Shay flees the sexy snake man and loses her makeup. He realizes she's better looking without it. Curtis moves up the evolutionary ladder and discovers FIRE--or, rather, cooking with fire.

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Alas, Shay had never been the type to be okay with sitting around when she had a problem, even if all she could do was stress herself out sick trying to think of just how to solve said problem.

So that's what she did. She stood up and started walking around, careful of her tender ankle and hugging her middle as her stomach churned.

Can't just run for it, can I? She looked out the cave and tried to remember which side of her the sun had been when she'd been totted away. But barring aside the fact that the chest and arms had been completely ripped, the ethereal features and the giant snake ass were distracting enough. Looking at the sun had been the least of her worries. Not to mention night was almost near and she had already pushed her ankle pretty far. At this rate, it would probably give out.

With that thought, she sat back down, or at least, she did her best without getting gravel in her butt again.

"Stupid, freaking fur mini-skirt." If it weren't for the fact she was captured by a man, she'd tear that stupid thing off and go in her panties. But, for all she knew, just showing that much more skin really did it for a man in this wonked up place. "Holes in the fur my ass, why can't they just use that cotton?"

The blood rushed out of her face as that thought hammered the last nail into her coffin.

Forget not having pads, this world's' estrous cycle' was essentially the same as being in heat to these males. Like the reptile needed any more reason to force himself on her.

Screaming started up in her thoughts, feeding the hysteria she had just beaten down.

"No, no, breathe, this isn't going to fix anything." She pressed her hands hard over her ears and closed her eyes, forcing her breath to slow down. Okay, first, realistically speaking, if --and she hung on the 'if' like a drowning man to a life line--he rapes me, he seems to be gentle enough not to make it one of those hit and kill affairs, not to mention he isn't the same species as me so there isn't any guarantee at all that I'll get pregnant.

Because that would have completed the ultimate nightmare right there: being forced to birth a den of squirming baby snakes. Sure she had no aversion to snakes--she'd help her uncle catch garter snakes to keep as pets--she certainly wasn't up to birthing them.

Shay shuddered.

Running blindly into the night was sounding better and better.

The inevitable conclusion was that sitting here left her with no hope. Running for it left her with a string of it.

Then she remembered the shadows in the hole by the village where she had found the skin. She had been thinking of it because of how much prettier the scales had become in the sun once she'd climbed out, like the finest costume satin. And the village had been...

West.

Light from the set sun still grayed the sky. She reached for that grayness as she left the cave, starting at a careful trot which inevitably turned into an all-out sprint as the carefully controlled panic burst forth.

Her ankle panged. She stumbled. A tree scraped her hands as she caught herself, then used it to push off into a gamboling run.

She'd hardly gotten far at all when a burst of rustling leaves brought a hard coil of muscles about her waist. The jerk of it lifting her knocked the air from her lungs, turning her scream into a guttural "Ack."

Her back hit a chest, followed by arms around her shoulders and waist.

"Caught you."

Shay turned to stone. Thoughts of beatings and other violent horrors rushed through her mind--

"Blood?"

Her hands flew to cover her crotch instinctively, but only one made it. His unyielding strength caught the other.

A long, thin forked tongue flicked out, brushing against her scraped palms.

"You tripped. How are your feet?" And ignoring her squawk, he lifted up her leg. "Wait, one of your ankles is swollen. At least you have shoes." His tongue flickered up the sore ankle, before sucking back into his frown. "Such strange shoes..."

But they only seemed to capture his attention briefly as he then sighed and brought her closer, tucking her head over his shoulder like a child.

"I should have taken you hunting with me. Then you wouldn't have been hurt."

Something stuttered in her chest.

He pulled away to adjust her in his arms, only to pause.

"Your face..."

Shay remembered her make up.

Crap! I sweated!

She rushed to cover her face, but he stopped her.

"No, wait, let me..."

His thumb, unnaturally smooth and cool, swiped at her cheeks, over her nose, then over her brow line. The more he wiped away, the wider his eyes became.

"Shay...you're a beauty...I thought your eyes were pretty, but..."

Once more, she wondered how weird this world must be if a few painted on freckles could hide something like that.

But if she had hoped his moment of softness would set her free, she was sorely mistaken.

No sooner had they reached his den than he caged her against the wall with his arms. The ride over had given her enough time to recover her bearings enough to regain some of her good ol' fashion wit.

"Is this meant to be intimidating?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "What part about me isn't intimidating? And yet you try to run nonetheless."

"It was either sit here and do nothing or run and maybe accomplish something."

"Such as what?" he leaned in further, amusement bouncing in his eyes.

Shay couldn't possibly imagine what he found so entertaining about her all a sudden.

"I don't know, not getting forced to give birth to snake babies is one."

The quirk to his mouth fell.

"Forced? The only reason I desire offspring is if it will make you love me. Females are the ones who love children, are they not?"

I stiffened. "Females love to not be forced into marriage either."

Curtis gave a long-suffering sigh and pushed off from the wall, giving her space, though the long serpentine half of his body only pushed against her legs.

"Give me time to prove myself."

"Prove for what?"

"That I can make you happy. Prove myself worthy of your love. You're so quick, jumping in before I've even finished. You're especially smart, aren't you?"

Shay didn't grace that with an answer. "And if I don't fall in love with you?"

The quirky smirk returned and he swept back down, brush that long, thin tongue against her lips quicker than she could register that his face had come that close.

"That's not a possibility."

His breath across her face rank of something cold, humid, and moist, like the inside of a filmy cave. It had no warmth.

When he finally backed away, Shay's knees gave way and she slid down the wall.

"The fire is almost out," he said after glancing behind him. "Stay here. I shall find you food and then we shall sleep. Don't try to escape again."

And she did so, shivering no matter how close to the fire she got, the skin between her thighs raw from running. What she wouldn't give for pants.

It only seemed to be a mere few moments later when he returned, carrying the largest white fuzzy rabbit she had ever seen in her life. She hardly recognized it as a rabbit at all through the huge white fuzz.

He pushed it into her face. "Eat."

When she did nothing--because, heck, where did she even begin?--he ran his nails across its through, splurting the ground with its blood. It's twitching pink nose went still.

"Eat," he said again, pushing it closer.

She gave him a deadpan stare. "You've never eaten with a female before in your life, have you? And with that face--that's sad."

His brows furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"I can't eat raw meat." She pulled in her legs, her thighs once more riddled with gravel, and sighed. "But I guess if you'll be nice enough to gut it for me I can pull some meat off of it and try to cook it."

But he didn't respond. Rather, he threw more logs on the fire and, using those knife-like extended nails of his, cut and skinned the rabbit faster than she thought possible, accompanied by the horrible crack of bones and joints and snap of skin leaving flesh.

Shay had never been the squeamish kind. But she'd never witnessed skinning and gutting of anything larger than a small river fish and she had to look away, feeling nauseous. Being exhausted and hungry from a day of trauma probably had something to do with that too.

With a comical amount of care, he skewered the rodent and crouched down to hang it over the fire like a marshmallow or a hot dog, tossing the bloody fur to the side. He did so as far back as he could, eyeing the fire warily. Somehow, the macabre sight somehow seemed amusing. Maybe if she kept imagining it as a marshmallow...

Her vision blurred as she waited and watched. Her anxiety had given up for the night, leaving her drained and dazed. Half-formed dreams drifted across her mind as they finally closed, somehow keeping aware of the cold stone beneath her and the burning of her skin that had rubbed too much against itself. She didn't hear him who knew how long later when he announced it was ready.

It was his too-smooth fingertips brushing her jaws that pulled her back up.

"Shay, food."

Somehow, he'd managed to cradle her body amongst his cool coils without waking her. In his hand he held a strip of meat, and held a soft smile that belied his monstrous qualities. It was one Shay had yet to witness, and it momentarily stunned her.

"If you're tired, I can feed you."

She scrambled upright, yanking away from sleep like two strips of velcro.

"I can feed myself."

He handed her the strip of meat and, in that way, she slowly chewed her way through the driest, smokiest, game-iest tasting roast of her life. Rabbit, surprisingly, tasted a lot like chicken and grass.

The moment she announced she was done, he pulled her into his arms. The hard bumps of his muscles was certainly a new experience. The best memories Shay had of hugging men they'd always been soft a squishy, or had a beer gut. The alienly-low temperature helped keep away and ideas of comfort, though.

"Now sleep," he breathed against her head.

And before she could tell him to stop telling her what to do, she was already out.