Unnatural Instinct: Blood Run

4.

You wake slowly and it's like you've never been so warm or comfortable in all your life. Usually you wake up with an aching back and a headache. Your mattress isn't the best and you're generally not a good sleeper. Why last night was so different, you can't explain. You roll onto your back with a contented moan, stretching under your blankets, unwilling to get up to start your day. It's Friday. Only one more day of teaching and the weekend is all yours.

It must be late—the sun beats hotly through your window—but your friend, Annie, has never failed to wake you before.

Nevertheless, a little voice inside you demands you get up—just in case.

'Just a little longer,' you moan to yourself as you roll over again, kicking off the blankets.

You promptly fall back asleep, waking some time later to your own snort and a sharp pang of hunger that makes you sick to your stomach. Birds are chirping. Branches creak and rustle in the breeze. You're sweating now. You can feel a bead of it trickling down your spine. Opening your eyes, you sit up with a start, and suddenly it all comes crashing back.

You're not home!

Walls made of branches and animal hide. A roof made of thatch. One side of the shelter has no wall, opening onto a small, bubbling stream. You're somewhere high up and the vastness of the forest is stretched out below you.

You quickly snatch up the pelts with a shriek, covering your nakedness. He's staring at you, that monstrous male who kidnapped you. He's crouched before a small, smoking fire, poking a stick at a slab of meat hissing and steaming on a flat rock. You remember it now—how he snatched you right from your bed. You remember Annie screaming as he carried you away.

It is an increasingly uncommon but not a rare occurrence. Despite the village's defences, the more desperate males generally discover a way inside, snagging the nearest fertile female they can find. You wrinkle your nose; you'd been menstruating heavily that night. He probably smelled you from miles away.

Your stomach stabs with hunger again. Frowning, you stare at the sizzling meat. You no longer eat meat. None of those in the village do. You've evolved beyond that. Your stomach turns at the sight of the dead rabbit hanging from the roof. It's strung up by a rope tied around its little ankles. It slowly turns, revealing a great gash in its belly and its empty insides. You swallow down a surge of vomit. It slowly turns some more, showing its back. The sight of its fluffy tail brings tears to your eyes.

'How can you do that?' you say. 'How can you just murder something like that?'

No response. Using his stick, he flips over the meat. You look away in disgust, but your mouth waters and you turn back. He picks up the hot meat in his fingers and drops it onto a piece of wood he's smoothed into a board. Next, he grabs up a sharp knife from a string of netted bags hanging down the wall. The blade is made of some kind of bone or tooth. Lowering your face, you surreptitiously study the netted bags and their contents through your curtain of matted hair. There are several knives: some big, some small. All sharp.

From there, he begins sawing through the meat. Blood weeps into the wood and you look away again, only to watch him from the corner of your eye. The muscles in his arms bulge so much. Your muscles don't do that. They're like little hills, wreathed in veins. His thighs are big too, corded and tense as he crouches. He's turned at an angle slightly away from you, concealing his intimate parts, which you're grateful for.

Finished with his task, he slumps onto his arse and drops a chunk into his mouth, chewing with his mouth open. A second follows soon after, which he chews with gusto. You can't help but get the feeling he's teasing you. You lick your lips. Your stomach groans. If that's what he's really doing—it's working. He picks up a third.

Finally, you can't take anymore. 'Can I have some?'

He pauses as he dangles the third chunk of flesh over his mouth. A bead of blood trickles down his fingers and around his wrist. Lowering his face, he holds it out to you, his dark eyes bright beneath his thick eyebrows. Blood and grease make the hair around his lips glint in the sunlight.

Holding the pelts tightly against you, you stand into a half-crouch (the shelter is low) and shuffle over. You're still wearing your shoes and they're still sopping wet, squelching at every footstep. You stop just within reach of his arm and no more. Snatching it from him, you hastily return to the bedding. He licks the trickle of blood from his wrist as he watches you eat.

It's tough and leathery and its bloody stink fills your sinuses, but you're too hungry to care. When you're done, you lick the grease from your hand. You look again at the rest of the meat he's cooked, only partially sated. He watches you, waiting.

You stand again and make your way over. He's not holding it out to you now, so you will have to get up close. Just out of his reach, you pause uncertainly, watching him as he watches you. You reach out your hand. 'Give me another.'

He doesn't move.

'Give me another, please, I'm hungry.'

Silence.

His legs are crossed. His hands lie limp in his lap. There's his mass of hair between his legs but his manhood appears to be tucked away. He's sweaty and dirty and the smell of him makes you wrinkle your nose. There's a streak of blood down his right side. For a moment you wonder how he's hurt himself—you don't remember seeing the blood yesterday—until you suddenly realise: it's not from him, it's from you.

It's day two of your period, one of your heaviest days, and he'd been carrying you over his shoulder without underwear or a sanitary pad for some time. Even now you can feel the pressure in your hips. You can feel the warm, wetness between your thighs. The pelts are probably streaked with it. If they are, it doesn't seem to bother him as he continues to watch you closely, slouched over his lap, ropes of hair dangling in front of his face. To all outward appearances he looks relaxed, far from someone prepared to attack.

Your jaw set, you lower your arm. Danger, danger, rings in your head, but you're so hungry you need to take the risk. Besides, he already has you. If he wants you, he'll take you whether you eat or not.

And he does want you. You can see it in the little quirk in the corner of his mouth. For a moment, he looks surprisingly intelligent.

You try to be quick but his reflexes are astonishing; you shriek as his hand whips out like a snake and seizes your wrist. The next thing you know he's dragging you along the ground like you're something tasty he's caught and is about to devour.

God help you.