Chapter 14

Kim groaned and whined as her head was severely sore from crying so hard. She sat up and held her spinning head. After a few moments the room came into focus and she surveyed her surroundings. The walls were a creamy red with golden glitter in the groves of the design. Yet the gold didn't look tacky. It looked like actual gold...

She looked round and saw there was a large wardrobe that looked to be pure wooden and had many draws. There was a stand that she assumed to be used for hanging armour on in the corner. She recognised the door to the bathroom and made a decision. She really, really needed a shower. And new clothes. She stumbled over to the bathroom and striped off. Her tired and hot, sweaty body rejoiced in the cool water as it poured over her skin, washing away the grime and worries of the last week or so. She ran the water over her hair and washed it. that didn't take too long as her hair was braided. That's why she braided it in the first place, so she didn't have to mess around with it and take hours just to dry it. And it was always neat.

She stepped out after feeling fully cleansed and found a towel on the side. she could have sworn that it wasn't there before...oh well. She wrapped it round her and walked into her room. She took one look inside and closed her eyes. Katel was sat on her now made bed and waiting for her. She knew he must have been the one to throw the towel into the bathroom, but didn't care. She didn't want to know why he was here or what he was doing with her old clothes in his hands.

"These garments have past their time. I have brought you some more suitable clothing." She opened her eyes only to look at the pile of clothes to the side of him. She ignored his existence and retrieved the clothes. She then turned her back to him and locked herself back in the bathroom. Kim dressed and looked down at her new outfit. It consisted of what looked to be a brown leather/furry bikini top that tied around her neck with a collar like fasten. Her stomach was bare and so where her legs. She was wearing a smaller version of Katel's hanging cloth and it matched her top. Brown, leathery and furry. She wore simple sandals that crisscrossed around her ankles and slightly up her legs to fasten. In an almost Greek fashion. She flipped her hair behind her and thought that she actually looked quiet nice to say she was hungry and pale from dehydration. She opened the door to see that Katel was still sat on the bed waiting for her. Kim still ignored him and sat at the other side of the bed. "You will need to eat. I have brought you some dried meat for you, and some water. Eat and drink up, I will return later for you, to begin your training." She didn't even flinch as he placed the food and drink flask on her lap. Once he brought his hands away and took the meat and ate it. She then gulped down the water and placed the flask on the side. Then the meat container joined it and she curled up in a ball on the bed. "Please don't ignore me...i just want to train you. Is that so bad?"

"I don't want to train." Katel looked up from his lap and towards her after she finally spoke.

"You don't? But you are honoured pray. I must train you."

"Honoured...pray? I don't feel honoured. But...I feel like pray..."

"Kim..." Katel felt his already battered heart tear again and waned to cry, if he could. He instead took a deep breath and moved towards her. He brushed the back of his clawed fingers up and down her arm in a comforting fashion. "You are not pray Kim. I will never hunt you. Even before I wasn't going to hunt you."

"But I am pray."

"No you are not. you are not pray and you will never be pray. I will protect you and train you in the ways of my people. So that you can hunt and take trophies and earn honourable respect that you deserve."

"I deserve respect?"

"Yes. You are an amazing person. Your race is corrupt and yet you are pure of heart and soul. My people have a belief that although our pray is not Yautja, their souls are the same as ours. That is why we only hunt worthy pray. And why we take such care with their skulls. And we also believe that every now and then, your kind and others will have the spirit and honour of a Yautja warrior, just like us. I believe you are an example of this. I believe that you have the burning spirit of a warrior. And that is why I must train you, so that others of my kind will see your true spirit in battle and through your trophies." Kim turned to face him and sat up.

"Is that what you believe? Then..."

"Then what?" Katel was just happy that she was addressing him now. But her eyes filled with new tears from her old wound.

"Then why do you call me ooman and make me feel like an animal? Like vermin? Why do you think I am so pathetic that you have to 'put up' with my 'mood swings'? You said it yourself." She turned away from him again and held her knees again. "...you said that you think I am cowardly, stupid and avoid my fears. Why should you have to put up with this pathetic little ooman and her pathetic little mood swings? It's not like you understand my feelings. That's what you think my feelings are? Mood swings? Well damn it!" she thumped the bed and startled Katel. Her weeping was swiftly turning into a rant and feared he would lose a limb before she was through. "You don't want to put up with me then in your own words, 'fine'. I actually thought that you might have given a damn but I guess I was wrong. I am just a little ooman, a pathetic little ooman female and I will not bother you anymore! I can't leave her." she stood up and walked towards the door. "I will train." She clenched her fists and looked back at him. "I can't do anything about what I am but I will try not to bother you with my feelings. I have said it a thousand times before to the males of 'my kind' and now I say it to you." She seethed and stalked back towards him in a very predator like fashion. She leaned into him and placed one fist at each side of him, on the bed. She moved her murderous eyes to look deep into his eyes and stared straight into his soul. At least he felt like that was what she was doing. "I am not a nice person to know. I am not a pretty girl, I am not an exotic beauty and I sure as hell am not a model or superstar. I will never be these things and let me tell you just why I am not. I have a side to me that you do not want to see. It's the side of me that got me into prison at the age of 11. I was freed a few years later but not before I took 56 guys down and into the hospital. And that was during my 'innocent years'. Now I am a lot worse and damn it I have done things that would make you wet your bed and cry for your mommy. Like when a guy from my high school spanked my ass. You want to know what I did to him?" Katel nodded and gulped, feeling rather intimidated. "First I kicked him in the groin, then I castrated him, slowly and flicked slat at his wounds. Another guy got a lot worse. The other guy seemed to be an actual decent guy. I let him get close to me and he said that I was tough when he first met me but as weak and soft as a kitten on the inside. Then he said it was fun while it lasted and told me how he had been fucking my best friend for the last year. I thought he was a nice guy. I was wrong. He thought he could tell me that and walked away without internal bleeding. He was also wrong." Katel shivered. Kim thought it was out of fear, but actually it was out of arousal. In his culture, if a female wanted to get a males attention and make herself desirable, she would tell him about the hunts and battles she had won and what she did to the loser. So while Kim was trying to sike him out, she was doing the opposite. That is why he was impressed with her back on earth when they first met. She had ranted about all the blood curdling things she was going to do to the men she worked with and it highly aroused Katel's primal side. Kim was about to continue but Katel brought his hand over her mouth.

"Would you like to know what I have done?" he brought his hand away and couldn't help himself. He ran his fingers through her braided hair and his eyes were glassy with lust. "I have taken a rapist of females from your planet and hung him from his member for 36 hours. Then I let the woman that he was going to take, cut his penis off. Then I cut him into small pieces and sent little parts of him to all my pray that visit. Another I skinned alive as he screamed for mercy, he was still screaming when I slit his throat with my bare claws." Kim's eyes opened wide with every word. She only wanted to scare him. She wasn't prepared for anything like this! He was ruthless! "The last time I was on your planet I hunted alone. I found myself in the mists of several killers. I gutted the first one and draped his entrails around the room. I was cloaked so the other males only saw his intestine and his liver float around the room and his blood drip on their heads." Not Kim was afraid. "The next I sliced open and tore his heart out. I shoved that down the throat of the next and cut him in half with one, swift, blow." My god he is enjoying this! I was being scary but this is disturbing!

"What do you think to me now Kim? Am I deadly enough to see this other side of you? The side that I am not supposed to want to see?" Kim gulped and pulled back. He had beaten her at her own game and she didn't know what to say. He had been kind to her and when she told him just how much he didn't want to fuck with her, he gave her some of her own medicine and made her drink it. But the strange thing was, the way he had said it. It was almost as if he was trying to make her skin crawl, but not in a creepy way. She almost thought that he might have been showing off to her or trying to impress her. But she dismissed that straight away. "Well?" she thought back to his question and thought of something.

"You cant handle me."

"Oh I think I can, if you try me." is he smirking at me? He is flirting with me?

"I well." She backed off and stood up. She had no idea what to do or say next.

"Don't tell me that you are speechless." He stood up and towered over her. Damn he was making her feel puny.

"No. I just didn't expect you to be."

"To be what?" she didn't like the way he seemed to be backing her into the wall. As he came towards her she backed off. This guy was dangerous and yet...she couldn't help but find his 'adventures' impressive. But she still felt intimidated. "To be what?" he repeated but slower and seductively purred each word. She noticed how his entire body language had changed and gulped deeply. Her back came up against the wall and she quivered as Katel pressed his chest up against hers. "To be." He put one huge clawed hand at each side of her head and lowered his face towards hers. "What?" he whispered into her ear and blew her hair away from her face. Oh my god I know that smell! He is turned on! I knew he was enjoying telling me about his 'visits' to earth WAY too much! I bet he mistook my little f off talk for a turn on and sexy prompt talk. Oh yes he is defiantly aroused if that thing poking my leg is what I think it is! She wanted to say oh my god he is aroused. But all she managed was...

"...Aroused." a deep growl rumbled from his throat and the vibrations tickled her neck. He rubbed his mandibles against her cheek and she melted against him.

"I think your right. I think I am aroused." He taunted and lowered his hands to her sides.

"b but you think I'm just an ooman and pathetic and."

"Hush." He brushed his tusks over her lips and nipped at her neck. "If I thought you were just an ooman and pathetic and what ever you were going to say next, then would I be about to mate with you?"

"Mate with me?"

"I thought you would never ask." His mandibles opened wide and his pink inner mouth brushed against her lips. She closed her worried eyes and pressed her lips against the pink inner skin. It was soft and felt just like her lips, only slightly tougher. She moaned softly as tongue slithered into her mouth and his hands took a firm grip of her hanging cloth belt. The tusked ends of his mandibles continued to brush up against her cheeks and it felt like sparks were flying every time he touched her. Her body jolted like a surge of electricity had zapped her and she leapt up and into his waiting arms. He held her tightly and started to back out of the room. She didn't even notice that the scenery had changed until she felt him lower her onto his bed. She pulled away from his mouth and gasped for air. His eyes were clouded with desire and hers with lusty need. But she needed something else first.

"Katel (pant) do you promise that you wont call me ooman anymore?"

"I promise." He nipped and tugged at the middle of her top and ragged it to free his access to her breasts.

"And you will treat me with." She stopped. if she asked what she was going to ask, would she put him off? Would he know what it meant?"

"I promise to love you if you agree to be my mate." he successfully pulled back with her top dangling from his mouth.

"But you haven't known me long. How can you say you want me to be your mate so soon?"

"I feel it Kim. I have never felt this way about any of the females of my own kind or yours before. I have only felt so angry, confused, nervous and the need to do everything I can to make you feel happy around you. You make me feel wonderful, and yet when I hurt you I hurt too. I hated what I did to you and I hope you can forgive me and my foolish ego for not apologising sooner." A tear ran down her cheek. She grinned and pushed him onto his back aggressively.

"You choose to apologise to me now that you have my top off?"

"I will beg too if you take your hanging cloth off." She blushed and he sat up, pulling her onto his lap.

"And what would you beg for? I have to know if it will be worth it." she knew what he was going to say but wanted to hear it all the same.

"I will beg you to be my mate if you take your garments off. Or..." he slipped her onto her back and laid between her legs. "I could beg you while I take your cloths off for you." Well, I could let him. but do I really want to go this far? I guess I must love him or he wouldn't have hurt me so when he called me ooman and made me feel bad. But he is truly sorry about that, I can see it in his eyes. But...am I ready to be his mate? I have never gone this far with anyone, that might be why they all took off with other women...I wouldn't mind waking up to him in the morning. But I don't think I am ready to make that decision yet. I hope I don't hurt his feelings by doing this.

"I really do like you Katel. So I will respect you and take a lot of time to think about your offer. I mean, it is a seriously large step. Especially when I thought you hated me."

"I've never hated you. I just have a short temper and little patients. If you don't wish to me my mate...then you have the right to decline..."

"Can't I think about it? do I have to give you an answer now?"

"Well, our kind does not accept giving time to 'think about it' as that may mean waiting years for an answer. We abolished that right when the prince had to wait 3 years for his mates answer. So you can either say yes or no to me. And if you say no...I do not think I would have the strength to ask you again..."

oh God! If I say no, I will never get this chance again. if I say yes...what's wrong with saying yes? He promised to treat me with respect. And from the way he said he thought he had a warriors spirit, I think he would really love me. I just hope I don't disappoint him. I am not used to opening up to people. That usually gets me hurt, or them.

"I have to warn you, if I do say yes...you may not like it. I am not the most open of people."

"Neither am I. yet look at the emotions you have spurred from me."

"If you weren't happy, you would tell me wouldn't you? You promise you would?"

"I promise, but that will never happen. You are everything I need in a mate. beautiful." He crawled up her body and looked directly down into her emerald eyes. "Sensitive, humorous." He brushed his lower mandibles over her forehead and ran a clawed hand through her hair. "Strong minded, aggressive." He purred the last word into her eyes as he seemed to really like that quality. "Sexually stimulating, mind, soul and body." He rubbed his stomach against hers and he couldn't stop himself from becoming even harder. Which she noticed.

"Would you like to add frequently poked to your list?"

"Hopefully, and active is another." He groaned as she wriggled beneath him. "But, if you wanted, you are allowed to test my abilities as a mate before you say yes."

"And what tests would you have in mind?"

"Keep wriggling like that and you will soon find out." Just to be spiteful of the fact that he was starting to lose his control, she wriggled and 'accidentally' brushed her hand over his groin.

"Oops! I didn't mean to do that." She giggled as he threw his head back and roared with all his might. He panted after his lungs were empty and he slowly brought his head back down to look at her. All of his control and restrain had been thrown out of the window and she knew it. And counted on it. "I have decided to test you and your abilities to be a good mate. If that's alright with you?" he growled and lowered his head to her breast, almost consuming one fully in his mouth! "I did not know you could do that!" she giggled as he pulled away to pay her other breast some attention.

"Just you wait. There a lot of things that I can do that you don't know about." He purred and tugged at her hanging cloth. He finally got it off and slipped his hand up the inside of her leg when...

"BEEEP! BEEEP!" he pulled back and spun his head towards the control room.

"But that's impossible!" Kim could only watch as he crawled away from her quickly and armoured up. Once fully dressed he threw her a smaller set of armour and a spear. "Get dressed quickly and meet me in the control room." Katel sprinted out of the room and left a very confused and naked Kim on the bed. she pulled her top and hanging cloth back on, put some mesh like material over that, a metallic armoured belt on, a metallic skirt on that looked like her mesh, but thicker and made of a light metal. Then she clipped on some front and back armour and winced as it was obviously not female friendly. She slipped a pair of metal guarded sandals and picked up the spear. Then she saw the small mask on the bed. It was more feminine than the one Katel wore and it looked to be designed to look like a fierce feline. She smiled and clipped it into her shoulder plates and connected the tubes to the mask. She looked in a mirror on the wall and thought not even Katel wouldn't feel intimidated by her.

She took off after Katel and wanted an explanation. He was stood over the controls and typing furiously.

"So what is this all about?"

"A ship is about to pass us. We are cloaked so it will not see us, but it has something on board that has activated our sensors."

"What is it?" she leaned against the panel with her bum and looked at the worried look on Katel's face.

"Let's find out." He pressed one last button and a hologram projected onto the screen. it was a mini model of the passing ship and looked to be a battle ship.

"It looks human to me."

"It is. It looks like it was built for battle."

"It sure does." Kim turned around to get a closer look at the 3D diagram. "What is that?" she pointed to the bottom side of the hull and Katel typed some commands into the computer. The section Kim pointed to was enlarged and three large claw marks were visible in the ship's hull.

"Hard meat. They were fighting hard meats."

"But why would the sensors go off?"

"If registered pray was onboard. And from the claw mark, I would say there was a hard meat onboard."

"Do you want to hunt it?"

"No. it is has been captured by the oomans and is none of our business or concern. But we should monitor whether it reproduced on the planet. we can not be sure whether it is a Queen or not."

"What if it is a Queen bug?"

"Then it is our right to hunt it down and its nest."

"What do we do until then?" she smiled hoping he would catch on. But he didn't.

"I must begin your training immediately if I wish to take you with me on the hunt. I will not risk taking you until I am satisfied that you are ready."

"But it might not even be a Queen."

"I do not want to risk it. Their kind have been tampering with the hard meats for centuries and it is more likely that it is a Queen, unless they already have one." Kim looked away and remembered her dream. Katel saw the worried and sheepish look in her eyes through the eye piece of her mask. He turned her to face him and looked deep into her eyes. "DO you know something I don't?"

"It's nothing really. Just a dream..."

"Did your dream regard the oomans?

"Well, possibly."

"Is now the time to tell me about it?"

"NO! I mean." She held herself and turned her back to him. "It was only a silly dream. It was nothing."

"If it was nothing it wouldn't bother you like this. Did it have something to do with the hard meats? After I mentioned the oomans possibly having a Queen the dream effected you. Do they have a Queen? If they do you must tell me."

"I dreamt that they did. But it was only a dream."

"Our kind are sometimes blessed with the gift of premonition. If you saw that they will have a Queen then."

"Don't be stupid Katel." She spat and started to walk off. "I'm sorry. I didn't meant to shout at you like that. And I didn't foresee that they would have a Queen. I saw that my friend was a queen and she is human so that isn't true. When I sleep my mind likes to either give me nice pleasant dreams or horrid nightmares. I had a nightmare and that is all I want to say about it. it has happened and I want to put it behind me and forget about it. alright?"

"Of course. And you are right, your friend is human so she can not be a queen. Only a female hard meat can be a Queen." Katel walked up to her and put his clawed hands on her shoulders. He gave them a comforting squeeze and led her to the training room. "But we still must train encase it is a Queen. If it is then we will be alerted by the monitors once it is activated."

"What do you mean activated?" she watched him as he pulled a spear from the wall. The room was golden with a misty fog on the ground. Large gold pillars encircled the huge room and the door closed, to make her feel like there was no way out.

"When a Queen is mature her signature changes and the ship's sensors are set to identify that signature. Until then, let's begin."

"Huh? What!" Katel threw the spear at her and only just barely missed.

This is going to be one long, long day!