as I strove to reach the fruit that hung over eighty feet in the air.
I moved until I was there, and I saw the flies were dining on the fruit as I expected, but there was one that had only a few around it.
I wasn’t sure if they’d bite me or not, and while I didn’t care if it hurt, I cared about them somehow incapacitating me and never being able to return to my woman.
So, I went for the fruit that was the least surrounded.
It was plum-sized, but the flies, though tiny, like flying peridots, shone like LEDs, giving the fruit a disproportionate appearance.
I eyed it, its flesh morphing from the green of a Granny Smith apple to the bright red of a strawberry. It had the coloring of a mango, I guessed, but there was something a thousand times more vibrant about it.
It had a thick stalk that connected it to the tree, and I raised my hand, studying the movement of the flies to discern when I could snatch it off the stem.
They moved in a counterclockwise motion that was close to transfixing, but I focused, knowing my woman needed me.
I felt sure this was the answer.
That I’d been led here for a reason.
I sucked in a breath and snatched the fruit.
The flies buzzed angrily, the sound so much more than they should have been capable of for their size, but when they darted away to another one, I sighed with relief.
Tucking the stem, which was still connected to the fruit, between my teeth, I made the long journey down the tree in record time—i.e. quicker than I’d made it up there—and rushed over to Sabina.
She was still alive, thank the Mother, but she was sluggish.
Limp.
I sighed with relief though, and tugged off the stem, before I dug into the fruit with my thumbs, tearing it apart.
The blood that spilled from it almost had me jerking in astonishment.
It wasn’t juice. Wasn’t even the flesh of fruit.
It was human flesh.
The sight was repulsive, the smell was too, and even though I wanted to back away, I couldn’t.
I was compelled to offer it to Sabina.
As it hovered in front of her nose, her eyes opened. She was confused, sleepy and exhausted from blood loss, but at the scent of the most repulsive fruit I’d ever seen—and I’d tasted fresh durian—she snapped her jaws at it, almost biting me in the process.
She gnawed on that damn thing like it was a fresh kill, and even released a soft burp as she settled back on her side.
I sat on my haunches, hoping for a fucking miracle, but when it didn’t come, I had no idea what to do next.
She was sleeping, wasn’t restless, and just as I started to despair that nothing would work, I heard them.
The buzz. I recognized it.
A swarm was coming toward us. I wanted to grab her and run away from them, but I’d taken the fruit, and that was what they wanted.
Damn!
No matter where I took her, now that she’d eaten it, they’d come after us.
I woke up with a bang, only just realizing that I’d been in a daze.
I felt the control of someone else, and though it could have been a malevolent power, I felt certain it wasn’t.
That didn’t fill me with faith, however.
My supposedly sound reasoning had seen me climb a tree, pick a fruit, and feed said fruit to my mate.
My injured mate.
A piece of fruit that could be poisonous for all I goddamn knew.
I shook my head at myself and started to wave my arms, uncaring now if they gnawed on me, wanting them only to avoid Sabina.
But no matter what I did, the swarm, which felt like every single bug from the tree had come to visit, surrounded her in a cluster.
She was one big ball of light, and whenever I tried to wave them away, free them from her, she yipped at me.
In truth, that gave me hope, so with nothing else to do other than wait, I decided to watch and worry at the same time, because that yip?
Told me not only was she not asleep anymore, not dazed, she was okay with what was happening.
And I had to have faith.
Even though it was really goddamn hard to have that right about now.
The light was blinding, enough to brand my eyes with the glare, and I wanted to look away, but fear told me that if I did, she might not be there in the next second.
I had