Dzar-Ghan (Alien Barbarians of Vandruk #3)

21. Chapter 21

I couldn’t really be mad at him. That man had given me the best orgasm of my life and he was obviously in pain, even if he didn’t want to admit it. I made him swallow two Tylenol and two antibiotics, just in case. I had no clue what this medicine would do to his alien body, but I was sure it wouldn’t be any worse than an infection.

I was wrong.

Very wrong.

Turned out aliens, or this one at least, were allergic to penicillin. His entire face swelled up like a chipmunk’s. So much so that his eyes turned slanted.

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” I apologized. “I’m not a nurse. I’m not even a doctor.” Even to my ears, my apology sounded lame, and I was actually grateful that he didn’t understand me.

I did find some agrodar leaves and was more than grateful I had insisted on saving my bags. I didn’t dare give him a Benadryl, at least not yet, but I kept it handy, just in case. In the meantime, I wrapped the moondust into the leaves so he could cool his face, while I collected water, purifying it with the little pills from my pack.

It took some effort on his part to drink and then eat another MRE, but then he thankfully fell asleep.

I kneeled by his side; guilt riddled my mind and gut, while I stared at his stuffed-looking cheeks. Funny, of all the descriptions I had come up with for him, handsome, chiseled, hard. Cute had not been one of them, but with his swollen cheeks, he did look pretty adorable right now, or maybe that was me projecting my fond memories of Goldi III, one of several hamsters I had owned as a kid, toward him.

With a sigh, I rose, grabbed his sword, and put it back into the makeshift sheath by my hip. I understood Dzar-Ghan’s reluctance about letting me climb the tree, especially after I proved I couldn’t even walk backward without stumbling, but if we were going to stay here—and from the looks of it, that was more than a possibility now, at least for a while—we needed shelter. And I needed a distraction from thinking about him going down on me and how good it had felt. Or how confusing it was. No man had ever done that for me. Just remembering it made me wet again. He hadn’t even demanded for me to reciprocate, which any other man I had ever known would have.

I sent another glance at my sleeping alien and smiled. My sleeping alien, now that was something I could get used to.

I realized I was stalling and turned to the tree. Well, fuck—seemed the new Jenna was very, very fond of cussing. I took a few deep breaths and pumped myself up, hoping I wouldn’t fall, split my head open, or break an arm or leg. Now that would be something neither Dzar-Ghan nor I needed right now. One of us had to be able to get something done around here.

To my amazement, it wasn’t as hard as I had expected. There was a minor incident where I nearly chopped one of my fingers off and, okay, another where, for one precarious moment, I thought I would topple down the tree, but otherwise, it went well. Apart from the third leaf I cut landing on Dzar-Ghan and making him jump up and down until he realized what was going on. After that, he was so enraged about me being up in the tree that his face swelled even more and his wound, of course, began to bleed again.

There was no other way. If I didn’t want to risk him having a heart attack, I had to come down the tree. Anyway, I had cut three of the humongous leaves, which should be good enough for now.

As soon as I reached the ground, we yelled at each other, neither one of us understanding what the other said, but still, the little argument was freeing and seemed to do us both good. In the end, we glared at each other and I pointed at his bandage, indicating I needed to change it again.

He said something that sounded like if it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have to change it that often, but I was sure I was misunderstanding him. My Vandruk wasn’t that good yet. Otherwise, we probably would have ended up yelling at each other again.

Dzar-Ghan’s gaze moved heavenward; he closed his eyes and his chest swelled from the deep breath he was taking. I gave him a moment to collect himself before we changed his bandage and noticed we were running out of gauze. I made a mental note to figure out how to wash the ones we had used already. It would be better if we kept the unused ones clean for now. You never knew when you might end up in a raging river…

Afterward, he insisted on showing me how to put the leaves up and create a makeshift tent. Then I ordered him to sit down while I collected more wood to build a fire. He watched me cautiously and leaned back against a tree. His head was tilted as if he had no idea what I was doing or doubted I would be able to make a fire. Well, you’ll be in for a surprise, buster , I thought and pulled out the fire starter kit from one of my backpacks. It included kindling, but I didn’t need that here. Even after the heavy downpour, I was able to scrape off a few flakes of bark—if that was what it was called—from the narran trees. The shavings were dry enough for me to pile a few branches on top. I had seen the other Vandruk warriors use them for fire, although they seemed to prefer clumps that looked like coal, but I hadn’t been able to figure out where they got them from.

I used one of the magical matches that could be reused a few times, and voila, seconds later, a small fire was burning. I threw a triumphant glance at Dzar-Ghan, who looked like he raised an eyebrow in appreciation at me—it was hard to tell with his swollen face, despite just renewing the agrodar leaves so that the moondust could cool him again.

His expression turned alarmed and he jumped toward me, grabbing my hair, then he extinguished a flame making its way up. Oops.

I should have put it up earlier, like I usually did when I was on an expedition, but with all the hubbub, I had forgotten about it.

“Thank you.” I smiled at him. He closed his eyes and shook his head, but a smile definitely played along his swollen lips.

I stacked more wood—for lack of a better word—to make sure we would have enough to get us through the night, and then I organized the backpacks to check on our supplies while Dzar-Ghan took another nap.

I racked my brain on what to do for him to replenish his blood, but I had next to no idea how that worked exactly in a human body, let alone an alien. I did remember hearing that iron was important, but since this planet was utterly hostile to any kind of metal, I assumed that wouldn’t play a big role here. What I did know, though, was that people after blood loss were supposed to eat meat and fish and I had no reason to believe that this was any different with the Vandruk, which reminded me of my earlier faux pas of chasing off the deer. Oops. I supposed the meat would have come in handy right about now. I also supposed that I would need to toughen up a whole lot if I wanted to make it on this planet. Having Dzar-Ghan’s warriors feed me so far had been nice, but they weren’t here any longer, and Dzar-Ghan and I would have to work together if we wanted to make it out of here, find his warriors or whatever it was he planned on doing once he was better. This meant that sooner or later, I would not only have to watch him kill Bambi. I would most likely have to help him with it and eat it.

Deep in thought, I made my way to the lake to replenish our water supplies. The purification pills were great, but the filter was better since it could be used nearly indefinitely. The drawback to the filter was that it took a long time for it to, well, filter.

I had brought plenty of MREs since they hardly took up any room at all, and while I was organizing the bags, I remembered my clothes and the state they were in after being surrounded by a herd of buffalo and ending up in a raging river and then spending nearly all day in them, climbing trees and whatever. It was time to change, even though I hated the idea of putting on clean clothes, knowing they would only get soiled again. My supply of clothes was limited.

A quick peek confirmed that Dzar-Ghan was still sleeping. It was now or never. Quickly, I changed and decided to wash the dirty clothes in the lake. Since we would stay here for at least a day or two, they would dry, and I wouldn’t have to dig out my third and last set of IC uniforms. They had appeared comfortable enough that apart from my pajamas and underwear, I hadn’t brought any of my other clothing.