FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

As a preface, let me ask you, gentle reader, what do you do with a dream that follows you to waking? Some dreams mean nothing. Some dreams have power. What do you do with the dream that comes not as a terror, but as a narrative? What do you say when that person, that being, reaches out to you? Whether they are buried inside your heart, mind, or soul, or maybe speaking from an impossible time, or distance, some dreams never leave you.

That is the case with this tale I spin to you now. Much of the body of the work needed to be filled in. Yet the essence of what this story tells, I am proud to affirm, remains intact.

I write this for my younger self, who craved stories such as this. And I hope somewhere out there, this scratches someone's itch.

Part 1: Welcome to Death

Eli Threlkeld was lost in a slow wave of children all heading toward promised salvation. There was a soft, excited murmur that rose from the kids. They still babbled, as the young are wont to do, but it was with a certain energetic reverence. Even after their long journey to get there, the sights and sounds were awe inspiring. The exotic calls of wild songbirds and sticky jungle humidity greeted their arrival to the island. Even from the boat, huge concrete pylons could be seen rising up like monoliths to ancient gods that only grew in majesty the closer one got.

As fearless as only children could be, they were readily corralled by the smiling scientists with arsenic in their lips and heavily armed private contractors wearing dishonorable scars. A road of crushed asphalt lead to the great ziggurat which dominated the center of the island. It was massive, more than large enough to allow the thousand young souls to file into the welcoming arms of the sweeping wings which extended outward from the pyramid. Everyone was too busy admiring the spectacle that was Doctor Everhardt to notice that all the attending personnel had retreated behind hardened steel doors.

"Children, welcome!" Doctor Everhardt threw his arms wide like a religious leader preaching to his flock. The man was larger than life, standing well over six feet. Or, he would have if not for the years spent hunched that had put a permanent bend in his back. A voluminous white lab coat encased his equally huge bony frame. He even had a pair of smock wearing aides with electronic tablets flanking him on either side. Science was no fun without cyanide.

"I want to thank you all for coming to my island. There's a lot of work to do, but together, we'll make a better, brighter future for everyone! And I know we're going to have a lot of fun getting there." He was a very animated man, gesticulating wildly with every word. A feverish excitement gripped the scientist, threatening to make his smile rip his cheeks open. His sermon was passionately apoplectic.

Rumbling so loud it made the ground vibrate beneath bright colored tennis shoes overtook the speech. Slabs of concrete at ground level beneath the doctor's perch swung open on hydraulics that screamed in protest. For a moment, only shadows lay beyond the threshold. Everhardt kept orating violently even though his lecture was lost to the noise. An air of unease grew, and many of the children began shuffling uncomfortably. Though it lacked context, a momentary pause in the ruckus let the scientist's final proclamation through.

"Welcome to death!"

Then nightmarish creatures boiled forth from the opening, throats laid open in whooping, keening wails. They were huge, malformed things with patchworks of sickly pale hide and clumped black fur, spines and limbs contorted from muscular growth gone wrong.

They laid into the front row of children without pause, crushing soft bodies with ape-like hands or lupine muzzles. Those lucky enough not to have taken a place up front turned and ran in every direction out of the arena. A surprising amount of boys made it. Most of the beasts stopped to feast on their kills, finding the flesh infinitely more palatable than the protein gruel they had been fed until that point.

The screaming, Eli thought as he turned to run out into the jungle, is what he would always remember.

Part 2: Eight Years Later

Diana Pearson of special task force Orphic Reef stifled a yawn as she sat with the other twenty-nine members of the team. It was currently two o'clock in the morning. They had assembled in the briefing room of the USS Granicus in preparation. Fresh coffee teased her nose, the wafting scent of caffeinated goodness alone helped wake her up. The low murmur of conversation died as captain Smithson entered. He surveyed the task force a moment, ensuring everyone was paying very close attention.

"Good morning. Let's begin the pre-landing brief for operation Orphic Reef. One month ago, a deep sea fishing boat in the pacific hauled in a creature. They radioed in their find and their location. They were intercepted by the closest navy vessel and detained until the situation was assessed. The crew have all signed non-disclosure agreements and are under surveillance. We don't want this getting out until we're certain of what we're dealing with."

"This creature..." Smithson hesitated, frowning in visible disgust. "Seems to have been human at one point. The genetics are like nothing we could have imagined. They're horrific. By cross referencing what we've found against some of Everhardt's published journals there is no doubt that this is his work. You all know who I'm talking about. Eight years ago, doctor Everhardt, believed to be one of the greatest minds in more fields of science than I care to give the bastard credit for, initiated a huge genetic screening program that millions participated in. We can now surmise that this is how he chose his victims. Though it is still unclear the exact criteria he used to select them."

Diana remembered it very well. There were few Americans that did not. The fanfare of the supposed 'contest' to the interviews with the winners. Innocently naive people all just excited for a lifetime's opportunity. Then the public horror...

Captain Smithson continued, pacing in visible agitation.

"Over one thousand families were invited by Doctor Everhardt to come see his life's work. Just under three thousand people got aboard a luxury cruise liner that left out into the Gulf of Mexico and were never seen again. All trace of them was gone and every attempt to find the ship or the island they were supposed to be headed to, failed. Now, however, we might finally find out. Based on where the fishing boat picked up the creature, we have determined a few likely points of origin."

The captain shifted, face face betraying concern.

"This place is without a doubt the island we were looking for. The only reason we even know an island is there at all is because we visually confirmed it. We're sailing blind. Unknown interference has knocked out most of our equipment. Comms. GPS. Radar. Even our physical compass has gone out. There's white noise across every spectrum and frequency. Right before the GPS cut out it showed us nearly five-hundred nautical miles off course."

A palpable dread fell as the team digested this news. Disconcerted murmuring passed between the soldiers. Pearson felt like a rock had dropped into her gut. The captain cut through the disquiet with his conviction.

"Doctor Everhardt was a madman. There's no telling what he's done in over a decade of research without laws or morals. The plan was to send in the task force in the morning, but that's not happening. As soon as we can plot a safe course far enough from whatever is causing the interference and get back in contact with the other ships we'll call for backup. For now, the land expedition is on hold. Any questions?"

A few of the operatives present with backgrounds in technology asked to look at the ship's instruments. Other than that, everyone was busy processing the disturbing information.

"Dismissed." The captain stated firmly.

Diana did not remember getting back to her bunk, only the embrace of warm blankets and a soft pillow. Though her thoughts were tumultuous, she fell straight back to sleep.

****

Fifteen minutes past three in the morning, Diana was thrown out of her bunk. She slammed into the floor, woken by the shock. Her body started to work before her mind was even aware, stumbling to her locker and yanking it open, donning her gear in moments as alarms began to blare. Shrieking metal overtook the alarm as the entire ship's superstructure came under stress. An explosion ripped through the cacophony and threw Diana into the opposite bulkhead. Stunned for a moment, the hideous sound of shearing metal traveled through her feet.

Specialist Pearson could not hear her own ragged breathing, yet could just discern the alarm giving a death wail as red emergency lighting bathed her. There was only confusion and mindless terror. Instincts took over and training drills came to the fore, guiding her body on a deeper layer where thought was drowned by the depths of fear. As the woman ran out of her room, she could feel the deck starting to list to one side beneath her.

Gasping and panting, she ran out onto the deck and the next thing she knew, she was cowering with three others in an eight person emergency lifeboat. Only the shrieking groan of the dying ship and the turbulent sea broke the quiet. Diana had no idea who had managed to make it into the lifeboat with her. No one really talked except to ask the others if they were injured.

The island drew them in.

Ocean waves carried them onto a sandy beach and the four bailed out of their lifeboat. Diana's body throbbed like she had been in a car accident as her boots dug into the sand. Even in the dark, she saw the silhouette of the destroyer sinking beneath the waves as other lifeboats washed ashore. Shell-shocked, she tripped and did not think to get back up, staring up at the starry sky. Like a computer without enough memory, her senses were sluggish trying to keep up.

Of the original thirty members of the special task force, only twenty got off the ship.

Major Graham took charge and assessed the members of his team by with the glow of chemical lights and flares. Their situation was beyond dire. The only weapons were six M4s, and the sidearms the rest of them had. The only ammunition was what they had in their vests. The only real supplies were the small emergency packs of rations and assorted tools from the lifeboats.

"Someone gather some wood, and we'll start a fire." He ordered.

"I got it, Major." Someone volunteered

Specialist Diana Pearson heard the others talking, planning on what to do next, and knew she could not just sit idly by. The woman rose to her feet, not ready or willing to be a completely useless waste of skin. They all still had a job to do. Other than the clothes on her back all Pearson had to her name was a nine millimeter pistol and three extra magazines. That would have to be enough.

A yell cut through the night and Diana felt a shiver run down her spine. The survivors called out to one another and flashlights focused on the treeline where Jenkins, who had been gathering wood, disappeared.

Everyone rushed after their comrade, running into the jungle, calling his name. They all crashed heedlessly through the underbrush. Diana followed along because her herd mentality took over. They were all lambs in a slaughterhouse, following one another. The moment she crossed the threshold of the jungle, specialist drew her pistol. They had not gone far when the major commanded them to halt. A nearly impenetrable dark had engulfed them and even the ocean was barely audible.

"Sh! Listen." Major Graham ordered.

"Listen to what?" One of the team whispered.

They all stopped and listened. It was not the noise, it was the lack. Everything had gone silent. All the birds and insects that had been whistling and chirping were gone like they had never been. Jenkins had stopped screaming. Everyone strained their hearing, flicking their lights along the thick undergrowth.

Something larger than a silverback gorilla reached from out behind a tree and tore the major in half. His insides splattered wetly across the jungle.

Pandemonium descended on the group as they were immediately set upon from all sides. It was as though the island itself had come alive to consume them for daring to trespass. Blinding muzzle flashes lit the night as everyone opened fire at the darkness encroaching on them.

"Back to the beach!" The call sounded over the screams. Diana was unsure of what good it would do however the animal part of her brain was in charge and it commanded her to run in the opposite direction as fast as she could.

She did not look back. Only howling followed. There was a sharp sting in her shoulder and what felt like a hard shove nearly sent her stumbling. Had she been shot? She felt over her shoulder and touched something long and feathery sticking into her. In only a few steps numbness spread through her arm and began reaching across her neck. A void tightened like a noose on her vision. The feeling of sand did not reach her before she could run no more as the venom took its toll.

Part 3: Survivor

Eli was awoken by the far off peal of multiple explosions rippling through the jungle like thunder. An ocean god vented its wrath dangerously close. Even half aware, he recognized the sound. Adrenaline surged and his heart kindled a chemical fire in his blood and brain. Fully roused in an instant, the young man grabbed his gear. He kept a heavy rig at the ready for such occasions. He threw on pants and made sure he had grabbed the right magazine vest before slinging his rifle over one shoulder.

He navigated the paths through the trees with ease even in the dark. As he followed the branching road, well clear of the dangerous ground, he heard rapid gunshots and knew he was heading in the right direction. Soon, the shots petered off. The path became more difficult as he had to rely on his own acrobatics to traverse the jungle. He continued until he spotted lights glinting through the leaves. The flashlights from whoever was unfortunate enough to be out in the night were like beacons.

Eli reached the source of illumination and could hear the rustling beasts below him. Crouching on a lower branch, he unslung his rifle and turned on the flashlight fastened to his gun before putting the weapon to his shoulder. The whole scene was a slaughter. The beasts were already feeding.

The sight and sound still turned his guts. They were never clean. Cloth and muscle tore audibly as different creatures fought over the kills, ripping corpses limb from limb in a quest to satiate a ceaseless hunger. Jaws came down on freshly spilled organs, giving way with quiet pops. Bone splintered, crackling in a brittle way. Gore and viscera was splattered up the sides of trees from the force of exploded bodies where the beasts had ambushed the poor souls.

Panning his light along the carnage, a few horrors glanced Eli's way as he assessed the battle. The soldiers had killed a few of their assailants. Dead beasts were scattered through the area. He could not get an accurate head count due to the nature of the dead yet was ultimately unimpressed. The group had never stood a chance in the islander's opinion. Not at night without knowledge of the dangers of the island.

Calmly, Eli tightened his stance and sighted down the length of his FN Fal, lining up on the nearest beast. His digit traced the shape of the guard before sliding down to the familiar trigger. The lost boy knew its shape intimately. Knew the exact pressure of the pull. He preferred a heavier one, having spent an inordinate amount of time fine tuning the resistance before the figurative glass rod snapped under the bend of his claw.

With practiced ease he exterminated the swarm from his perch. Disciplined shots on single fire were more than adequate. He had come prepared to slay men wearing heaving body armor, so his magazines were packed with armor-piercing incendiary ammunition. The seven point six-two rounds cut paths of cleansing fire through the unnatural monsters. Perhaps it was overkill to use them, Eli thought as he shot each beast in the head. Although, the rounds were very effective against the scourge. Heads ruptured through the sight picture of his well-worn irons.

The only joy he got from the task was in the smooth execution of it. Any satisfaction in culling the beasts was marred by the knowledge that it did not matter how many he killed, because there would always be more. The beasts were a plague. Like kicking a carcass, more maggots always managed to wiggle out. One could wait out the curse, cauterizing the holes that the vermin squirmed from, and never truly singe the core. Sometimes Eli awoke in the dead of night, having had nightmares involving a hellmouth ripped open beneath the island. That the beasts were demons. Unholy things whose tide could never be halted, until he was drowning in a sea of corpses.

Cinders and crackling fire reminded him of these unpleasant visions.

Only after checking and double checking that the area was clear did he breathe in relief and lower his rifle. With great trepidation, he jumped down to see if there was anything of value. The young man felt no shame in grave-robbing. They were dead. He was not. Though his mood curdled when the few guns not too mangled, were clogged with gore. Let someone else have the scraps, he thought.

Following the trail a few of the escaping soldiers had used, Eli came to the beach where the group made landfall. Several more bodies were splayed out in the brush along the way.

He might have dismissed the sole survivor on his way if it were not for the trio of large quills sticking up in the air like tribal totems and the steady rise and fall of breathing. At first they just seemed like a body in the sand. Eli thought person was incredibly lucky, having gotten as far as they did while the swarm was busy gorging itself. Even though the masking scent of the venom would turn away many of the beasts, it was by no means a guarantee.

Examining the unconscious human, Eli was shocked to find it was she! The soldier was a woman!

Eli's eyes grew wide and a craving formed in the roof of his mouth and his gut. A greedy impulse ran through his arms as he reached for the female. All thoughts of looting faded from his mind under the weight of lust. He knew that others would soon come to investigate what had happened, and he had no intention of sharing this particular treasure.

He brought the unconscious woman back to his home bound up like a prized boar. By the time he returned, the sun was at last starting to rise over a very long night.

His lair was a maze of ropes, planks, and walkways of crudely welded metal snaking its way through a thick grove of mutated trees. At the center of the grove, wedged into the branches, was a crashed helicopter. A reasonably sized platform of wood and riveted steel served as kind of a patio to the repurposed vehicle. In the center of his patio was a wooden chair and wrought iron fire pit. A grate for grilling sat off to one side. Like the spokes of a wheel, gangplanks radiated from the center. Banks of salvaged solar panels sat atop the helicopter, connected to a jury-rigged assembly of batteries.

It was still a little dark, so he turned on a standing yellow work-light to see better.

Eli set his captive down carefully on her side and pulled a multi-tool from his belt. He removed the quills from her shoulder with care. The barbs could cause a lot of damage if they were yanked out. Clear, viscous fluid dribbled from the pencil sized holes. The sickly sweet aroma stung Eli's nostrils. For a moment he was a sniveling child again, cradling an empty stomach, nursing sores and wounds from sleeping on bare branches. He shook his head to banish the evocation brought on by the tang of the venom.

The quills were long with symmetrical, feathery vanes for aerodynamic flight. Years of surviving taught Eli not to be wasteful. Just above the hooked point was a bulb that held the venom in a slow release reservoir. He grabbed a vial from inside his makeshift bedroom and squeezed the remaining venom into the container, then discarded the husk. The venom was a good topical treatment for a few different afflictions and had heard boyish rumors of... Other uses.

Lastly, with a brush dipped in a special concoction of a blue jungle flower and crushed beetle, he drew his mark on her neck. Just to be sure. The slim, eight-pointed star glistened wetly as it was absorbed into the soldier's skin. Once the quills were removed, his captive would awaken quickly. But not too quickly.

With all that out of the way, he had the luxury of marveling at her body. It had been a long time since he had seen a female, and only from far away. It was almost like she was a different species. Different shape, different weight, and especially different smell. She had an aromatic halo of flowers, ocean, and soap. Even though it had been years beyond fathoming, he remembered.

Eli took the opportunity to explore, rolling her onto her back and opening her vest. After a moment of indecision, he raised up her shirt bellow her breasts. He was in awe of how smooth her belly was. Soft, creamy flesh formed a perfect meadow between small hills of abdominal muscles. His tail lashed behind him in eagerness. Wider, feminine hips led to the slimmer waist and up to something really womanly. The excitable teen dragged his claws lightly up her stomach to her chest.

Even though Diana would not consider herself especially well-endowed, to Eli, the treasures hidden beneath her shirt were priceless. He fondled her through the fabric, marveling at how the mounds were pillowy yet firm and yielding and heavenly and squishy in all the right ways. Then he felt her nipples harden under his brash groping and was conscious of his erections straining considerably against his pants. By consistency alone, he knew to be gentle, but only relatively so. He pulled and tugged, squeezing the supple flesh.

He let go of her tits for a moment and grabbed the edge of her shirt. Higher and higher Eli raised the hem up over the swell of her breasts until her ample twin peaks dropped free with a jiggle. The blushing coral pink of her areola and pert, stiff nipples were exposed. He gazed at her naked bosom with libidinous glee. Latching right back onto her mammaries, kneading them, feeling her bare skin in his claws and occasionally twisting her pebbled buds, he saw her start to react.

Foggy from the effects of the venom still coursing through her, Diana moaned in despondence. An odd feeling was coming from her chest. It felt like her nipples were hard for some reason. Warm air flowed over her naked breasts. Was something touching her? Eyelids fluttering, he vision swam drunkenly. A sharp pinching feeling suddenly brought her to awareness as Eli accidentally used a little too much claw. Hot breath washed over her face, neck, and chest.

A monster coalesced before her. On top of her. Staring.

She squealed in abject terror, struggling in her bonds. Trapped in a dream-like fugue, all she saw were slit-pupil eyes and fangs. In her thrashing she felt like jungle vines had wrapped around her. In his eagerness, Eli had all but straddled the hapless woman and now dismounted so she could calm down. Framed against the light, she saw the reptilian Eli Threlkeld stand to his full, terrifying height. Matte, dark green scales absorbed the light, making the beast's edges bleed into the dark. A long, thick tail provided balance. Massive, trunk-like calves and thighs were supported by digitigrade feet. Each leg looked spring-loaded, ready to propel the creature in huge leaps and strides. Each toe ended in a wicked, hooked talon. His upper body was toned and slim, but his arms stood out starkly by contrast. Large bicep and triceps muscle designed for climbing were well defined. A long reptilian muzzle held too many teeth and led to piercing red eyes.

Hyperventilating, Diana lost control of her bladder and wet herself in fear with death looming over her. She was not even aware of the accident until she felt the warm wetness spreading from her crotch. Whimpering, the specialist tried to control herself to no avail. The numbing venom was still affecting her. Shameful liquid fear flooded her slit and soaked her butt. Sharp ammonia reached Eli's nostrils and he stared at his prisoner's crotch, seeing it darken from dampness.

This caused Eli to laugh mercilessly.

Laughing?

Still breathing heavily, Diana's rational mind regained some control, though somewhat off-put by the fact that her breasts were exposed.

"What. The. Fuck." Diana breathed, still looking up in dread. "Oh god. Oh god. Please, don't kill me. Please don't kill me." She panted and begged, putting her tied hands up to try and protect her face.

"Who are you?" Eli's voice was like rocks scraping together. Trans-human vocal chords strained to mimic normal speech and only just succeeded. "Why are you here?" He demanded. With a claw wrapped around the rope between her wrists, the reptilian biped made it very clear who was in control.

"I... I... Wow. I-we-we came to save... Merciful fuck. We came to save... The children. That's right. Specialist Diana Pearson. United States army. Uh... Ship sank."

She saw the horrific lizard-man-thing frown. She did not think the abomination could be so expressive. Its tail thumped the metal decking in clear displeasure. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was make it mad. Her thoughts were moving as fast as her neurons could light up, flitting through a million possible ways the scenario could play out. What was this thing? What was it going to do to her? How was she going to get off the island?

"Lies." He hissed. "Why are you really here, Diana? No one's ever come to save us. You're lucky I rescued you from the beach. I could have left you where I found you. Now tell me the truth."

Once more a jumble of thoughts tumbled around in her head like a pinball machine. He had saved her? What were those beasts? What had knocked her out? She wanted to ask a thousand questions, but blurted out excuses.

"Look, look, look, look, I'm just a field medic with a stupid degree in zoology because I wanted to be an overachieving undergraduate. Okay? Okay. What do you mean 'us'?"

Eli's slit-pupil eyes narrowed in suspicion. Her uniform seemed legitimate enough. He knew from experience what private contractors tended to wear. None of the others had ever tried to say they were on the island to save anyone. They always came on missions of extermination. Could this woman be a real soldier? Someone actually sent to help? He let go of the bindings and stepped away from the woman for a moment to consider what to do next. The boy-turned-lizard was certainly not expecting such bold claims. If what she said was true, then the end might have been in sight.

Diana was not about to spoil this opportunity while the monster had his back to her and muttered to itself. What he had said nagged at the part of herself still in control. Meanwhile the overriding desire to live another day made her slip her bonds. The crude knots were childishly easy to undo and the soft rustling escaped Eli's notice. He turned back to her in time to see her crouch and leap into the open air to grab a rope that hung down and rappelled to where the rope terminated about twelve feet from the ground and fall the rest of the way.

"Shit." Eli cursed.

Diana hit the ground and rolled more by accident than design. She only managed two steps, then stumbled, legs giving out completely beneath her. She managed to angle herself in time and only her left side hit the mud with a splat. A bit of the wet slurry hit her cheek and a lot got in her hair. The thick, loamy scent of dirt and decaying leaves smote her. Her heart felt like it was pumping lead, not blood. Struggling, kicking herself up from the sucking mud she took off once more.

"The beasts will eat you!" Eli shouted down. He was almost impressed at her determination. Then she disappeared into the wooden labyrinth. "Fucking shit." He muttered before giving chase.

Diana ran full tilt, as fast as she possibly could, dodging around trees and leaping over fallen branches. Leaves and vines and a vista of the green hellscape whizzed by in the dawning light that filtered from above. She did not know where she was running. Pearson had just picked a direction and sprinted as straight as she could, hoping to break free of the horror she had found herself in. Soon enough she realized that it did not matter which way she ran. Through the shifting light she spotted movement. A single glance was enough to confirm that it was a beast like those which had annihilated her comrades.

A split second of distraction was all it took for her to slam bodily into a tree. The wind was knocked from her lungs and her right arm lost what little feeling it had left. Instinct thankfully took hold, guiding her to climb. There was a low hanging branch and though she struggled, her aching limbs straining, muscle failure was not about to stop her. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, knowing that it was right behind her. Up and up again, getting far enough that she felt the creature would not be able to reach her. Glancing back, she saw the monster pacing back and forth at the base of her tree.

It stared at her with beady, glassy eyes from a lumpy, misshapen head. A crooked jaw hung and a tongue that looked like it was necrotizing hung from its mouth. She could hardly believe the thing was even alive. Open sores wept pus. Flies buzzed around the half-rotten thing. It walked on all fours with a hunched, twitchy gait. A gut reaction had her reach for her pistol and nearly leapt for joy to discover it was still in its holster. Somehow when she had run the fist time, she had put it away and the lizard man that had captured her had not taken it.

Specialist Pearson leveled her sidearm at the beast. After the climb her right arm hung uselessly, totally deadened, and had to shoot off-handed. Even though she shook uncontrollably from exhaustion, fatigue, and adrenaline, it was impossible for her to miss with the thing only feet below her. She fired. The bullet carved a divot into the thing's skull. Diana actually saw pulped brain-matter ooze from the small opening. However, its eyes stayed fixed on her, not making a sound even as blood poured from the wound. Twice more she shot the thing in the head, finally causing enough damage to put the horror down. Panting and sweating, she let out a quivering sigh of relief.

Then she saw ten more blackened, fetid abominations emerge from the undergrowth.

Close to having a full mental breakdown, Diana screamed profanities and emptied her gun into the beasts. Even with a dozen bullets, all she managed was three more kills and two with some extra holes. The slide on her Beretta locked back in a defeated click. Even though she had kept her sidearm, the spare magazines had fallen out of her vest somewhere along the way. With a screech of desperation she simply threw the gun, hitting one in the eye. It did not even flinch. The new horrors took the place of the first, circling around the trunk of her sanctuary.

Somewhere above her there was a... wolf whistle? Was someone actually whistling at her?

"Hey, pretty lady. Wat'chu doin'?" Her head snapped up to look at a pair staring down at the woman. They were human! Teenage boys by the looks of it. Their skin was well tanned from long days spent in tropical sun wearing nothing but faded canvas pants. Each had a spear held loosely at their sides. They both looked to be about what age the children stranded on the island should have been. Diana's joy was cut short when they spoke again.

"Mark, can you fuckin' believe this? Oh fuck we're gonna get some fuckin' pussy! Hot damn!" They both wore wide, greasy smiles. Standing in the trees high above they leered at her.

"Yeah, then we can sell her. Or maybe charge for use? What d'you think?" They seemed oblivious to the horrors circling below.

"I think It's been too long since I got my dick wet. That's what I think. Hey!" The human boy addressed her again. "Why don't you come on up here with us. We'll take you somewhere safe." He said, as if unaware that he had openly admitted plans to fuck her then let others take turns fucking her. Diana considered the fact that she had met more genuine loan sharks in her life than these two.

An avalanche of fire fell with near perfect accuracy around her, shredding the pack of beasts. Tracers burned lines in her eyes as bullets pierced through the monsters surrounding her. The staccato of gunfire felt like thunder in her ears. She covered her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Though it ended as quickly as it began.

Had someone from her task force survived? Was she saved? The idea lifted her heart until she heard the shooter.

"'Sup, Mark. What's up, Ralph? You know I already called dibs on 'er, right?"

Diana looked back at the new speaker. It was the man-thing that had woken her. The one she had run away from. Whatever hope she had of rescue turned to ash in her mouth. He stood on a much lower branch with perfect balance, making it seem the easiest thing in the world to do while firing a full sized rifle. Horrified, she wondered if it would have been better to have just stayed put. She saw the way the reptilian was holding his gun across his chest. He was not pointing it at the duo, and yet his finger never left the trigger. Diana, in her state of shock was fascinated by the exchange. The survivors had clearly worked out some kind of basic systems of ownership in absence of higher authority.

"Fuck off, Eli, we saw her first. No way you called dibs." The taller of the two pointed his spear at Eli in accusation.

So his name is Eli, she thought.

"No you fucking didn't. You didn't spend good ammo to claim her. I called dibs. Look at her neck, you know that's my mark. Back up, pinkies." Eli made a shooing gesture with the tip of his Fal. The pair growled, but as soon as he said it, they both saw his mark on her neck. He could drag the two of them to the pyramid and had fair claim over their hide if they touched her. Clearly displeased, and throwing glances at the girl still, the pair of normal boys left, leaping from branch to branch on their way.

Eli's tail was curled aggressively down and his eyes did not leave the spot where the duo had been until he was certain they were well away. Then his gaze turned to Diana and he let out a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a growl. He crouched down on his perch, looking at the woman like one would a misbehaving pet.

"If I rescue you... Again. Will you promise not to run away?"

After less than a second of considering her options, she made up her mind.

Diana nodded furiously, mouth opening and closing several times, trying to form words and finding none. Reptilian slits regarded the woman, looking over her sorely sorry state. She was absolutely filthy. Blood and mud had dried down one side of her face where she had hit the tree and gashed one of her cheeks open in a ragged line. Her shirt and pants had numerous tears and stains. It was a miracle she still had both her boots. To the young man, she seemed quite pitiful. He took her emphatic nodding as agreement. With just a simple come hither gesture, Eli lifted Pearson's spirit considerably.

The woman meant to raise both arms up to the next branch, and only the left one moved at all.

"I can't climb any higher. Everything feels numb. I seem to be suffering from complete muscle failure in one of my arms. Or maybe nerve damage." She said clinically, before giggling like a madwoman.

"Hm. The venom's probably still workin'." Eli nonchalantly leapt a dozen feet and landed with aerobatic grace onto a branch above Diana's own. "Here, just reach for me."

Diana, not really thinking, did as she was instructed. She was finding it harder and harder to focus on anything at all. Eli grabbed her wrist and lifted her as easily as she would a child. He turned and draped her across his back, setting her arms around his neck. He made sure his rifle was slung tightly on his chest. One of his hands reached back and lifted her damp butt to sit on the base of his tail to make sure she did not slide off. The soldier felt herself burn in embarrassment to be so helpless. When her pelvis pressed into him, she felt her soiled underwear squeeze into her crotch uncomfortably.

For the transformed youth, traversing the thick, intertwined branches of the island was as easy as a stroll down a breezy summer road. The gymnastics needed to move quickly and confidently through the canopy was second nature to the young man. Diana felt like baggage along for the ride. More strangely, she knew she should be crying. Wailing. Freaking out. The part of her mind that was medically trained assessed her lack of emotions and chalked it up to shock. Even then, she knew she should be in a lot of pain. The specialist had been thrown against ship bulkhead, tossed into the ocean, nearly eaten, poisoned, molested, fallen out of a tree, slammed into a tree, and nearly eaten again. Whatever agony, both psychologically, and physically, should have crippled her.

"Thank you," Diana mumbled as she pressed her cheek against his shoulder, feeling his muscular form move beneath her piggy-back embrace. When he did not answer her, she voiced an idea that had burrowed into her like a cancer. "You're one of the kidnapped boys, aren't you? What happened? Why are you..."

"I called dibs on ya. That means I'm responsible. S'why I don't call dibs 'cept on things. Guns and tools do what I tell 'em. My hands do what I tell 'em. I expect you to do what I tell ya. Unless ya think you can survive without me." Eli responded curtly in answer to her questions. "I expect sex."

She shuddered when he put it so bluntly. Now that the woman was not blinded by terror and had gotten a better look and understanding of the lizard-man, she did not find him hideous, just strange. He had terrified her at first glance. Compared to everything else, he was the only civil thing on the entire island as far as Diana could tell. She could not imagine having to service him sexually though.

"Do... Do I have to?" The woman ventured weakly.

"Look, you can either do as I say, and I'll feed you and make sure you're safe, or you take your chances out in hell. Either a beast will kill you and eat you, or you'll get picked up by Mark and Ralph and not a damn thing you say will change what's done to you. Understand? I'm the only who's gonna take care o' ya out here."

Eli knew he was being harsh. He had never been in such a situation. He had settled on the lonely road. The only person he had ever taken care of was himself and the only way he could think of to make it clear to the woman the dangers she faced without him was to be direct. In that moment, specialist Pearson made up her mind that she would do everything he asked of her. The will to live was magnitudes stronger than shame. Whatever it took to keep her in his good graces. If sex with this strange creature was the price for living, she would pay it gladly.

Diana was a survivor.

Holding on as tightly as she could, the zoologist almost felt like she could have fallen asleep to the rhythm of Eli moving beneath her. Yet, in what felt like no time at all they had arrived back at the crashed helicopter that served as the young man's home. He passed the jury-rigged shelter and crossed a narrow bridge connecting the mutant tree holding the crashed vehicle to another, even stranger piece of flora. Near the top of the trunk, the tree flowered open into a well deep enough to comfortably bathe in. Fresh, potable water bubbled up from the swirling roots in sufficient volume that it flowed over the edges of the bowl between the branches. Diana regarded this miraculous travesty against nature with awe. She knew several of her professors that would have given years off their life to explore the secrets of the island.

Threlkeld let the woman slide off his back onto the wide platform he had constructed on one side of his water tree. He turned to regard the woman, crossing his arms across his chest, assuming a very authoritarian stance. It took Diana a moment to realize that he was expecting her to wash herself. With only one working arm, it was rather difficult. Her heart beat a little faster at being naked in front of the doubtlessly horny young man.Yet she tried nonetheless, fumbling with her belt buckle, at least eager to get out of her defiled undergarments.

Without a word, the lizard man reached forward and helped the woman out of her mud splattered clothes.

He was gentle, pulling her shirt up over her head then down so she did not have to work her more deadened arm. A low rumble emerged from his throat, pleased to see her naked bosom once more. When he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her pants and panties, he peeled them down slowly, not bothering to hide that he was drinking in the sight of her womanhood, nestled beneath a small patch of curly brown hair. She thought about covering her lady bits when his hot breathing passed over her mound but restrained herself. Diana wanted him to know that she was willing to be cooperative.

Hooking one arm under her legs, he scooped her up. Entrenched in a simple bridal carry, Diana was held snugly against a scaly chest. The still working part of her brain was intrigued by his prodigious display of strength. When he set her in the water she flinched just a little, braced for it to be cold. A sigh of relief escaped her when she slid into warm, tropical water. To her surprise, Eli set aside his rifle and stripped down to just his pants. The lizard man grabbed a bar of soap from a tiny shelf nailed into a higher tree limb and began to scrub the woman.

Working once more with a gentleness that belied his size and strength, Eli labored to scrub the dirt, blood, and cloying scent of fear sweat mixed with ammonia. Quickly and diligently, from hair to breasts to womanly slit he rubbed the soap. Admittedly he lingered a little on those last two, feeling how between her legs was softer than he dared imagine. In stripping her, the boy got a good long look at her full naked body. And also the myriad of injuries. Bruising wound its way down her shoulders and ribs to her hips. Giant black, red, and purple splotches spoiled the perfection of finally drinking in the sight of a naked woman completely at his mercy. He had not been turned off one whit by the smell of her, and now that she was clean, even that minor annoyance had been taken care of.

Eli frowned in annoyance and nagging indecision. He wanted to think of himself as above the others on the island that had lost themselves to savagery. Then again, most those who had indulged their baser, amoral instincts were dead. Everyone learned to adopt some measure of order in the years after coming to the island instead of mindlessly murdering each other. He wanted to pretend that he was saving Diana for altruistic reasons, but he really just wanted to get laid. The thought alone was almost enough to get his cocks to burst out of his clothing then and there.

He took her out of the bath and wrapped an old towel around her. Scooping her up with one arm, he grabbed his gear and left her dirty clothes where they lay. Eli had not realized that girls were so light. She felt like a china doll in his hands. If he squeezed her too hard, she would break. It was just a short walk back to his bedroom. He closed the sliding door of the helicopter behind him and set the woman down in his hammock before thinking about what to say next.

"You don't have to do anything if you don't want to." He stated without fanfare.

Though it was physically difficult for her to do, Diana threw off the towel and got down on her knees before the imposing creature that had shown itself to actually be benign.

"No, please, please, I want to. I want to make you feel good. Can I?" She implored. Diana spread her legs, feeling her vulva exposed to the warm, humid air and was face level with the warm-blooded reptile's crotch. Then she tilted her head down and stuck her breasts out to look up at him demurely. The specialist had learned that sexuality was just as much a weapon as anything else. She was not about to spoil this opportunity to coerce affection, even if it was only of a more amorous inclination, from the young man.

For the amorous Eli, he could not bring himself to protest when she reached for the belt buckle just above a very obvious bulge even if he did have to help her with it. He sighed in relief when his groin was at last released from the confines of his pants. Diana's jaw hit the floor when she found that he did not have one cock, but two. A massive pair of bright, cherry red hemipenes sprung free only inches away from her. Each had a broad, arrow-shaped head. Just behind the heads his shafts were a little thinner before thickening substantially. She was especially intrigued by the pronounced ridges that ran along the underside of his cocks.

She only balked initially at the sight of him fully erect, staring with a mixture of dread and carnal fear. Just one of his members was as thick as her wrist. Her poor lady bits clenched in anticipation at the idea of either one being put inside her. Up close, they looked even bigger. Eli's musk was potently heady, yet strangely not unpleasant. The scent of him helped awaken her more primal heart. She felt her higher thought shutting down, this time letting her feminine core take control. All she concerned herself with was getting nice and wet and letting the big strong male fuck her brains out.

Knowing without a doubt that Eli was a virgin, she did not make him stand there awkwardly waiting. She heard him gasp aloud when her fingers encircled his lower cock. Even squeezing, she could not come close to getting her fingertips to touch. If she had to guess his length it would have been way-too-long-to-fit-all-the-way-inside-me, long. Leaning forward, she licked the head of his upper hemipenis. There really was no taste. So she dove wholesale into her task, enveloping the spire in her mouth. She grasped his lower cock in one hand while balancing against his thigh with the other. She got the tip of his hemipenis nice and slick with her saliva before bringing it deeper. Hearing him groan above her was reassuring.

Straining her jaw as wide as it could go was barely sufficient to get his head and a little of the shaft into her mouth. Quicker than she would have believed his tip was tickling the back of her throat. Diana pulled back, her lips molded to him and bobbed her head forward once more. Moaning with a mouth full of cock sent tingles down her spine into her core. Running her tongue all along those lovely ridges made performing the sex act far more pleasant than she had feared.

To Diana's shame, she felt her pussy growing slick. Just the simple, revolting, arousing, humiliating feeling of sucking the cock of this strange creature that commanded her obedience made her girly parts twinge. She was just a female, following the instincts that demanded subservience to the dominant masculine force. Servicing him made her womb tingle in anticipation of her womanhood being opened and filled. Exotic was an understatement. Was she a freak? Or maybe she just had an oral fixation.

After only about a minute of his first blowjob, Eli could take no more and pulled back out of Diana's mouth with a wet pop.

"Did I do something wrong?" She pleaded.

"Ngh, no, but I want more."

He picked her up and set her back on his hammock so he could stand and easily fuck the girl. Moving between her legs forced the woman to spread them wide, exposing herself. Grasping his lower cock in his own hand, he guided the tip between the outer petals of her sex. With adorable naivety he pushed at the middle, top, then finally bottom of her slit. When he felt the very tip of his member snag her entrance he thrust forward.

He was greedy, with no regard to her delicate sex. She was scandalously wet after fellating him so initially his cock sank right in. He had to pull back several times when even her arousal was not enough to compensate for his girth. Eli plowed right into the hot, pink cunny he had secured for himself. When the pointed tip of his tool rammed into some resistance while still two inches hung in the air he just pushed extra hard and got the velvet walls to strain around him like a living condom to accommodate his length as well as girth. The hapless woman knew that his impossible size was going to split her open. Knowledge did not prepare her for the reality of it. Whatever poison still ran through her veins numbed all the pain. Only pleasure radiated below her middle, from lips to chalice.

Having bottomed out inside Diana, officially virgin no longer, his crotch came flush with her cushioned backside. The perfect curve of her ass was flawlessly, forcefully mashed into his pelvis. Diana was certain that there was no way he could fit all that cock into her, yet there she lay, splayed open with insides she did not know she had being violated. His hemipenes were shaped as though a heathen fertility goddess had blessed the boy between the legs with a weapon meant to scrape every inch of her womanly virtue with its virility.

His mouth fell open and he almost drooled at the indescribable pleasure afforded by her raw, warm, wet cunt. It gripped him tighter than he would have thought possible, yet was still soft, like a furnace of velvet. He thought he had entered the woman with great restraint. Once he had a taste though, he could no longer hold back. The scaly male only managed to pull half his cock out of her before he had to ram it back in. From there he could not get enough. Threlkeld used his hammock like a sex swing to fuck her. She was so tight that her labia was drawn out with every thrust, her lower lips gripping on her lover's length.

Caught between moaning and whimpering, Diana threw her head back as Eli sawed himself in and out of her slit without regard to her physical limits. To her horror, he was so big inside her that with her outer lips stretched so wide, the ridges on the underside of his second cock stimulated her clit. Her only small source of comfort was the hope that he would not last very long. He was too inexperienced, barely over eighteen years old by her reckoning. There was no way a sex-starved teenager would last more than a few pumps inside raw pussy.

When he pushed particularly hard, Diana gave a high-pitched whine as he treated her like fuckable cattle. Or maybe more like a toy pussy. He was young after all. He only knew the vaguest things about sex. Eli barely understood that boys and girls were different. This was the first time he had seen, let alone touched, tasted, or fucked a girl's delicates. He was honestly in awe at the supple, impossibly tender flower between the female's legs. He thought her breasts had been something else. Not even his most feverish and boredom fueled jack-off-till-you-can't-see sessions could hold a candle to being inside a real girl. Getting to watch his length disappear with each thrust was icing on the cake.

After two agonizing minutes, he came, forcing his wild cum frantically into her depths like it was the first and last fuck of his life, rocking her body with his strength. Much like a beast of the wild, he came a ludicrous amount. And not just because he was horny enough for ten teens. Diana felt the cock inside her pulse and hot cum flooded against the end of her tunnel. The number of times the thick member pulsed inside her was washed away by the amount accumulating inside her. Pressure built up enough for her to actually feel it leaking out of her pussy around the shaft lodged in her. He almost spent more time filling her than he had ravishing her. Eli panted, whole body awash with orgasmic glow.

To her obscenely delighted disappointment, he pulled his cock out. A deluge of cum poured from her hole like a bottle of wine without its cork. Shuddering, she slid from the hammock to sit on her hands and knees, absorbing what just had been done to her. Diana did not realize that she had bent over like a female presenting herself to be rutted, delicious peach offered up to be devoured.

Eli drank in the sight of her. With her legs spread and cunt freshly filled, he saw the flush pink of her lower lips forming a perfect teardrop shape. A thick stream of cum flowed sluggishly from the hole. He could hardly believe that something so small and tight had managed to fit him. It had felt so natural, so right to him though. The first time he had claimed the girl he just faced her from the front, wanting to watch and not knowing how else it could be done. Seeing her bent over, another, deeper instinct took over.

He did not hesitate or wonder what to do this time and mounted the female flagging her bare ass and sex at him. With a hand around his other cock, Eli got down on his knees as well, forcing Pearson's legs apart again. Foolishly, the woman had assumed her ordeal to be over. Absently she wondered what the lost boy could possibly be doing. Her thoughts were interrupted though when he plunged his second cock into her, the one that had been rubbing her clit the few thrusts he had managed before cumming. With his other cock he wasted no time. He grabbed her by the haunches and fucked without reservation.

This time his lower cock split open her crease to rub the bundle of nerves at the apex of her sex. Hot, squishy cunny wrapped once again around his manhood. Their union sounded with a wet squelch that coerced a sob from the girl. The different angle massaged Eli's cock in a new, equally delightful way. Even with her pussy red-sore, sopping wet, and leaking cum, Diana could only brace herself against the carnal onslaught. What was his refractory period? She wondered. It already felt like four men, not one, had cum in her with the volume.

Her breasts bounced and jiggled with every thrust. Eli noticed the way the woman took her pounding, and could not resist reaching a claw around to squeeze one of her breasts. When he did so, he felt the walls of the female he was plowing tighten considerably. Lost in his own pleasure he did not stop thrusting until he reached his next high. Diana was unsure of how much more she could take before her womb popped. It already felt like her insides were swollen to an obscene volume. The addition of a fresh hard cock just added to the pressure.

With Diana's plump mound providing a wonderful sheath for his cock all the way down to the root, he came again. Pinching the teat he held in one claw, Eli drove his hips forward with enough force to lift his female's butt higher into the air. With her fertile chalice tilted upward, the specialist's body accepted ever drop pumped into her. It felt like a fire hose had opened up inside her. The end of her hole surged with hot lizard spunk once more. This time it stayed in because of her position and the fact that Eli rode out his entire climax wedged all the way to the hilt.

"Ah! Oh god, Eli. Ngh!" She cried out his name, eyes widening in shock at being able to feel the hemipenis pulse while painting her insides white.

For the second time, Diana spent a longer interval being pumped full of jizz than actually mating with the wild thing of the jungle. The sheer appetite he displayed was dizzying. It felt like an eternity since the last time someone had touched her intimately, let alone fucked her like she was the last woman alive. However, if she thought Eli was done with her than she was gravely mistaken. Eighteen years of pent up frustration had seared a lust inside him that was not easily quenched. A dying man does not know how truly thirsty he is until a drop of water hits his tongue.

With no regard to Diana's bruised self, he grabbed the woman around the middle and hoisted her into the air. Pulling his cock reluctantly from her suckling depths, he turned her to face him. Reflexively, she put her arms around his neck once more just to hold on. Her bosom heaved as she panted heavily. Mousy brown hair hung down in curls. His hands ran greedily up her thighs to cup her ass firmly in his scaly hands. Eli assuaged the inexorable craving that burrowed in his gut on female flesh.

For the third time, Eli shoved his cock into the crease between Diana's legs. Being turned right side up, the woman felt the contents of her insides begin to slide out of her. Only a little had the chance to leak out before she was plugged by a cock once more. Being penetrated yet again let out a very wet sounding squelch as the hemipenis sank into her bloated tunnel. He used his powerful hips to bounce her up and down while his claws groped her backside.

Every thrust rocked her body as his lower cock slammed into her once more. The cock left out left a sticky trail of their mixed fluids up to Diana's navel as it rubbed between her plush outer labia, the ridges being pressed into her clit. This time he was not going to blow his load early. His pace however, remained frantic and bestial. Every time he humped the girl, it was to his root. He built up a steady rhythm, pulling his hips back while lifting the female with his hands to get as much of his length grinding in and out as possible.

Diana shuddered to consider the strength of the creature wildly fucking her brains out.

She was certain that without the vestiges of moral restraint, he could seriously injure her. The helpless woman felt fear, and somehow also a thrill that traveled from her heart to her groin. She could feel the unyielding strength in every thrust that slapped her ass against his pelvis. The arms that held her and wrapped around her were not flesh, but steel rebar. There was no physical threat she could pose to Eli that could dissuade him from rutting her pussy raw. She shuddered upon sensing his very long tail wrap around one of her legs. The woman had no doubts as to what that limb was capable of doing.

With her luscious cunt swollen and stuffed with not just cock, but a copious amount of cum, the pleasure steadily grew as the minutes dragged on. The sloppy, slippery pounding built a pressure within her that had been building ever since his hemipenes had stimulated the bundle of nerves at top of her sex. If she was masturbating, she would normally hold off on overdoing it. But Eli had no such inhibitions. He did not know her body, and did not know that she was about to make a huge mess between their entwined bodies.

She tried to speak, however all that came out was a plaintive whine over Eli's own heaving exertion and their loins kissing forcefully.

Diana felt her insides slosh and swell like when Eli had dumped his first two loads into her. This time it was her turn to cum. She continued to cry out as her pussy clenched and rippled with contractions. It built and built within until the dam finally broke and she exploded. Poor specialist Pearson squirted all over and around the cock that did not at all relent in plowing her. Girly cum and lizard seed splattered on the floor. Her entire crotch was immediately soaked, her pubic hair glistening and dripping.

"I didn't know girls could do that." Eli rumbled, scenting the sweet nectar she gushed. Her very being vibrated with the force of her high.

Eli felt everything as he persisted in fucking the defenseless, squirting girl. The way her silky walls massaged his cock was like nothing he had experienced in his entire life. He never knew such pleasure existed in the entire world. He only knew from stories the pleasures a girl could give. Words did not do justice to the actual feeling of raw pussy suckling his cocks. Even though he only had vague, instinctual and schoolyard knowledge about sex, anatomy, and all things concerned with baby-making, he knew deep down it was an accomplishment to make a girl cum just from fucking her. He saw where a shameful blush lit her cheeks like a wildfire and his cock twitched. Eli did not why that turned him on so much. He was more concerned with fucking her senseless to care.

Throwing his head back to give voice to his triumph, Eli reached his final and most potent climax thus far. Not only did the cock erupt inside her for a third time, but the other hemipenis being stroked between Diana's luscious lower lips burst with thick ropes of lizard seed up her belly. Twice it spurted with enough force to even splash the underside of her tits while the rest fell hotly on her heaving stomach. Milky liquid pooled in her navel.

Diana moaned weakly as the heat of it suffused her skin. The cocks that had furiously been ravaging her at last deflated and popped out of her with an audible 'shrlorp'. Trying to stand on her own, the specialist would have fallen if Eli had not had a good grip on her still. Diana wanted to protest. She was leaking. Badly. A slurry of their mixed fluids oozed sluggishly out of her womanhood and down her thighs. Eli seemed to care not a whit either for her comfort in that regard or the mess that was his own groin.

The teenager's tongue lolled out of his muzzle in pure bliss. He had tasted ambrosia and was for the first time in his life, momentarily slaked of his sexual appetite. The young lizard climbed into his hammock with his conquered female in one arm. He set her on his chest. With one arm over her, he fell straight to sleep in moments.

The woman dared not voice her complaints. She wanted to be in Eli's good graces. It was not this wild child's fault. She did not hold her treatment against him. She joined in on the mission with the lost kid's perspective in mind and she was certain that something had turned Eli into the creature he was now. It was the island that had twisted them so. Her pussy was throbbing, raw, and brimming with cum. Her tunnel throbbed all along its inner length at the pounding she had received. Her cervix felt bruised from the battering it had taken.

Despite all this, she somehow fell to sleep all the same.

Part 4: Gone Fishing

Diana Pearson had no way to judge how long she slept. She only knew that it felt like she had been run over by a truck, then fed through a wood chipper. Sore was an understatement. Marathons made someone sore. From the neck down an ache of ruinous proportion danced across her nerves like an anxious prom date. Feebly trying to assess her injuries only served to agitate the bruised everything. At least waking up this time she knew where she was. It was going to be a long time before she could forgot it. A sardonic voice in her head remarked on the irony that her arms were more sore than her petals.

At some point while she slept, Eli must have gotten up. In her nigh-comatose state she had slept through it. Even though the pain was immense, the hammock was quite comfortable. A warm blanket had even been draped over her. The naturally reflected heat at least soothed some of the ache. Pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders, she sat up a little and covered her face with her hands. With her index fingers, she rubbed her temples, trying to dissuade the maddening blood coursing through veins that clenched around her brain like a vice.

There was no way any of this could have been real. Everything had happened too fast. The ship. The jungle. The monsters. The boy-lizard. The feeling of his arms around her, inside her, rutting and fucking and ravaging her. She thought she had known pleasure. A shiver down her spine convinced Diana that it had to have been a dream. No man could do what had been done to her. At least that's what she told herself, living for a moment in a fantasy that was not this hell.

It had been real though. From impossible to plausible to pleasurable. It had all happened.

"Good mornin'." Eli said. He chewed out the words like someone who had not held a conversation in many years. The woman peaked from between her fingers and saw him sitting in a chair draped with furs and leather, leaning against the far side of the interior of the helicopter. The teen wore nothing but a pair of loose, faded camouflage pants.

"Morning?" Diana asked. Sunlight streamed in through the windshield of the aircraft.

"You've been asleep for a while." An awkward silence stretched between the two of them. Eli cleared his throat and spoke again, leaning towards the woman as he did so. "I went through your things. I guess you're the real deal. Found your ID and stuff. So, when are the rest of your people comin'? When can I get off this island?" Eli regarded the soldier with deathly seriousness. There was tension in the way he leaned forward. She did not have the stomach to look him in the eye.

"I don't think we can count on the rest of the fleet coming to save us." She stated, nervously curling a lock of her hair around a finger.

"What?" The reptilian teen demanded. Diana flinched at Eli's tone. Incredulity mixed with a healthy portion of rage.

"Before our ship got hit, the captain told us that the satellites were tracking us way off course. They're going to figure out we're missing sooner or later, but they're not going to know where to look." Diana cowered, pulling the blanket tightly around herself. She risked a fearful glance his way. It tugged at her heart that she was not the salvation this lost boy was looking for. She wanted to save him. She wanted to save all the stranded young men from this torment.

Letting out a long breath between his teeth, Eli put a claw over his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

"Then it's pointless. There's no way off the island. Your ship was sunk. Just like all the others. I always wondered why no one ever came lookin' even after all these years. I figured somethin' made the island invisible."

"Others?"

"A few times, private contractors," Eli gnawed on the word and spat it out like gristle, "Came to the island. It's always the same. They're on a ship. That ship gets torpedoed to th'bottom of the ocean. They get stuck. If we're lucky, they all die. If we're unlucky, they kill a few boys too."

"Torpedoes..." Diana muttered to herself.

"Yup. Anythin' bigger 'n a rowboat gets blown outta th'water." He said bitterly. "Well, Specialist Diana Pearson, looks like this is your home now. Get used to it." A void of lengthened silence passed between the two while the woman shifted uncomfortably in the hammock. Eli studied her for a time, just watching, gauging her reaction while mulling over his own feelings. Wandering eyes found her to be pleasing until he saw the ugly purplish-red weal that ran from her jaw, neck, and disappeared where she had covered herself with his blanket.

With a languid roll of his shoulders, Eli rose to his feet and approached the woman sitting in his bed. Looming over her, careful not to bash his head into the roof, the lizard man extended a claw towards the soldier.

"I'm Eli Threlkeld. Nice to meet'cha. Like I said, I called dibs on you. Y'know. Take care of ya. Sorta thing. Kinda means you're like, my girlfriend now, heh." Eli fumbled through the conversation, revealing his insecurity at the situation he now found himself in. Youthful, boyish impulse had him exacting lustful vengeance on what seemed to be an aggressor. Now that it was revealed that the woman was innocent of the sins he had attributed to those of a similar ilk, an old guilt eroded his righteous attitude.

Surprised at the nuance to both his tone, stance, and expression, Diana took the offered claw and shook it. Pearson regarded Eli with a kind of detached fascination. What horrors, wonders, and splendors had Doctor Everhardt perpetrated in his exile from the world at large?

"Diana Pearson. I'm very happy to meet you, Eli. I think being like a girlfriend would be okay." Though she tried not to let it show, there was the faintest bite of reproach, of accusatory resentment at her earlier treatment in her words. Diana knew without a doubt that this strange creature was at one time, human. And that meant he was one of the lost boys. Even though he had ignored her when she had asked, the woman was not so dense as to discount the impossible when clear evidence had nearly killed her, then had wild, passionate sex with her.

For his part, Eli cast down his gaze as a look of contrition pulled his features taut. Turning her hand over in his own, he saw the trail of contusions running up her arm. Reaching up to pull the blanket from her shoulder, Diana fought him, letting go of his claw and grabbing hold of the blanket to keep her modesty.

"Let me see ya." He said gently.

Though shame smoldered in her, she focused on the pain to overcome the dread of vulnerability. The zoologist was actually a very private person. On a professional level she was very courteous and sociable, however in leisure time she kept to herself more often than not. She let the blanket go and her exposed breasts grew goosebumps in the open. Eli enjoyed the sight of her naked flesh, forcing him to quash the rising urge to ravish her once again and instead focused on examining her. The wounds told a story of ruinous trauma. Once again it occurred to Eli how different girls were. An ambivalent mixture of emotion passed over and through the teen. Feelings that were foreign and new.

'Hm'-ing to himself, Eli turned and opened one of the many crates stacked on the inside of his home. Some bore the symbols of now defunct island nations. Others were stamped with hazardous material iconography, ranging from poisonous to even nuclear. While still more bore Eli's own personal styling of dashes and shapes that meant something only to him. From wood to metal and even ballistic polymer, the salvage was a small sign of the length of the boy's tenure trapped on the island.

From a container of assorted medical supplies, the lizard man found the bottle he was looking for. From a small table he grabbed a clay bowl he used for painting as well as a brush. He poured a bit of his special, watered down venom into the colorful dish and twisted back to face the soldier again. Without speaking, he gestured for her to hold her bruised arm out. The woman dutifully complied. Dipping the well-used bristles in the liquid, he applied the venom with assiduous grace. They were both quiet while he worked. She exposed her injuries no matter how embarrassing the location was without complaint. Eli brushed on the painkiller with broad strokes.

Soon, Pearson found herself breathing easier as the pain subsided. She wondered if what he was doing was sanitary in the least bit. It would be ironic, she thought, to have managed to live through all that she had only to succumb to some kind preventable infection. Diana found her own lack of concern to be somewhat alarming. On an intellectual level she knew the depths of mental scarring that she could look forward to. Yet, the woman felt almost nothing. Even as her bruised muscles and battered bones numbed, so too did the panic and fear.

"Sorry if I was a lil' rough with ya." He began, then stopped. "I didn't... Mean to... Sorry," He murmured in subdued repentance. With nothing good to answer with, she stayed silent.

While he worked on her, she kept her mind off the literal naked nature of her situation by looking around the inside of Eli's home. Numerous metal patches had been bolted onto the fuselage of the aircraft. Whatever seats had been in the helicopter had all been removed as well as a good portion of the control paneling. Of particular interest was a tall standing gun cabinet. A heavy hinge had been crudely hacked onto the safe. Despite the makeshift nature, it looked quite sturdy. The teen must have found a stencil for a bullet symbol as the entire cabinet was covered in a massive arrangement of ballistic imagery. They radiated out like a sun from the epicenter of the lock in bright yellow.

Her eyes were drawn along the hull and roof, following years of painting. Shadowy figures with guns fought against teeth encircling them. Stars of blue dotted the roof. There was even a painstakingly recreated American flag above one of the doors. Diana wondered where he had gotten all the paint or had somehow made it himself. She looked to the table where he had grabbed the brush and the large tool chest beside it and figured he had to have gotten it all from somewhere.

The woman continued to be surprised, both by the manner of her... friend, as well as his abode. She watched him finish applying the numbing liquid, mind drifting as the pain eased. A light fog descended on her as the voodoo analgesic assuaged the burden of simply living and breathing. It was not until Eli held the neatly folded clothing right under her nose did Diana notice he was offering her something.

"Here." He said.

"Oh, uh, thank you." She mumbled, taking the shirt and pants. Only on feeling the fabric did she understand that they were hers. Although she despaired at the reprehensible state of her clothes, they were all she had.

"I'm gonna go get breakfast. Figured you'd want some too." Rubbing the back of his head, Eli turned to give the woman some privacy. He folded his arms over his bare chest while his tail waved behind him. Grateful, Diana stood and pulled on her shirt. Mangled though it was, the article still covered her breasts. There was no underwear, for either top or bottom, yet Diana was not about to be picky. Shimmying her pants up, she could still smell the lingering scent of sex. She hoped she could bathe before too long. When Eli heard her zip and buckle her pants, he opened the door to his home. Tropical heat, light, and jungle sounds poured in.

Stepping out of the helicopter she heard the soothing chirp of birds and other creatures. Up in the canopy she at last saw the beautiful side of the island. The one not stained in blood and darkness. Lush emerald leaves danced in the ocean breeze as far as she could see. Most surprising were the gentle twinkling tones of wind chimes. Looking around in wonder she saw that Eli had dozens of the musical instruments scattered around the branches of his home tree. They ranged from massive, made with lengths of four inch wide pipe all the way down to dainty things no more than a quarter inch. The tubes were brass, steel, aluminum, and copper. Aside from the machined nature of the pipe itself, the other parts of the chimes were hand-tooled. Many of them had patinas of rust due to the humid nature of the jungle.

"Where did you get all the pipes for these?" She asked, reaching up to a brass chime, noticing swirling patterns etched into the metal.

"There's a construction site right over there." He said, pointing off towards what looked like just more jungle. "Lotsa tools 'n shit." Eli waved a claw dismissively, brushing off what had been one his most vital lifelines in his years stranded up in the trees.

"These are incredible." She said genuinely.

Eyes wide in shock, Eli's pupils narrowed to a sliver, for a moment certain that the woman must have been mocking him. He saw her examine the chime with legitimate interest. Shuffling uncomfortably, he picked up his fishing gear and muttered for her to follow him, unsure if she could tell how flustered he was.

In the safety of the canopy, Diana followed the islander across numerous spans and viaducts. The teen trekked through the maze of his territory confidently as it steadily thinned like the strands of a web. Totems of bone, quills, and copper wire denoted Eli's claim on the surrounding jungle. Even though it was much less important those days. They did not talk along their journey. If the specialist was being honest, she was too busy taking in all the sights and sounds. Only a short stint away was another mutated tree, this one with its roots planted firmly in the middle of a deep and narrow river. It was connected to the network of canopy pathways by a long rope bridge.

On a well-worn scaffold that dipped almost down to where one could consider it a dock on the river, Eli had everything he needed to easily feed himself. There was a chair which was a hilarious amalgamation between cheap plastic and scrap planks sitting next to a modestly sized wood fire grill. Eli set his gear down on the edge of the platform and started setting up.

"Can I help at all?" Pearson offered.

"No." Threlkeld responded curtly. Diana guessed that he was still surly from finding out that she did not signify rescue at last.

"Just uh... Just sit there." The lizard man said with a flick of his tail towards the one chair. Watching him rub his throat as she took her seat, Diana considered how long Eli had been alone. Scales shifted tightly beneath long digits. Was his voice sore from talking such a small amount? The medical part of her asked.

Feeling a little high from the painkilling venom, she observed Eli with great interest.

He stood at the edge of the dock in a neutral stance. Watching his body move was somehow hypnotic. Even at rest, she could have sworn she saw movement beneath his scales. The focus the teen exhibited reminded Diana of some kind of monk. Unblinking, he watched the water below. Fat, catfish-like Frankenstein things with gills swam lazily through the crystal clear river. They reproduced fast and were good protein. Drawing his right foot back, he lifted the spear above his head, line of paracord dangling down to his side. Eli held this stance, body coiled into a machine of reserved force.

Eli exploded into motion, heaving the spear down into the river below. The projectile whizzed through the air and the paracord spool uncoiled with a hiss. The teen had cast the twist of his hips and upper body into the throw. A primal part of Pearson grew aroused at the display. She did not fight this strange attraction that grew in her. Hauling the rope back in, claw over claw gave the woman a fine few of his back. Musculature wound in thick serpentine patterns over pronounced bones. What had been Eli's young human physique was absent, entirely overwritten by this new creature that now cradled his consciousness.

Keeping her arms loosely around herself, she found the warm tropical heat making her drowsy. Sweat ran between her breasts and lower back. Soon her shirt was sticking to her in the worst way. Despite her discomfort, exhaustion as dense as tungsten pulled her eyelids down. She saw him haul in a decent sized catch then turn to light a fire in the grill. Left alone with her thoughts, Diana said a silent prayer for her fallen comrades. She could only fight off survivor's guilt by focusing on their mission. The soldier vowed she would save everyone who was left from the island. There was no other way to honor the dead and the sacred oaths she had taken.

Unaware of even having fallen asleep, she was awoken by a scaly hand on her shoulder giving her a gentle shake. Cracking her eyes open, she saw two stainless steel cups being offered to her. One felt like cool water while the other was piled high with still steaming fish fillet with the end of a fork sticking out of it.

She gulped down the water first and offered her cup back for more. It was warm, but clean and refreshing. Eli's mouth twitched as he tried and failed to reciprocate the expression. Instead he just poured her more water. After taking another sip she dug into the meat, being careful about fish bones. The teen clearly had acquired a lot of experience as the animal had been filleted perfectly. One bite was all it took to hook her on its flavor. Although the seasoning was light, the flesh was tender, flaking into naturally buttery tasting morsels. A hint of smokiness shined through the meal from the grill.

A tiny fragment of her soul felt lifted by the meal.

"Hey, I uh..." He trailed off, tail tucked down and tip wrapped shyly around his calf while one arm concealed something hidden behind his back. To Diana, he was the very portrait of pubescent insecurity. Eli's whole face was railed straight at his feet as if his very life depended on not making eye contact. While the woman had been asleep, inspiration had struck the teen to sneak off and do something special.

Her eyes were drawn to the massive arrangement of orchids and birds of paradise flowers, stems bound together by paracord into a bouquet. Meekly, he held them out to Diana as a romantic offering. The explosion of color was so vibrant they almost did not seem real. Strange striations of luminous hues shot through flora that the zoologist thought she knew. The birds of paradise in particular seemed almost bioluminescent just by the saturation of vibrantly unnatural blue.

She touched his arm tenderly and took the gift, inhaling a deep lungful of their fragrance. For a moment, she got to be a girl again, taking flowers from a boy who liked her. Looking up over the tops of the petals and wild blossoms, she was grateful for the reprieve and another small part of herself was eased of its burden.

"Thank you, Eli. They're beautiful." Diana said openly. Squeezing her legs together, she felt the slime of sweat re-hydrating old jizz. "Hey, can I take a bath?" She asked.

****

Watching the woman peel her own clothing off, the young man was even more eager to see Diana naked than the first time because now he knew what lay underneath. Too occupied with stripping, the female did not know the magnitude of the teenager's lust, so did not realize she gave Eli a glimpse of her slit when she shimmied out of her pants. Belly full and content, the soldier slid into the warm water with a heavy sigh. Her breasts buoyed up in the tropical bath. Tracks of dried cum coated her inner thighs and was clotted in her pubic hair as well as up her stomach. It was nice to scrub just with her hands. With a sigh, she sank all the way to her chin.

When she heard Eli slip into the water behind her, she covered her chest and turned.

"What are you..." She asked before realizing the obvious.

"I thought this was something boyfriends did with their girlfriends." Light glinted off droplets that made the scaly young man shimmer in the sun. One of his large chimes clanked melodiously above them.

"None of my boyfriends ever did this with me." Diana said distantly, still protecting her bosom.

"Then they weren't very good ones, were they?" He purred ardently, sliding right up to her. Scaly lips found her throat and a long tongue left a fiery trail from her collarbone to her jaw. Seeing his mark on her neck, still clear and bright, exalted him in a covetous way. His mouth was not very good for kissing, but he was pleased when his licks drew a meek moan from the woman.

When his body pressed up against her, there was no denying him. His hemipenes, already fully erect, slipped between her legs. Her pussy came to rest with her lower lips kissing the top of his upper cock. Diana's body was already starting to mold to the shape and desires of the dominant male, arms wrapping around his neck for support without thinking. Taking a deep breath full of heady musk, the female felt her flower flush with warmth from the contact. His claws found her haunches, giving her rear a squeeze and supporting her weight easily. For the woman, it felt as though she was floating. She found herself relaxing involuntarily. He growled in a soft peculiar way, signaling his satisfaction. This time she felt as well as heard it, knowing the power contained in his chest.

"I want you, Diana. All I've done is think about you. 'Bout how good you feel." Her heart quickened as his words tickled her skin. She had never had someone say something like that, and mean it. There was an implacability of his tone. A ferocious, inexhaustible need. And there was a passion too. There was totality in his prurient inclinations. Eli wanted her, mind, body, and soul. He wanted to know what it meant to have a partner, a mate. The ripple that shook the male's body sang through Diana's feminine heart.

Just as his manhood appeared crafted by an old god, so too did his advances seem like an avatar of pubescent desire. His lust manifested as a physical force, making his hips rock gently, needing to feel the friction between his manhood and her folds while his claws molded her butt around his shafts. Quickly excited, her nipples rubbed the bare scales of his chest in turn. Diana felt his stomach clench into an iron expanse against her softer belly, understanding that his instinct right then was probably just to fuck her brains out. The woman also knew that if he wanted to jam his cocks into her right then and there was nothing she could do to stop him. Yet somehow she felt that was not his intent.

Impulses, thirsts, and longings burned in Eli's gut. She was a priceless treasure. One of a kind. He handled her like a coal miner who had stumbled on a diamond in the dark, scared his claws might smudge something unthinkable in rarity. She had a most pleasurable hole that was true. That yearning made his cocks hard enough to punch through steel. Now that he regarded her less as a prisoner and more as just another lost soul fallen victim to the island's jungle fangs, new, more complex emotions guided Eli. He had been alone for so long that the solitude was just background noise. Now that respite to such pain lay before him, he was beginning to understand the lengths he would go to for Diana's continued presence.

For a short while, all he wanted to do was feel her against his scales. It was nice in the water, floating along. Touching, tasting, and licking her pale skin was a balm to his lusts all its own. He did not have words powerful enough to impart how badly he needed her companionship. It was a primal courting. Eli could only fumble through the motions, hesitant and afraid that he might do something wrong and lose her interest as he endeavored to show her. At least in body, Eli was more than sexually mature.

'God, am I a pervert? Why am I thinking about his cock... Cocks, so much? He's just so big, and those ridges on my insides. How did he make me cum that hard? What is going on with my body?' She asked herself.

Diana could feel shameful juices leaking from her lower lips. There was no denying that she liked the less primal, more erotic caresses. When she was in the right mood, she wanted to be rutted and her cunt filled and fucked nice and hard. Other times the woman wanted to be treated as such, kissed and coddled and loved on. No one had ever wanted her so badly. The young man's desire was intoxicating. To be Eli's first and only woman put in her in a position of power and vulnerability.

Following what he thought a compassionate partner would do, Eli was slower in his approach. Youthful and eager, heart and mind united as one to prove that he was not just Diana's only choice, he was her best choice. To that end, he knew a real man was supposed to be gentle as well as strong. At least that was what he had read in the cheesy paperback romance novel he had found.

Even though she herself was a young woman, and more than capable of getting wet enough for a normal partner in short order, Eli was not average in his endowment. Knowing of something that the horny boy would not resist, she offered him a proposition.

"Don't you want to know what a girl looks like down there?"

"I've always wanted to." He blurted, tail swishing through the water excitedly. Eli had once stolen a peak at a Playboy magazine at school, but the memory was so distant it may as well have been grey fog. A different lifetime. Even though he was loathe to let her go, he let the woman disentangle herself.

Setting her butt up on a branch just out of the water, Diana left her legs dangling into the pool. Eli swam up to her, tail waving behind him like an over sized iguana. His gaze was riveted to her knees. Pearson felt the core of her throb in arousal as she spread her legs for Eli to examine her. Placing his claws on the inside of her thighs, he pushed, encouraging her to spread even further. Diana reclined back and closed her eyes in embarrassment even as her flower was exposed, rosy pink from arousal. She let out a small noise when she felt his hot breath dance across her petals.

"Girls have vaginas, right?" He asked and she felt about ready to die from shame at her impromptu anatomy class.

"Yes, but that's rather clinical. It's sexier to say 'puss' or 'pussy', and more dirty to say 'cunt', or 'cunny'." She explained, hoping to never hear that word from him again.

"Can you spread it for me?"

Diana reached down and pulled her vulva apart, shuddering as warm air kissed her clit. The woman did not consider herself an exhibitionist, yet could not deny the thrill that made her deeper parts clench at showing off her lady-bits.

'I can't believe I'm actually doing this.' The woman thought to herself.

"Wow, I didn't know you were this pretty down there. It looks so soft." His snout was practically buried in her bush as he spoke, drinking in every detail. The color, the scent, the sexy folds, and the way her plump intimate flesh pilled up around the fingers that held her lips open. Fascinated by the way the pink inner labia glistened from Diana's wetness, his eyes fixed on the shy, hooded, bright pink protrusion at her zenith.

"What's this little button?" The teen inquired, too horny to feel any shame.

"That's my clitoris. It's for girls to feel good during sex. A lot of us can't cum without playing with it a little." With her pointer finger she pulled back her hood, shuddering as the woman revealed the nub. Next she tapped down at the bottom of her sex, to her entrance. "This is where you go. Inside this hole here."

In Eli's new position, staring face level with a pussy that was his to explore, the appeal of 'eating' a girl out became apparent. The cute, very feminine shade of pink was such an intimate color. His hemipenes jumped when he saw the deeper folds of the woman, ripe with arousal. His curiosity would not be sated until he knew what she tasted like. His very long reptilian tongue dove straight inside her pussy. He could not help his mischievous smile as she positively squealed in surprise. Eyes shooting open with indignation as her cheeks caught on fire.

"Ah! Eli, no! Please, that's embarrassing. You can't lick down there, that's dirty!" She jerked her legs out of the water, inadvertently tilting her hips up. His muzzle mashed up against her sex, scaly lips kissing her pussy. With wet slurping noises, Eli devoured her cherry trough. The deeper he went the better she felt on his tongue and the sweeter she got. It reminded him of ripe mangoes, yet with more tartness.

Another girly wail was forced out of her as Eli's tongue reached far deeper than a human male ever could have. The slippery thing pushed buttons she did not even know herself. Even though Diana clenched hard, trying to push him out of her, the muscular, prehensile appendage was far stronger than her insides. Her hands flew from her vulva to Eli's head in an attempt to shove him away from her, jerking her hips as she did so. However, he was positively glued to her crotch, licking her like it was his last chance to ever get pussy again.

Insides melting under the oral assault, Diana bit her lip and wrapped her thighs around the lizard-man's face, crossing her ankles behind his back. With his claws he kept her from completely suffocating him, breathing through his nostrils. Tongue dipping in and out of her chalice, the woman's slippery wetness dribbled down Eli's chin. His imagination ran wild with the acts he could perform on the female. What new heights of pleasure waited to be discovered, he wondered. She responded so well to being licked, protests quickly dissolving into moans.

Soon, she was writhing as the pressure on her g-spot intensified. Diana's hands moved not to push him away, but encourage. However, as good as being filled up with his tongue was, just wiggling in her tunnel was not enough to bring her to orgasm.

"Eli, do you want to make me cum?" Even though she was all kinds of hot and bothered, she could not look at him between her legs, muzzle deep in her cunt. She felt him hum that he did. "Up here, big boy." She guided his muzzle up, back to her clit, spreading her lips once more to give him easier access. "That's how you can make me cum."

When his tongue circled her clit, tip dancing up and over her hood, he felt her gush what he thought of as honey. It was thicker than her normal wetness and very tangy to his senses. Focusing on the little bud of nerves, he knew he was doing something right with the way her hips gyrated. Eli felt his jaw tiring as minutes passed and did not relent, determined to make sure this was not something she soon forgot. He could give as well as receive.

Diana chirped in frustration as Eli's tongue, in his inexperience, kept dancing over the magic spot. Sometimes her clit grew too sensitive and the stimulation was too much. Other times he changed the rhythm and she lost the high that had been building. She felt bad for making it drag on. Determined, the lizard man did not relent. With a little concentration, Diana was able to let herself cum, rewarding Eli for all the work he was putting into oral.

"Cumming, cumming, cummingI'mcummingohgodpleasedon'tsto-ah!" Letting out one long cry, Diana's sex clenched and she hunched over the lizard's muzzle, orgasm at last crashing over her. Girly cum flowed weakly from her, the climax quick and strong, whole body seizing up. As she came down from the high she patted Threlkeld's head even as he continued through her clenching.

"Okay, okay. Stop, please. Sensitive." She cooed. Breasts heaving as she panted, the woman sensed the reptilian teen pull away. Feeling like jelly, she left her legs splayed open, pussy throbbing after all the attention. Glancing at his face, she was certain he had an air of pride. Bright red, his cocks stood gloriously erect with water catching the light. Catching sight of Eli's manhood made the zoologist blush at her own curiosity.

"Please, Eli, be gentle with me this time." She pleaded, knowing there was really not anything she could do to dissuade him from fucking her.

Standing between her legs, he grasped his lower cock in one claw, rubbing the tip between Pearson's flush folds, gathering her arousal. Plush feminine walls opened up as Eli stepped forward. His generous lizard hemipenis sank into raw pussy. Hot cunny engulfing the cock fully, Diana pushed off the tree branch. The pair sank into the large basin, letting the warm bath water support them. Grasping his partner's haunches, he felt her split wide open on his rod.

Diana wrapped her arms and legs around the reptilian lover. In the intimate embrace, the woman panted, mashing her breasts into his chest. Eli relished the pillowy bosom against him. Rocking her body with gentle thrusts, their entwined forms splashed. Every inch of him that pulled out of her suckling folds was engulfed in the warm water. His other hemipenis left out was sandwiched between their bodies, sensitive ridges rubbing Diana's clit and smooth abdomen. Thrusting slower was both delightful and an immense tease.

Moaning half in pain, half in pleasure, the places that were rubbed inside her tunnel were excruciatingly wonderful. The warm water soothed the surface ache, leaving the deeper pain clinging stubbornly to her bones. That same soreness was in her pussy. At her entrance, there was a sharper throbbing. The woman was fairly certain that the previous day's pounding had tore her a little at the bottom. Being in the water helped, yet she could feel it every time Eli pushed in. A duller, overexerted ache extended to the end of her pussy. That place only hurt when hard, pointed hemipenis hit it. Her cervix felt the pressure keenly, making her womb tingle at the contact.

The female found she did not dislike the strain. Though more subdued, the stretching she felt in her walls was the best. There was a masochistic joy in prodding the deepest, sorest places. When the woman squeezed her pussy and thighs, the dull pain shot through her core like the satisfying burn of raw alcohol on a scrape, or the self-destructive comfort in complete muscle fatigue. Diana relished the feeling. She had never incorporated or associated such things with sex. The discovery of the kink was a welcome one as her love tunnel became distended by the weight and girth of lizard tool.

"I've never felt something so amazing. Girls are amazing. Your pussy is so fuckin' tight. I could do this forever." He breathed huskily, griping her tighter, thrusts becoming erratic.

His other cock twitched against her belly. The woman slid a hand down to grasp his twitching length. When she squeezed his shaft just behind the head of his cock, she heard him gasp. Nuzzling into her neck, muttering sweet nothings, Diana felt her heart beat a little faster.

"Does this feel good?" She smiled, feeling his hips buck the cock simultaneously into her hand and lodged in the hole between her legs.

Even though he thrust more slowly, mindful of her fragility, the added pressure of the water and how their bodies together rubbed his other cock made up for it. That, and while giving Diana oral his cocks had stood at attention the entire time, aching to be touched. So he did not last long. He took no more than a few blissful minutes to reach his climax.

"Uh-huh." He moaned. "I can't stop. You feel too good. Can't..." Diana's privates tingled at being Eli's youthful exploration into true adulthood. He had an eagerness that even her own high school days never had. She bit a lip in consternation and stubbornness. Did he turn her on? Had he fucked her enough times that she was genuinely starting to enjoy it? Her heart started to beat faster, and a flush that had nothing to do with warmth spread up her neck as a licentious idea snuck into her brain.

"Don't stop. Please. Cum in my pussy."

Eli did not have to be told twice.

The woman shuddered as both cocks pulsed in union. She moaned as molten pleasure splashed onto and inside her belly. Melting under the assault, she was reminded of just how virile and pent up the young man was. The high pressure stream burst against the smooth muscle of her cervix. Pussy bloating under the weight of the boy's seed, the woman's insides cramped up a bit from too much dilation. Squeezing against the growing weight of it, lizard cum then leaked from around the cock plugging her cunt.

With ragged breath, Threlkeld spent his lust, clutching the woman as though his life depended on it. The zoologist could only hold on as the powerful male once again staked his claim on her with musk and seed. Grateful for the water, the woman knew her belly would be caked in cum again were it not for the gentle current that pulled away the ropy lizard jizz that shot below her breasts. She sighed in relief when his cock softened enough to pop out of her, letting her corked pussy gush freely.

Sighing in unison, the pair basked in euphoria, afterglow, and finished their bath peacefully.

****

Soft scratching. Lines followed form. Motion, frozen in the most fragile of mediums. Pencil lead shaved down, sacrificing itself across acid-free paper. Bolder swathes for shadow, beams of shade to give depth. From minds eye, Diana sketched Eli as accurately as she could. She gave him a thick outline to accent his masculinity. She actually enjoyed the challenge he posed. There were nuances to his form that made her feel more like a fantasy illustrator rather than a scientist.

He stood frozen in concentration as he fished, honed from years of practice. Making for a perfect subject, the zoologist had decided to include him in the sketchbook she had been given. Already she had dozens other pages crammed with anatomical sketches of the different flora and fauna populating the island. The biology of the creature Eli had become gave her cause for wonder, rather than the fear the island instilled with its mystery.

From the practical, to the surreal, the wild life was equal parts insane and genius. Notations sprawled between limbs and feathers of a menagerie that went against the natural order. From parrots with four wings and hawks that glowed with jellyfish luminescence, to massive monitor lizards that glided on membranes like flying squirrels. Observations of diet and behavior consumed entire pages as Diana tried to understand the constructed nature of the island. It was a morbid fascination that dragged her pencil as she captured the beasts in all their malignant forms. Understanding the creatures gave her catharsis of some kind.

What had Everhardt been thinking? Why were some animals so docile in such contrast to the beasts? In medicinal application alone, Diana was certain the potential was limitless. With what she could only describe as voodoo or strange island witchcraft, Eli had healed wounds in a day that should have taken weeks to heal. As a zoologist, Pearson understood that nature was not clean in its evolutionary paths. Even the human form, for all the superiority afforded by the largest brain mass ratio and apex predation, was full of inefficient systems. The things she had seen Eli do made her question the limitation of what a bipedal frame was capable of.

Specialist Pearson sketched the reptilian boy and pondered in scribbles what alterations had been made to the unwilling young man. Bone density, musculature, neural proteins, blood oxygen, and adrenal absorption were just some things she suspected had been done. And that was just below the surface. Then there were the... Other changes made. With a blush she notated the unique nature of his reproductive system. How his hemipenes retracted into a protective internal sheath. His testicles were obviously internal as well, and she wondered how his body temperature was regulated. It would be an oversight easily missed.

Giving her best scientific wild guess, she had to conclude that temperature was the reason she had not gotten pregnant since she had been stranded. Though it was possible that altered genetics were the root, making the pairing incompatible. Without Everhardt to question, there was no way to be certain. There were two possibilities as far as body heat was concerned. Either Eli's sperm was too warm, active all the time, and without energy, could not fertilize her ova, or her human lady parts were not hot enough to get them to activate. Her cycle was uninterrupted. When she thought on how avariciously the young man went after her when her biological rhythm brought her into that time of the month she shivered and something down below clenched.

In his deeper moments of passion, he talked about her smell being too much to resist. This had been her first clue to his enhanced nose. The specialist wondered if he could actually taste the different hormones from her skin. After the first time she had ovulated, the woman was afraid he was going to turn her uterus inside out trying to breed her. Fucking her raw was an understatement. No matter how many times she took either of the reptilian cocks they still felt like a tree trunk was being shoved inside of her. The soldier felt the need to take up pelvic exercises lest her tunnel's integrity be destroyed forever.

The young man had also displayed an interesting oral obsession with her, licking all over while they had sex during her cycle. Subtleties that were undetectable to human perception were simply the norm to the turned boy, having lived in the body more than eight years. For taste and smell to have been tweaked to that point had greater ramifications. What had been done to the boy's brain? Perhaps the neuroplasticity of the young was why Threlkeld had not turned into a lobotomized mess, his frontal lobes pressed into grey mush by the stresses of growth to the mid or possibly hindbrain. It was not enough for the former human to have better equipment, his nerves had to be updated with new software.

And that was in addition to all the things that could, and should have gone wrong with morphing a preexisting, complex organism into another.

From that perspective, the soldier considered not just method, but ease. As a construct, the human body was susceptible to failure on many levels. Robust was not a word she would use. Functional. Effective for its intended purpose, maybe. Sturdy? Durable? No. It would have been easier to build something from scratch rather than try and hold up a house on duct tape and wishful thinking while you knocked out its walls, gutted the foundation, and laid some new plumbing while you were at it.

The entire process that turned Eli had the zoologist examining what she believed within the realm of certain sciences. With his research unbound by morality, Doctor Everhardt had accomplished feats that made modern genetics seem like bronze-age technology. The mad scientist had not only found a way, but determined that going against all known convention and making his own rules in flippant disregard to natural law was the best way to go about designing Threlkeld's reptilian body.

Delving too deeply into the what ifs of everything made Diana's head spin to the point where she was relieved when the fisherman cast his spear and hauled in a catch.

"Look, look! Ha. This is a big one." Eli stated proudly, wide grin splitting his reptilian muzzle. "You're really gonna cook it?" He asked for the hundredth time, unable to keep the excitement and anticipation from his tone.

"Yes, yes, I'll cook it, Eli. Just clean it for me, like you promised." Diana responded. It was not that she minded, she just found the fish guts unpleasant on her fingers. True to his word, the young man gutted, cleaned, and filleted the fish while the woman put away her sketchbook and took his place at the little cooking station when he was done. Tail wagging happily, Eli watched Diana cook with bright, hopeful eyes.

After quite a bit of scrounging through various crates and military field ration kits, the specialist had managed to scrape together a good collection of spices. The young man also had a smokehouse of salted, brined, or otherwise preserved meats and whatever wild fruits and vegetables he could find. Though the island had many strange things, the ubiquitous coconut was a readily available source of food and purified drinking water. Even though butter was out of the question, she had a jar of coconut oil, fresh citrus fruit that seemed like a bastard lemon-mango, ocean salt, pepper, and a little cayenne. As breading, she had found a powdered root. Being a zoologist, and not a botanist, she could only trust Eli when he said it was edible. The granules of the root seemed like a good texture and taste as a stand in for cornmeal.

In a deep cast-iron skillet, she heated the oil. Laying the first fillet in gave out a hiss as the fresh meat hit the hot pan.

Eli, who had occupied Diana's seat while she worked, watched on in fascination. Often he lamented the blandness of his meal selection. He missed fried food as much as all the other lost boys. Though there was a good selection of fruits and root vegetables, Eli keenly mourned the lack of red meat. He had not eaten any of the beasts in a long time. One of the first things the scourge had wiped out on the island was the wild boar population.

As she cooked, Diana felt sweat dripping down the small of her back to tickle her butt. Salty and cloying, it dripped from her nose into her cleavage. Between the grill and the tropical heat, it felt like she was roasting. Her mousy brown hair was already up in a ponytail, yet it made little difference.

Fuck it.

She thought and without preamble peeled off her shirt, tits bouncing free from the fabric that clung to her skin. The way her look mirrored Eli's did not escape the woman. Just as he reclined casually in just pants, tail waving happily as he drank in the sight of her cooking topless, she too was left with only bottoms. Her boots even sat back at the helicopter. The one pair of cotton panties were too precious to waste on day to day wear.

After minutes of agonizing anticipation, the woman plated a helping. The young man could not keep the grin from splitting his face wide open. He was being handed a serving of wonderfully fried food by a goddess, her tanned skin glistening with a sheen of sweat, her bosom bare for him to ogle as she handed him the meal.

"Careful, it's hot." She warned, honestly too overheated to care about the way he stared.

Splitting open in steaming segments, the fillet had a wonderful color inside the golden brown breading. With his claws he broke off an almost too hot chunk. Blowing on the morsel, Eli felt his mouth watering in anticipation. When his teeth sank through crispy outer layer into tender meat, the young man's taste buds lit off like fireworks. Moaning heartily through the bite, he really took his time, savoring the experience.

"I'm glad you like it." The woman giggled at his obvious satisfaction. Sitting cross-legged on the dock, she dug into her own helping. The couple enjoyed the serene ambiance of the jungle while they ate.

"Hey, Eli." The soldier said after some time, fork clinking on an empty steel bowl.

"Hm?" He responded, having devoured his much larger portion despite trying to stretch it.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, o'course."

"Can I ask you what it was like when you changed?"

Eli sat quietly for a while, considering her question. For a moment divorced from time, he drifted through memory and plunged through depths of experience that were buried under trauma, pain, and fear. After a few years of memory passed in a flurry, he nodded.

"Did... I mean, I don't mean to be rude... Did it hurt? I don't know if knowing will help. But I want you to know that I am here to help however I can."

Eli waved her question away with a dismissive claw.

"No, the pain wasn't too bad. It was the other stuff." The reptilian man folded his arms across his chest and kicked his large feet up, considering how to respond. He managed to find the words because his stomach felt not just full, but fulfilled. Nourished in body and soul. There are few pains greater than hunger, and the lizard man shuddered to think back to when he was so young and vulnerable.

"I started changin'... Hm. Now that I think about it, s'kinda hard to remember. Those first days were hazy. So much happened. I remember gettin' nailed by about ten of those quills I pulled outta you. Lucky for me I had already started movin' stuff up into the trees. Had a couple flat boards laid out across some branches. Enough to keep me from fallin' off. When I woke up, the quills had fallen out but scales were already spreading. Don't worry. You won't turn. I'm pretty sure it only works on boys. S'why only families with boys got invited, is my guess."

The thought had crossed Diana's mind and she nodded at Eli's explanation, agreeing with his observation.

"Do I still have this scar?" He said, pointing to his throat.

Looking closely, the zoologist saw a ring of discolored scales around his neck that stood out among the darker surrounding ones. Tiny bald patches showed the lighter hide beneath. She had never given it much thought as she nodded.

"I remember gettin' this because after the private army fuckers got that metal noose around my neck, the scientists that were with them talked about how well my transition was going. It was weird. Like I wasn't human. I mean, I wasn't at that point. I guess, not aware? Like an animal to them, too dumb to realize what they were sayin'. I realized that everythin' was being done on purpose."

"If this is too painful..."

"No, s'fine. Honestly, the hunger was worse than the pain. The venom numbed most of it. Some days I would get really desperate and kill some of the weirder beasts and eat them. I'd eat almost a whole one a day as fast as I could cook 'em. I'm glad I didn't have a mirror back then. I saw some o'the others partway through their changes. It was ugly. Really ugly. Hair half fallin' out. Faces all twisted. Most of my discomfort was growin' new bones. Tail especially. My body knew better what it needed than I did, so if it sounded good, I ate it. Good thing I don't mind the taste of kelp."

He shuddered at the memory and still to that day reviled the taste of the ocean crap.

"How long did it take?" Diana was discreetly jotting down what he was telling her to examine later.

"Hm. Felt like a year. Lookin' back, uh, I'd say maybe three or four-ish months?"

Still not ready to spill everything, Eli changed the subject and Diana did not push him any further, having more than enough information to process.

"So, I've been thinkin' we should go to the market and pick up a few things."

"There's a market?"

"Yeah, it's in the town. S'where most of the boys live, built up on one of the huge concrete pillars. Honestly it's one of the safest places of the island. You'll get to see it 'cause you're goin' with me. We've gone through a lot more soap than I thought."

"Sorry." Diana said, rubbing an arm.

"S'fine. I like you smellin' nice. But, if we are goin', you're not goin' like that." He said, gesturing to her. Diana glanced down at herself.

"Like what? Without a shirt?" The woman raised an eyebrow incredulously.

"Without me makin' sure no boy's gonna touch you. I haven't done it in a while, but whenever I go, I usually do myself up with this special blue. S'how I marked you. Need to make sure, so I gotta paint you all over." Eli spoke with what he thought conveyed his protective urges.

"No you're not." She deadpanned, pulling her shirt back on to emphasize her point.

"I... Well, huh?" The young man's confidence popped with all the bluster of a limp balloon.

"You heard me, mister. No painting. I already feel enough like a savage as it is." She said with obvious disgust. "Besides, if you're so worried about me going to this market with you, why don't you just give me a gun?"

"That's not. I mean... No. No, I-" Caught off guard by her attitude, he could only verbally backpedal. The young man was not socially prepared to handle confrontation with an intimate partner and did not know what to do when an affectionate meal turned into a fight.

"No?!" She cut him off. "You still don't trust me, do you?" Eli averted his gaze, unable to meet the woman's while his tail curled tightly down. It was partly true because the lizard man had not stopped to consider the woman in that capacity. Mistrust was the wrong word simply because he had not thought far enough ahead. Diana felt the sting of betrayal like a sharp knife to the gut and a wry, bitter, ugly side of her came to the fore.

"That's it, isn't it?" She paused, waiting for him to refute her claim. When he did not protest fast enough, it hurt more than she would have admitted. The pain curdled into anger. "You know what, I've played a good little girlfriend for you. I gave you sex. I cooked. Followed all your stupid little rules. You practically order me around." The specialist stood, ticking the offenses off her fingers.

"That's not true." He tried to fight back, yet the warble in his voice gave lie to the protest. She was going to fast for him to keep up. Pulled by a dozen insecurities, Eli did nothing as the soldier flayed him open. As barbed wire wrapped around his heart and lungs, he looked mournfully at the sketchbook he had given Diana, cast off onto the dock in her anger.

All her pent up fear and resentment bubbled up at once. Pointing a finger at him accusingly, her voice grew in volume.

"I may as well be your prisoner with how you treat me. Am I your partner, or a slave, Eli? Because you've done a lot of take, but not a whole lotta give." Even after opening up to her, he still insisted on leading her around by the nose. Even after she had cooked for him. She felt used. It made her think of a breaking point with a past boyfriend and did not like being reminded of that bastard.

'Is that really what she thinks? Is that how I've been treating her?' The young man thought to himself.

"I-" He started, then was cut off.

"I don't wanna hear it, Eli, it's just yes or no. And you know what, don't bother. You've already made up your mind. Obviously. I wonder if you even want to get off the island anymore. You seem pretty happy to sit up in your playhouse all day. Especially now that you have a fuck buddy."

Pearson knew she was not being fair. Fear blotted out the tentative slivers of regret. Fear that she was going to be stuck on the island forever. Fear that Eli would never trust her. Fear that her life was going to end, shivering and alone in the dark jungle. After her verbal lashing, she expected some kind of retort from the teen. Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared his way, daring him to say anything.

When she saw tears well up in Eli's slit-pupil eyes, she realized she had gone too far. The teen stood up and turned away sharply. With a mighty leap, he cleared the river below and off into the branches. He disappeared into the jungle canopy, leaving the soldier alone with herself on the dock.

Pearson's bubble of anger implode on itself, leaving only sorrow and regret.

If she was being honest, she would understand it was not Eli she was angry with. After the initial wave of indignation turned to self-loathing, she looked down and saw the book laying face down on the wood. She bent down. Cradling the old spine, the specialist turned it over to see it had fallen open to the page she had been sketching the lost boy.

"If I were him I wouldn't trust me either. This place is fucking insane. I can't imagine being here for..." Eight years. The zoologist did not voice the time. It was too much to countenance. Without his help, she would have died. Threlkeld had not only saved her from the beach on that first day, but cleaned her wounds, treated them, and fed her. He was under no contract or obligation to do so. Even after just plucking her from the jaws of the beasts, the young man did not have to share his home. Or teach her about the island for that matter. Sighing with the indomitable weight of guilt, she sat back on the chair hard.

If plunged into the same hell, at the same age, undergoing the same transformation, could the soldier say she would have thrived? Stacked against such horror, Eli could have become a monster too. Humanity. Morals. Those got in the way of survival. Life was not fair and did not play by any rules except its own.

Minutes dragged by stubbornly. Wiping sweat from her brow, the soldier ran a hundred scripts through her head. She rehearsed speeches while stewing in her remorese. When the young man at last returned, she was ready for the worst. All her planning went out the window as her words came spilling forth.

"I'm so sorry, Eli. I shouldn't have said those things. I was just angry. Not really angry with you. You didn't deserve-"

Eli held up a claw to forestall the woman from apologizing further.

"You're right. I'm the one who should be sorry. I want you to have this." From a pocket, he produced a pair of long stemmed keys. Both were connected to his belt with short lengths of paracord. With deft claws, he undid the knot on one and held it out for the woman.

"Even if you say I'm right doesn't excuse how I acted. I'm sorry I yelled." She hesitated reaching for the key and what it meant.

"Take it, please. I promise ya, Diana, I wanna get off this island just as much as you do. I've been here for a long, long, time. So long it feels like I've been here longer than I've not been here. You haven't given me any reason not to believe in you. You deserve trust." He said clumsily. "It's not that I don't trust you. I've never trusted anyone. I'm not good with fancy words like you."

Gingerly, she reached out a hand and accepted the peace offering, fingertips brushing Eli's calloused claws as she did so. With care fitting for fine art, his claw closed around the hand holding the key as he went down on one knee to be level with the woman.

"For a long time, I thought I was goin' crazy. It's hard to explain. With you, I feel real again. Like before I was just a ghost." His red eyes glinted with a hint of isolation madness, flickering around the slit of his pupil like a corona.

"Are we in this together?" She asked.

"Yeah. We're in this together." Tentatively, the lizard man pulled the normal human into his arms. It was easy to forget the boy had been starved of warm contact. He held her so tightly, yet gently too. Huge arms that could crush her like a toy were comforting. Anger thawed like frost before the dawn. Pearson molded into the hug.

"I'll let you paint me. If you're willing to have faith me, then I'll believe in you, okay? That's important. Being willing to compromise and work together on something."

Eli nodded emphatically at her sage words, nuzzling her as he did so.

"But, I get to paint you too." She asserted.

"As long as you don't draw a dick on me." The lizard man chuckled.

****

When they got back to Eli's home, he wanted to make sure his companion knew that he was true to his word, inviting her to use her key and open the decorated gun safe. The woman wondered what the placement of the stencil placement meant to the young man. Had he done it all at once, or incrementally? There were so many questions she still had. Signs of his tenure in the bounteous hell were evident in quantity. Yet the importance the lizard man placed on the arming safe was clear.

The radiant sun of bullet images split at the middle. Standing taller than her, the cabinet opened on well-oiled hinges, swinging open easily despite the weight. The whole armored cabinet was stocked from top to bottom with weapons and ammo. Not a single shelf, drawer, or cushioned weapon cradle was empty.

The lower third of the container was dedicated to ammo cans stacked neatly on metal shelving. Meticulous care meant they remained sealed from the destructive humidity of the jungle. A wall of numbers denoting quantity and caliber made selection easy. For the most part, it was all heavy duty stuff. Military grade. One was even marked hazardous. Fifty caliber depleted uranium to be exact.

A few cans had ugly red X's painted on them.

Everhardt had been very diligent in branching out his research. Weapons and munitions were no exception. His obsessive work to affect everything on the island providing limited runs of exotic ammunition. The only clues were codes indicating different elements used, which ranged from esoteric to insane. Diana was unsure if she would trust firing something with tungsten and magnesium and feared for the operator's safety of whatever soul was brave enough to fire 'Thermal Lance' bullets.

In the upper portion, the cabinet contained the bulk of two dozen varied weapons. From assault rifles, battle rifles, a pair of shotguns, and even some larger firearms. Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to take in the rich arsenal all at once. Numerous scopes, sights, foregrips, tactical laser devices, and other attachments lined one of the doors. While the other was covered in handguns. There was even a foam lined drawer at the very bottom with grenades.

A private contractor's wet dream was stashed in Eli's home.

At the very top was a shelf full to bursting with manuals on every piece of equipment present as well as comprehensive guides on weapon modification, marksmanship, basic first aid, general survival, and good practices for firearm safety and usage. From these pages, Eli Threlkeld had learned to endure. Books had taught the young man even as he had struggled with the words and diagrams. Boiling water, preserving food, cleaning fish, game, making shelters, starting fires, and everything else Eli needed to learn the hard way. Yet the instructions had given him an edge, and for that, they were precious.

To Diana, the contents reflected a snapshot of who Eli was. Survival had a thousand different variables. There was only so far preparation could take someone. If they did not have the mental fortitude to endure the toll on the psyche that went along with it. Luck and grit was often the only two things that stood between a hapless soul, and death.

A concept brewed in the zoologist's mind that grew in conviction the more consideration she gave to it. From the meticulous way the guns were stored to the method used to sort ammo, and even the religious connotations of the symbols Eli had painted on the cabinet told the specialist that he placed greatest faith in force of arms. Here was why it took him so long to trust her. The young man did not bank on unknowns. Words were hollow. Pretty speeches and promises did not fend off the beasts. Just as elements of faith through the universal parallels of sun worship were present, only tangible resources were worthy of veneration. Unbreakable will through might. Might through modern equalizers of brass, steel, and smokeless powder.

"Damn, Eli, you've got quite the arsenal here." She said with stars of bullet casings in her eyes.

Puffing his chest out with pride, Eli's tail did a little dance. All his previous sorrow was washed away in the excitement of sharing something he was passionate about.

"This is my best stuff. I've got a lot more downstairs in the bunker under my tree but most of it's stock shit. Nothin' fancy."

"Bunker? Downstairs? Eli, you don't have stairs." The soldier arched an eyebrow sardonically.

"Good point. Stairs are for chumps. But yeah, there's a bunch of hidden spots all over the island. They're usually full of guns, ammo, and all kinds of stuff. Man, what I wouldn't kill for a fucking can of condensed milk." His gaze went distant as his taste buds chased the memory of sweetened cream for a moment before snapping back to reality. "You can have anything you want, okay? I can make you a spear or a sword too. I bet you'd look badass. Like an amazon. They were warrior women, right?"

As the teenager buzzed with elation, Diana felt her ears burn as her cheeks caught fire. Affection and praise were aberrant incidents to the woman. Had he just called her an amazon? His partner's embarrassment whizzed right over Eli's head as he rummaged through the cabinet, too giddy to notice her vexation.

"Eli, what are these cans with red paint on them?" She asked to divert the conversation, pointing to one of the marked containers. Curiosity got the better of her.

"Oh, those. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend usin' any of that stuff unless absolutely necessary. Nasty stuff. Once you set something on fire with any of this, it doesn't go out." Reaching past her, Threlkeld pulled his Belgian FN Fal from its cradle and patted its receiver with affection. "This one is my favorite. I have a couple more Fals if you'd like one too." He stated while eagerly holding the weapon out for Diana to examine. He was obviously proud of the work done to it.

A twenty-one inch barrel and muzzle brake gave the firearm a very long profile and it boasted almost ten pounds of heft unloaded. The weapon had been altered with numerous after-market accessories. An adjustable polymer buttstock. A much longer grip to better ergonomically fit his large claws. And the factory dust cover had been replaced by one with a long rail mount for optics. The weapon still had its standard iron sights, however reflex sights or compact scopes could be easily snapped on. Although the sleek Belgian handguard was gone, a more flexible one with short rails for numerous attachments was in its place, complete with angled foregrip.

At least some gun handling training had been ingrained deeply enough for her to first clear the chamber. The bolt drew back with with the silky susurration of well-oiled metal. Rather than letting the charging handle slam back into the chamber, Diana reverently guided the bolt forward, hoping she treated the tool with the same respect Eli had shown it. There was care evident in the weapon. It showed wear, the bluing worn off on raised edges of metal while plastic parts had scratches and scuffs. Yet despite the cruel way humidity treated steel and aluminum, there was not a speck of rust.

Most incredible were the designs. With mind-crushing boredom brought on by idle time, Eli had put forth the effort to paint the weapon from stock to muzzle brake. In some places it was chipped or faded, however the designs were still clear. Jagged, angry red motifs of claws and fangs marched a path of calamity across the firearm. Maroon tones gave depth and shadow to the mural that looked daubed in blood, traced in bright arterial crimson, and filled with dried gore. The young man had applied symbols dredged from old memory, chosen to take on the facets of terror invoked by the beasts. He turned his weapon into a counter, a reflection of their power. If the demons would stalk through the dark, then he would arm himself with shackled lighting and red thunder.

Even though it was a little long for her arm's trigger pull, the soldier raised the rifle to her shoulder, lining up the irons. She took a moment to appreciate the solidity of the weapon.

"Wow." She breathed. "This is a work of art, Eli." Pearson lowered the gun and handed it back.

"Thanks," He said, genuinely grateful for the compliments. Tail waving happily, he reflected on how lucky he was to have someone to share with. Sure, lust had guided his actions at first, yet now to hear Diana approve work that he had done, filled the young man with a feeling he had no word for. It was as though he was lighter, like the simple words had freed him a little from the the constraints of gravity.

Then it was the female's turn to be oblivious.

Spotting the familiar profile of an M4 style weapon, Diana pulled the gun out of the cabinet to examine. Turning it over, she saw the manufacturer's stamp that identified the gun as an HK 416. It was heavier than her service weapon, yet the difference was night and day even to her relatively inexperienced hands. There was no denying how good the rifle felt. Adjusting the stock to fit her trigger pull, she grasped the vertical foregrip and sighted down its length, getting a measure of its heft. An inscrutable allure about the profile of the rifle drew her in. Between the quad rail, shorter barrel, and silhouette of the sights, it just felt right when snug against her shoulder.

She would not have described herself as a gun nut. The woman had signed a contract to have the military fully pay for her schooling in exchange for a few years of service. The mission that had left her stranded had come to her because she wanted to be an overachieving undergraduate without twenty years of debt.

A chasm had grown insidiously inside Pearson with long grasping fingers of insecurity and fear. Now, if she was to die, it would be armed. Now if the island tore out her heart, she would be able to answer. It was a cold comfort, an icy logic, yet one that served as a balm to wounds that ran below skin and bone.

"I like this one." She said with her cheek resting on the stock. "I like this one a lot."

"It suits you. Do you want me to paint it?" He offered.

"Would you?" She responded, thinking of his Fal.

"I'd love to." With a sultry purr that made her heart flutter, Eli took the gun to his small work station, leaving the woman to continue rummaging.

While she sorted through the cabinet, mentally earmarking things to examine more closely, introspection came to the zoologist. She noticed that every magazine had the mark of the cardinal star and rubbed her neck in sympathy. Eli was nothing, if not thorough. Soft chimes just outside mingled with tropical birds, a reminder of all that he had done.

Totems and jewelry hung everywhere. Though the young man had suffered greatly, the island had not snuffed out his spirit. The desire to not just live, but live well, endured through tragedy. There was no need to paint the helicopter or the gun cabinet. At least not practically. Spiritually, the act of creation, of expression, had played a vital role in giving meaning to the struggle. It helped him forget the cold, hungry nights, when only fear gave him strength.

Time slipped by as Diana reflected on her own survival, echoes of guilt gnawing at her gut. This time the reverie was broken by Eli proclaiming his work finished. Stepping over to look, the woman was floored at the detail he had captured so quickly. A pattern of teal swords and antlered skulls decorated the stock and receiver. With a clever bit of work, Eli had marked the raised bits of the quad rail with large feathered arrows, the fletching and shaft blended onto the barrel where the wicked looking bodkin points went. The top and sides each had this single, long design, with the gaps in the rails giving the arrows the illusion of flight as the woman saw it from different angles.

"Now, it's your turn." With a tentative smile, Eli waggled a digit in her direction. Even though she was still nervous, she could not deny the skill he had displayed. It was not as though he was actually tattooing her.

"Alright, a promise is a promise." She said as he guided her to stand next to him and wasted no time.

With a very small brush, Eli started on his inking. The special mixture of crushed flower petals and the discarded exoskeletons of a unique jungle beetle made the special solution absorb deeply into the skin. He had never painted on someone else, finding the angles strange at first. Adapting his brush quickly to the challenge he started just above her wrists, making bands of color the same hue as what he had put on her gun while filling the space between the sashes with the familiar motions of his simple swirling patterns. Quickly he became absolutely focused on the task, taking the time every now and then to nudge or turn her a certain way.

Smaller brushes gave way to wider ones which gave way to wider ones still and back down again. He put concentric rings up her biceps and calves, filling the circlets with spirals. Minimalist crescent moons went under each eye, the two curves underpinned by a trio of dots. That was the only color he put directly on her face. A vortex of accents went on her neck with his original mark at its center. Once he was done there, he lifted her shirt, popping her bosom free of its confines. Somehow, the woman was not surprised, and helpfully held the hem of her top for the painter.

As the color was applied to her breasts, Diana suppressed the urge to fidget and giggle at the ticklish feeling from her chest. Her cleavage was treated to a Fleur-de-lis whose left and right petals circled down and around the perky globes. She could not fully stifle a moan when her nipples stiffened as each was given a liberal helping to insure areola and pebbled buds were very teal indeed.

'Horny damn teenager.' She thought to herself as she clenched her legs in furtive arousal.

Across the smooth expanse of her belly, he gave the most detail. Swathes of intricate spirals and bands were laid. He wanted the blend of curves and edges to reflect how he saw the woman. Though liberal, his claw knew restraint and did not overcrowd the canvas, leaving more skin bare than inked. With a mental grin, he made a larger version of the eight pointed cardinal star with her belly button at its center.

When the woman thought her ordeal over, the painter pulled her pants down.

"Ah! Eli!" She cried indignantly.

"Don't move, your tummy is still drying." He gave a devilish grin before burying his snout in the pubic hair, massaging her hindquarters with his unoccupied claw. Taking a deep breath of her rich, natural scent let him know how wet she already was. Then he gave her mound a generous lick, and tasted how aroused she had become. Whining in frustration, Diana had to stand still as the young man freely played with her, not wanting to move and ruin the work he had already done.

"Good girl." With an affectionate pat on her butt, the painter rewarded her with another kiss to her lower lips. Pulling back, he tugged her bottoms down around her knees and grabbed another paintbrush. With a broad strokes, he dyed her entire labia blue. Using his free claw, he pushed her legs apart to make sure none of the ink got there so that her lips stood out in contrast to her naturally pale intimate inner thigh. Eli was so lost in the simple fun of it, he was only vaguely aware of his cocks nudging free. Diana meanwhile, was utterly entranced by the teenager's passion.

It was a huge turn on for her to be found so desired. She knew he was a horny teenager. That a strong breeze was enough to give him a two hour stiffy, yet to be the sole object of sexual attraction was at least flattering. Spreading her now glistening teal cunny for him, she only heard him make a noise approximating approval before she felt the brush across her inner lips as well.

A tingling sensation was growing in her crotch.

Once again it was hard not to squirm, this time in pleasure as every crease of soft pink skin was stained a very effervescent teal color. The liquid flowed around her hard nub, and then down to her entrance. She felt the repeated brush stokes over her love button like butterfly kisses as she held the top of her sex exposed for Eli. She moved her fingers with his ministrations, making sure he had full and easy access the lower he went, inadvertently dying her digits blue to the first knuckle..

As she quickly grew soaking wet, Eli just used less watered down bits of dye, going so far as to actually slip his brush and generous glob of teal up into Diana's sex. The small object made the girl jump. Though tiny, the sensation was unexpectedly erotic. There was a growing sensitivity in her nethers and made the woman bite her lower lip. The thought of him literally painting her insides to mark that she belonged to him to her most feminine core made her blush and her pussy tried to clench around the tiny intruder, smearing the dye and squeezing it into her furthest depths. Though neither would ever see it, even her cervix was from then on teal.

Some chemical in the mixture caused her sex to become inflamed. Her mound puffed up as the ink made her lady parts swollen. A sensation that was not quite an itch, yet grew in intensity as the coloring soaked into her. Even through her natural liquid amour, the ink assimilated into Pearson's deeper layers of skin within a few short minutes.

When he was satisfied with himself, Eli stood back to admire his handiwork. The designs were generous, but not overbearing. Licking his teeth, the young man shed his own pants and grasped his erect upper hemipenis.

"Eli..." The female whimpered. Threlkeld watched the woman squirm, trying not to move even as her labia became so plumped up she could squeeze the thick folds with her fingers. Cupping her mound, Dina moaned helplessly as she struggled. Watching the lizard man stroke himself, openly enjoying the show she was putting on just made her feel the slow drag of time more acutely.

When she could bear it no longer, the woman waddled over to the hammock and bent over. Pants taut around her knees, she had to arch her back and push her hips back to get herself as exposed as she wanted. With teal fingertips, she peeled back the hood of her erect nub and held her entrance open. She was actually dripping wet. A stream of honey poured down her sex until it collected at her zenith into a crystal droplet before leaking onto the floor. Her fluids were perfectly clear, every carefully measured drop of teal swallowed by thirsty flesh.

Knowing just how to rile him up, Eli could not resist the platter laid out before him. When he looked down and saw her pussy so plump and swollen, flushed dark blue with arousal, he had to have a taste. He mashed his scaly lips against her puffy sex, giving it a twirl inside her tunnel before going up to her nub. The way Diana held herself open, practically begged him to give her aching clit attention.

With sensitivity magnified, the contact of hot tongue was almost scalding. The top of her sex caught fire with their difference in body temperature. Mouth open in a silent scream, the woman was glad she had bent over the hammock and clenched the blanket in balled fists as she lost motor control of her lower half. As fast a learner as ever, Eli knew just where and how to eat out his woman to get her off quick and hard, even bent over. Backside quivering, Pearson exploded, gushing girly cum onto the floor in thick pulses. She was always ashamed whenever she squirted, and Eli was the only partner she had ever been with that could make her do it on command.

Unable to give voice to her humiliation, too overstimulated with her cunt so inflamed she was lewdly winking it post-orgasm like an animal in heat for Eli clear to see. Front sloped down, ass up, her teal pussy was at the perfect height for him to penetrate her. With lower hemipenis in claw, he plugged her overflowing chalice with an audible squish. His cock plunged into her stubborn depths. Her tunnel, so inflamed that Diana felt her own unusual tightness, still stood no chance against Eli's mass. The arrowhead tip of his steel member pried open even vice-hard cunny.

Impaling her fully on his cock the plumped lips squelched obscenely as Eli's hips slapped into Diana's rump. Mewling in distress, the stretching in her lady bits felt similar to someone splitting her pelvis in half. The young man was no less vigorous in his thrusting despite the added grip, rocking the hapless female caught beneath him. The pounding did not last long. Plowing such incredible tightness along with her engorged insides sucking him wetly back in, like a lewd sex toy with suction was a lot of stimulation for the lizard man too. Not to mention he had stood with half a hard-on the entire time he had painted her. It was glorious relief to such drawn out foreplay.

That did not stop him from dragging the experience out as long as he could. His upper cock was sandwiched between her haunches, thick ridges rubbing her rosebud even as his lower manhood sawed in and out of distended cunt. With one claw on her waist, the other helped stroke the cock between her cheeks. Stuffing his fat spire into soaked pussy, strands of feminine wetness made their union an absolute sopping mess as their hips met again and again.

Diana did not know if she could cum again after the first one, however, the way Eli was fucking her caused a steady stream to gush from her sex. It was like her lower half was aglow with warm caramel ecstasy. A kind of rich, luxurious pleasure that hummed through her continuously. Though he took things a little slower than normal, at no point did the lizard man think to stop, letting his own enjoyment build until his gratification peaked and he spent himself both into and onto the female's offered backside.

With her tunnel already bloated, she acutely felt the cock engorge and a heavy spurt of lizard spunk erupted against the smooth muscle of her cervix. Then another, and another. Because of her unusual tightness, the cum quickly distended her insides and the pressure forced Eli's cum to burst from her sex where the manhood had her hole stretched into a lewd gape to drip down her thighs in a mingling of their fluids.

Thick ropes of lizard cum splattered across Pearson's back as Threlkeld painted her inside out with pearly white. Holding himself fast against her rump, the young man indulged himself, letting her clenching pussy milk him dry. Both panted and basked in the afterglow. Only when every ounce of his seed was spent, and his cocks began to soften did the teen pull out with a wet pop.

"Ah, that was amazing." Eli sighed in bliss while his partner could only drool, fucked nearly senseless. Stepping back to enjoy his other handiwork, he did his best to permanently ingrain the sight of his bright white cum oozing from swollen, puffy blue labia. His claws went to her rear and spread her, watching her cunny practically wink, lost to her convulsions. The temptation was too great, and he decided to give her a special kiss. Suddenly she felt felt something long and wet slide up the length of her slit.

"Eli!" She cried out. "No, no please don't make me cum agai-AH!" Eli ignored her protests as he mashed his scaly snout into her crotch. The sight of her bent over in such a manner with the petals of her flower pulled apart so deliciously made him simply have to have a taste. It was not a full body orgasm, just one that sent her nethers tingling and smarting all over again. Eli drank her nectar greedily. Her juices were the sweetest right as she came. Having slaked all his wicked thirsts and plundered her honey pot for the second time that day.

"Uh-huh. Amazing." She managed after a time. On the floor in front of her lay a discarded sock. With a groan, the woman snagged it and reached back to try and clean up the disaster that was her womanhood. Moaning as the rough fabric touched her delicates, she first wiped her sex, then reached up to try and clean up her lower back of lizard spunk. When she slid off the hammock, Diana had to squat down and hold the cloth to her hole as her insides sloshed and her contents slid like sludge downward with the aid of gravity.

When she was done pulling her pants up and shirt down, she pointed at Eli.

"Okay, now it's my turn."

"I'm all yours." Arms open, he stated the proclamation with a cockiness she did not dislike. He turned and poured some red ink into a small jar and got her a fresh brush. During their session, the zoologist had plenty of time to consider what to put on her partner and they both sat on the floor for the woman to work.

His reptilian chest was smooth, free of mammalian blemishes, and would make for the perfect canvas. Though anatomical sketches were her forte, some skill did translate to the brush. With a steady hand she painted an anatomical human heart over where his own resided. It was time consuming just to outline. She wanted to get it right, and show her own skill. Threlkeld took his inking with patience. As she started to fill in details of the heart's chambers, an idea came to her. The organ on its own was looking accurate, it just needed something extra. Inspiration struck, and she added large medical stitches that marched in a line of X's diagonally across the diagram.

After she was done, she rubbed her hand from holding the paintbrush in such an unfamiliar grip for so long. Tilting his head was a little awkward, but out of one eye he was able to see it.

"Holy shit, I love it. That's cool as fuck." Lauding her efforts, he patted his chest and rubbed his partner's knee.

Diana heaved a sigh of relief and leaned back, thoroughly exhausted after the days events.

"Hey." She said.

"Yeah?"

"Can we go tomorrow?"

"Tired?"

"Very." She admitted, then caught a whiff of how she reeked of sex. "I think I need a bath. Hey, Eli, how long does this stuff last? Does it just wash off, or is it like henna?"

"Like what?"

"Never mind."

"Oh, this stuff doesn't really wash off. Usually my scales fall out. About a year or two the last time I used it, I think."

"A year?" Diana gave a long pause, considering just how wild he had gone in daubing her in amazonian teal. "Or two."

"Yuh-huh." The teen responded innocently.

Part 5: Market

Two baths, and lots of scrubbing later, the soldier was just as brightly azure as the day before. She supposed Eli's jungle voodoo worked in many ways. The woman was not against wearing the tasteful designs, she just was not super thrilled over having a blue crotch for an indeterminate length of time. After simple breakfast of smoked fish and sliced peaches, she got ready. It only took a little begging for the teenager to convince her to put on her Sunday best. Resigned, yet secretly smitten with the idea of being akin to a living trophy for Eli to accessorize, she let him help choose her outfit.

He picked out a pair of shorts that cut off mid thigh, and a tank top that left her midriff exposed. Her shorts were held up by a long leather belt with intricate copper wire wrapped through it. Three spare magazine pouches hung from her left side while her right was devoted to a pistol rig with her old service Beretta that she was more than happy to have back. Everything was strapped down securely for jumping between tree branches or if she needed to run. With her brunette hair up in a ponytail, the woman was almost ready.

Using an old college trick to keep prying eyes off her tits just in case she had no bra, the woman applied bits of electrical tape to keep her nipples from poking through her shirt. Eli cocked his head quizzically to one side when he saw her do this.

"What? You don't want the other boys ogling these puppies, do you?" She said, bouncing her breasts in her palms for emphasis. When her partner's eyes flashed with a covetous gleam, she knew she had struck true. With an understanding nod, he stepped out of the helicopter to wait for her.

As a final touch, she slipped the loop of her HK's sling over her head and threw on a simple backpack, keeping her weapon in front of her for free access. The gun was a reassuring burden as its weight rested against her. Diana joined Eli outside their home.

The teen was going shirtless, proud to show off the design his mate had put on his chest, making sure that the strap of his Fal and simple messenger bag did not cover his painted scales. Other than two spare magazines on his belt, his only other protection was what he had referred to as his 'fancy spear'.

To Diana, it seemed more like a pike. A metal shaft as tall as the lizard man, topped with a foot and a half of razor sharp steel, ever so slightly wider in the middle, with a gentle leaf taper to a wicked point. She suspected the weapon weighed a lot if it was made solid, yet the spry teen flourished it like bamboo. Grips of leather popped with red dye along with numerous brass charms that hung from paracord tied bellow the blade of the spear.

"Here, take this too." Threlkeld puzzled the woman by holding out what looked like strange cross.

He handed her a tool that was the bastard offspring of a shortsword and machete. If only out of curiosity, the soldier drew the weapon from its nylon and leather sheath. It had a thick, heavy blade, of about twenty inches, sharpened on both sides with a straightforward triangular tip. Diana suspected that the teen had simply sectioned off a desired length of spring steel and ground it into the shape he wanted. Though she was surprised at its lack of his usual ornamentation. The blade was meant for practical use before aesthetic, which ironically gave it grace in the form of purity through function.

Simple cloth and tape wrapped the handle that comfortably fit a single hand. A half-inch steel pipe had been slipped up the tang to form an effective cross guard with a small, capped section of pipe forming the pommel. Weight balance definitely favored hacking motions, but not so much that stabbing felt awkward. Its shorter length was meant for chopping into tough hide or using the sharp triangular tip to pierce vital points in encounters too tight to use anything else.

"Eli, this is a sword." Diana said flatly, as if the ridiculous assertion would be obvious in its own merit.

"Yeah, it'll look good on you. I never leave home without somethin' sharp and pointy." A faint note of grieving memory dragged on his tone.

"Eli." She said more slowly. "This is a sword. Is this really going to protect me from a beast?" The soldier said, patting the strap of her HK.

"Blades don't need reloading. And in my experience, if a beast is close enough t'stab, it's good to have somethin' t'stab it with." He shrugged, tapping the butt of his spear against the helicopter patio with a solemn thunk.

She took the sword.

****

It was mid morning by the time they set out, and closer to noon by the time they arrived. The trek from Eli's home to the market was a long and arduous one, with not a single step taken on the ground. Even though there was no trouble along the way, anxiety made the zoologist's march falter.

Not only was this the first time since being stranded on the island that she was venturing so far from the safety of Eli's territory, it would be the first time she met the other boys who inhabited the isle. Even though her mission in essence had been scouting, she had signed on to help the victims. The pair she had encountered that first day had not made the best impression on behalf of the other residents.

As they got closer to the market, the path became easier, bridges making for easy paths to follow. Structures built into trees similar to Eli's home tree could be glimpsed through the branches. Soon, bawdy sounds of crude civilization filtered through the ambiance of the jungle. The road as it was, became wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side. Her hand found Eli's claw, entwining his digits in her own. All it took was one gentle squeeze on his part to assuage the disquiet in her soul.

A turn took them out into a break in the canopy. Sprawling tree houses festooned the jungle, connected by interconnected webs of bridges, ladders, and even the limbs of the impossibly huge trees were carved into stairways or had planks nailed to them. The entire place sat in the shadow of one of the titanic concrete pylons, towering over everything. Years of work had gone into making the place a small vertical town. Using not just the trees, but also the massive metal skeleton that sprouted from the construct, the boys had lashed, welded, and laid long boards onto the framework to form a stable platform on which to build their homes.

The woman was intrigued at the relative order. The buildings, though haphazard, made Diana think of old wooden ships crashed ashore and been made into half shelter, half boyish playground with no regard to safety. Dozens, if not hundreds of teens could be seen walking, sitting, eating, and otherwise just going about their daily lives, trying to make the best of their purgatory. Nearly everyone was armed. If not with guns, then with spears or heavy blades on their backs or waists. The normalcy with which the population went about equipped ready for war made Diana a little less self-conscious about her own attire.

Some were still human, but many were changed. The reptilian among the group varied wildly, showing great disparity among their limbs and coloration. From tropical colors to more subdued, matte hues, no two looked exactly alike. Some were short and thin as a whip, while others were broad and burly, almost crocodilian in aspect. She wondered if any of them would be willing to let her sketch them.

Continuing forward, the couple approached a beige and cream scaled lizard man who lounged in a low hammock. The turned young man wore an oversized sun hat made of woven palm fronds, drawstring trunks, and stood up when he saw the pair. A wide grin lit up the lizard's face until his bright teeth shined with mirth.

"Eeeeliiii!" The young lizard crowed, his voice warbling in a vibrato overture. He bounced straight up to Threlkeld, standing eye level with him. They bumped knuckles and did a complicated series of high fives that devolved into a mess as they both laughed. It was honest mirth and infectious to where Diana could not help but smile too.

"Eli, my scaly brotha, how ya doin', how ya been, how's it goin'?" The vanilla teen slapped a closed fist into the palm of his other claw in emphasis of each question.

"Y'know, Saint. Been up. Been down. But lately I'd say," Eli glanced over at Diana. "A whole lotta up."

Saint, who had been stealing peeks at the woman by the dark green lizard's side, now fully turned his attention on her.

"Aw shit, you got a lady!"

"This is..." Eli glanced again, seeing Diana looking up expectantly at him with her big, bright green eyes. "My girlfriend." He announced with an air of conviction that made the woman's stomach do a somersault.

The friendly lizard bowed his head and held out a claw.

"May I ask the lovely lady's name?" He said smoothly.

"Diana. Diana Threlkeld. It's a pleasure to meet you, Saint." She said with a firm shake of his offered claw.

"It is my great honor ta meet'tcha, miss Diana. I keep this sausage fest in order. He's been treatin' you well I assume?" Saint looked at her neck in an exaggerated move. "He did call dibs on you, after all."

"Eli's treated me very well, thank you." Diana wrapped herself around Eli's arm, pulling herself in tightly against him as any girlfriend would. Then it was Eli's turn to have his gut go through acrobatics.

Saint turned his attention back to Eli.

"So what's the news, man? Everyone's already heard that there was another group that tried to come to the island. No secret, seein' as you can't hide a ship blowin' up. The brothers dumbass came bitchin' 'bout how you called dibs on the survivor. Were very upset about it. Pretty obvious you'd gotten someone worthwhile. No doubt there. But what does it mean for us?"

"No help's comin' yet. I figured there was somethin' keepin' the island from bein' found. Somethin' that makes us invisible. Diana was with the good guys. The real good guys. They figured it out too. Her people were lookin' for us when they got lost and her ship blew up." Eli explained. Saint rubbed his chin with a claw, digesting this information. The soldier put forth her own observations to help clarify.

"A fishing boat dredged up a dead beast that had washed out to sea. We figured out that it had to be the work of Doctor Everhardt. What happened to you boys is a national tragedy. How he kidnapped all of you. We guessed, based off where the fishermen had found the beast, where this island might be. My ship was part of a task force sent out to try and find out what had really happened, and hopefully find survivors. But, when we found this place, all our navigation crashed. Our last position was reported way off course. I don't know if anyone else can find us anytime soon, but I know they're looking."

Diana had told all of this and more to Eli already, so the teen nodded in agreement, his own suspicions lining up with the evidence. For Saint, the new revelation was actually very good. His pale eyes lighting up with vigor. As the conversation progressed, more and more boys were slowly congregating. With all their color, and Diana's obvious gender, they were hard to miss.

Screwing up his face in a peculiar expression, Saint let out a shrill whistle that carried through the small colony to signal a meeting. They gathered on branches, on roofs, on ropes and walkways and ladders, all crowding into whatever space they could. There was a steady murmur among the population as everyone jockeyed for a view.

"Boys! I've got good news, and bad news." Saint waited for the mixed rumblings to die away. "Bad news, is that the ship that sunk, was full o' people who were wantin' t'come help us."

A chorus of boos meant the announcement. Once more, Saint waited for the clamor to settle.

"But, the good news." He started off softer, building dramatic effect. "Is that they are still lookin'. We might not be gettin' saved today. Maybe not tomorrow. But we haven't been forgotten, boys. We all thought no one was ever gonna come. Now we have proof first hand that they are. Fuck the island!"

"Fuck the island!" Came back the chorus which shook the trees with its volume.

"Long live King Leo!" Saint carried the cry with enough conviction to challenge hell itself, tail lashing the boards where he stood while he raised a defiant fist to the sky.

"Long live King Leo!" The boys all whooped and hollered in answer. Even Eli added his voice to the chant.

Slowly the crowd dispersed back to what they had been doing. It was the first good news they had gotten in too long and an air of merriment settled as many boys now wore smiles. Saint turned back to the couple.

"Hey, Eli, it's nice t'see ya. Don't wait so long between visits next time, okay?" The pale reptile patted the other lightly on the shoulder.

"Heh, s'good to see you too, Saint. We're just here for some soap, but we'll make sure to stop by more often."

"I gotcha. Take care, man."

"Yeah, you too." They bumped knuckles one more time and parted.

The couple walked passed Saint, who resumed his hammock relaxation and ran straight into a gaggle of boys all eager to meet Diana. Their excitement was palpable as they shook her hand, stumbling clumsily through pubescent energy with voices that still cracked. Many just stared, mumbling greetings with their eyes cast down, shyly glancing at her bare and openly inked skin. Agoraphobia tore at the woman's composure with thorns as she put on a brave face, immensely grateful for Eli standing behind her. When the bulk of the crowd had dispersed, a pair of young men in the middle of a vehement argument remained.

They both seemed oddly familiar.

"Mark. Ralph." Eli said in a flat greeting, his displeasure obvious as he put a claw on Diana's shoulder and it clicked to her. They were the duo who had tried to poach her from Eli after she had fled from him that first day. It took considerable effort to not let her hand stray too close to her sidearm.

"She still shoulda been ours. Eli just got fuckin' lucky. I'm tellin' ya, Saint will side with us. Then we can have a fucking girlfriend." The shirtless teens carried on without acknowledging Eli had said anything.

"No he's not you fucking idiot. We begged but Eli already had his fuckin' mark on her. Least we can do is apologize and maybe not be total pieces o' shit."

"Apologize for what? For him takin' what shoulda been ours?" Asserted Ralph, beating his chest in obstinance.

"Go jerk it back in the cabin if you're gonna be rude." Mark punched his brother in the shoulder to make his point clear.

Ralph harrumphed, glaring daggers at Eli as he sulked away. Mark sighed in relief and turned to address the couple.

"Sorry 'bout my brother. He'll chill out once he realizes no one's gonna back him up. You called dibs fair and square, Eli. I've got no problem with you. I'm not stupid enough to try and call you a liar." The boy shuffled a bit and spoke directly to the soldier. "Hey, so, you really part of a rescue or somethin'?"

"I was. My ship didn't make." She said curtly. Even though it had been a short time, the woman was not about to easily forget the brother's behavior.

"Ah. S'alright. You're not the first one to have that happen to 'em."

"Go on ahead without me, gorgeous. Buy anythin' you like, okay?" Eli said sweetly to his mate.

Diana did not need to be told twice, eager to explore on her own and get away from the awkward confrontation.

There was one ulterior motive for Mark at least.

"So, Eli, ol'buddy. Good pal o' mine, how was it. Y'know. Sex? With a real woman?" Mark tried to not sound desperate, and failed.

"Pretty fuckin' nice. I'll let you use you're imagination." He said with a bit of snide insinuation. "Would be insultin' to the lady. Can't be givin' away her secrets." He ended slyly.

Pearson meanwhile, followed her nose.

The upper level of the colony, the one that spiraled up the pylon, was a market of sorts. Stands and stalls had hand drawn signs advertising goods, services, and prices. There were all manner of different things on display. Diana passed food being cooked, fruits and vegetables stacked up in crates, canned goods being priced, weapons shown or examined, tactical vests tried on, and a hundred different bargains being negotiated.

Threlkeld had explained that the accepted currency was red-tipped ammo. Military grade incendiary ammunition was the agreed upon trade medium. It was the most effective tool at keeping the beasts at bay in whatever caliber it was found. Since it was constantly being used and could not be made, it retained value. A metal can with a couple hundred rounds sat heavily in her pack.

Even though plenty of catcalls and whistles were thrown her way, the observance of Eli's claim on her appeared as a pervasive and instantly recognized rule of law that the community observed and followed. Diana noticed most everything that was not obviously public, bore some kind of personalized marking, whether etched or painted. A lot of the 'dib' marks came down simply to initials. In a large enough group with commodity value weighted against survivability, it was no wonder that the boys had developed a system that discouraged and punished theft first and foremost.

After going down her mental list and picking up all the essentials that she or her... Boyfriend, could not make easily on their own, Pearson thought of anything she may have missed. Something Eli had said yesterday stuck in the woman's mind. There was an item he had mentioned wanting...

Walking by stand of canned goods, a faded powder blue label caught her eye. Sweetened condensed milk. There was only one can left, and it sat without a price.

"Hey, how much for this?" Diana asked, picking up the can in question. A wiry young man with olive skin, still human, occupied the seat behind the covered stall. He blinked a few times, unable to tear his eyes off her chest.

"Two-hundred." The tanned teen blurted.

She had only lugged around a few hundred rounds to spend. Diana was certain that Eli had more with him, but that would ruin the surprise. Besides that, based on signs she had seen at other shops, it was outrageous amount for a single can. Rather than argue with the boy, she had another idea.

Leaning over to give the young man a view straight down her shirt, Diana gave a disappointed moan.

"Aw, couldn't you give it to me for fifty? It is the last one after all."

Eyes bulging, the teen nodded furiously. In a flash the soldier scooped up the can and replaced it with a stack of stripper clips. With her metaphorical wallet lighter, and the one item on her wish list crossed off, she took the time to simply browse.

One more place caught her attention. Bright pink paint had been used to spell out a sign that read 'panties'.

Needing a double take to be sure she had read it right, she approached the market stand with absurd curiosity. Diana considered asking who was buying feminine panties, for what purpose, and in what quantity for there to be not just a demand, a but person willing to put the time and effort into making them to sell. Then realized she did not want an answer to any of those questions.

Everything ranging from boyshorts to thongs and beyond was on display. A bright blue and purple speckled teen sat behind the booth. Though at first surprised, he quickly went into professional mode.

"Holy shit, a girl. A woman! What can I get for you, miss?" This lizard missed his true calling in salesmanship.

"What do you have that's soft?" She asked, touching the rather too-thin fabric of the common fare the young man had on display.

"Ah, no basic shit for you, no ma'am. An eye for quality. I like that. Here, I have a pair you might be interested in. Only a couple boys can afford it, and even fewer would appreciate it." The tailor went into his tent and came out with the underwear. He carefully unfolded in his claws for Diana to see. "It's from an animal that went extinct. Beasts killed it off." The tailor spat with the vitriol she had come to understand and expect when it came to the subject of the beasts.

The garment was made of a speckled burgundy pelt so luxuriously soft and supple, that if someone else had described the feeling to her, Diana would have called them a liar. Jet black fur made up the trim, apparently a naturally occurring trait of the creature. The pelt had a surprising amount of elasticity too, stretching easily between her hands. She would have loved to have known what this animal had looked like alive.

"I'll take it." Without much deliberation, Diana counted out what she thought was a fair bargain. The quality of the pelt and stitching spoke for itself.

"Lookin' at you, I can say with confidence they should fit. If not, bring 'em on back, and I can adjust 'em." The tailor said with a wink. "All my stuff is guaranteed to satisfy any partner, even if it's only yourself. Those'll make a lizard I know very happy. That'll stay between us though, don't worry." Diana felt her ears burn at the insinuation and quickly stuffed the underwear into the bottom of her pack. She tipped the young man generously for his discretion and hurried off.

Never far behind, Eli found her at just the right time. The young man handed her a skewer of sizzling meat and grilled pineapple. Both found a balcony with a wonderful view of the beautiful side of the jungle. They ate lunch in companionable silence, enjoying the sun and the unusually mild weather.

"So, what have you been doing?" She asked, legitimately interested and curious.

"I've just been askin' around if anyone's learned somethin' I didn't know. Beast activity. Any new bunkers. It's been pretty much the same for a while now. Feels like all I've been doing is waiting. Not really livin'. Just waiting for somethin' t'change. Y'know? Well, least until you showed up, amazon."

"Who's King Leo?" She spoke and hoped it was not something that would spark an argument again.

"The bravest person I've ever known." Eli answered without hesitation. "Let's finish, and I'll show ya." Crunching through juicy pineapple and roasted meat, they both polished off their meals and tossed the bamboo skewers over the balcony. The soldier followed her companion to a grave.

Up near the highest point of the small community was a small shrine, carved into the concrete pylon and lit by oil lamps. It smelled thickly of aromatic herbs and old flowers. At the back was an altar of wood, piled high with offerings of bullets, casings, toys, jewelry, and letters. Tributes and epitaphs were carved or painted onto the walls. There was one name at the center of it all.

'King Leo', It read.

Setting down his pack, the dark green lizard man sat on the floor with his Fal in his lap. Diana followed suit and waited for Eli to start. It took him a minute to gather his thoughts as he stared at the wall while his mind wandered down years of memory.

"I never knew if Leo was his real name. I don't think it really matters now." Was the first words Threlkeld spoke.

"What happened?" Pearson's voice was soft in respect of the mournful place.

"He died. Killed by Everhardt. Just like everything else." The teenager's claws balled into fists.

"Would you tell me about him? It sounds like you knew him pretty well. Just start from the beginning. Tell me everything." She set her palm on his knee. Eli put his claw atop her hand and rubbed the back of it with the pad of his thumb claw.

"The beginning? Guess that would be right before I came to the island. I remember my mom and dad bein' really excited. It was like we had won the lottery or somethin'. Then the second I set foot here..." The young man's slit-eyes grew hazy and distant. "Somethin' in my gut, this tingling, told me we were all in danger. I still get it every now and then. We were separated from our parents and brought to this big pyramid. Huge. At the center of the island. I tried to hang back, and I'm glad I did."

Sitting quietly, Diana did not want to interrupt. He had mentioned before that some terrible event precipitated everything else, yet never divulged such detail.

"Everhardt gave this big speech and sicced the beasts on us. The boys unlucky enough to be in the front got munched. Most of us got away. The secret to survivin' was to get up off the ground. The ground belongs to the beasts. They can't climb at all. If they try their backs get all fucked up. These trees though? They were made to let us be safe. Everythin' here is because it was designed that way. There were traps too. Spikes and pits and nastier stuff too. It's all disarmed now, but back then if you didn't know what to look for, you just had to be lucky." Eli stuck out a leg and rubbed an angry looking knot of disfigured scales around his left ankle.

"In the early days, we weren't just hunted by the beasts. It was chaos. The whole island was crawling with the private military I told you about. Big mean guys. They would escort the scientists around. Most of 'em had night vision and thermals so they could find us. Worst part was the tazing. That fucking sucked hard fat cocks. The really unlucky ones got taken. Only got me once. Thought I was hidden when a cattle prod nailed me. Then they hauled me off my tree and I got this." He pointed to the scar around his neck.

"The island turned into a warzone. Turns out Everhardt didn't tell his people a lot of things. Like how the beasts would eat them just as easily as us. See, he didn't bother to prepare all his people for the level of fucked they'd be out on the island. But he sure as shit armed them for it. The private guys had serious hardware. Before long the good doctor's little party was completely falling apart. They tried to burn the beasts out with flamethrowers. They tried to blow up parts of the jungle. Eventually, they were just doing their best to survive out here like we all were. The last big push to escape was in the three helicopters and couple planes they had. Everhardt, the arrogant fuck, had thought ahead though. Best I can tell, there was a big revolt and everyone tried t' leave in a hurry. Too bad no one told them about the anti-air coverin' the island." His other claw stroked the reciever of his rifle.

"That's where your helicopter came from. How was it shot down? I haven't seen any missile sites, unless they're hidden like the torpedoes." Diana ventured.

"No, there's no missiles. I couldn't tell exactly what happened, but I think Everhardt went full mad scientist and made a way to control the weather. There was lightning everywhere. Saw it reach out from a dozen different directions and hit the couple o' aircraft the mercs had. And they all went down in flames. When things got really crazy, was when Leo showed up. He started gatherin' boys and began building this place for us to be safe. Pretty much everyone was just lookin' out for themselves. Big groups attracted attention back then. But Leo was strong and clever. He got stung early, like me. But man, he was huge. Fuckin' massive. Like, eight feet tall. He could pick up a beast and use it as a club. Wasn't afraid o'nothin'."

Eli took a deep breath.

"We all suspected the truth, but Leo was the first to say what we had all been thinking. He figured out that the beasts had been our parents. Jewelry, bits of clothing. Shit like that gave it away. That and all the human teeth. I think some of 'em were two or more all mashed together. Explains the size anyway."

Gasping in horror, it all made a perverse sense to the woman. Why invite all the parents and not just use some contrivance to get the children only? She was about to comfort Eli, when she realized that he mentioned being so hungry that he had eaten some of the beasts. Whether the young man realized before or after what he had done, and what that meant did not change what he had been forced to do to survive. Wisely, she bit her tongue and let him continue.

"Things never mellowed out. There was always somethin' that needed to be done. King Leo had captured two of Everhardt's assistants. The only survivors. They told him that Everhardt had this secret set up for the boys to find if they were worthy that would get us off the island, but that they didn't know exactly what it was. Said that Everhardt lied to them too and didn't know if it was real. Leo said that we had to save everyone. And that we had to stand together to do it." There was reverence in Eli's timbre. She knew he would hever come out and say what having a leader meant, but understood his grief nonetheless.

"There was this big tribe of assholes. Real pieces of work. We all expected Leo to go over and crush 'em or somethin' violent. But he didn't. He invited them to a big meeting and gave this big speech. 'Everhardt is the real enemy. He took everything. Every day we fight each other, he wins.' There was more to it, but you get the idea. It was really somethin' else. Got everyone united. That was when we started callin' him King. He didn't like it, but it just kinda stuck. Saint and I thought it was hilarious. We were kinda his helpers, I guess."

"I taught a lotta boys how t'shoot. Most didn't know an AK from an H n' K. I miss those days. Had fun doin' it. It was cool because Leo always showed up too. Always got his hands dirty. Well, claws. He never acted like he was better than anyone. If you had to dig a toilet, he was there beside you with a shovel" There was clear admiration in Eli's tone. "I taught a lotta other stuff too. Like reading and writing. Those more technical books have a lotta words we never really learned. Was actually Saint's idea for the dibs rules. He came up with a lot of our laws."

"Why do you live by yourself, Eli? It seems like you'd have a place here." Pearson finally asked the question she had been holding in since watching him interract with Saint.

"My heart was never in it, like Leo's was. Had a talk with him about it once. I enjoy things as puzzles. Why doesn't this gun fire? How do I take it apart? How does it work? Leo liked people. What do they like? What makes 'em tick. He was great at that sorta thing, figurin' out what someone was good at. That and, I don't want this to make me sound like a dick, no one could ever keep up with me. I survived by myself for so long, I'd hear boys talk about their little brothers or friends slowin' 'em down and I'd think, 'that won't be me. I won't have anyone slow me down.'"

The young man looked at the soldier for the first time since starting his story. The bright red of his eyes was mellowed with the hue of tenderness.

"Except you, Diana. I've never known anyone who doesn't get on my nerves like that."

"Thank you, Eli, that means a lot to me." The woman gave his claw a reassuring squeeze and met his eye contact.

The young man nodded and turned his head back, the delicate hide around his eyes tightening.

"It all ended when King Leo thought we were ready. We went back to the pyramid where Everhardt was. There were so many bones from that first day. They covered the ground. I had believed in Leo, hoping that we could make a way of the island. Call for help. Somethin'. Everyone that didn't show up t'fight, at least showed up t'watch. We were behind our king the whole way. He walked out into the middle of that spot, where it all started, and challenged Everhardt. Called him a coward. Told him to come out and fight like a man. Leo had the two assistants with him too. Just to try and get a rise out of the Doctor, if he still cared."

"What happened then?" She asked, but already knew the answer.

"Everhardt didn't come out. Instead, more beasts than I had ever seen before or since came at us from all sides. It was like they were water and someone had broken a dam. King Leo knew we stood no chance. He told us to run. Almost all of us had guns, and we tried. But Leo was right. There were so many. For the second time we had to run from that place, or die. And Leo... Stayed behind. He held them off so the rest of us could get away." Taking a shuddering breath, the young man finished his story.

"A lot more boys died that day. Even with King Leo sacrificing himself. The jungle was dangerous for a long time after that. The beasts didn't just go away on their own. Packs of them roamed the island for weeks, thick as fuckin' rain. Since then, things have pretty much settled into the routine you've seen here today."

Threlkeld trailed off, still staring at the name carved in the cement.

Without anything real to say, Pearson set her rifle aside, and walked behind the young man on her knees to wrap her arms around his neck. She held him as tightly as she could and he nuzzled into her, grateful for the wordless comfort. For a minute or two, they stayed that way, holding on to one another for all they were worth. Eventually, the scaly youth cleared his throat.

"C'mon, let's go home."

****

The entire way back, Eli was in a pensive mood. Diana guessed the real reason he did not often go to the small village was because it made him remember the good friend and leader that the group of survivors all had lost. Knowing just about everything shed new light on the lost boys on the island. It made the soldier feel like her eyes were open to the history of the place, and of what the young man had gone through just to still be alive. It was hard to think of him as a teenager. Specialist Pearson could not imagine enduring all that he had at his age. She doubted she would have had that same resilience.

When they arrived, the woman knew exactly what to do.

"Hey, Eli, I have a surprise for you. Well, two actually. Something I think might make you feel better." She fished around in her pack and came up with the can of condensed milk. The young man's smile broke through the fugue that had been blighting him like a beacon on a cold night and he took it tenderly from the woman. Holding it against his chest, his mouth opened and closed a few times, momentarily unable to express his gratitude.

"Now, for the other surprise, you're gonna have to give me a minute, okay? And no peaking. That'll ruin it."

He could only nod in agreement, taking a seat on his patio chair to absorb all that he was feeling. Such acts of kindness only existed in fantasy. Daydreams, nothing more. To have such a selfless act performed on his behalf made Eli feel that strange tingling, tearing, tumbling feeling in his chest he had yet to identify. After a wait of no time at all, his partner told him she had his other surprise ready. Though he was skeptical anything could be better than the small blue can he held to his red heart inking.

Turning, Eli saw Diana standing in the doorway of their home, wearing nothing but burgundy pelt panties and electrical tape. The concept of lingerie had never occurred to the young man. With just a glance his jaw hit the floor and his cocks became harder than diamonds. The woman let out a demure giggle at his reaction and wiggled her hips to show off the dark fur that hugged her curves. Black fur profiled her covered mound and she did a little spin to show off the burgundy that clung to her butt, accentuating the woman's bottom heavy body.

"Well, since you officially said I'm your girlfriend, I thought I should do something I always wanted to for my boyfriend."

The young man had thought the concentrated sweet cream was insurmountable. How foolish he had been.

Part 6: Storm

"That's right, Dee. just like that. You've gotta be really still so you don't spook 'em. Aim with your left arm. That's your balance." The lizard man held his woman cradled in a fishing stance, helping her hold aloft the lighter spear, scales flush against her skin. It was wonderful being able to teach her with his body, molding her into the posture he had perfected after years of practice. There was just one insignificant issue with her attire and his attention span.

The always horny teen had yet to get tired of the novelty of having her do almost everything topless. Diana had almost gotten used to going about her day naked, or nearly naked. The tropical heat was far too much for even casual clothing. All she had on right then was a short sarong. Just something to cover her lady bits. Her breasts hung exposed. She was grateful they held a good natural form without needing a bra or shape-wear to look round and perky.

The teenager could not help himself, reaching forward to cup her breasts. The heavenly tits, softer than an angel's bare backside, were definitely not going to lose their allure while his heart still beat. With a gradual kneading motion, starting on the bottom of the orbs, he warmed up her chest, waiting for her nipples to get excited before going for those next. At first indignant, Diana soon moaned at his fondling. A blush crept across her cheeks as his finger pads did little circles on her areola. Hot breath washed over the back of her neck.

"C-c'cmon. I showed you how to kiss me." She shuddered.

In response his miraculously agile reptilian tongue lashed once up the vertebrae of her neck before moving behind her ear. Her loins clenched as he played on her erogenous zones like an over-sexed pianist. His tail came up under her sarong. Even though her legs were already apart, she squatted down a little further in her stance, petals parting to give him easier access, and grinding her rear against his crotch. The end of his tail soon was slick with her wetness as he dragged it teasingly from her nub to her entrance. The right combination of attention to her breasts and neck, had her humping willfully against the tail between her legs.

"Y'know what'd be fun?" He hummed between licks. Suddenly his tail dipped back, brushing along a naughtier hole. Her tight backside clenched at the attention as the appendage did teasing circles, lightly pressing, feeling the supple muscle bend inward under the pressure. "Playing back here. Your puss loves me, so I wonder if your butt would too."

She almost squirted right then and there. Yet was stubborn about spilling her kinky secrets. Unless of course the teen was able to make her tell. Eli got something of an idea how much the thought of anal turned her on when he felt a surge of her feminine honey gush from her pussy and splash onto his tail. Somehow she suspected that scandalous playground gossip had informed the reptilian teenager about the delights of anal sex.

"No, that's dirty... Naughty boy." Pearson tried to protest, but Eli had learned her too well, and knew from the couple of times he had played with her there, that the woman's butt was her greatest weakness. Using her natural lubrication, he pressed just the tip of his tail into her virgin backside. Not expecting her partner to be so bold, her body betrayed her, pushing back, greedily, welcoming a few inches of the prehensile appendage in for it to explore her, submissive hole stretching with a joy that sang to Diana's anal fixation.

A peal of distant thunder rolled through the trees and the gust of wind that followed carried a chill. Sharply, Threlkeld snapped his snout up and to the side, sniffing the air. An indignant yelp came from the woman as the tail that was about to sink further was popped from her backside without warning.

"What's wrong?" She asked as her mate stepped away from her.

"A storm is comin'. A big one. Shit, c'mon. We gotta go." Without further preamble, he beckoned for his woman to follow him quickly.

"Fucking clam-jammed by mother nature." Diana muttered to herself as she followed.

The sky darkened, gale kicking into a continuous howl. Then the heavens split and unleashed its wrath upon the island. Faster than they could run, the rain caught up with them, soaking both lizard man and human woman to the bone. Visibility dropped faster than the temperature. Soon the precipitation stung like needles as it came close to freezing.

"What on earth is going on?!" The specialist exclaimed over the torrent. If Eli did answer, his voice was lost in the tempest. She saw his jaw open, but she could not read his muzzle as the momentary distraction almost caused her to slip on the steel gangway that was icing over even as hail began to pelt them. The reptilian teen knew the way much better than the specialist and scooped her up, slinging her over one shoulder. All she could do was cover her head and hang on for dear life.

Years of life in the trees had taught Threlkeld the importance of knowing your way home even in total darkness, without light of moon or stars to guide you. Which was what he was forced to do on the final stretch. Practically leaping into their helicopter abode, he set Diana down and closed the door as quickly as he could.

Sealed inside something resembling safety, the noise was reduced from deafening to almost deafening.

"It sounds like a fucking hurricane out there." The woman remarked, rubbing her arms urgently, shivering uncontrollably. The rain had gone from the balmy heat of typical tropics to an ice shower in moments. No matter how much time she spent stuck there, the island continued to frighten and baffle her scientific knowledge and reason. It amazed her further to think that Eli and other children like him had managed to survive through such conditions.

"Yeah, it happens sometimes. Here in a day or two it'll probably snow."

Eli sat down in the pilot's seat and fiddled with a few switches. To Diana's amazement, there was an electric heater welded into the ceiling above the hammock which buzzed grudgingly to life. Immediately she breathed a sigh of relief as warmth washed over her, yet still felt on the verge of hypothermia. They both shed their waterlogged clothing and set it by the door then dried off with a spare blanket. It was not until they both climbed into the hammock that Diana felt the cold ache in her bones leach away. Under their heaviest covers, a glowing warmth spread through their naked contact. Her clammy skin pressed against his hot scales.

Being warm-blooded was one thing, however the way he warmed up in reaction to their environment was simply astounding to her.

"Should we really be in a metal box up in a tree during a storm?" She asked, so close their noses were almost touching.

"Don't worry. We're very insulated." He assured her. This was not the first such storm he had ridden out, and just hoped the hail did not damage the solar cells on his roof. It felt cozy to be snuggled up together in such a chill. They rarely if ever slept with any blanket. Pleasure rumbled deep in his chest as he nuzzled her cheek to pick up where they had left off before being so rudely interrupted.

With a little clever gyration, he got a knee between her legs and spread her, making her bare flower kiss his lower abdomen. His cocks were already slipping free. Reaching down, he grasped her haunches in either claw and spread her to put his tail right back where it had been. Then he slid her down his chest, basking in the feeling of her breasts mashed into his pectorals. The tip of his hemipenes coddled right up to her slit while his tail curled against her other hole.

Using his chest as leverage, Diana pushed her front up to better look at the reptilian teen. The move had the added benefit of pressing her lower lips over the tip of one of his cocks and her ass bowed under the weight of his tail.

"Do you really... I mean, you want to..." She rocked back to emphasize what she talking about, inadvertently squeezing her backside against the attention her privates were receiving. The tell was clear as Eli's extra prehensile appendage could sense when her ass pushed back, clenching against the contact.

"Want to play with your ass? Of course." He said with a quizzical smile.

"But why?" She pleaded, needing reassurance that her kinks did not turn him away.

"Because you like it, obviously. I can tell how wet it makes you."

Diana's cheeks were a raging inferno while degradation robbed her ability to talk even as Eli pressed his advantage, once more getting his tail slick from her slit and wiggling it just an inch or two through her rosebud to tease the cushioned depths just beyond. Once again, he knew just what to do to play her like an instrument. One that he was intimately familiar with.

It had been stupid and petty, but one of the reasons Pearson and her last boyfriend had gone their separate ways was because of disagreements about sex. She was into anal. He was not into it all, and would not budge on his stance. The younger her had respected him, yet total inflexibility had put a small wedge between them that had widened until it split them apart. Therefore she dared not voice complaint or concern with Eli, lest he have cause to reconsider. Despite this, one she still needed at least a little consoling.

"You promise? You wanna try it?" She begged, heart feeling like it was about to explode out of her chest. Too ashamed to ask for it directly, the conflicted woman arched her back to try and get more of his tail inside her, the light friction of the limb thickening as it went deeper making her breathing ragged. The tip of his lower cock slipped into the channel of her slit with the motion, finding her cunny as drenched as if she had stayed out in the rain.

With knowledge that may have come from experimentation during her own cum-until-you-pass-out-because-of-boredom 'personal time', she reached for a corked vessel of fish oil on a high shelf within arm's length of the hammock. She poured a generous palm full of the fish oil onto her hand. Straddling Eli's crotch gave her easy access to his cocks, slathering them both in lube. It was thick and very slippery. Perfect for what she wanted. The girl reached back on herself and rubbed her finger in a few small circles, letting the delicate nerves of her rear feel the consistency. The action made her clench and ache at the same time and her uterus felt like a snake was constricting it even as her lewd backside almost sucked her fingers in.

Lining up the arrowhead tip of his lower hemipenis she began the careful process of fitting his overly endowed manhood up her ass. The same shape that made his cocks slip into her pussy so easily, made them sink dangerously well up her butt. Content knowing that his girl was going at her own pace, Eli put his claws behind his head to watch the female impale herself on him. The way she concentrated was adorable because of how anxiously she writhed and the teen sat back to enjoy the show.

"Oooh fuck," Diana moaned. She definitely felt the stretch of taking something so large in such a small hole. Rising back up, she almost popped him all the way back out, utterly losing herself to the way his ridges pulled on her hole. Then deliciously back down, feeling those same ridges make penetration precariously gentle. She marveled at the flawlessness of his genitalia. Some wild god or goddess had shaped him to be the perfect partner, able to satisfy either of her greedy holes with the firmness of his tool. He was hard enough to stimulate her clit and special spots in her pussy, yet soft enough to make anal sinfully gratifying.

Thinking that a much longer warmup would be necessary, the woman was amazed to find the warmth and shape of her partner made what should have been an obstinate tease, effortless. The deeper she got him, the more her insides felt like they were melting. She caught herself giving in to temptation, slipping dangerously far down his cock. Her legs were shaking in anticipation. The slightest amount of weight made it feel like he was about to slide all the way to the hilt.

There was no pain. Not even discomfort. Only pleasure. She felt like it was a dream come true. Longing overcame logic and she pressed down. The only slight note of discomfort came from just how deep he went inside her. The length nudged very sensitive spots. The tip of his cock molded into the shape of her deeper parts which throbbed in masochistic glee at the intrusion while the ring of her hole was distended from the girth. Her body protested the cock she was impaling her ass on but the euphoric soreness from the ordeal made her nerves sing.

Yearning to have him fully nestled in her made her rear greedy to be filled and facilitated penetration so easily. She knew she was pushing it, but did not care. With a long, yet still slow and measured push, she forced her butt to stretch until just as she considered that perhaps she was in over her head, her haunches came flush with his groin and her ass came to rest all the way down onto the root of his cock. The hole was held open by his absolute widest point.

"Are you okay, Dee?" He was a little concerned when she cried out.

"Ooooh!" She moaned. "Mm-I! I'm fine. It's just a lot. But it doesn't hurt." She assured him. "Does my ass feel good for you?"

For Eli, the feeling was a new and enticing one. Even though her furthest depths did not have the same consistency as her pussy, the unparalleled tightness of her rosebud straining and twitching around his base was new. If he had to describe her cunny as a velvet vice, then her ass was a pillow. The walls of her backside cradled the intruder with downy sweet tenderness.

"Amazing," He shuddered, putting a great deal of effort into restraining himself from fucking her up the ass with all his might.

When she bottomed out onto him, the lips of her pussy were spread, wedging her clit against the underside of his other hemipenis. A small part of her that was not fully given over to debauchery was ashamed to find her pussy absolutely saturated, leaking girly cum all over. Strings of her arousal hung from her belly to the tip of his glans from where she had worked her cunt up and down his shaft. Guts roiling and butt plugged to the limit with fat cock, she took both hands and stroked the hemipenis outside of her body.

Rocking her hips forward and back let her grind her nub against the rock hard pillar of flesh wedged in her petals. The slick, masochistic ache forced her to slow down and enjoy letting her insides mold around the intruder. Though she would never voice it aloud, this was the side of her she had always been ashamed to show. The side that enjoyed being a fucktoy. The part of her that rejoiced in having holes that could be the most luxurious cock sleeves. That Eli was willing to let her use her ass to milk him free of his masculine burden was such a turn on for the woman she lost the ability to voice her joy.

Her painted blue bosom heaved in front of Eli's face as his woman's mouth hung open, tongue peaking passed her lips, and bright green eyes gazing into nothing as sensation overwhelmed all other faculties. Watching her shake with something that had nothing to do with the cold was cute to the teenager. As her hands worked the other shaft, she realized she was slacking in her desires to be used. He was endowed with a whole extra cock, and the woman still had an empty passage. It was hard to lift herself high enough to slip him into the channel of her sex, rear protesting at the emptiness. Once he was lined up though, she wasted no time and let her hips drop.

Her pussy swallowed his other cock with a lewd squelch. She would have normally blushed furiously at the sound. The poor, sexually repressed female was too far gone to care.

She started to ride him wildly, pulling his cocks out of his with all her might, then letting her weight down to impale herself back again. The stretch was delightful. Pulling up made her insides feel so wonderfully empty, yearning to be full once again. With double the friction, it took twice the effort to ride him. Soon the scraping of her entrances was joined by a burn in her thighs. Diana lost herself to the feeling of his cocks inside her. The way they slipped in so easily yet pulled out so stubbornly, the ridges tugging and catching on her core.

Putting her whole bodyweight down and pushing on top of that, forced her strained holes deliciously agape and she did not rub her clit, she pinched it, squeezing the bulging cluster of nerves. Pearson maintained pressure on the bundle until her body was shook by orgasm. Squealing over the rain as her entire pelvis was messed up in all the right ways. Her other hand was furiously rubbing up and down on her belly, drawn taut with the girth of the oversized tools she had managed to cram into tunnels too small to comfortably fit them. It was just the right amount over her limit to make the woman writhe in delight. That bit of extra strain was the perfect fit to her. Enough, but not too much.

"Gah! G-good. So good." She drooled.

For Eli, the vision of his bright red cock peaking out from beneath her teal blue flower, lips pulled far apart by the width of his root, would be a sight he would treasure unto his dying breath. Her pussy was as tight as ever, and he could feel where the hemipenis in that hole expanded the end of her tunnel, the tip being rubbed by soaking wet velvet. Meanwhile, the member in her ass was nestled in much squishier fare. Her bowels cradled his manhood much more gently and her rosebud squeezed far more tightly.

As Eli got closer to his climax he gripped Diana's haunches and started to thrust up into her. His strength pulled multiple ridges out and plunged them all back in at once. Flesh slapping, and wet sounds filled the inside of their home. The feeling of both her suckling holes was enough to tip him over the edge and he came ardently. The tips of his cocks, buried to the hilt in her ass and pussy twitched and then exploded with cum. Pulse after pulse of seed traveled down his lengths to sow her ripe core. His own abdominal muscles flexed at the effort, putting force into the convulsions that almost made him cramp even as he clenched his teeth. Eli had never cum so hard or for so long. He painted her insides with his seed. The plush tunnels cradling his cocks rippled and clenched.

It felt like a firehose of cum was stuck inside her and quickly Diana found her belly sloshing with liquid. A hand fell to her middle and she rubbed her abdomen above where his cocks were still lodged. This had come to be her favorite part. Not just the cocks being a tad too large, but her chalice overflowing with copious virility. The hot seed squirted into her furthest depths. She could swear she felt lizard jizz all the way in her stomach as her bowels were bloated with the sticky fluid. Gyrating her hips, the woman did her duty to ensure that his climax was a pleasurable as possible.

"Ngh! Ah love you, Diana!" The teen cried out.

Pearson cried out in surprise at the declaration, so embroiled in the feeling of it all that her haunches and cunny bore down with extra force.

"You... What?" She placed her hands on his chest. His lungs alone were strong enough to make her bob up and down atop him.

"I uh, guess that just came out." He said, his climax still unspooling from his core. "I love you." It felt good to say. He never imagined how good. Once the dam was broken, the confession rushed forth. "I love everythin' about ya, Dee. I love your smile, your cookin', your laugh. I love how ya smell, how ya sleep, how when ya wake up, ya got this one piece o' hair that always stands up. I've never felt this happy before in my entire life."

Soul singing in time with the storm, her vision became blurry around the edges.

"Y'know, there are better times for confessions than when you're balls deep in my ass." Though she chided him, the smile she wore broke like summer sun through the rain. There was no room for uncertainty in Pearson's heart. No room for indecision or hesitance.

"You... You really love me, Eli? You promise?" Tears welled up in her eyes, framing him in her misty vision.

"Cross my heart." He said, making an X over the anatomical painting on his chest.

"I love you too, Eli." She let her hair hang down in a curtain and placed a hand on her mate's cheek and wiped away a tear. "I love you too." Then she leaned down to pepper his scaly snout with kisses even as her ovaries were squeezed in her belly by her forward tilt. The lovers lay together for several minutes, unified in body, heart, and mind. They listened to each other's breathing even as the symphony of the storm raged outside their home. For a blessed few moments, the island was only a backdrop.

Even still high on the endorphin rush of living out one of her lifelong kinks, she noticed Eli's cocks had not grown soft, even after cumming with both. Even though the male's refractory time was impressive, having a 'double', was usually enough to put the virile lizard out of commission.

"Eli," The female cooed, moving the tip of her finger in a circle around her bellybutton, right above the manhood still lodged inside her. Threlkeld paid very close attention. Watching her trace the ink marking her womb was hypnotizing. "You wouldn't happen to have more for me, would you?"

"Are you sure it's not too much for you?" The teen asked.

"Please, I wanna be full. Really full. Make me yours." The woman begged.

She did not need to ask twice.

Part 7: Depths

Some days passed quickly for the couple, filled with sex and lazy lounging. Other days dragged by with the struggle of boredom. It was so strange to find a routine with each other that felt so natural. Soon, neither could imagine life without the small things they did for one another. Just falling asleep and waking up was an expression of love. The soldier was aware of the irony in finding someone that had a complimentary personality on a remote pacific island controlled by a mad scientist's twisted experiments.

Neither abandoned the hope of rescue. Yet it seemed so far away. The lives they each enjoyed before were phantoms. Comforts and security offered by the old world were distant things, passing daydreams to be yearned after like shapes in far off clouds.

The breakthrough came when Diana was least expecting it.

Down in the dusty old bunker beneath their home, forgotten, was a nearly decade old computer. It was shoved off onto the far edge of a table laden with old, defunct electronics. The specialist had found it while simply rummaging. What initially caught her attention was a set of cables snaking from the wall of the Bunker, earmarked with stamped tags as power and fiber optics. Curious if they led anywhere, she followed them through the mess of old crates and discarded MRE wrappers to find the computer buried under junk.

Efficient and tight, the space was little more than a large concrete room with a really thick door. It had become little more than a storage area for Eli. Though it had been at least a decade since the bunker had any kind of maintenance, the light was still on. Power must still flow from some source on the island. However, even though the terminal was plugged in, no light showed when she tried to turn it on.

Poking her head out of the bunker, she called up to her partner, keeping watch above while she scavenged.

"Hey, Eli, do you know what was on this computer?"

"I really don't remember. When I was younger, I'd play solitaire or minesweeper on it, but other 'n that, can't say." He answered from his branch up in the trees.

"I think there's some networking cable here. Can you get it working again?"

"Sure," He replied happily. "If I remember, it just needs a new power supply. Hold on." The reptile hopped down off his perch and joined the woman, making sure to close the bunker door behind them.

It took him a few tries, but Threlkeld found a working electrical cord. With a groan of CPU fans, the derelict machine shuddered to life, coughing dust and generally resentful at being forced back into operation. Diana sat down on a crate to tap away at the keyboard. Eli watched over his girl's shoulder as she worked, curious if she would find anything worthwhile. After poking around the simple display, digging through incomprehensible logs, reports on statistics and spreadsheets without context, the soldier found an item of interest buried in the menus. There was a program innocuously labeled 'Island system diagnostics'.

For a moment, the screen went black, command prompt input blinking obstinately in the corner.

Outlier Station 078: Request sent...

Biological Reclamation And Reprocessing... 78%

Autonomous Organic Production... 88%

Organic Production Reserves... 90%

The soldier's felt a tingling horror creep up her spine. A centipede made of needles and antipathy burrowed through her nerves. There was only one thing that the systems referenced could be for. The scourge of the beasts never stopped because Everhardt had made a crucible to churn out demons Ad Nauseam. If the percentages were accurate in any capacity, then the diseased creche would not run dry of filth for years.

Island Torpedo Reserves... 45%

Anti-Air Coverage... 62%

Freyr Weather Control... 45%

Faraday Anchoring... 89%

Bowman Fusion Reactor... 99%

Reactor Coolant Integrity... 99%

Reactor Core Suspension... 99%

Caches Unsealed... 45 of 96

Time Locked Off-Shore Dummy Accounts... 6 of 6

Warning! Remote Privileges Have Been Revoked By ADMINISTRATOR. Emergency Shutdown May Only Be Performed At Central Control Station 001 By Order Of Dr. Everhardt. Central Station 001 Has Assumed All Island System Authority.

Armageddon Sundown Has Been Given...

Awaiting Ragnarok Dawn Clearance...

"C'mon, Dee, don't leave me hangin'." The reptilian teen nudged his lover's shoulder.

"This... Eli, do you know what this means?" The woman's eyes were wide and wild.

"No. Gonna be honest. I don't know a lotta those words." He tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"You were right. All this time, Everhardt's been sitting on the key. This central terminal has all the rights and privileges. We can turn it all off. Maybe even call for help."

"Slow down, Dee, I'm not in your head. What key, and what central terminal? Where is it?"

Specialist Pearson's thoughts were traveling faster than she could give voice to them and had to take a deep breath.

"You know how my ship got sunk? How all the ships that come to the island get sunk? And that none of the satellites can find this place? It's because Everhardt made things to do that."

"Right. We knew this."

"Correct. What we didn't know, was how to turn it off." She turned back to the screen and pointed at the lines of text. "According to this, Everhardt made one computer, probably his, control everything. The beasts, the weather, all of it. If we find Everhardt, we'll find this central control. We find that, we might be able to shut it all down."

"Y'know where he is, right?" Eli spoke gravely.

"The pyramid." She breathed.

"Yeah. The pyramid."

****

"You don't have to come with me." The reptilian repeated for what was probably the hundredth time. Early morning dew glinted off the leafy vines trying to reclaim the man made structure before them.

The duo stood shoulder to shoulder on a field of bones, ready to wage their war. Both armed to the teeth, wielding the best weapons and tactical vests with magazines packed full of ammo the teen had gathered over his many years. Eli with his Fal, one of his patented swords, and a very short pump shotgun. Diana with her gifted HK, trusted service pistol, and her own machete-like blade.

She suspected that Eli had always wanted an excuse to go back. The teen needed to know that his friend's death had been in pursuit of the right path. And there was a cold, razor sharp focus in Threlkeld's preparation. Whether through fear, or doubt, he had wavered in his conviction. There was an undercurrent of menace to his normally placid attitude. Vengeance would be had. Liberation pried from the maggot-riddled heart of the island. It gave him focus. Clear intent. And banished some fear.

Diana, still held in the thrall of mortality, had to steel her nerves and hold her weapon tight to muster the bravery to tread such unholy ground. Just because she was painted like a jungle savage, did not mean she had forgone modern precautions. Clear ballistic glasses covered her eyes and active noise cancelling earbuds protected her hearing. She would have suggested the same to her lover, but he had told her on several occasions that he did not need them. The soldier was quite jealous of his resilient senses.

It had not taken Eli much work to convince the soldier that they stood a better chance of succeeding alone. She did not doubt the courage of the other boys, only their discipline and aim. Being quicker, cleverer, and quieter were their advantages over the beasts, not numbers.

"I know I don't have to. We don't have to. We can just stay, pretending to live when we're just waiting to die. So yeah, I don't have to go with you. But I definitely can't stay behind."

He looked at her sidelong.

"I wish you weren't comin'. But I'd be lyin' if I said I wasn't glad t' have ya 'ere with me."

"We can still turn back. I mean that." She said, but already knew his answer even before he shook his head.

"I've ran away from this spot twice now. I ain't gonna do it a third time. 'Bout time we were free o' Everhardt's experiment."

"There's a chance Everhardt might've escaped. It has been a long time."

"You weren't here all those years ago. Ya didn't get t'listen to him like I did. Trust me. He's here."

"What if we can't shut everything off?" She put forth the doubt. It was not that the woman did not share his conviction, she was honestly just scared.

"Then, at least we tried." Threlkeld asserted, giving her the strength to press on.

Years of death had layered bones before the pyramid in an osseous strata. Somewhere among the shards were the remains of children, madmen, demons, and even a king. Yet they all crumbled to dust just the same. And all in tribute to a man who thought himself a savior. Nothing clever came to Diana's mind to say in response. It was hard to think of much of anything atop the souls of murdered children.

One idea did spring to mind when she saw Eli ready to dive headfirst into the black maw where the beasts had come forth in years past.

"Hold on, Eli, let's not go in the way he wants us to." She pointed up to the balcony high up on the structure.

"Good idea." He agreed.

The pyramid's walls were very steep, but with the teen's help, they both managed the climb. Although very rusted, a few sharp hits from the stock of Eli's Fal was enough to persuade the door's handle to turn. They both had to heave on the metal slab of a hatchway to get the corroded hinges to cooperate.

Sunlight poured into the part of the pyramid for the first time in years. It was a small room. Little more than an empty cube with an elevator and some stairs. The elevator's buttons flashed an angry red when they tried them.

"Shit. Couldn't be that easy, could it?" She whispered.

"No, never is."

"Even if we can't turn off the torpedoes or the thing that scrambles ships, we've gotta stop the beasts. And that's gotta be at the bottom." They had run through their plan a dozen times. It was comforting for the soldier to affirm their mission.

"Yep." He agreed again as both looked at the concrete stairs. On the precipice of their point of safe return, both had to take a deep breath before the plunge.

Having no other choice, the pair began their descent into a mad scientist's realized nightmare. Dim emergency strips set in recesses every other step provided a feeble glow.

There were traces of frantic evacuation. And battle. Once they descended below what Eli judged to be the ground level, they came to a crossroads of sorts, with wide hallways branching off in several directions. Bullet casings, scraps of clothing, and old stains littered the ground. The walls bore numerous pockmarked patterns of bullet impacts, and raking slash marks of beastly claws. Barricades of desks and tipped over filing cabinets had not availed the defenders much.

More alert than every, the pair kept moving, feeling the oppressive silence weighing on them.

Down another few flights was a door they opened into what Diana guessed to have been living quarters at one point. Oily sludge was splattered on every floor, piece of furniture, and on most of the walls. The stench was the single most horrid thing either of them had ever had the misfortune of experiencing in their entire lives, lying somewhere between ruptured intestines and concentrated medical waste. Unprepared for the potency of the reeking filth, the teen turned and gagged while Pearson slammed the door shut to cut off the fetor attempting to kill them.

In the brief glimpse, Diana had been certain she saw the black mold which had grown over the gore move. It had to have been a trick of the light she told herself. She knew she had imagined it. She hoped.

The next door held no better prospects. Or the one after that. Or after that. The stairway had opened up with only a metal guard rail kept them safe from tumbling into the open space where the elevator shaft had ended.

"Why aren't there any maps?" Diana finally asked, guessing they were down dozens of levels. The structure bore the trademark touch she had expected of the old doctor. Some sections were over-engineered beyond rational redundancy while other design choices were more the product of drug-fueled schizophrenia. It seemed like the entire place was built to withstand nuclear war.

"No one knew everythin'. Even the pair of assistants that Leo caught admitted that they didn't know what was down here. But if there's a big container with everything to keep making beasts, then its gotta be huge. No way that's not at the very bottom. We just gotta keep going."

Next was a surgical theater. The large circular room overlooked a sunken area with an old dissection slab at the center, thankfully empty. Ever vigilant, the two intruders made their way around to the other side, peaking into a few abandoned offices along the outer perimeter. At the opposite end was another door, but it was barricaded by something on the far side that they could not get to budge. On their way back around, Eli spied a computer still on.

"Dee, come look at this." He pointed to the blinking monitor. "There might be somethin' that could help." Just as he had done before, the teen stood behind Diana as she sat in the old chair and wiggled the mouse to get the computer to wake up. Not only was it still functioning, an electronic messenger window lay open from the final days between two of the staff. A tipping point had been reached for the men and woman of the facility.

[M]: I'm a little worried about Big E. Ever since this started he's barely come out of his room. No one's seen him in weeks. I hear he keeps making art projects out of the subjects he vivisects. Dante's Inferno stuff. I believe in his vision, but the way he's been talking makes him kind of hard to take seriously some days.

[G]: Yeah he's a little eccentric, but have you looked around at what we've done! These bioforms are amazing! I can't wait to see what the next group brings in. Have you seen the reports on the subjects adapting to their environment? Or the ones that are changing?

[M]: I know. I know. I'm going out with the next group.

[G]: Aw man. You didn't tell me. Jealous. Besides, If Big E goes off the deep end, at worst he could just turn on every lock and you would have to either breach the reactor core, or trip one of the containment sensors on the subdecks to get everything open again.

[M]: No, if he really wanted to screw us over he would turn OFF all the locks and open the gates to the bioform holding area.

[G]: As if Big E would be crazy enough to do that.

[M]: I just can't shake this feeling. [C] has been talking with some of the hired muscle. Says that they're antsy too.

[G]: What do they know? They get paid to shut up and shoot.

[M]: They've heard rumors that teams are going out and not coming back. The bioforms are getting too big, too fast.

[G]: You worry too much, we're going to change the world with the advancements we've made. Science has stagnated. The corporations aren't interested in anything they can't monetize and the governments aren't interested in anything they can't blow each other up with. Big E has been right about everything so far. He still needs us though. It's not like the island can run itself.

[M]: I gotta go. I'll bring you back a souvenir.

...

...

[M]: This has gone too far! Holy shit I'm still fucking shaking. I knew it! I fucking knew it!

[G]: What? What happened?

[M]: I found Cunningham's team. Everhardt's creations are killing us out there after he told us we'd be safe. They're killing everything. He's got a fucking gun to our heads and I'm not about to wait and see if he pulls the trigger. I'd go talk to him face to face but that 'executive suite' of his is a fortress. Some of the military guys were talking about blowing through the door, but I'm not about to stick around and find out how that goes. I'll wait for you. But not long. Meet me on helipad 2 in an hour or I'm leaving without you.

Shaken, yet somehow not surprised that ignorant scientists had been lured in with honeyed promises of unlimited research, Diana did glean some useful knowledge from the harrowing account.

"Everhardt's holed up in an 'executive suite'. And we can unlock the elevator by tripping an alarm of some kind. I don't know how we're going to get there."

"At least we know where he is."

Without much more to be said, they carried on.

Things only got stranger.

The very next level in the ever downward stairway had a door that opened into nothing. Only darkness lay beyond. A metal walkway extended out into the open space beyond the threshold and truncated sharply just a few feet in, edges bent down as if from a great impact. Diana turned on the underbarrel flashlight of her rifle and it seemed to be swallowed by the hungry void. Wondering if they could gauge the depth of the structure, she pulled a chemlight from a back pocket, cracked it, and gave it an underhanded toss out into the dark.

Leaning out just far enough, she watched the green ember fall until it became a pinprick, then wink out entirely, having fallen so far she could no longer perceive the light it cast. Vertigo made her vision swim as the void seemed to swell. It expanded, reaching passed the doorway. Closing her eyes and going down on one knee, she shut the door, only opening her eyes once the stairway stopped spinning. When Eli put a hand on her shoulder in concern, she was glad he did not ask he what she had seen, as she did not think she could describe it.

"I'm okay. Let's keep going." She said while giving his claw a comforting squeeze.

****

Gray concrete stairs led to more gray stairs. In places the lighting had failed and they were forced to turn on their flashlights. It became hard to keep track of how far they were down in the hollowed earth. Caution made the going slow, with neither of them willing to chance any unpleasant surprises. The soldier and lizard descended deeper and deeper until they came to a landing which did not have a door. Instead, the entire wall was missing, an open rectangular hole in the concrete in its place. They both stopped on the flight above the landing and tried to see into the opening. Diana heard Eli sniffing the air. It was a morbidly familiar smell. With utmost care, he slowly turned.

"Be very quiet. I smell them. I'll cover you. Once you've passed by, I'll go, okay?" He spoke in a slow hush.

Nodding furiously, the soldier stepped by Eli on the stairs and made her way down. The blackness of the opening held an inscrutable menace.

Moving as quickly as she could while making no noise, her hands began to shake as adrenaline surged through her, making her heart sound like an avalanche in her ears. One eye on her footing, another on the opening, she crossed the landing to the next set of stairs, mustering every drop of courage to not sprint in fear. Any moment she expected to be dragged into the dark.

Then she was clear. Releasing an unsteady breath Diana did not realize she had been holding, the specialist turned to cover Eli.

Stepping with equal care, he lowered his weapon and followed. Keeping her rifle at the ready, Diana kept her lover in the corner of her sight as he passed the gaping maw. Behind Threlkeld, a shape moved in the dark, swirling in the inky depths. With a paw that was larger than Eli's head, a beast limb reached past the concrete sill. Neither of them heard a sound until the soldier opened fire.

Diana felt nothing other than a bit of recoil when she pulled the trigger. No hesitance. No remorse. No fear. There was not enough time for fright to creep in the space between the cycling bolt of her rifle. Only action. She aimed a generous burst at where she assumed center mass on the creature to be. Lit by the strobe of the muzzle flashes, she saw the beast stumble and fall.

And she bore witness to all the others crowded behind the first.

With the scales on the back of his neck tingling, Eli dove forward to clear the remaining distance, holding his Fal close to his body, then turning with it raised. The opening surged with beasts just as he feared it would. With his Fal set to single, he put burning holes through the closest demons while Diana let bursts rip through their mongrel hides. Years of practice made his aim steady and true. Between the two of them, they were able to stack enough bodies to clog the opening, at least for a few moments. Corpses seemed to squirm in death as beasts tried to worm their way through the pile.

Unable speak clearly over the deafening sound of their guns in the small space, Eli lifted his tail and pointed back and around, trying to signal Diana to go further and cover him from a lower landing. The pressure was on, and their ammo was finite. Teeth clenched in grim determination, they both knew that they could cut down a thousand beasts and the numbers never thin. They could only hold off the horde long enough to escape. And they had to keep moving down. Step back, three round burst. Step back, burst. Step back, repeat. The sickly rotting aroma of the beasts was overpowered by the sharp smell of gunpowder.

The stairs themselves were the couple's only saving grace. With their misshapen structure, going up or down inclines was their critical flaw, limbs flopping clumsily. As Diana reloaded, she saw quilled devils and reflexively ducked even as the projectiles flew wide over her head. She made sure to target those first as the bodies piled up higher and higher. Their kills stacked up until the corpses of the beasts made a barrier of tangled carcasses that formed on the stairs behind them.

The horde was unending. They were not fighting a mortal enemy, but one that had thousands of limbs, all made of corpses ground up and regurgitated through molds that pressed them into the correct shapes, like canned meat. The beasts were the upside down tide in an ocean of tar, flushing them deeper below. There was no time to formulate any fancy plans. The pair had to seek refuge before they were swept away in the flood.

Smaller, nimble, but with freakishly long limbs, a beast leapt at Eli, grabbing the barrel of his gun and biting deep into his left arm. Shouting in indignant rage and pain, the teen let his Fal drop onto its sling and sank his claw into the hide of its neck, trying to keep the vice of mismatched molars and canines from closing. Yanking his trapped arm only served to bury the monster's fangs further. Eli switched his grip to the beast's cheek, digging through softer, necrotizing flesh until he had a good grip. With a sharp yank, he ripped the creature's lower jaw off. Flesh and tendon tore messily, hanging down in ragged chunks from the thing's face and neck, but freeing him.

Displaying complete disregard to pain with its head almost in ruins, the monster still lurched forward, gurgling wetly as it tried to breath through the bloody remains of its throat. With his good arm, Eli drew his blade and lopped off the creature's head. Threat dealt with, he glanced up to see there were beasts coming down the stairs as high as he could see. The reptilian teen sheathed his blade and drew his other gun.

Fire, primal, white hot and untamed, burst from the end of Eli's shotgun in a cone. He racked the slide and did it again. With the touch of burning magnesium, he set the beasts alight. Fully engulfed, one such creature tumbled over the railing to plummet down with a loud whoosh. For the first time, Diana heard the beasts scream as purifying flame bit into their hides, igniting fat and scorching bone. Smoke, and the awful stink of burnt hair and cooked meat began to fill the stairwell, ironically granting them some breathing room from the encroaching swarm.

Finally, they found another door. Diana threw it open with Eli right behind, the tube mag of his backup weapon empty. Whirling around the woman, he set his shoulder against the hatch and heaved for all he was worth. The beasts would not let them get away so easily, one actually jamming it head past the lip of the portal, jaws snapping even as the reptilian teen tried to slam it shut.

Diana dumped the remainder of her mag beyond the threshold to kill the one behind the obstructor. Letting her rifle fall back on its sling, she pulled her sidearm from its holster and her blade from its sheath. She shot it three times between the eyes. Then got to the messy part. Close enough to smell the beast's rancid breath, the soldier drew the sword on her hip and brought the blade up over one shoulder and then down in a diagonal slice. The heavy blade chopped into the creature's skull with a wet crunch. Again and again she slashed until messily separating the demon's head from its shoulders, letting Eli fully close the door and throw the large locking bar into position.

A keening moan and scraping came from the door. In spite of the beast's abilities, Diana did not think they could dig through inches of solid steel. At least not for a while. It went without saying that they would not be leaving the pyramid that way.

"Are you okay?" Eli was the first to ask.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine." Pearson was panting, running purely on instinct. She did not ever want to think about stairs again. "Are you?"

"That one got me good." He said, holding out his injured arm. The specialist put away her weapons and grabbed the small pack of supplies from her lower back. She had been trained on the basics of field medicine after all.

Even though it looked bad, most of the damage was superficial. The scales were a little shredded, but the skin beneath had been mostly spared. The worst spots were where the actual fangs had punctured into the deeper tissue. She had to remove more than a few teeth that had broken off into him. Eli's enhanced chemistry was already clotting the blood. With a little of the drinking water Diana had brought, she cleaned off the worst of the ichorous slime then disinfected it. Though his hissed when she poured rubbing alcohol over the wound to clean it, he offered no complaint.

With her basic medical training, she was glad to be able to treat it so quickly. There were no more septic cesspits than mouths. Bite wounds could get infected badly if unattended. With a swab dipped in more alcohol, she dug out the corruption from the deepest parts of the wound to make sure it did not fester. Only once certain that the injury was as clean as it was going to get, did she wrap it in fresh bandages.

While the woman tended to him, Eli took in their surroundings. They were in an underground cavity of truly titanic proportions, easily fifty yards across. The couple stood suspended dozens of feet in the air on part of a radial web of metal gantries. Sixteen huge glass tubes spanned the height of the chamber, girdled with steel beams and scaffolding. They reached from down bellow where a massive reservoir of raw protein soup churned up to the ceiling onto the next floor where the tubes split off into smaller decanting membranes. View ports and hatches dotted the cement cap of the reservoir below.

At the center of the island lay the pyramid. Fitting then, that gouged into the earth's center lay the festering, bubbling heart of Everhardt's greatest atrocity. The whole place was constructed around the singular purpose of keeping up an endless force of monsters. Vague, fetal shapes could be glimpsed through the thick, sludge-like murk in the tubes. Red lights cast a nightmarish glow.

The fully automated facility produced a nearly limitless stream of the beasts. This was the reason that no matter how many of the creatures were killed, there were always more. The cistern of genetically adaptive stem cells by Doctor Everhardt's design could fuel the foundry of death for a hundred years. All the system had needed was genetic fuel. This fuel took the form of parents of the lost boys. Innocent men and woman whose flesh and bone had been fed into the hungry meat grinders.

Eli pointed along the catwalks that all lead to a central hub.

"There. I bet there are controls up there."

Together they crept as softly as they could. Every time the old metal squealed in protest, both winced. The scraping at their backs had mostly subsided, however, there was no telling what lay ahead. In the ruddy glow, they came to the spherical nucleus of the complex. Hanging in a mess of cables and pipes that sprung in all directions, the control room was like an old spider entangled helplessly in its own web. Inside was just as much of an incomprehensible mess.

Once inside they both searched high and low for how to shut down the nightmare factory. Eli looked for manuals while Diana took a seat at the huge bank of computer terminals and control boards. Faded almost beyond recognition was a sticky note over a decade old right above a panel covered in switches and dials all relating to pressure.

'Do not engage pump 4 above 500 CPM! Over-pressure sensor broken.'

For the first time, Diana felt like they stood a chance. With a smile and a vicious twist, she found the dial for four pump four and cranked it as high as it could go. Distant thumping could be heard as machinery clanked into higher gear, an audible whine growing as industrial equipment roused, burdened by glorious purpose. Needles climbed into precipitous crimson heights.

A warning beep feebly tried to warn of imminent catastrophe until it died with a pop and little fizzle.

Three seconds of absolute silence passed when a release valve failed to open and steel gears could not overcome the lockup. Then two of the giant cylinders exploded. Several tons of glass shrapnel went in all directions. Three more tubes detonated as the pressure shifted to them as more shutoff valves failed to engage in time or were unable to withstand the purposeful sabotage. The lower level was flooded with amniotic soup and misshapen beasts, sloshing against the walls, ended before they could blight the island. The empty holes where the tubes had been frothed until the last of the pumps were contaminated, gears clogged, and after years of unending toil, fell silent. The irony of Everhardt's crowning achievement being undone by a sticky note and a faulty sensor was not lost on Pearson.

An alarm sounded in the distance, lazily warbling. A bored sounding synthetic voice filled the control cabin.

"Warning. Containment breach of sub-level eighty. Biological contaminant detected. All personnel, evacuate immediately."

"Ha! Ha!" Eli could not fully contain his excitement, pumping a clenched claw into the air. "We did it. We actually fuckin' did it." Placing a palm against his forehead in disbelief.

"No more beasts ever again. Can you imagine?" Diana got out of her seat and hugged the teen, having to stretch her arms around both of their vests. A magazine dug into her ribs, but she did not mind.

"We're not done yet." He hugged her back. "I'm fuckin' stoked, but we're not done."

"I know. But we're close."

As they exited the control cabin, both of them winced as chunks of armored glass periodically fell from the ceiling with a crash. The far off alarm squealed like it was caught in the jaws of a beast before it petered off with a shrill death knell. They had to make their way carefully to the far side of the room. The destruction of the glass tubes exploding had taken down quite a few of the walkways, their broken frames sticking out of the muck below.

An illuminated exit sign of all things hung over a long corridor. Its walls and ceiling were encrusted with dozens of pipes and cables, yet led them to another door with the symbol for stairs, and an elevator. This time when they tried it, the buttons turned green. Soft zipping could be heard as cables spun through wheels and counterbalance rose. With an innocent ding, the polished metal doors slid open on the industrial sized lift, spilling harsh fluorescent white out into the hall. Both winced at the volume of the electronic tone in the utter silence. The pair held their breath as they each strained their hearing, waiting for something to attack them.

After waiting a moment to insure nothing was about to spring from some hidden corner, the duo hurried onto the elevator. Diana went to the panel, reading the labels on the buttons as quickly as she could while Eli held his Fal at the ready.

"Look, this one says it goes to the executive suite."

"That's what ya were talkin' about earlier. That's where he is." Eli growled.

With her heart in her throat, she jabbed the button. Stainless steel panels closed, and each felt their stomachs drop a little as the lift raced up to where it had been commanded. Going down on one knee to steady her aim, Diana aimed her HK at the doors before they had even opened while Threlkeld stepped behind her and got ready as well. There was a ding, and the doors unsealed. When they stepped out of the elevator, each raised their weapons and checked their corners.

Specialist Pearson eased her finger off the trigger as no immediate threat revealed itself and looked around.

Exorbitant expense had gone into the reception area. Artificial daylight filled the atrium with a softer, natural illumination. The ceiling stretched high, at least three or four stories, for no reason other than vanity. The supports reached up into arches and had been given granite facades formed into men in the classical imagery of Atlas holding up the world. The open space hummed with the sound of running water as it cascaded down in small falls across little outcroppings built into the sheets of stone covering the bare concrete. Mutant creeping vines sprouted with multiple different species were flagrantly on display, hanging down the fountain walls on either side.

At the far end of the lobby was a titanic vault door. The face of the portal was made into a sculpture, this one depicting a robed man seated in a throne. In one hand the figure grasped the staff of Caduceus, symbol of medicine, while a genetic helix hovered in its other open palm. The huge door bore scorch marks where someone had clearly tried to blast their way in, the feet of the robed man blackened with soot. Empty crates of explosives were stacked against the walls while a preposterously long oaken reception desk had been tipped over as makeshift cover.

Everhardt's private army had tried to pry the doctor from his sanctum unsuccessfully. The forehead of the statue bore a single bullet hole. Diana could well imagine someone giving the doctor their formal resignation with a symbolic shot between the eyes. Just as the soldier pondered how they were going to make it past the barrier, the right eye of the sculpture opened, red lasers spearing down at the pair.

Both Diana and Eli dove behind the desk.

The eye of the sculpture turned and blinked in red cyclopean menace for a moment before rolling back in its head once more. Speakers tucked into alcoves crackled.

"Enhanced genome five-three-nine-two, iteration twelve, detected. Releasing magnetic locks." An electronic voice droned. Reinforced bolts retracted and intricate latches fell into recesses with metallic clangs. Two halves of the barrier were pushed open by silent pneumatic arms.

Peaking over their cover, Eli saw that their way forward was clear.

"What's that bastard doing?" He hissed. "Does he know we're here?"

"It opened for you, Eli." The woman shuddered.

More wary than ever, they broke cover and crossed the threshold into the inner sanctuary. Occasionally they glanced behind themselves, paranoid the door would close and seal them in forever.

A distinct modern approach had been taken to the design of the space. Clean lines and white polymer furniture. Hanging glass steps led up to a personal library. There was a bed, dresser, and small nightstand in the far corner and a bathroom shrouded behind frosted glass. Even a small kitchen with shelves of cans and preserved foodstuffs. Everything someone needed to wait out a siege.

The middle of the room had its own autopsy table. Trays of medical tools and a desk covered in scientific equipment sat nearby. There was also a strange machine poised at one end of the slab, one robotic arm ending in wicked looking saws and clamps. Even though every polished surface was spotless, the scratches belied extensive use. Beyond that, up on a tiered plinth was what had to be the central terminal.

The body of man long dead sat in the chair facing the door, his back to the banks of monitors and computers. Diana was relieved to find the mad scientist dead. Better dead, and unable to act out any more evil deeds. For Eli, the teen was disappointed he had been robbed of the chance to denounce the old man to his face. However, the reptilian young man was glad he knew Everhardt's final fate.

What neither of them expect to find were the hundreds of skulls. There were stacks of them on tables. On consoles. On keyboards. In huge piles on either side of the leathery corpse. Every single one had been broken open. Some had the marks of surgical tools, of scalpels and saws. Other looked to have been caved in with a hammer. There was a skull in the corpse's desiccated grasp, yet the head of Doctor Everhardt was missing. So mighty in life, yet now nothing more than a headless cadaver, holding the skull of another in its hand. Although baffled by how such a feat may have been accomplished, Diana did not wish to consider it for too long. Best not to dwell on what disturbing method had left the man in such a state.

The computers behind the body flickered to life, and a click was heard.

"Beginning playback." The synthetic voice announced.

"Welcome, my children." The sound of an old, tired man emerged, crackling with the sound of recording equipment.

Eli went rigid as a board, chilled to the bone, eyes wide as the final testament of Doctor Everhardt played.

"If you have conquered the challenges I have set forth, and found your way here, that means hope remains. My life's work has been for you. You will inherit the earth, after the end. By the time you hear this, you will probably no longer be the boys I remember, but young men. And I will likely be dead." In the recording, the doctor took a ragged breath. "All of this, I did because no one ever believed me about the sickness. No one was willing to take the steps necessary to prevent our extinction. No one but me."

"There is something in our brains, you see. Something there that causes the sickness. It's symptoms are insidious. Almost undetectable. I have devoted my life to finding the cure, but I fear my efforts will be in vain. The end is coming. This plague shall sweep the world aside and civilization along with it. Only I can save us. Only you, my children can survive the end. My research suggests that there are some immune to the disease on a genetic level. I picked you, men and boys, because I think you can outlive us all. My hope is that you will go on to succeed where I could not, and see my work through. Or, failing that, endure."

Horrified, the soldier glanced between the decapitated man, and Eli. His lips were peeled back in a sneer that bared every fang. She could almost see the scales crawling off his body in revulsion and disgust. His tail lashed dangerously from side to side and the knuckles of his claws stood out sharply as he clenched them tightly enough that the wound on his arm reopened a little. If it were possible to kill someone twice, Eli would have dragged the screaming soul of Doctor Everhardt from the depths of hell to decapitate him again.

"You will stand as proof that mankind did not go gently into that good night, even if we had to take on other forms to do so. Be better than we were, my children. That is all the hope any parent has. That their offspring can make the world a better place than they could. If you're ready, the shutdown command for the island's defenses is Ragnarok Dawn." A pause stretched the surreal moment before the doctor concluded. "You are all my legacy. Remember that, and be strong."

A final click signaled the end of the recording. Trying to comfort the distraught young man, Diana touched his shoulder tentatively, rubbing his scales.

"He was just insane, Eli. Don't listen to him. All this means is that the sickness he talked about wasn't in the world. It was only in him."

"No. There's nothin' that can excuse what he did. If he'd just killed himself, that would've been one thing. But he took nearly everythin' from me. From all the boys. And we're just the ones who made it. Saint once asked me what we would do to Everhardt, if we ever caught 'im alive. What could we do that'd make him pay? I told Saint there's no justice for the dead. We can only live for 'em." Even as he said it, the words rang hollow.

"That's very wise, Eli." She had never heard him talk so eloquently. Then again, she had never seen him so angry. He walked up the stairs to glare down at the corpse.

"I had a lotta time to think about it. The only justice is that all his effort was for nothin'. There was no point to any of it. His 'work' was rooted in dirt, and worth less than that. History books will put him down as a disgrace, who accomplished nothing. Doctor Everhardt will be remembered as a fool. A babbling idiot who thought he was clever, but was no better than a psycho with an 'end is nigh' sign."

Eli paced behind the chair and contemptuously shoved it with a foot. The body jostled and rolled until the corroded wheels locked up, dumping the headless cadaver down the short flight of stairs to tumble down into an ignominious sprawl. Just another body. Another wretched set of unremarkable bones in a charnel house of senseless slaughter. No tombstone for the good doctor, just a reserved spot in a mass grave of his own making. The young man snorted in derision and at least a little contentment.

"C'mon, Dee. Do your thing." He said, shrugging towards the terminal.

Nodding, the specialist stepped up to do her part. With the only chair... Occupied, the soldier elected to stand. There was a wealth of information on the terminal. Diana could spend days sifting through formulas, schematics, and a plethora of mangled personal notes. There were a lot of unknowns. The woman could not fully quell the worry that all the technology that had been developed in service to Everhardt's mad schemes would not be misused. There was no way for her to cover up everything. Even if she destroyed the schematics, the physical structure of the different systems remained. It was not her call to make. Knowledge was not inherently good or bad and the soldier had to content herself with that sentiment.

Once she found the appropriate console, the warning popped right up, telling her that Armageddon Sundown was in effect. She was unsure what would happen when the command was given. Maybe the reactor would go critical, and the island would be erased in nuclear fire. She glanced back at Eli, who smiled even through his own turbulent feelings. At least whatever happened, it would be by their choice.

Pearson entered the Ragnarok Dawn command, and hit enter. No great fanfare announced their success. A simple popup window informed the woman that all the automated island kill systems were turning off. One thing she did look for was to see if there was some way to directly call for help. Yet, there was nothing. Diana wondered how Everhardt expected anyone to get off the island if his foretold end did come and civilization collapsed. Even if the island was made defenseless, who would come?

"There, it's done." She wiped her hands off on her pants, as if the console was somehow dirtied by another's touch.

"Do you think we'll actually get rescued?" Eli said wistfully.

"It might take a while. I don't know if my original task force is still out there. I just hope an island magically reappearing in the pacific gets someone's attention."

Threlkeld nodded, deferring to her insight in such matters.

"I'd wanna explore this place if it wasn't crawlin' with beasts. And, I think I've had enough explorin' for one day. How 'bout you?"

"I'm good. I'm real good." Diana agreed.

****

The ascent was thankfully much less eventful than the fall had been. They were still cautious, ready for some final trap to be sprung. Yet nothing ever came. The elevator dumped them off at the top of one of the massive wings of the pyramid. The setting sun greeted their emergence, just as the rising light had seen their journey begin. Until that time, Diana had understood, yet never fully appreciated Eli's antsy behavior on the ground. The trudge through jungle canopy was a chore, and a soothing one at that because it meant true safety on the island.

Back home, the two stripped out of their clothes, ate some hot food, and had time to unwind their knotted muscles and tangled minds as they cleaned up. The specialist also redressed the wound on her lover's arm. Once back inside the helicopter, Eli swept his woman up in his arms. Diana giggled in delight, comfortably held against his warm chest. The chimes outside their home whispered their familiar metallic song in the slow breeze.

"Do ya love me, amazon?" Threlkeld brushed a claw along the hollow of her throat tenderly. Her tan skin shimmered in the silver light of the moon streaming in through the window.

"Of course I do." She reached up to cup his cheek. There was a note of worry in the underpinning his question. "What's wrong, handsome?" He closed his eyes and nuzzled into her hand, taking in the natural scent of her skin before speaking.

"I'm happy that we're finally gonna go home. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"But?" She added.

"Will you still... Love me?" The arms holding her tightened just a little. So much power, restrained by the simplest, most timeless of emotions.

"You big goofy lump of scales, of course I'll still love you. Why are you worried?"

"Because... I guess because you won't need me anymore. In the real world, you don't have to hunt. You can just go the supermarket or something. Order pizza. You won't have to stay with a monster." He put great emphasis on 'monster'. "You'll have options. I won't be your only choice."

"Eli, look at me." She rubbed under his chin, bringing his eyes up to look in hers seeing his soul dance through reptilian slits. "Love isn't something that's about what you can do for someone. I don't love you because you can fish, or know how to shoot really really well. I didn't fall in love with you because you were convenient for me, or because you were the only option. I fell in love with you, because of who you are, and the way you are."

"You promise?" There was so much vulnerability in the two little words.

"Cross my heart." Diana assured him, making an X over her left breast.

****

As it turned out, after the disappearance of USS Granicus, many agencies kept a watchful vigil on the suspected patch of cursed ocean. Task force Orphic Reef had combed up and down the Pacific in search for their lost sister ship, and turned up nothing. However, just as Diana had predicted, when the island started existing again, the ships had converged in force. With a weather eye and a pair of powerful binoculars, the specialist spotted grey hulls and radar masts on the horizon.

From their vantage point in one of the mutated trees right on the edge of the beach, she exclaimed her find.

"Eli, look! There," She pointed and the lizard man raised his rifle, looking through the scope he had attached.

"I see 'em!"

The excitement between the two of them was electric. Hands almost shaking, Pearson pulled a flaregun from her hip, loaded with orange canisters, and shot it through the branches overhead.

With Eli watching her back, the zoologist leapt down from the trees and sprinted towards the shore, kicking up sand as she went. Panting, she shot another flare into the sky, then tossed the plastic pistol to the side. The signal screamed through the air and popped overhead, lazily drifting down. One hand kept her weapon steady on her chest while she popped a handheld flare with the other. On the edge of the ocean, she waved the ignited chemical stick back and forth, orange smoke carried off to one side by the gentle breeze.

Squinting against the glare of the sun off the water, Pearson saw speedboats approaching. In a few minutes four of the craft zipped across the waves and landed right there on the beach. Two dozen soldiers leapt from the boats and approached. Chucking her flare off into the sand, the woman almost fell to her knees in gratitude. Trying to be professional, even under such circumstances, refrained. A man with Staff Sergeant stripes trudged through the sand straight towards her. Meanwhile the others were busy glancing between her and the trees, their abnormality much more apparent in the sun than when Diana had first made unfortunate landfall.

Even though she knew she looked like she had gone a little native in the brain due to her blue war paint, Pearson was unable to keep herself from grinning like an idiot.

"Am I glad to see you guys." She brought her heels together, boots snapping even in the sand, instinct telling her not to salute in what was essentially an active combat zone. "I'm Specialist Diana Pearson, of the Orphic Reef task force."

"Staff Sergeant Moreno." The tanned man introduced himself, looking the woman up and down for any obvious injuries. "Are there any other survivors?"

Diana's smile faded.

"No, sir. Only me. There was... They... I mean..." She thought she had rehearsed this meeting a thousand times in her head, yet when it came time to recount what had happened that first night, her tongue tied itself in knots.

The Sergeant put a hand on her shoulder to calm the rambling woman.

"It's alright, soldier, the cavalry's here."

Taking a deep breath, the woman composed herself and clarified.

"The rest of my task force didn't make it, but I found the children! Well, they're not really children anymore. A lot of them survived. One of them is with me. I don't know what you and your men were told, Sergeant Moreno. This island is extremely dangerous. The creature that we found that my task force was briefed on..." She trailed off.

"What're we dealing with?" The man's tone was firm, but gentle.

As if the island itself wanted to answer that question itself, a peal of gunfire shattered the quiet of the beach. Everyone turned with their weapons up and ready. A few followup shots rang out. Heart beating in trepidation, Diana called out to the jungle. There was no mistaking the throaty boom of Eli's FN Fal to her ears.

"Eli? Was that you? Are you okay?"

"Diana, these are the good guys, right?" Was his answer. A few of the men exchanged glances at the rather sibilant undertones.

"Yes, Eli, come out."

"Sorry, just wanted to make sure." He replied. Though she bit her lip, she could not entirely blame the youth for his trepidation. Realizing quickly what was about to happen, the woman turned back to the Sergeant.

"Sir, tell your men to hold their fire. Eli Threlkeld was one of the children, but he's..." About a dozen differed ways to describe her partner sprang to mind, and none of them would serve as succinct summary You won't believe me, okay?"

"What on earth are you talking about, Pearson?" Moreno was skeptical after all the shooting he had heard.

"Just trust me, sir. Please."

"Alright, you heard her, this is a civilian." Very hesitantly, the soldiers lowered their weapons.

Eli marched from the treeline, dragging something behind him. Once he was close enough, the altered boy tossed a body onto the beach. All half-melted organs and mishmash of dangerous looking quills, the beast smoldered from the holes Eli had burned through it. A trail of brackish ichor trailed all the way back from where it had been dragged. The stench of it made the soldiers cover their faces. Everyone was so busy staring at the horror that the bipedal reptile with a battle rifle slung across his back was of slightly less concern.

"Eli, why did you bring one of the beasts with you?" Diana demanded, waving a hand in front of her nose.

"I know it's nasty, but words don't really do these things justice. Better to know what you're looking for, and be prepared. I don't want... Well, I just thought you guys should be ready."

"How many of them were there?" She asked.

"Six. It was a small pack. I know its daytime, but some of the older ones will come looking if you make a lot of noise. They were headed towards the beach for sure."

The woman turned and held a hand out toward the man, who had yet to pick his jaw up off the sand.

"Eli, this is Staff Sergeant Moreno. He's here to rescue us." Looking at the reptilian man, his dark green hide sucking in the light, the woman realized she was unsure of how Threlkeld was going to handle this meeting.

With a ridiculous flourish, Eli brought a claw up in a crude salute. The young man underestimated his own strength though, and ended up hitting himself in the eye. Pearson laughed a little at his display. And if she was being honest, just grateful that he was wearing pants.

"Ow." He said flatly. One claw rubbed the spot he had just smacked, while the other reached forward. "Hi, I'm Eli!" He crowed as brightly as a songbird. "You guys are the real deal! I've been here for so long. So damn long. Dee said that help would come. I just can't believe it. Never thought I'd see the day." Patting the Sergeant once on the shoulder, the young lizard then grabbed the man's hand and shook it firmly. "You looked so cool comin' in on those boats."

Just as quickly, Eli jumped over to the next soldier and pulled the poor soul into a hug. Turning on charm Diana had only very rarely seen, she watched her partner put the wary soldiers at ease.

"Pearson, I sure as shit hope you have some kind of explanation for this." Moreno managed to regain enough of his faculties to spit out the question. Though it was more in reference to the corpse melting into the sand than the heavily armed lizard thing accosting his troops.

"Sir, to put it bluntly, everything you see is the responsibility of Doctor Everhardt. And by everything, I mean everything. The torpedoes that sank my ship. The creatures that killed my team. This thing." She gestured with disgust at the beast. "Eli was human. These things were too. You're looking at what happened to the people Everhardt kidnapped."

The Sergeant blanched at the thought.

"From that contest he held those years ago..." The Sergeant muttered.

"Yeah, that one." She affirmed.

"I remember that contest. I entered it too. Didn't win."

"Unfortunately, some did." Diana agreed quietly.

"I have a son back home. Probably about the same age." The Sergeant looked at Eli and shook his head. "So there's... Other survivors?"

"Yes, sir. I couldn't give you an exact headcount, but I'd say a few hundred boys have a small village in the trees surrounding that pylon." Diana pointed off to where the concrete edifice sprouted from the jungle to claw at the sky.

"Is Everhardt still on the island?"

"His corpse is."

Moreno nodded grimly.

"It seems like you've got a good handle on things here, Pearson. What do you suggest?"

"I recommend evacuating the survivors first. After turning off the worst of the systems controlling the island, Eli and I went to Saint, the de facto leader of the village, and told him to expect friendly rescue soon. I will warn you now, they are all armed. So, just handle things delicately."

"Do you have reason to believe they'll be hostile?" Moreno glanced to Eli.

"To be honest, Sergeant, I wasn't sure how he'd react. Everhardt made arrangements to have dummy accounts pay different private contractors come to the island every year or so. I never got the full story, but they did terrible things to the survivors of Everhardt's experiments. Like I said, we've told Saint to expect you guys. They'll disarm if you ask them to."

"Mother Mary, you've gone through some shit, haven't you, soldier?"

Diana nearly sagged in exhaustion to have someone acknowledge her trials. She was immensely grateful.

"There was a machine that was making these monsters. Eli and I took care of it, so all that's left is whatever's still roaming around. Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd make sure all the kids were safe, then burn this mother fucker to the ground."

"I'll run it up the chain. That'll get my vote."

When Diana turned to get Eli to add his part, she saw him busy stuffing his face with flatbread from an MRE he had managed to get one the soldiers to give him. His happiness made her smile just a little. The boy swallowed, then spoke.

"Oh yeah, the village. Not everyone is like me. A lot are still human. But trust me, they're just as ready to get off this hellhole as I am. Oh, yeah, we told Saint that we'd pop a few red and orange flares if someone comes to rescue us, and a bunch of green ones if it's safe to come. So, you can just do that, and they'll all come to whatever beach has green smoke.

"We can handle that, kid. C'mon, let's get you two home."

Part 8: Home

Three weeks later, Diana walked back into her and Eli's hotel room. And what a wild few weeks they had been.

She had just finished giving what felt like the tenth, and most exhausting by far, public speech talking about her experiences on the island. Pearson had been interviewed by more reporters than she could count. Having faced down the an incarnation hell on earth, it all was rather boring. Though the looks on their faces on seeing her blue ink never failed to put a smile on her face. A very serious debriefing with a board of the upper echelons of command had informed her what she was not to disclose to anyone under any circumstances, but most of her time simply living on the isle was hers to freely discuss.

The woman used the public spotlight to garner as much support for the lost boys that had followed them from the island. Saint, true to his name and word, carried on the legacy of King Leo to fulfill the promise of freedom. The tribe had been united in their pilgrimage from the home where they had spent nearly half their lives. Diana met with Saint several times to make sure that everything was going smoothly. The boys had been kept together, letting them all adjust back to civilized life with the comfort of their bonded brothers. A massive outpouring of support came from the public at large in the form of donations and open acceptance of the reptilian among them.

Even though the zoologist did not know what the future held, she was confident that all the children who had their lives stolen, at last had the chance to be happy. To grow up free of the island and Everhardt's insanity. Who stayed, and who broke off to try and start over as a normal person would be their choice.

However, the heaviest attention was leveled at Eli. His face and name was plastered across every television and smartphone screen. In many ways, he almost represented finding alien life hidden on planet earth. On many occasions, she had to defend his humanity against probing inquiries. It felt like a triumph to her that they had not been locked up in a lab somewhere and vivisected for study. Diana was certain that even with blood and tissue samples taken, the scientific world was at least fifty years from replicating the process that had changed him.

She was immensely proud of how Eli had been handling it all. They had a lot in common, including disdain for public speaking and being the center of attention. He had answered many, many questions. Diana had stood by his side this latest time, holding his claw under the microphone covered podium. When the stimulation became too much, he had squeezed her hand. Their signal. That was the soldier's cue to step up and take his place, letting the young man retreat from the lights and sounds and crowd of reporters with no concept of personal space or tactful questions. The specialist hoped the attention would not last forever. The pair had discussed it at length, and both agreed that being a celebrity was not at the top of either of their wish lists.

After slipping her keycard into the hotel suite's electronic lock, she sighed in relief upon entering the room. The smell of clean carpet and fresh linen. It was nice knowing that their lives were being paid for in full for the moment. Once the initial fame and goodwill faded, they had a decent nest egg to fall back on. After a little negotiation, she had been awarded hazard pay for every hour spent on the island. Combined with her certifications, it was not enough money to pay for the rest of their lives or anything like that, but at least enough to give them a few years to decide what they wanted to do. Maybe she could sell an autobiography or something. That, or make porn.

With a sound of delight, Pearson felt the cold air brush her face. If there was one comfort she had missed more than anything, it was air conditioning.

"Eli, sweetheart, I'm back." She called.

"I'm in here, Dee." He answered.

Following the trail of clothing Eli had left as he had stripped, Diana shed hers in a similar manner. It had been fun to see the tailors try and fit the lizard man for a suit. In the end she had been a little jealous. He had looked really good in it. Having gotten used to being mostly naked, especially around each other, it was nice to get some privacy. She passed around the bathroom of their hotel room to see Eli sitting naked on the edge of their California king sized bed. With game controller in claw, tongue poking out in concentration and tail tip flicking, he was the very image of youthful joy. Having completely disrobed herself, Diana climbed onto the bed to sit with her lover.

"Y'know one good thing 'bout bein' stranded on an island for a decade?" He asked without looking, nimble claws operating the controller with comforting familiarity.

"Hm?" She responded, stretching her arms above her head, wiggling her toes as she did so.

"I've got so many things to catch up on! All the movies, TV shows, and video games. It's been amazing. And you can just click a button and get it all whenever you feel like? That's awesome."

"I'm glad." Diana hummed, rubbing a hand on his scaly thigh. Wiggling herself back further onto the bed.

"Hey, Eli."

"What's up, amazon?"

"Turn around you scaly goof." She said with a laugh.

Turning his head, he saw Diana with her legs open, one hand holding open her blue pussy, already glistening with her arousal. She reclined against a pile of pillows, casually giving him one of the most erotic show he had seen in his entire life. Practically flinging his controller over one shoulder he climbed across the bed after her. A wide grin split his muzzle. The mattress groaned under his prodigious mass. Tail wagging happily, his cocks were already emerging from between his legs as he climbed atop his warrior woman.

Eli had been the one to discover that the woman had scales sprouting on her inner thighs and ladybits. They were small, and very fine, almost translucent. If she was being honest, Diana had been surprised it had taken so long. Even though her pubic hair had slowly thinned to nothing, she had not been too bothered by it, only hoping that she did not go bald on top of her head in addition to between her legs. The young man had been more than happy to embrace always shaved cunny.

His claws went to her breasts, tongue flicking out over her pebbled buds. Moaning under his warmth and weight, she sank deep into the mattress. Her nethers clenching under the attention he lavished on her painted chest. Reaching down with his left claw, he grasped his lower cock and dragged it between her luscious petals. She already soaking wet, Eli's cocktip gliding smoothly along her silky womanhood.

"Mm, why're ya so wet, darlin'?" He moaned, enjoying working his length along her sex.

"I was thinking about it all the way here. C'mon, don't tea-hease!" Arching her back, Diana cried out as Eli chose that moment to sink his lower hemipenis into her inviting depths. Slippery folds engulfed the invading manhood, stretching around the familiar shape of the well endowed teen. Moving up the bed on his knees, his form pushed her legs far apart just as his girth bottomed out quickly, pressing up against the smooth muscle of her cervix. Coming to rest for just a moment, Threlkeld teased his lover.

"Thinking about what? Tell me." At his coaxing, the walls around his cock tightened,

"Fuck me, please. Please I wanna cum with you in me."

Setting a good pace, the young man let himself melt in luxury. His hands found her ankles, holding up her legs as he fucked his partner. Even as his knees sank into the hotel bed, his cocks sank into plump cunny, lavishing in how wet Diana was. Every thrust was about half his length, and each time he pushed back in their union sounded with obscene squelches. Pearson could not help herself, and reached down to hold Eli's upper cock against her pussy, letting the ridges on the underside of his hemipenis stimulate her nub. Precum smeared her inner walls and dribbled onto her belly.

Writhing with pleasure, the woman bucked her hips and gave the reptilian youth quite a show. He sped up, watching her breasts bounce as he rocked her bodily with his thrusts. Unable to hide his grin, the young man knew he was hitting all the right spots as the wet sounds only increased as the zoologist started leaking profusely. Too lost in the stimulation, the woman could only open her mouth in a silent scream as climax washed over her. Diana's ladybits clenched so hard it stole her breath for a moment as she gushed around the cock buried in her flower and squirted against the underside of the other manhood jammed in her petals.

"What got into you?" He teased. "You came really fast."

Too busy panting, it took the poor girl a moment to gather herself.

"I told you I was a little pent up. I was thinking of something." She admitted.

"Hm? What were ya thinkin' about, amazon?"

"No! It's embarrassing. I don't wanna say."

"You can't tell me somethin' got you to squirt that fast and then not tell me." Eli gyrated his hips to illicit wet smacks from their hips mashing together.

She squealed as her cheeks became rosy red, covering her face with a pillow to hide even while he was still fucking her.

"Y'know that thing we talked about a while ago..." Her voice was muffled by the pillow.

"What thing?"

"C'mon, you know... The thing with you... You... Using maybe, both of your cocks in my cunny at the same time?"

"Are you sure? You don't think I'll hurt you?" Rubbing her inner thigh in genuine concern, Eli was more than willing to try new things, but knew firsthand how tight a hole she had.

"Girls can be very stretchy down there. Please? I'm so fucking horny. I've been thinking about this all day." Unable to muster the courage to look at him still, she flipped over, popping him out of her with a loud slurp, and presented herself doggystyle to her lover. With a sigh, she enjoyed the comforter against her breasts as she hiked her butt up. Her blue petals were flushed a darker color and ever so slightly parted from their warmup sex. A bent over bitch in heat who needed a good pounding.

"Since you asked so nicely." Eli squeezed his cocks together with a claw and began to feed both tips into Diana's pussy. Even though he did not want to hurt her, he was eager to see if he could get both his dicks warm and snug in hot womanhood at the same time. With a firm press, holding his himepenes, he pushed both heads through her entrance. Heaven wrapped around both of his members in a sensation beyond description for Eli. He only rarely stimulated both his cocks at the same time, being a little too intense for casual masturbation. He wanted more, and greedily started stuffing Diana's cunt to bursting.

Her pussy was soft and stretchy, but strained against the girth forced into it. Precum and pussy juice squelched under pressure as the lizard man crammed another inch in, the widest part of his cocks was still far from the distended entrance of his lover's pussy.

"Ah!" Diana cried out as the paired cocks reached the point where together they were thicker than a single. She remembered when she could barely manage a single one of his members, let alone two at once! He stopped, letting her adjust to his cocks. Gently caressing her backside, Eli let the trembling woman rest a little.

"I'm okay. Please," She begged, vainly pushing back to get more inside her.

Eli pushed harder against the resistance of her velvet vice. He grabbed Diana by the haunches for better leverage, lending some of his weight to the push. With a thick, wet sound, Pearson's pussy was opened obscenely wide. Her legs were shaking and a pathetic mewl escaped her. The woman's flower ached, throbbing as her entrance felt like it was on the verge of tearing a little from the girth.

In their time together, the young man had opened the woman's Pandora box of hidden desires. She basked in the glow offered by giving in to her animistic side, wanting her womb to be crushed under the weight of lizard cocks. The stretch from having her poor cunt double stuffed let her imagination go wild. She was just a poor female caught by a big, hungry predator, ready to be rutted. The woman was just a helpless amazon. A hole for the large male to stuff full of fat cock. A cumdrunk little tribal, high on getting used like a sextoy. The slit between her legs was just a slutty pussy that demanded a nice cream filling.

After a lot of shifting, wiggling, and thrusting, Eli at last felt himself bottom out inside her. The massive amount of extra cock drawing her walls in tight. The reptilian teen had to force her pussy further to accommodate the length in addition to the girth. He pushed right against the end of her chalice and further still, straining the entire length and breadth of her tunnel just to bottom out.

She panted and writhed futilely, and soon found her lower lips pressing right up against the tough scales of Eli's crotch. There was nothing she could do but bear down on it with her aching chalice. Even that was rather pointless, as she was too wide, muscles strained to far to muster up much response. He crushed his crotch into hers and the pressure caused her cunny to squirt a little from the animalistic rutting. She couldn't help but gush, it felt like he was fucking her g-spot.

Even though he was restraining himself, the boy's slit-pupil eyes drank in the sight of her blue lower lips straining around his girth. Tail waving behind him, Threlkeld ran a claw down Pearson's spine. Never tiring of how soft the female he had skewered, the young man grabbed her butt, squeezing the little bit of chubbiness she had. With care, he pulled his hips back, dragging a bit of her tunnel out with him. When about a quarter of his lengths were out, he jammed back in. With a slow rhythm, he gradually loosened the woman until his pace picked up. Soon he was thrusting more quickly, losing control to the intense stimulation.

Diana felt every inch scraping her insides, her cries muffled by the pillow she was drooling into. She could only squirm and vainly kick at the sheets as the beast between her legs split her open. Though he had been fucking her for only a few minutes, Pearson's womanhood throbbed from abuse and the massive size difference between one cock and two made her walls ache. Her abdomen cramped and it seemed as though her entrance was going to rip from the size. Pressure so great it seemed her ovaries were threatening to rupture. Too much cock too fast. And yet, she could not get enough, relishing the stretch and burning in her belly as she felt him force himself on and into her more and more, putting his body weight into it.

An agonizing orgasm rocked her body. The pained pleasure made her climax very long. A series of convulsions shot through her womanhood. Each pulse was accompanied by a gush as she made an absolute mess of them. A drawn out whine escaped her lips as she leaked all over Eli and herself, excess dripping down her thighs. His own climax followed right behind. She thought he came a lot with a single cock, however with both cocks simultaneously inside her, she felt her sex bulge obscenely at the volume. High pressure seed soaked her cervix and leaked through the sacred entrance to her uterus. It was that feeling, of her very womb being touched by the hot splash of cum that sent her over the edge again, helpless against the tsunami of sensation as her double climax intermingled with Eli's.

The young lizard held her close, keeping her cunt lodged as far open as it had ever been through both of their orgasms. It took a while to spend himself utterly into his woman, every throb spilling more of his essence within her. Shuddering, he pulled back, feeling Diana's abused hole suckle his cocks the whole way. As he popped loose, her pussy was uncorked and the full contents shoved into her gaping hole now came pouring out. Their mixed cum drooled from between her lips. Helplessly, she moaned at the sudden emptiness. She could only sit on her hands and knees with her legs spread.

A cramp in her overexerted pelvic muscles made her cunt clench tightly closed. She whimpered as her tunnel collapsed around nothing, forcing the deepest pocket of fluids back up against her cervix once again. At the same time, while her pelvic muscles were tying themselves in knots, her abdominals pushed and pushed hard. It felt like her womb wanted to prolapse in protest at her treatment. Eli had been so big inside her that his sudden absence was almost more than she could bear. The zoologist could only ride out the aftershocks of the whole experience. Diana put her forehead into the cool pillow, letting her rear fall, mound coming to rest on the soiled comforter. Slowly letting her body relax after the pounding it had taken, she just breathed raggedly.

Diana put a hand between her legs, cupping her genuinely aching mound. She felt her puffy lower lips pulsing, the stretched folds now able to relax. Perhaps she had gotten a bit addicted to his cocks. In their time together the woman had gotten used to being fucked silly, which was often. And maybe she enjoyed their sex, being worked until she was shaking and came all over herself. Yeah, she definitely had taken a liking to being his fucktoy.

"Damn, Eli. Oh man. Oh my poor lady parts." Diana could feel her hole gaping open, still overflowing with lizard cum.

"Sorry if I got a little carried away." There was a genuine note of apology in his tone.

"No, don't worry sweetheart. I'm a little sore, but you didn't hurt me at all. Didn't you feel me cum too?"

"I was a little... Distracted." He said sheepishly. He patted her butt affectionately, massaging her haunches with his claws. Then he flopped down onto the bed to curl around his mate.

"Mmm," Letting out a happy sound, she grabbed his arm and held it between her breasts. "Did it feel good for you?"

"It felt absolutely amazing." Nuzzling his nose against hers elicited a wonderful giggle from the woman.

"Y'know, I just thought of something." Diana said after a pause.

"What's that?"

"You asked me, that if we got off the island, if I would still love you. I think that answers your question."

"Hm, I dunno. I might need a little more convincing." He said with an impish growl and a laugh. "Hey, d'you want room service?"

"God, yes, please. Food I don't have to cook after sex? Every time, yes. Okay, room service, but you get to answer the door this time." Diana rubbed under his chin.

"You just wanna scare the poor hotel people." Eli chuckled.

"And? It's funny." She teased, resting a hand on his chest.

"Maybe it's a little funny." His tail curled around her ankle contentedly.

"You know what sounds amazing? I want the biggest, juiciest burger they've got on the menu."

"Hell yeah. Make that two."

"Only two?"

"Mmm... Maybe four."

The End.

And there you have it! This tale took me altogether too long to finish. As with all things, it was only done, when it was ready to be done. As I said in the beginning, this whole tale is based on a dream I had when I was very young. The youth being called to an island. Death finding them. The survivors being transformed. Rescuers coming. One surviving and becoming... intimate friends with an island native who had grown up there. I think the only things I added for the path of the story to take was entering the facility, and being home. All the rest, simply needed detailing.

To all you gentle readers who joined me on this journey, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. It means the world to me, for everyone who makes it this far. Remember to pack your magazines full, and hold your partner close.

This happy ending, is brought to you, gentle reader, by the eternal fire that is love.

Thank you.