Ita'thalla

My apologies, yet again, for being absent so long. Don't worry, I fully intend to finish this story, I'm not gonna leave you guys hanging. Final exams were crazy for me, summer got busy, and one or two paragraphs just didn't look right until being re-written about a hundred times. In any case....enjoy

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Eric had only a second to register Kita flying through the air, completely naked with her knees tucked to her chest, braid trailing behind her, before she hit the water's surface, blinding him with a torrent of water. Wiping his eyes and snorting to clear his nose, he turned in bewilderment to the bubbling that indicated where she'd impacted the surface. And she'd gotten angry at him for doing that to her? Granted, he was already wet, but still, after the argument about acting like a kid...wait, where was she? The bubbling had subsided, and there was no sign of her. Eric looked around, searching for any hint at where she'd surfaced. How long could she hold her breath anyways? If she didn't come up any time soon...

Four very light pinpricks on the side of his neck immediately caught his attention, freezing him instantly.

"It would be so easy..." he heard a low predatory voice whisper into his ear "To just slit your throat. You'd be dead from loss of blood within, as you'd say, minutes."

Eric gulped nervously as the claws tightened ever so slightly. "Uh...Kita? What...are you doing?"

"Or..." she said softly, suddenly moving the hand up to the side of his chin, her other hand on the back of his head as she pulled him against her. "I could snap your fragile little neck. Leave you here to drown, unable to move anything below your chin."

"Hah...right..." he stammered, unable to move a muscle. He could feel her warm breath on his ear, her soft breasts pressed up against his back. However, there were other more pressing matters at hand! Had he really gotten her that angry with his cannonball stunt?

"So many different ways to kill you..." she drawled. Eric winced as she leaned forward and lightly nipped the base of his neck with her fangs, not hard enough to draw blood but still making the message very clear. "I've lost track of just how many I've ended this way...Never even seeing the face of the one that took their life. Not that it would matter, a kill is a kill..."

"Kita, you're uh...scaring me here," he managed to say, frantically trying to figure a way out of her death grip.

"Oh don't worry...it will all be over soon." She purred into his ear, and his stomach dropped as he felt her inhale and...

Give him a very wet sloppy lick across his ear.

Eric clapped his hand to the side of his face to wipe off his ear, cursing before he realized that Kita had released him and was now leaning against the bank laughing uncontrollably. Eric stared at her, flabbergasted as his mind fought between indignant anger and utter confusion, his heart still racing from her death grip on him.

"You...you should have heard the way your heart was beating!" she finally managed, calming down. "I really had you there!"

"Kita!" he finally found the words to speak. "That wasn't funny! I thought you were actually angry with me and were going to...well..."

"What, you never got into a play fight when you were young" she replied, mimicking his tone from earlier and giving him that kitten eyes look again.

"No, well, I mean, I..." he stuttered. Why was she able to pull off that look so easily, especially after everything she'd done moments earlier? Those golden eyes were way too effective to belong to a killer. Especially when they were wide and dilated like that...wait. He suddenly recalled the last time he'd seen those eyes, a night involving some very unusual fire wood. This coupled with the strange playful tone in her voice made an almost audible click in Eric's mind as he realized what was going on.

"Oh you have got to be joking!" the words inadvertently escaped his lips.

"Of course!" she replied, moving towards him. "You don't think I'd actually have done any of that to you." Eric bumped up against the bank at the other side of the inlet, realizing that unconsciously he'd been backing away from her. She stopped just a foot short of him. "You see" she continued with a mischievous smile "I like you."

Eric blinked. "Hah...Really?" was the only response he could manage in the current situation. She'd already shown just how unpredictable she could be when she was hopped up on catnip, and he had no idea where she was going now. On top of that, those eyes, the smile, the dripping wet hair framing her face, her breasts rising into view as she stepped into shallow water, it was all very, very, distracting.

"Of course..." she purred, then feigned a look of sympathy. "Oh, what's wrong, still shaken?" she suddenly placed her hands on the bank behind him, ducking down to put her ear right up to his chest. Eric drew a sharp breath as her hair brushed across his skin. "Yes, you are! Still a little too much excitement for you?" she inquired playfully, turning her head to look right up at him.

You have no idea, he thought.

"Well then..." she continued, rising up so that her eyes were level with his, their noses almost touching. "Maybe we should...what was it you said, 'lighten the mood'?"

"What...exactly did you have in mind?" he asked unsteadily. Eric was grateful that throughout this, she hadn't pressed up against his body. Not even the cold water was putting a damper on his "excitement", something that thankfully remained hidden as the water level was just a little higher than his navel at the moment. Somehow she'd managed to make him go from being scared out of his wits to being just as aroused as he'd been the previous night in the space of a few minutes.

"Oh I'm sure you can guess at what I have in mind..." she said, backing up slightly but moving her hands from the bank behind him to the sides of his face. Time seemed to stand still for him as he stared at her, the water droplets in her hair glistening in the sunlight as she smiled at him, a true vision of beauty. Abruptly time resumed as he suddenly found himself underwater, the victim of a very rapid and effective dunking.

Spitting out a mouthful of water as he surfaced, Eric yet again cleared his eyes of water as the sound of Kita giggling reached his ears. He turned towards her and brought his arm up just in time to shield his eyes from another spray of water. Kita lazily floated away from him, shoulders low in the water and a devilish look on her face. He stared at her incredulously. Even though he knew why she was acting like this, it was still just such a departure from the normal that he was having trouble comprehending it.

"What's the matter?" she taunted, suddenly stopping and lobbing another scooped handful of water at him. "Weren't you the one who was asking for a water fight?"

"I..." he started, caught off guard. He HAD been the one that started this, in a left handed sort of way. The only nagging question at the back of his mind was what exactly would happen if things got out of control? Although, she had already indicated that she didn't want to hurt him, even after getting him into a very vulnerable position, and besides...Another splash of water caught him off guard.

Oh to hell with it.

Extending one arm out with his palm flat, fingers closed, Eric swept it across the surface of the inlet like an oar, sending a cascade of water towards Kita, eliciting a peal of laughter from her. The next few minutes were a blur of splashing and laughing as the two exchanged salvos of water, playing a game of cat and mouse as they switched between guarding themselves and soaking the other.

Suddenly Kita threw her hands up and yelled "Wait! Wait!" turning around. "Water in my eyes!" she said, gasping for air as she tried to stop laughing, clearing water and hair out of her face with one hand.

Eric folded his arms, grinning, his earlier scare with her completely forgotten. "Had enough?"

Kita's responded by straightening her legs, popping her shapely rear end out of the water to flick water at him with her tail. Eric laughed, covering his eyes. "Hey, no fair! That's fighting dirty!"

Kita stopped flicking water at him, settling back down in the water with her back still turned to him. "No, but THIS IS!" she stood and whirled around, and Eric barely had time to turn his head and close his eyes as a mud ball smacked into the side of his head, knocking him off balance into the water.

Kita giggled at first, seeing the bubbles where he'd gone under, but then stopped when he didn't come up. "Eric?" she said aloud, never mind the fact that there was no way he'd hear her under there. A swirl of water around her knees made her grin as she remembered her earlier trick. So he thought he could sneak up on her? She spun around, preparing to catch him...

Only to hear a splash of water behind her as he surfaced and circled her waist with his arms. Eric grinned over her shoulder as he saw that his feint had worked. Kita laughed, grabbing his wrists, her tail snaking around his waist. "Very clever, but what now?" She knew she was taller and heavier than he was, so what did he expect to do from this position?

For a second he appeared to let go. What was he...

"EEEEE! NO! NOT FAIR!!! HAHAHA!!!" Kita yelled as he dug his fingertips into her sides, tickling without mercy as she squirmed and tried to get out of his grip. The awkward angle made it near impossible, and she finally lost her footing and fell backwards on top of him, still gasping for breath as she flailed around. The two fell into a heap in the water, floundering for a moment before making it to a more shallow part of the inlet. Kita pulled herself up against the bank, gasping for breath before turning around to find Eric just inches away, his hands on the bank on either side of her shoulders.

Kita blinked. Somehow he'd put her into the same situation that she'd inflicted on him earlier. He stared right into her eyes, his breathing heavy with exertion, a wild grin on his face. She smiled back at him slyly, slipping her hands under his armpits to grab his shoulders from behind. "Oh, so you caught me again? Well if you take me down, you're going under with me!" To emphasize the point, she pulled him closer.

He only just managed to stop himself from falling on top of her. Their noses brushed as he regained his balance, causing them both to freeze as their eyes locked. He'd been in this position once before the previous night, the sudden interruption that had stolen the opportunity from him. And now he found himself here again. Dare he...?

Their noses brushed again. Was he imagining things, or did she pull him closer? The sounds of the river and the forest faded into nothingness as he listened to her breathing, still just as heavy as his. She still had her hands on his back, still hadn't pushed him away. His heart skipped a beat as he felt pressure on his back, drawing him close so that they were touching again. Tentatively he brushed her lips with his own, waiting for her to finally push him away, yell at him, or worse. No...her hands were still on his back, still holding him there. It was now or never. Closing his eyes, he took one last deep breath before going for it.

She didn't react to the first kiss. Later it would occur to him that she probably had no idea what was going on, but since she hadn't freaked out on him, he pressed on anyways. The second one however...his heart leaped as she pulled him closer, her intensity making up for the clumsiness as she tried to mimic his kiss. He groaned as he felt her breasts flattened against his chest, the soft velvety fur covering her body, her perfectly toned abdomen pressing his engorged shaft against his own stomach.

And then it was over. She suddenly broke the kiss and pushed him away, the suddenness of it causing him to stumble back, nearly winding up underwater again as he worked to regain his footing. Finally stabilizing himself, he looked back to see a look somewhere between shock and confusion on her face, her eyes wide...and no longer wild and dilated as she stared back at him.

Oh shit

"Kita...I uh..." he tried to find the words as she blinked a few times, the same look still on her face. "I can explain..."

"What...just happened?" she asked, unsteadily.

That's it. I'm dead.

He thought, trying to figure out if there was any way he could talk himself out of this, or escape her. But how the hell was he going to manage that? He'd just taken advantage of a deadly alien while she was under the influence of some kind of psychoactive substance, and now she'd come to! Never mind the moral implications, this was the kind of thing that earned people a Darwin award!

"The last thing..." he jumped as he realized she was speaking again. "The last thing I remember, I was walking back, and there was something that caught my attention." she said, not really looking at him anymore. "I don't remember what it was though..." she said, shaking her head.

"Was it..." he said in a very high pitched voice before clearing his throat and starting again. "Was it...a tree of some kind?"

She blinked. "Yes. It was." she was staring back at him again. "How did you know?"

"When you got back, you were acting .kind of like you were that one night. With the cards." Eric managed to stammer out, his heart about to explode as he waited for her reaction.

"It was the scent that caught my attention..." she said slowly, then looked at him sharply. "Wait...was it THAT kind of tree?"

"Hey, it wasn't my fault this time!" he held his hands up defensively. "I took out all of that wood from our pile, you're the one who walked into it!"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. I did. I guess...I'll just have to watch out for it from now on." Turning around, she pulled herself up the bank, water streaming off her lithe body as she got to her feet. "The clothes are probably dry by now" she said over her shoulder. "I'm going to lie down for a bit to dry off. Let me know when you're done."

Eric was too dumbfounded to really appreciate the figure she posed as she walked away. Had he really just gotten away with that? He sat in the water for another fifteen minutes, the recent events playing through his mind over and over again as he tried to figure out how he'd escaped that one, and why she hadn't commented on the awkward circumstances she'd apparently awakened to.

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Not looking back at the human still in the water, Kita bent down to retrieve the survival blanket that was wrapped around the pistol. Placing the weapon next to the blanket and the pile of clothes belonging to Eric, she grabbed her own garments before walking a short distance to a large slab of rock next to the river bank, spreading out the blanket and lying down to let the sunlight dry her. She stared blankly at a fluffy white cloud overhead, far more innocent than the ones that had assaulted them the previous day.

She remembered everything

Yes, she'd been acting strange for a while. The leaves from the tree had done something to her, made her act like...well, like a cub. However, they hadn't had as strong of an effect as the smoke from the fire, and she not only remembered everything, but actually had some control over what she was doing. The flying "cannonball" as he'd called it, had seemed the most appropriate revenge in return for what he'd done to her, especially when he had no idea what was going on. And her play stalking of him after wards....it still seemed kind of funny in retrospect, even if she had been threatening him with fatal consequences.

She knew she was being provocative when she followed him into the shallows by the bank. The water only came up to her stomach and she'd already learned how much human males liked the chest of a female. She didn't need to put her ear to his chest to hear his heartbeat, but she'd done it anyways, not just to make him squirm, but also to satisfy the curiosity of touching him again. It was odd, the way he had only a sparse covering of hair across his body, but his skin...the texture was definitely alien, but it was soft, and not at all unpleasant to the touch. And while he wasn't as developed as a ketral male, she could feel the musculature beneath, obviously developed by his training in his own military.

From that point onward, she'd slowly regained her senses. He'd rapidly figured out earlier what she'd run into while she was out attending to business. Maybe she'd still been a little loopy, but she had decided to keep playing along, seeing where it would lead. Because as much as she hated to admit it, it was fun. It had been how long, since she'd really been able to just enjoy something like that? She couldn't remember. It would have to have been before she'd even reached maturity. When she was, indeed, just a cub. She had enjoyed it.

And when she'd resorted to fighting dirty, and he'd responded by tickling her. She didn't know why, but it was endearing. It wasn't a particularly affectionate gesture, but it definitely wasn't hostile either. It was downright cheeky. And it had made her laugh, yet again. After all these years of never laughing, partly due to not having anything to laugh about, in the space of a few days with this human she'd found her sense of humor again. She'd spoken to him without worrying about the protocol of family, house, rank...they just talked. She'd let him in on parts of her past she'd never spoken to anyone about. Parts that were sometimes painful to bear alone.

She remembered when he'd cornered her. She hadn't noticed it before, but his eyes were almost the exact same color as the storm clouds that had assaulted them the day prior. Very different from the gold or brown color that was common to her people. Rarely her kind had blue or even green colored eyes, but never the iron gray color she saw in his. It was exotic. That voice in the back of her mind had also been acting up again, yelling at her and asking why she was this close to him, but she had been unable to pull away. She remembered the previous night in the cave, the first time when he'd gotten this close. She'd recalled what he'd done to her then, how things had gotten way out of hand and yet...she'd liked it. She had wanted to know more. What would happen if she didn't push him back? If she let him continue?

He'd seemed to want something, but also seemed uncertain. Like he'd pull away at any moment. She'd meant to just hold him there, to make sure he didn't, but she'd accidentally almost pulled him on top of her. The moment they touched, it was just like the previous night. Except this time, there was no interruption. At first, she'd been confused, and maybe just a little disgusted. Mouth to mouth contact? With a human? It was appalling. It was gross. It was....

Incredible. It was incredible. Something about it...it sent shivers down her spine, all the way to the end of her tail. She pulled him closer, trying to imitate what he was doing. She wanted more. The position was unusual, as Ketrals usually did....well, they were usually in a different position for mating. But she could feel his organ pressed against her stomach, and it sent shivers through her body, culminating in a spot just below her navel. Wait, had it really been that big when she'd last seen it? That was interesting... and worrying at the same time.

And then that voice of common sense in the back of her mind finally got through. She'd pushed him back, the implications of what she'd just done sinking in. She'd realized just how awkward this situation was as he stared at her, so she'd tried the first bluff she could think off. Thankfully, it had worked. She was used to having to improvise actions on the spot, but this was the first time she'd had to lie like this. She'd been afraid that her acting wouldn't be good enough to convince him that she'd been blank the whole time. He'd gone along with it though, and as far as he knew, she didn't remember a thing past when she'd encountered the strange tree.