so busy trying to show everyone that he could run the camp better than Arrek could that he rarely set foot in his own home during the day.

I can’t figure you two out. Mrenva, you’re one of the kindest, gentlest people I ever met, human or lizardwoman. What are you doing with a brute like Zker? And how does Arrek fit into your story?

One morning three days after Arrek left the camp she found herself chatting to Mrenva while they both worked on fixing a torn length of canvas. It seemed like as good a time as any to get some answers. For reasons of tact, she decided to approach the matter tangentially.

‘How is it that you and Arrek both speak such good English?’ she asked.

‘Ah.’

‘“Ah?”’

‘This is a long story, Bella. It ties into our history. All our history, but mine and Arrek’s especially.’

‘I’ve got time.’

‘Yes, I suppose we both do. And I suppose there’s no harm in telling you everything. But I wonder, how much do you already know?’

Bella thought back to an eavesdropped conversation within that very same tent. ‘I got the impression that you two have some history together. That you were very close once. That’s about it, really.’

She chuckled. ‘I’ll start from the beginning then.’

‘Please.’

‘Well then. One hundred and eighty years ago...’

Bella laughed. ‘When you said “from the beginning”, I didn’t know you were going to start that far back!’

Mrenva clicked in impatience. ‘History is important, Bella. Both generally and for this specific story.’

‘Sorry. Carry on. I won’t interrupt again.’

‘Interrupt as much as you like. Where was I? One hundred and eighty years ago, the first humans came to Aurelheart. You can imagine how surprised our ancestors must have been, to see such strange creatures! They asked to speak to our leaders, and each tribe of the lizardfolk - there were dozens of little tribes in Aurelheart back then - sent their own Eskarog to form a united council to talk with the aliens.

‘“Who owns the forest?” the humans asked. It was a strange question. The council didn’t know how to answer it. They understood how you could own a bow, or a spoon, or even a tent. But a forest? It was like asking who owned the sky. It simply didn’t make sense. But the humans kept on asking, over and over again. “Who owns the forest? Who owns the land?”

‘At last the eldest of the Eskarogs, a proud old woman of the woods, stood up and said, “no-one owns the forest but the sun! No-one owns the land but the trees!”

‘Of course, nowadays we know that what she should have said was: “we lizardfolk own the forest! Every speck of earth and every leaf on every tree belongs to us and our descendants, now get off our property before we stick an arrow through you!” but we didn’t realise that until many years later. Not until after we’d learnt to understand those strange rituals and beliefs that you humans call “the law”.’

‘This is very interesting,’ Bella interrupted impatiently, ‘but what does it have to do with you and Arrek?’

‘Well when I first fell in love with Arrek, some twenty years ago, things were looking very bleak. Aurelheart was being nibbled away piece by piece. Human developers and loggers took advantage of the legal ambiguity and helped themselves to whatever they wanted. Lots of lizardfolk were getting angrier and angrier. Wanting to take up arms and drive the humans away. It felt certain there was to be to be a war. That’s how I met Arrek.’

‘You both signed up for a war against humanity?’

She laughed. ‘No dear. We were the only two people who were desperate to stop it.

‘Arrek and I were both young and optimistic. Naive. We felt that an understanding could be reached if the humans better understood us, and if we better understood them. We went together to live in Davis, and learnt to live as humans do, and to speak their language. And we looked for a way to stop the growing madness.

‘We made a friend. A young human. Someone who seemed to share our love for the forest, and seemed earnest about wanting to save it. We came to trust him completely.

‘His name was Edwin Dessinger.’

A chill crept down Bella’s spine. ‘You and Arrek... knew Eddie?’

‘Yes dear. Knew him and loved him. Or we thought we did. Edwin understood property law inside-out, and he had a plan to save Aurelheart. I won’t tire you with the details, but in short, it involved setting up a company - a legal entity which would be recognised by the courts - which would own our rights to Aurelheart, and in turn be owned by the lizardfolk.

‘It sounded good. We believed in it. We travelled up and down Aurelheart, getting everyone who mattered to sign the papers. Arrek in particular became obsessed by it. It looked for a while like we’d found the magical cure for all our problems.

‘It was, of course, too good to be true. Edwin turned out to be a blood-sucking leech in human form. By some legal backstab that I still don’t understand, he managed to become sole owner of the new company, and the Dessinger Corporation was born.

‘You probably think we were extremely stupid, don’t you Bella?’

Bella shook her head. ‘No. I understand. He can be very convincing. He tricked me too, a few years after he tricked you.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He tricked me into believing that he was someone else. Someone worth marrying.’

‘And does it hurt you, that you were tricked?’

She nodded. ‘Every day.’

‘That’s nothing to how much it hurt Arrek. He’d poured his soul into the project, and when he discovered that the end result of it all was that he’d just handed Aurelheart to the humans on a tray, it nearly broke him. He came close to taking his own life. If the lizardfolk had ever understood what he’d done, they certainly would have ended it for him.

‘But Arrek decided to fight back. Having lost the fight of law, he decided the only thing left for us was a fight of blood. He became a warrior. A killer. Guilt hardened his once gentle heart. A darkness grew in his eyes; he wore a terrible, unbending devotion to his new path. People were in awe of him, people were afraid of him, and they started to follow him. Eventually he was asked to take up the title of Eskarog for the whole of Aurelheart. He took it. There are many vows he had to swear when he took that name. One of them was a lifelong vow of celibacy. A formality, usually, these days, but Arrek took it dreadfully seriously. That was the end of our relationship, of course.’

Bella tried to digest this new information.

Celibacy, Arrek? That explains a few things. Like why you’re so determined to keep your hands off me. You’re not someone to go back on a vow lightly.

‘Do you still love him?’

She nodded sadly. ‘Of course I do. Not like I used to; more like he’s a dear brother than a lover. I met Zker not long after Arrek became Eskarog, and we love each other very much.

Bella must have given some outward expression of doubt, because Mrenva suddenly snapped, ‘I do love him, Bella! I know you two aren’t fond of each other - he isn’t always broad-minded enough to see that “human” doesn’t equate to “enemy” - but he loves me, and he’s passionate about the forest and about finding a future for the lizardfolk. As passionate as Arrek even, but in a much more direct way. And he’s honest. Much more honest than Arrek.’

‘What? Arrek’s honest. He’s the most honest person I ever met.’

The lizardwoman gave her a look of pity. ‘You have a lot to learn, Bella. But you asked me if I still love him, and I do. And I worry about him. And I still think back to those nights we spent together...’

A wistful, dreamy look washed over her features, like her mind had been pulled away to some better place. The two women sat there for a few moments in silence, imagining - or in Mrenva’s case remembering - very much the same thing.

* * *

The next forty-eight hours were difficult for Bella. Zker was picking up confidence and had put himself in the position of de-facto leader. She’d even heard some among his ever-growing group of followers cautiously start to call him “Eskarog”. He had a number of unsavoury names for Arrek, his favourite being “wormheart”, which he used whenever the opportunity presented itself. The hatred written across his eyes was frightening. This was no cold-blooded act to drum up support, but a deep and bitter loathing of a leader whom he firmly believed to be a coward and a human sympathiser.

‘Wormheart and Dessinger are such good friends, they’re sharing women now!’ he bellowed out one evening between mouthfuls of red meat. ‘Just you wait until he gets back! He’ll have sold the lives of our finest and bravest in exchange for letting Dessinger build a sawmill in the heart of the sacred valley! Just you wait until he gets back! You’ll see the colour of his blood then!’

He uses that phrase a lot. “You’ll see the colour of his blood”. I’m not sure if it’s just a figure of speech or if he means it literally.

Bella was the most immediate target for his anger. He settled on a name for her which she decided was best translated as “Arrek’s Fuckhole.” Zker was not a man of great subtlety or imagination. Neither, however, was he stupid.

Look at how you’ve handled me, Zker. First you tried to assign me all the very worst jobs around camp. No latrine was cleaned or stinktoad gutted without me being ordered to do it. But it wasn’t effective. I’d already been doing most of the worst jobs under Arrek’s watch, and I didn’t mind doing them as much as you thought I should. And all that transparent victimising was making some of the others sympathise with me.

But you noticed. You changed your tactics. Now, for the last two days I’ve been kept under guard in Arrek’s tent, not allowed to set foot outside except to attend to my personal business. That was clever. First off, I’m now monumentally bored. I’d give my right foot for the chance to get out and gut a stinktoad. Second, it’s a lot easier to persuade the others that I’m a conniving soulless maggot when I’m safely out of sight, and not running around being helpful.

Arrek, I wish you’d get back soon. And not just because I need you to put Zker back in his place. I... worry about you. I know it’s silly. I know you’re my captor, not my friend. But I keep having visions of you falling - falling as you run, with the air full of fire and smoke and machine gun rattle - and lying where you fall, with your red blood soaking into the brown earth as you die alone. I can’t get it out of my head. It makes me feel so hollow inside.

Bella decided she needed to escape her confinement before boredom and worry drove her to insanity. She could pay a visit to Mrenva. Perhaps the lizardwoman would have some idea of how long Arrek might be expected to be away, and whether or not it had been long enough already that they should be concerned.

It wasn’t difficult to get out of the tent unseen: she just slipped under the canvas at the back. She stood for a moment, enjoying the cool evening breeze and the feel of sunshine on her face. But not for too long. It was important not to be caught outside, and to be back in the tent before anyone noticed she’d ever been gone. She stole quietly from shadow to shadow between the tents until she reached Mrenva and Zker’s. Before blundering in she took a visit to the peephole - the one she’d used to spy on Mrenva and Arrek together - to take a quick look inside, just to check that Zker wasn’t at home.

He was at home, and Mrenva with him. She’d only meant to look in for the briefest of moments, rather than to spy, but she found herself glued to the spot. The two lizardpeople were sitting close together on the edge of a bed, naked, sharing a tender kiss. Mrenva’s fingers were stroking his cock, which stood erect and enormous, twitching in rhythm with her touch; his hand was pressed flat against her groin, just fractionally above where her pink womanhood wept needily between green-scaled lips.

Whoah. I’ve never seen the lizardfolk making love before. I’d always wondered about that... I guess they must have as much of a sex life as anyone, it’s just one of the very few things they like to keep strictly private.

Speaking of which, I should probably stop watching this now. No matter what my opinion of Zker, Mrenva’s been good to me. It isn’t right to repay her with voyeurism. But somehow I can’t tear myself away. Something doesn’t fit here. Just a few more seconds...

Zker’s scaled fingers slipped down and nudged between the lips of Mrenva’s sex. She moaned in pleasure, the sound muffled by their kiss, and squeezed his cock tightly.

Zker looks a bit like Arrek from behind, just built bigger and chunkier. The same rippling green-studded skin, the same powerful hips, the same perfect shoulders. And look at the way he touches her...

I know what doesn’t fit about this scene: Zker is being gentle_. Tender, even. I couldn’t of imagined it of him, but there it is. Look at the way he worships her... look at how obsessively he kisses her... look at how his cock twitches in need of her... would Arrek make love like this?_

Bella realised that she was becoming physically, urgently aroused. In her mind’s eye, Arrek was sitting there in Zker’s place and she in Mrenva’s. She found herself willing the lizardman on.

Go on. Go for it. Take her now. She’s desperate for you...

As if obeying her silent command, Zker chose that moment to climb onto Mrenva’s lap. His broad green-scaled back faced Bella, the long curve of his spine rippling as he kissed his lover, his tail curling and swishing in pleasure. They held each other closely, hands roving freely over each other’s bodies.

Oh gods, why am I getting such a kick out of this? Look at me, I’m practically dripping. Don’t stop, you two, I want to watch you go all the way together...

Mrenva fell back onto the bed, taking Zker with her. There was a moment of stillness while she reached down to guide him inside her, and then she let out a sharp gasp - fading into a blissful sigh - as he slowly penetrated her.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes, yes yes yes! Arrek, Arrek, why couldn’t you have done this to me? Just the once?

Zker was pulsing slowly in and out of her, his tail and buttocks gently rising and falling. Mrenva made little satisfied noises, obviously enjoying herself, her tail twining lovingly around her partner’s ankle. He started to pick up the pace...

“Yes!”

It took Bella a moment to realise that she’d just said the last word out loud. Suddenly Zker’s head snapped round to look behind him, and his cold orange eye locked directly onto hers. Bella’s heart plunged into her stomach.

For a long instant, neither of them moved: Bella from fear, Zker presumably from sheer astonishment. And then his eyes lit up with bloody murder.

‘AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!’

Zker’s shriek of outrage split the air as he leapt from the bed and stormed towards her, rending the canvas in two with his bare hands as though it were no more than cobwebs. Bella was too petrified to move as the giant lizardman - all gentleness gone from his manner as he now took upon the appearance of an unstoppable force of elemental rage - bore down upon her and knocked her to the ground with a single blow.

She lay on the ground with her head ringing and Zker’s mad shadow looming over her, expecting him to deliver the killing stroke at any second. But he didn’t. He had more self control than she’d imagined.

‘Dirty little animal!’ he growled, his voice like iron, spittle spraying against her face. ‘Filthy piece of vermin! Disgusting little human pervert!’

‘I’m sorry, please, I didn’t mean...’

‘BE QUIET!’ he roared, standing upright, his foot pressing down between her breasts. ‘ASSEMBLE! ASSEMBLE!’ he screamed out to the camp at large. ‘WE’VE CAUGHT OURSELVES A SPY!!!’

* * *

Mrenva was the first to arrive, looking understandably a little flustered by events.

‘Zker, what’s going on?’ she whispered to him as a crowd started to gather. ‘Let her go at once!’

‘Mrenva my love! You might like to know that I found this little wormskin spying where it didn’t belong!’ He pressed down harder on Bella’s chest. She grimaced as his claws pushed painfully into her skin.

‘Is that all this fuss is about?’

‘It was spying into our tent while we were engaged in our private bonding!’

Mrenva looked momentarily uncomfortable. Bella had the feeling that if she were human she’d be blushing scarlet.

‘Well... um... that is a little surprising...’ she gave Bella a funny look. ‘But I’m sure we can forgive her, can’t we?’

‘Forgive her?!’ Zker snarled. ‘I am Eskarog here and I do not choose to forgive this creature! I choose to punish it!’

‘No, Zker. You are not Eskarog.’

‘Oh aren’t I? What does everyone else think?’

He beat his chest and raised his fist into the air. A hefty part of the crowd started to chant, ‘Eskarog! Eskarog! Eskarog!’ There were plenty of others who looked ill at ease with the whole situation, but Zker’s backers seemed to have a majority.

‘We’ve had it with Arrek the Wormheart!’ he shouted out to the crowd. ‘We’ve had it with his talking and bargaining with the wormskinned vermin! We’ve had it with his half-hearted war and defeat after defeat! It’s time to spill the humans’ blood and drive them out of our forest, out of that hovel they call Davis, and off this planet altogether!’

There were cheers from the crowd. Bella, sensing something very bad was about to happen to her, tried to squirm out from under Zker’s foot. But it was like trying to escape from a tree which had grown in place over her chest.

‘You know, Wormheart did one good thing for us! He brought us this,’ - he prodded Bella with a stick - ‘the enemy’s female, as a prisoner! Or did he?! You’ve all seen him dote on her. I’ve even seen him teaching her to use weapons! And we all know that they’re rutting away every night in that tent they share. And still not a single word from Dessinger! Why is that, I wonder? Maybe it’s because he knows she’s in no danger? That his old pal Arrek won’t let her get hurt? She’s didn’t come here as a prisoner... she came here as a guest!’

Bella’s imperfect Rootsong didn’t allow her to understand every word he said, but she got the gist. Arrek was a traitor, in league with Eddie, and she was playing them all for fools. Not a theory that would stand up to cool analysis, but it was enough to convince a mob caught in the heat of the moment. She could see the lizardmen murmur to each other, and flash angry eyes at her.

‘Well what shall we do about it?’ Zker asked them. ‘We’ll send Dessinger a message! The lizardfolk have a new Eskarog, and if he wants his female back, he’d better pay up quick!’

There were cheers.

‘We’ve already been waiting much too long for Dessinger to surrender. I think it’s time we gave him a hand!’ An evil smile spread across his face. ‘And if he still doesn’t pay up? We’ll give him a whole arm...’

* * *

Two lizardmen held her with her right arm stretched out flat over the stump of a tree. She tried to break free but she couldn’t move. Zker had an axe in his hands. He levelled the blade over her exposed wrist.

She heard Mrenva’s voice from the crowd: ‘Zker! No! Don’t do this!’ but she was drowned out by the steady chanting of ‘Chop if off! Chop it off! Chop it off!’

Brutal. Bloodthirsty. Violent. So much for my ideas about noble forest warriors.

Oh god, this is really happening. He’s really really about to cut my hand off. With a bronze axe. I’m not ready for this. How can anyone ever be ready for this?

Zker raised the axe in the air. The blade sparkled like blood in the red evening light. Everyone held their breath.

Help. Help! HELP!!! Someone, anyone, PLEASE help me!!!

The axe stared to move...

Suddenly something shot through the air and slammed into Zker’s hand. He dropped the axe, which thudded into the wood just shy of Bella’s fingers. An arrow stuck out of his bleeding hand. An arrow with bright blue fletching.

‘LET HER GO!’ shouted a commanding voice.

The crowd parted and there stood Arrek, bow in hand, looking war-beaten but furious. His warriors were filtering into the camp behind him, gazing in wonder at the strange scene.

The lizardmen holding Bella loosened their grip slightly, and didn’t protest as she wriggled out of their hands. By the time she got to her feet Zker and Arrek were standing facing each other, glaring.

‘Explain to me what you were doing, Zker.’

‘No, Arrek. You explain what you were doing.’

A murmur shot through the watching crowd. Zker was showing blatant and open disrespect by using his personal name in public.

‘You will address me as Eskarog, Zker.’

‘No. I think it’s time you started addressing me as Eskarog, Arrek.’

Arrek suddenly laughed. ‘You? Eskarog? And what have you been doing to earn that name while we’ve been away fighting for the forest?’

‘Well unlike you I still have as many men with me as I had four nights ago. So tell me, Arrek. How did the battle go?’

He has a point, Arrek: there are a few less lizardmen with you than when you set out. And look at them: plenty are wounded, and they all look tired and dispirited. What happened to you out there?

‘We have crippled the enemy’s new fleet of machines, and caused enough disruption to stop logging operations in the south-west for two months,’ Arrek said slowly and carefully. ‘This has come, I hold my hands up, at far too great a cost.’

Zker swaggered towards him, smelling victory. ‘And what about their cost, Arrek? How many miserable human lives did you exchange for those of our proud warriors?’

‘As I said, their entire fleet of...’

‘I don’t care about their worthless machines! How many of them did you kill?’

Arrek stared him down coolly, and drew himself up as tall and proud as he could.

‘I’m pleased to say, not a single one.’

‘Not a single one?!’ laughed Zker in delight. ‘And you’re pleased about this? Whose side are you even on? You’re supposed to be spilling their blood, Arrek, not ours!’

Arrek didn’t reply. He just stared at Zker in silence. Around him, a lot of voices seemed to be agreeing with Zker, even amongst the ones who’d come back with Arrek.

‘We won’t stand for your weakness and treachery any longer! I challenge you, Arrek, to the name of Eskarog, so that I might lead our people into glory instead of shame!’

A silence ran through the crowd, until Arrek at length replied: ‘I accept your challenge.’

This whole conversation had, of course, been spoken in Rootsong. Bella had been managing to follow the general flow of what was said, but she still needed occasional help from Mrenva, who had come to stand beside her in the crowd.

‘Mrenva, what’s happening? What’s that word they said: “Skreskrok”?’

‘It means “challenge”. Zker’s challenging Arrek to become Eskarog. This isn’t good... oh dear...’

‘What kind of challenge?’

‘A fight. A straight fight, with no weapons. The winner takes the title of Eskarog.’

‘And the loser?’

‘Is killed by the winner.’

‘Killed?!’

‘Traditionally. These days, that doesn’t usually happen...’

Bella wanted to question her about the word “usually” but decided against it; Mrenva’s voice had sounded weak and fraught. Understandable. Her partner was about to fight her former lover - possibly to the death - and one of them was certain to lose.

The lizardmen had arranged themselves into a wide circle, in the centre of which Arrek and Zker stood facing each other, only one metre apart. The difference in size between the two had never been more apparent. Zker loomed over Arrek.

‘On the count of four,’ a voice called. ‘One...’

Zker smirked. Arrek glared up at him defiantly, but there was a tired slouch to his posture. In fact, everything about him looked tired. His war paint was faded and worn. He had several bandages about his body, and he carried his left arm a little awkwardly. He looked to be in no shape to start a fight with anyone, let alone a giant like Zker.

‘Two...’

But wait. I’ve read stories about things like this. Perhaps he’s just pretending to be tired and injured, to put Zker off his guard?

No. No, look at him. He’s exhausted. There’s nothing put on about it.

‘Three...’

Suddenly, Arrek moved. His foot shot up like a striking snake, hitting Zker squarely between the legs. The giant grunted in pain and shock, and tried to lunge for him, but Arrek was already swinging his scaled fist. It struck him hard around the jaw, and Zker tottered and fell to the ground.

‘Four!’

There was a stunned silence.

‘You... you cheat! You dirty fighter!’ Zker tried to get to his feet, but Arrek kicked him hard in the stomach and he collapsed back down.

‘Yes!’ shouted Arrek, not to Zker but to everyone listening. ‘I am a cheat! I’m a cheat and a dirty fighter! And that’s why you all need to follow me if you want any chance of winning this war for the forest! Do you think Dessinger plays by the rules? No! And neither will I!

‘This idiot,’ he kicked Zker again, ‘will lead you to your glorious deaths. I will sneak you through the darkness into the best...’

But where Arrek would have led them they never found out because at that moment Zker kicked out with surprising dexterity and knocked him off his feet.

From that moment on the fight was painfully one-sided. Having lost his initial advantage of surprise, Arrek was no match for the giant in a fair fight. Zker picked him up and threw him bodily against a tree trunk. There was a loud crack as he hit - Bella fervently hoped it was the wood cracking, not his bones - and he collapsed to the floor. As soon as he’d regained his feet - slowly, awkwardly - Zker threw him against the same tree again. Crack. This time he stayed motionless on the ground for a few seconds before slowly, painfully, raising himself to his hands and knees, then to his knees, then up onto his feet. He swayed. Blood trickled from his mouth. He looked dizzy and unfocused.

Zker lifted him by the neck and threw him against the tree one last time.

Crack.

Arrek slumped to the ground and stayed down.

Arrek. No. Please don’t be dead...

He was alive. She could see the rise and fall of his breath, and the twitching of his tail. But now Zker was standing over him, his eyes blazing in triumph, his hands reaching down, squeezing around his throat...

‘No!’ Bella lurched forwards to do something, to stop him, but found Mrenva’s hand holding her back.

‘Zker!’ the lizardwoman called desperately. ‘Let him live. Please? For me?’

Zker paused, apparently lost in a moment of indecision. Arrek writhed weakly on the ground as the giant lizardman’s hands clasped his throat in a strangulation deathgrip. And then, slowly, Zker released him. Arrek lay wheezing, pawing weakly at his throat, as Zker leant down to him.

‘Do you yield?’ he shouted.

‘I yield,’ Arrek replied in a barely audible croak.

‘You yield, what?’

‘I yield, Eskarog.’

* * *

‘Walk with me,’ said Mrenva in an urgent whisper. ‘Don’t ask questions. Don’t look back. Just walk.’

Bella obeyed silently, falling into step with the lizardwoman who placed a hand on her back to guide her.

Zker was busy organising an immediate feast to celebrate his victory, despite the fact that most of the newly-returned warriors looked like they wanted nothing more than the chance to collapse in their own tents and sleep for twelve straight hours. Numerous fires cast long shadows in front of Bella and Mrenva as they walked.

Mrenva nodded up into a tall tree as they approached the camp perimeter.

‘She’s with me,’ she called in an impressively casual voice and they passed by without incident.

As soon as they were out of sight and sound of the camp, she pulled Bella to a halt and clasped both her hands firmly.

‘Bella. You need to run. Follow the stream until it meets the river, follow the river until it leaves the forest. Go fast. Zker can track you easily, but hopefully he won’t notice you’re gone until the morning... I can keep him distracted for tonight. That should give you a head start. You might just make it back to Davis if you don’t run into a patrol. It’s the best chance I can offer you right now. Do you understand?’

‘...Yes.’

The two women looked into one another’s eyes.

‘And Bella... whatever you do... don’t try to find Arrek.’

* * *

Zker’s first act as Eskarog had been to banish Arrek. Bella remembered the tired, defeated slouch of his shoulders as he’d limped - barely able to walk - out of the camp that had been his home and was swallowed by the darkening forest. Some had jeered. Some had thrown rocks. Some just stood in respectful silence. Arrek hadn’t looked back at any of them. Or at her.

I’m going to find you, Arrek, whether you like it or not. I don’t know where you are. How could I? But I have a feeling - just a feeling - of where you might be. And I’m going to trust that feeling.

She wasn’t sure she could find the place again. It had been daylight when she and Arrek had last travelled this route, and now it was quite dark. The forest was a different place at night. Oppressive. A nightmare of shadows pressing in on every side, as though a thousand unseen pairs of eyes were watching from the rustling ink-black canopy, ready to leap down upon her at any moment.

But somehow, she found it.

“People come here when they are troubled or uncertain, to put their minds at rest...”

He’d called it “the wood which eases the soul”. The place still looked the same, with its twisted, ancient trees and whispering brook, and here the moonlit shadowy forest felt restful, rather than dangerous. As though the forest were gently sleeping, rather than lurking with intent. Bella felt instantly calmer.

The wood which eases the soul, indeed.

And there was Arrek. He appeared to her as a black shadow, slumped on his knees at the base of Vzekkt Grighkt, the oldest tree in the forest, his shoulders hunched, his palms and forehead pressed against the moss-quilted bark.

She sat down quietly nearby, and watched him. He didn’t stand to greet her. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move a single muscle, not even a mere twitch of his tail. He might have been made of wood, as old and unmoving as the trees.

Still Bella waited.

At last, after what seemed like hours, he broke the heavy silence with a dead, leaden voice.

‘You should leave, Bella. I’m not safe to be around right now.’

She got to her feet. She walked, step by slow step, until she stood close behind him.

‘About two kilometres,’ she stated.

‘...What?’ he grunted in irritation at the non sequitur.

‘About two kilometres,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve walked it twice now, and that’s how far I reckon it is from here to the camp.’

‘Yes. What about it?’

‘That first night. We reached here, and you decided to stop for the night. It’s been bothering me. An odd decision, considering we were only two kilometres away from where we were going.’

Arrek laughed. It was a dry, dismal laugh which did nothing to lighten the mood in the air. ‘Not such an odd decision. I could have a night out here, with you, or a night with all... that.’ He waved his tail vaguely back in the direction of the camp.

‘All that is your home,’ she said sharply.

‘No.’ He shook his head slightly, his forehead rubbing against the lichen of the tree. ‘Not any more. I’ve lost it all. I have no more purpose. Once I’ve made my peace with the forest, I shall crawl to some unobtrusive place and meet my death.’

‘No you will not! You are going to march straight back to that camp and start making right some of the things you’ve let go wrong!’

‘Do not interfere, Bella! I have a right to end my life at the time and in the manner I see most fit. And you are not going to take that away from me.’

‘Oh yes I am! And I’ve had enough of this morbid mood of yours. Come on, get up. You’ve prayed to the trees enough for one night.’

He didn’t move, so Bella grabbed him forcefully under both arms and heaved upwards. She felt his muscles tense, resisting her, and a low growl of warning sounded from deep in his throat. She pulled harder. Suddenly an arm lashed out and pushed her forcefully away. She tripped and fell, landing on her bottom on the soft dry earth.

Arrek unfolded. His legs and back straightened, pulling his hunched form up into a straight and proud posture. He flexed his stiff shoulders and stretched his arms. And then he turned to face Bella.

With the moonlight full upon him, she saw what a terrible sight Arrek was. Dried blood clung to his scales where it had dripped from his mouth, and a dozen other places across his cruelly battered body. Tattered bandages covered yet more wounds suffered in recent battles against a different enemy; scars and chipped scales provided a reminder of older battles than those. War paint still held on here and there, looking no longer magnificent but a sad reminder of glory now passed. But above it all there shone his eyes: two furious rings of wild orange fire, untamable and still unquenched.

‘I do NOT stand up at your command!’ he shouted down at her in a voice that shattered the thick quiet of the night.

That’s more like it, Arrek. Angry is a step up from morbid. Anger requires passion. And you can’t be passionate if you’ve given up on life.

‘And yet,’ she said slowly, ‘I commanded, and then you stood up.’

He clicked his tongue in irritation and his eyes flashed fury, but he said nothing. He had nothing to say.

‘And now,’ she said, ‘I command you to return to your home.’

He laughed at that. It was a hollow, humourless sound. ‘I thought you were against me killing myself. Returning to that camp would be as sure a suicide as slitting my own throat.’

‘No it wouldn’t. Zker’s proud, but he’s not stupid. He needs every man he can get, and you’re one of the best. If you go back there and beg - I mean, get on your knees and grovel - I think he’ll take you back as a warrior. He knows it’d upset Mrenva otherwise. And he’ll enjoy having you around to boss about and humiliate.’

Arrek stared at her, furious indignation written across his face.

‘That’s what you want me to do? Grovel? Do you think I have no pride?’

‘You once told me you surrendered everything about yourself when you swore your life to protect Aurelheart. I think that includes pride. Tell me why the forest would be safer if you crawl away and die than if you walk back to Zker and grovel, so you can rejoin the fight to protect it.’

The lizardman glared at her in silence.

You hate this, don’t you, Arrek? Defeated by your own arguments. You know I’m right, and you can’t stand it.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I won’t do it.’

‘Yes you will. I command it.’

‘You don’t command me!’

‘Right now, Arrek, I do, because I’m thinking straight and you’re not. You’re going back to that camp. Not right now, perhaps - wait until you’ve had a night’s sleep and everyone’s calmed down a bit - but first thing in the morning.’

‘I will be dead by the morning, by my own hand.’

Bella screamed in exasperation. Arrek blinked in surprise.

‘No you will not!’ she shouted, pointing a shaking finger at him. ‘Do you have any idea what a pathetic waste that would be? You are not going to die, do you hear me? I forbid it!’

‘You... forbid it?’

‘Yes, you hear? I forbid it!’

Arrek shouted into the air, a wordless expression of anguish and rage. A flurry of birds, disturbed from their sleep, spilled out of the trees and flapped urgently away into the sky.

‘I - am - so - sick - of - people - telling - me - what - I - can - and - cannot - do!!!’

Bella swallowed nervously. She could sense the raw animal fury flooding through Arrek’s mind, overriding his sensibilities and his restraint. Right at that moment she knew he was capable of terrible things.

‘Well if you’d just listen to...’

Arrek grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her roughly against the ancient tree, pinning her.

‘You listen to me, now!’ His eyes blazed centimetres in front of her own. ‘You don’t get to forbid me from doing anything, do you hear? Not you, not Zker, not Edwin and his lawyers, not even the trees themselves. I’m through with all that! I’m going to do what I think needs to be done.’ Something in his eyes was softening, without losing its intensity, as he stared at her. ‘I’m going to do the things that I want to do, and nobody’s going to tell me I can’t. Not anymore.’

‘And... what is it that you want to do?’

‘I... I want to...’ His rough fingers touched against her cheek, softly. She could feel them trembling. ‘You know what I want to do.’

‘I know, Arrek. But you can’t.’

‘I can’t?’

‘That’s right. You can’t.’

‘And why can’t I?’

His fingers sat motionless against her cheek, frozen in indecision.

This is the moment. You’re capable of it, right now, Arrek my dear. Your defences are down, and your restraint is in tatters. But you’re still wavering. Let me help you.

‘You can’t touch me because,’ she said carefully, ‘it wouldn’t be honourable. I’m still a prisoner, and you can’t take advantage of a prisoner in your care.’ She met his gaze and smiled devilishly. ‘It’s forbidden.’

There. The challenge is laid down. Are you brave enough to take it?

Arrek stared at her, his eyes devouring her. ‘I told you. Nothing is forbidden any more.’

And then he kissed her.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It wasn’t a kiss which paused to ask for her cooperation, or even her consent. It was a forceful meeting of his mouth against hers, of scales sliding roughly against her lips, the unleashing of a reservoir of pent-up passion that could only emerge as a torrent and never as a trickle. Bella leaned back against the soft moss-shrouded trunk and let herself be washed away by the force of it, drowning in the strange warm taste and texture of Arrek’s affection. When he finally pulled away she found herself gasping for breath, but yearning to plunge back into another kiss.

‘Why else?’ he asked urgently.

‘What?’

‘Why else shouldn’t I do this?’

‘Oh... um... because I’m human,’ she said quickly. ‘A lizardman can’t possibly become intimate with a human. It’s forbidden. Isn’t it?’

‘Very forbidden,’ he confirmed, and he kissed her again. This time, as he kissed her, his hands clasped her breasts, exploring, squeezing, kneading the responsive flesh. His fingers closed around both of her agonisingly erect nipples at once and pinched down, hard enough to make her gasp out loud. She was quickly silenced when she felt his long forked tongue slip fluidly between her parted lips, darting unashamedly in and out of her mouth, lapping thirstily against her own tongue and lips.

‘Another,’ he said, pulling away again. ‘Tell me another reason.’

‘Because... because... because I’m Mrs Dessinger! I’m the wife of your sworn enemy. It would be very poor form to touch me inappropriately. Forbidden, in fact.’

‘It would be, wouldn’t it?’ he said, and slid a hand down her belly and under her skirt. Bella inhaled sharply as she felt scaled fingers glide over her weeping womanhood. She was so tender down there, so needy, that the pleasure of being touched was so intense it was almost painful. She closed her eyes and breathed, blocking out everything but the feel of Arrek’s fingers probing and exploring her most sensitive region. When he dipped a single fingertip in-between her lower lips and slid it all the way from bottom to top, the sensation was enough to fill her consciousness to overflowing.

‘Inappropriate enough?’ he growled hungrily in her ear.

‘More,’ she mumbled, and he gave her more. Two of his thick fingers delved deep inside her, plunging into her inner passage with an abruptness that made her cry out, burrowing deep, stretching her, twisting, stimulating her unbearably from the inside, inflicting upon her pleasure so intense it became a kind of torture, and all she could do was stand there, breathing ragged breaths, leaning hard against the tree because her legs were trembling too much to support her. She clutched tightly onto Arrek, pulling him close, willing him to continue, to go further. But soon, much too soon, he pulled his hand away.

‘One more reason,’ he said in a strained, husky voice. ‘Give me one more reason why I should stop. One more reason why it’s forbidden.’

Bella stared at him as she recovered her breath, her mind befuddled by desperate and immediate need. They both stood naked (when had her skirt been removed? She couldn’t even remember it happening), facing each other, her womanhood dripping urgently and his manhood standing stiff and high, the green flesh slick and ready. She touched it, sliding her hand slowly up and down the shaft, feeling its slippery hard enormity and wondering if it could ever fit inside her.

‘Just one more reason.’

‘...You took a vow. Celibacy. Lifelong. So you see, you can’t fuck me.’ She pulled gently on his cock, guiding it towards her opening. ‘It’s... forbidden.’

Arrek stared at her with those orange eyes like rings of fire, still infected with whatever wild madness gripped him that night. ‘Nothing is forbidden,’ he whispered, and he penetrated her in one fluid motion.

Bella shrieked.

Oh god... yes... yes! Oh, yes! How can something so big be inside me, I... I’m so... I feel so filled_... oh god that’s_ good_... how can anything feel that good... fuck me Arrek, go on, that’s it, fuck me..._

The lizardman pulsed deeply in and out of her with powerful thrusts of his hips, each one injecting Bella with a jolt of pure, unbearable ecstasy which entered through her nether regions and diffused through the whole of her being. There was nothing restrained or measured about his fucking; Arrek, like her, must have been aroused beyond the point of restraint, and he drove himself into Bella like a thing possessed by a devil, lunging his full length into her over and over with wild abandon. Bella gripped the moss of the trunk with white knuckles, her eyes wide, unintelligible sounds escaping through her open lips. Arrek stared dementedly into her eyes as he fucked her, his two black pupils ringed by circles of burning fire. The small part of Bella’s consciousness not consumed by the barrage of sensation from beneath found itself hypnotised by those twin haloes of flame, unable and unwilling to tear her eyes away from their fiery gaze. The pleasure building up inside her became stronger and stronger, harder to bear, saturating her, supersaturating her, until orgasm swept mercifully through her and she cried out one last time into the night as she twitched and pulsed wetly around his still-pumping shaft.

Arrek was only moments behind. ‘Bella,’ she saw him mouth silently, before he shuddered and thrust himself into her one last time, holding himself in place as his seed pumped liberally into her. Finally, as the last throes of orgasm had subsided within them both, they stood still and quiet, holding one another, the lizardman still buried inside of her, under the branches of Vzekkt Grighkt, the oldest tree in Aurelheart.

* * *

A scaled hand nudged Bella gently, trying to rouse her from her sleep.

‘Nnngh,’ she grunted dismissively.

No, Arrek. I know it’s morning but please, I want to go back to sleep. It’s comfy here on the forest floor, and I’m warm. The birds are singing and I can dream dreams of last night. If I get up, I have to start thinking of where I’m going to go. Of whether we can stay together. Of whether I’m still going to be alive at the end of the day. I can’t face that right now. Just let me sleep.

The hand shook her shoulder insistently.

‘Nnnngggh!’ she said more loudly.

I know I’m being childish and irrational, but right now I damn well feel like being childish and irrational. So let me sleep just a few minutes longer, Arrek.

‘Bella, wake up!’ hissed a voice that was definitely not Arrek’s.

Bella was on her feet with her eyes wide open in seconds. ‘Mrenva,’ she said in realisation, her racing heart slowing slightly.

‘Didn’t I tell you not to go chasing after Arrek?’ the lizardwoman asked, crossing her arms sternly.

‘Yes, well... I did it anyway. And I’m not apologising for it.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to. Whatever you did to him, it’s done him a world of good.’

‘Where is he anyway?’

‘Oh, I ran into him a while back, he’s out reconnoitring the patrols. Don’t worry, Arrek still has plenty of friends in Aurelheart, he’s in no great danger. He’ll be back soon.’ There was a short silence, in which Mrenva looked slightly awkward. ‘We... got a reply from Edwin.’

Bella’s heart skipped a beat. ‘And? What does it say?’

‘We don’t know. It’s addressed to you. It seemed right to let you see it first.’

She held out a sealed white envelope, and Bella took it in a shaking hand. She studied it. Her name was hand-written across the front in small, neat letters. Despite recent events, she guessed that the contents of that letter still determined her future. She held it for a moment longer, working up the courage, then ripped it open. A single folded handwritten letter fell out, and a ring.

‘My dearest Bella,’ the letter read.

‘These last weeks have been the hardest I’ve ever known. Davis is a sad place without you. I can’t sleep at night, thinking about you in the power of those brutes. I hope and pray that they have not mistreated you.

‘I don’t know what they told you, my love, but they put you to ransom. They wanted the Dessinger Corporation. I tried, Bella, I really tried. I needed a vote by the shareholders - I don’t think the lizardmen understand this - and they wouldn’t agree to the handover. I pleaded with them. I tried to buy them out. I stood up and screamed obscenities at them. But I failed. I’m so sorry Bella, but I failed. Please forgive me.

‘I love you Bella. I loved you from the moment I met you and I’ll keep on loving you until the day I die. If by some kind chance you somehow make it back to my arms I’ll be the happiest man alive, and I’ll do my damnedest to make you as happy as you deserve to be.

‘Forever yours,

Eddie.’

Bella stared at the page. The ink was splattered and smudged in a couple of places, as though teardrops had splashed onto it. She stared at the ring which had accompanied it. It was her wedding ring. Without thinking, she slipped it onto her finger.

‘He said no, didn’t he?’

She looked up. She hadn’t noticed Arrek return to the clearing, any more than she’d noticed Mrenva leave it. He looked more like his old self: still battered and bruised, but without the dark madness of the night before.

‘Yes. He tried, though. Shareholders. He... he said he tried.’ She wiped a tear from her eye in irritation.

‘And do you believe him, when he said he tried?’

‘...I don’t know. I think so, but I really don’t know.’

‘You know what happens now, don’t you?’

She nodded. ‘Now you’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’

‘That was the deal, wasn’t it? I was to die if Eddie didn’t hand over his company?’

‘Yes. That’s what I wrote in the letter I wrote to Edwin. I signed my name against it. That’s a very serious thing, for a lizardman. If I sign my name against something I have to go through with it, however much it may grieve me. Otherwise my name is tarnished and worthless, irredeemably.’

Damn you, Arrek. Damn your weird code of honour. Why couldn’t this letter have arrived last night when you were half out of your mind? You probably would have torn it up and run away with me. But now...

‘Of course,’ Arrek continued, a sly smile spreading across his face, ‘I should tell you that I signed the letter “Eskarog”, a name I no longer go by, and am no longer accountable for.’

Bella’s heart leapt. ‘You mean...’

‘I mean, that your execution is now Zker’s duty, not mine. And I have absolutely no intention of handing you over to Zker.’

She punched the air and whooped loudly. Arrek blinked and took a small step backwards in surprise.

‘We need to get you back to Davis, and quickly,’ he said. ‘I can take you to the river, which will take you all the way home. I’ve been talking to some good people on the patrols; you shouldn’t run into any if you keep close to the river. Zker will be after you once he realises you’re gone, but I can obscure your trail and make you impossible to track. And we should have a while before he wakes up. It seems he was celebrating quite heavily late into the night.’

‘But what will you do, after I’ve gone?’

‘I’ll grovel to Zker to take me back. You commanded it, and I obey.’

They met each other’s eyes. ‘Arrek, about last night...’

A pained look washed over his face. ‘Last night I was... not myself. I think I owe you a grave apology for my brutish behaviour...’

‘Stop!’ interrupted Bella angrily. ‘I will not let you apologise for what happened. No apology is needed.’

So the Arrek of last night really is gone. That sex, I’d hoped it might be the start of something, but for you it’s something to apologise for, an embarrassing mistake you’d prefer to be forgotten. It didn’t mean anything. You weren’t yourself.

‘Take me back to Davis, Arrek.’

* * *

They walked in silence through the trees, Bella a few paces behind Arrek. They were retracing the route they’d followed on her first day in the forest, but in the opposite direction. That first time, it had felt like an adventure, if a slightly terrifying one. Now, it felt like going home. Her heart was heavy. She wished that she could talk to Arrek, to enjoy their final hours together, but she didn’t know what to say. A strange gulf seemed to have opened up between them. But the silence gave her time to think, and she found herself thinking with unusual clarity. There were certain things, small things, which didn’t quite seem to make sense, but when put together...

‘You’re a liar, Arrek,’ she said at last.

‘Yes. Sometimes. Only when necessary.’ He didn’t look around but kept on walking at his usual brisk pace which Bella still struggled to keep up with. ‘But when have I ever lied to you?’

She laughed at that. ‘Day one. You walked me through a bog. There were these two types of mosses, you said. Athylyx and Baka-something.’

‘Arythryx and Bakarraka.’

‘Whatever. “Step on arythryx, don’t step on bakarraka, and keep your feet dry,” you said. Except I never got it to work. I thought I just couldn’t see something you could. But I reckon, you made the whole thing up. It was some kind of test, or maybe you just found it funny. I asked Mrenva about it, and she’d never heard of them.’

‘What, Mrenva had never heard of Athylyx and Baka-something? I can’t think why not.’

‘Well I thought I must have just muddled the names up beyond recognition, but then I remembered the Isabella Dessinger Shopping Centre.’

‘What about it?’

‘You said, when we reached that ancient tree that first time, that it was going to become the car park of the Isabella Dessinger Shopping Centre. Very convenient, for winning me over. But we were halfway up a hillside. I’ve seen a model for the shopping centre. It’s on flat ground.’

‘They can do incredible things with landscaping these days.’

‘Ha! But then there’s another thing. You shot my plane down.’

‘Yes I did.’

‘I’ve seen you with a bow. You’re good. But you’re not that good.’

‘Then what are you suggesting?’

‘I think I crashed that plane all on my own. Then you stuck an arrow in the engine while I was lying unconscious, just so you could impress me when I woke up.’

‘I think you’re underestimating my archery skills, and overestimating my ego.’

‘I don’t think so.’

I don’t think so. But I’m not certain. Not about any of it. I’m even less certain about another thing, the biggest deception of them all. I’m so unsure of it that I’m not going to say it out loud. Everything that happened - Zker’s rebellion, the fight - did you let it all happen the way it did, on purpose? Just so you’d lose the name Eskarog and wouldn’t have to execute me when Eddie failed to deliver, as you knew he would? I don’t know if I want it to be true or not. I’m a little scared by the idea of you being capable of something like that.

* * *

‘Well, I guess this is goodbye then,’ she said.

They stood by the riverbank, their back to the trees, facing the blue-brown rush of water meandering down towards Davis.

‘I suppose so. It’s been... an honour to have known you, Bella.’

‘Yeah, it’s been... something like that.’

They both stood somewhat stiffly, an awkward empty space between them. There was so much that needed to be said, but neither of them knew how to say it. At last Bella took a step forward and threw her arms around Arrek’s chest. The lizardman patted her on the back fondly, but cautiously.

I don’t want to leave you. I can’t bear the thought that I’ll never see you again. Lets not make it harder with soft words. Just break and be done with it.

‘Well... goodbye then, Arrek,’ she said with uncomfortable formality, extracting herself from the embrace.

‘Goodbye... Bella.’ His voice was strained.

Bella took a deep breath and turned away from him. She began to walk, step by difficult step...

‘Bella, wait.’

She turned around.

‘Arrek, please, don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’

‘I can’t let you leave without making my apology for what happened last night.’

‘Oh no, not this again. I’ve told you. I refuse to let you apologise.’

‘Well I’m doing it anyway. I behaved like an animal.’

She sighed. ‘Arrek, we had sex. Deal with it. You wanted it, I wanted it, we did it. I for one am glad we did it. I’d have liked to have done it again, but you apparently regret the whole thing.’

He blinked. ‘You think I regret our physical union?’

‘Well... don’t you?’

‘No, Bella. I don’t. And if you’d let me make my apology - instead of cutting me short - you’d know that too.

‘Sex can be a beautiful thing, Bella, or it can be an ugly thing. In Rootsong, we have two different words. There’s eke-tekri, for gentle sex between lovers. Eke-tekri is a sharing of souls through the sharing of bodies. It is more than just kissing, touching and fucking, although it includes all of those things. It’s something higher. A form of art, perhaps.

‘Then there’s skugurug. Skugurug is rutting. It’s what animals do. A quick, dirty groping and a pounding to get to an orgasm as efficiently as possible. Skugurug was what I gave to you last night. What I should have given you - what you deserved - was eke-tekri. That’s what I have to apologise for. And I am truly, truly sorry.’

That’s what you wanted to apologise for? For giving me the wrong kind of sex? Oh Arrek, I hope I can get you to understand that an apology is the last thing you owe me.

‘Don’t be sorry, Arrek. I like the sound of eke-tekri, but there’s a time and a place for skugurug too. Last night, I think a little bit of skugurug was exactly what you needed. And probably, right then, it was exactly what I needed too.’

He stared at her quizzically. Bella had the impression that it was a totally new concept to him, that skugurug could ever be the right kind of sex.

‘I... I suppose... hmm. You mean that you’re happy that I gave you skugurug instead of eke-tekri?’ he asked, mystified. ‘But in our culture, to perform skugurug on someone you care for is deeply shameful.’

‘Arrek, if you’d tried to eke-tekri me last night, I’d have pinned you down and skugurugged you myself. And if it makes you feel better, I’ve been married sixteen years and in all that time I think skugurug is the only type of sex I’ve ever had, and none of it came even close to being as good as what you gave to me.’

‘What? You mean you’ve never experienced eke-tekri?’

‘Nope.’

He took a step towards her. ‘You’ve never had someone touch you gently, softly, all over, in a way which tells you you’re the most precious object in the world to them?’

‘Not exactly.’

He took another step closer, now looming over her, his orange eyes looking down with soft concern.

‘You’ve never wrapped your arms around someone’s naked body and kissed them until the world seemed to melt away around you?’

‘Definitely not.’

He reached out to brush her hair, his fingers flowing admiringly through her matted and dishevelled locks as though it were silky smooth and flawless.

‘You’ve never had someone whisper words of love in your ear as they bring you gently to a tender-sweet orgasm?’

‘Not even once.’

His fingers paused their caress of her hair.

‘...Would you like to?’

‘Oh god yes.’

Without waiting for further invitation Bella threw herself forwards into his arms and kissed him. She kissed him forcefully and passionately, the way they’d kissed each other before, but stopped short when she noticed that the lizardman was receiving the attention placidly without returning it.

‘Eke-tekri, remember Bella,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘Not Skugurug. Here, let me show you.’

He kissed her once, gently, his scales gently brushing against her lips, the taste and feel of him lingering after he had moved away. And then he kissed her again, a little longer, their mouths melding together in tender but undemanding union.

Oh, I think I’m going to like Eke-Tekri_._

‘How long do we have?’ she whispered. ‘Before Zker comes following our trail?’

He smiled. ‘I think we can safely spare an hour.’

‘An hour? An hour’s good. I like the sound of an hour.’ She kissed him again.

‘Or maybe two hours. We’re probably safe with two hours.’

‘Even better.’

* * *

Time slipped by...

In the last thirty minutes, Bella had learned more about Arrek’s body than in the last thirty days. They lay together side by side in a verdant field of grasses sloping down towards the river, their naked bodies dappled by sunlight filtering through the canopy above. Sometimes they kissed, but mostly they just touched. Arrek touched her with his rough scaled fingers which could be so surprisingly gentle, stroking and caressing her smooth skin: one minute he’d be guiding his fingertips along the curved contours of her shoulder; the next minute, on a whim, he’d switch to tracing delicate circles over the soft skin of her thigh. At times he’d touch her with his tongue, the forked tip tickling maddeningly as it flickered over her neck or her breast. It was as though he wanted nothing more than to touch every part of her in every way that he could, to systematically discover what pleased her the most.

That’s certainly what I’m trying to do for you, anyway. I’ve learned several fascinating things about you already, Arrek. For starters, there’s this spot just on the back of your neck, right between these two ridgy scales here, where if I give you a good scratch, you snap your eyes shut and hiss in pleasure. And if I place my hand flat against your chest just here, I can feel the rise and fall of your breath, and the beat of your heart, both at the same time; but if I stroke my fingers just like this then I can feel your heart start to race in response. And then there’s your cock of course. I really love touching your cock. I like to touch it like this, stroking my fingers down the underside all the way from the slick head to the scaly swells of your balls. It always makes it twitch. I like that.

But the real surprise is your tail. Who’d have thought a lizardman’s tail would be so erogenous? I can see the pleasure written across your face when I touch it and squeeze it, whether it’s right up here at the slender tip or all the way down here at the muscular end where it joins your arse. And if I do this - slide my fingers all the way from base to tip - I can watch you squirm_. It feels nice, too, handling your tail between my fingers. It’s a bit exotic. I’ve never slept with a man with a tail before. I find myself rather fond of it._

As much as a tail was a novelty to Bella, so was a pair of breasts a novelty to Arrek. The lizardman kept returning to that part of her body again and again, his fingers sweeping over their curves in fascination, his hands cupping their rounded forms, none of which she found disagreeable. He leaned towards her and shot out his tongue, lapping at the nearest nipple with a warm tingling wetness that sent a delicious shiver down Bella’s spine. Still caressing his tail, she planted a fond kiss on the very top of his scaled head.

Time slipped by...

Perhaps another thirty minutes later - it was hard to hold any notion of how much time had passed, it seemed like no time at all - Bella stood in the shallow water at the river’s edge, the cool water lapping around her shins and Arrek’s warm tongue lapping at the back of her neck. Her hair dripped, the water running in slow rivulets down her naked body and mingling with the swollen wetness that throbbed insistently between her legs. Arrek stood close behind her, encircling her in his arms, his cock pressed against the small of her back, his mouth planting a kiss on the curve of her neck where it swept down to meet her shoulder.

There are some moments I wish could last forever. This is almost one of them. But not quite. Because if this moment lasted forever, I’d never find out what happens in the next moment, or the moment after that.

What happened was that Arrek slid his hand down slowly to rest between her legs, the scales of his fingers resting gently over her agitated womanhood. Bella leaned back into his embrace and closed her eyes, surrendering herself to the feeling of his fingers as they began to gently rub against her tender flesh. She whimpered as she felt a fingertip probe cautiously between her labia, sliding slowly back and forth. He began a thorough explanation with that single fingertip, touching and gently pushing against every part of her anatomy, making her twitch and twist and tremble as he found spot after spot which sent an electric pulse of pleasure through her loins. Soon, inevitably, he chanced upon her clitoris, and she gasped in delight. Arrek, noticing her reaction, focused his attention on that place, nudging and stroking the sensitive spot artfully. Bella took deep, rapid breaths, savouring the flood of sensation inflicted upon her but also wonderfully conscious of the water streaming over her feet, and the hot breath of the lizardman against her neck.

She spun round in his arms to face him. Surely now was the time for him to fuck her, to bring eke-tekri to its blissful conclusion? But Arrek had other ideas. After sharing a brief kiss he dropped to his knees in front of her and began lapping at her needy womanhood with his tongue. Bella swayed, wondering if she could stay balanced on her own two feet in the force of the barrage of sensations he was inflicting upon her. His finger had been broad and rough, but his tongue was fast and slippery and agile, and the pleasure it delivered was of whole different flavour. And of course he focused his attentions on all the most sensitive spots he’d already mapped out with his finger. The pleasure was intense and heady, but the touch of his forked tongue was light enough not to risk bringing her to an orgasm. She stood there, her feet in the river, looking down at Arrek, who looked back up at her as he worked her, his orange eyes blazing with warm fire.

Time slipped by...

Another thirty minutes - or more, or less - and Bella was at last enjoying a good fuck. She lay on the sloping grass bank once more, leaves and flowers tickling against her skin; Arrek lay over her, pulsing himself slowly in and out of her, his eyes staring down in wonder into her own. Occasionally he would pause to kiss her on the lips and then - leisurely, in his own time - his hips would return to their business. He kept everything so slow, so gentle, his cock sliding in and out in a smooth, oscillating motion that was sometimes slight and teasing, sometimes deeply penetrating, but was always wonderful. Bella let quiet little noises of delight spill from her throat and escape into the unlistening forest. Her hands wandered over his rough back, stroking and caressing.

There seemed to be no hurry to reach an orgasm, but she could feel one approaching anyway. The feeling of it building was like a bright and fizzy liquid seeping insistently into every bone, every muscle, every cell in her body, making her feel more impossibly alive then she could ever remember feeling before. It was gaining pace now, the orgasm-in-waiting, screaming inside of her, gnawing ecstatically upon every tiny piece of her body to be let free, to break out, to scream out into the wild air and be free.

The lizardman pulsed into her again, and again, and one final time. And Bella came.

She didn’t cry out. She just exhaled a single breath as bliss washed over her, dousing the fires within her as she clenched spasmodically around Arrek’s buried shaft. He paused, sensing her climax, and just as she was coming over the crest and awareness of her surroundings was drifting back to her, he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

‘I love you Bella.’

‘Mmm,’ she mumbled back, struggling to form words as the last of the orgasm trickled slowly out of her system. ‘Don’t get soppy on me, lizardman.’

Arrek pulled out and he sat beside her on the grass, stroking her hand. She looked questioningly at his still-rigid cock.

‘You never came?’

‘No, but don’t worry. I enjoyed myself greatly. Orgasm is never essential for good sex.’

‘But you were close?’

‘Yes. I was close.’

‘Then allow me.’

Swinging her weary body onto its knees, she knelt down in front of him and leant forwards to take his cock in her mouth. She was immediately struck by the size of it - it felt massive and solid inside her, and she quickly realised that she could contain no more than half of its length - and by the taste of it, which was sharp and rich and salty, all at the same time, and in no way displeasing. She worked herself up and down the shaft at a vigorous pace: she didn’t have Arrek’s self-restraint to take things slowly. The lizardman combed her hair with her fingers, letting out little grunts and quiet moans of pleasure, until she heard him take a deep breath and felt his cock twitch against her tongue. He cried out sharply, and suddenly there was seed flooding into her mouth, creamy in texture and salty in taste, lots of it, wave after pulsing wave, until finally the torrent was finished and Arrek lay still.

Bella pulled her head up and smiled at him. A little trickle of cum dribbled out the corner of her mouth. She swallowed.

‘I love you too, Arrek,’ she said, and kissed him.

Time slipped by...

* * *

‘Ah-ha! I thought I spotted this here while we were playing around in the water.’

‘What is it?’

Arrek was standing in the river, fighting a dense tangle of bushes to retrieve something tangled inside. With some difficulty he wrenched the object free and held it aloft triumphantly. It was a bronze-tipped spear.

‘Is that...’

‘...The one you dropped when we crossed the river, a little upstream from here? The very same.’ Splashing back onto dry land, he handed the weapon to Bella. ‘You’d better take it. I know you know how to use it.’ He rubbed a scar on his inner thigh absent-mindedly.

‘Right.’ Bella looked down at the spear, and looked up at Arrek. ‘Do I have to go already?’

He nodded gravely. ‘Zker has most likely already realised that you’re missing. We shouldn’t even have lingered this long. Tarrying any longer would senselessly be putting both our lives in danger. You must make haste towards Davis, and I will lay a false trail to prevent you being followed.’

‘Well then.’

Here we are again. Time to say goodbye, and for real this time. I still can’t bear the thought of a tender goodbye, so...

‘Goodbye, Arrek.’

‘Goodbye Bella. May you walk always in the shade.’

She turned her back on him and faced downstream. She put one foot in front of the other.

I’m not going to look back. Whatever I do, I’m not going to look back.

‘Bella, wait.’

She sighed, and turned around.

‘What is it, Arrek?’

‘There... there is another way.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean...’ He had a nervous look about him, as though he were terrified of what he was about to say. ‘You don’t have to go back to Edwin, and I don’t have to go back to Zker. We could stay together. Not here, but there are other forests. We could run away together. Live off the trees, just you and me, and not get in anyone’s way. What do you think?’

Oh, please, yes, there’s nothing I want more. I’d be a happy girl for the rest of my life. But... is it really what you want, Arrek, or are you just caught up in the moment?

Look at this place. Aurelheart. It’s beautiful. Every tree and stream and flower, every stinking swamp and biting insect and bloodthirsty lizardman. Beautiful. So it doesn’t upset me to know that I’ll always have second place in your affections, after Aurelheart.

‘Oh Arrek, you know that can’t possibly happen. You belong here.’

‘I could belong somewhere else...’ he said uncertainly.

‘No you couldn’t. And think about it. Can you honestly say that the forest will be better off if we run away together? Better than if you stay and fight for it? Better than if I go home and try to use my influence with Eddie to make him do right by it?’

‘...No.’ He hung his head, his hopes deflated. ‘But he won’t make you happy.’

‘No. But Eddie loves me. It’s something. It’s not enough, maybe, but it’s something.’

‘I love you.’

‘I know.’

There was a painful silence.

‘Well then. I’d better get moving. No sense in saying goodbye a third time over.’

With that, before he could say anything else, she turned her back on him one final time and started walking home towards Davis, spear in hand.

‘Bella, wait!’ called a voice behind her. But she ignored it and kept on walking.

Goodbye Arrek. And thank you. You’ve given me... so much. And who knows? Maybe, some time, some place, we might meet again? I hope so. But I don’t expect so.

Bella wiped the tears from her eyes and walked on, following the river towards Davis.