Author's Note:

I apologize for the recent lack of updates, life has been pretty crazy for me and not necessarily in good ways. Please enjoy this extra update and double-long chapter, I hope this makes up for my previous absence! Thank you yet again for all your support - all of your votes and comments and reads mean the world to me and inspire me to keep going! Until next time!

Carrying her in his beastman form so Samantha wouldn't need to use her injured hands to hold onto him, Spencer decided to take her to a nearby stream instead of the river he had previously decided upon. He only hoped the water would be cool enough to soothe her burns. Instead of putting her arms around his neck, she held her hands out slightly in order to expose them to the cool, fresh night air. "Spencer?" Samantha asked, sounding unsure of herself, "Why didn't you want me to know you weren't a fox?" He had known this answer was coming, and although he wanted to be honest with Samantha when she asked it, he was beginning to feel ashamed of the reasons he had kept his identity from her. "I'm sorry, Samantha," he murmured into her hair, "I shouldn't have done that. I saw how you reacted to Roger when you interacted with him, and I thought it was his beastman form that scared you. I wanted to get to know you as a female, and I wanted you to feel comfortable around me. That's why I didn't reveal myself." Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, the only sounds besides Spencer's footsteps being the nocturnal creatures of the forest. "So, you were the one who carried me to your den?" Samantha asked slowly. "Yes," he admitted regretfully, "I built it hoping that I could make you happy there, but I should never have deceived you. I didn't want you to be frightened by me the way you were by him." Spencer paused again, waiting for Samantha to say something so that he wouldn't have to admit anything else to her, and to his relief, she did.

"I appreciate that. I really was frightened by him, but I realize now that maybe I shouldn't have been. Where I come from, men, or males as you call yourselves here, are dangerous to, well, females. We call ourselves women, but in a world with so many different races, I can see why you don't do that. It's harder to tell what kind of race a female belongs to. My race is what we call the human race, so that makes me a woman, or a human female. But that's not really what we were talking about. What I mean to say is that in my world, we're extremely frightened of men. Sometimes, they'll kill us out of pure anger just for turning someone down like I would have done to Roger. As a fox, you were much less scary than you would have been had you looked like a man. To be honest, I really loved the time we spent together when you were 'Ao-ao'. I think I'll miss it," Samantha finished, letting her sentence trail off. "I have already missed it," Spencer confessed, "But I'm glad now that we can talk to each other, and I can turn back into 'Ao-ao' anytime you like." He felt her lean her head against his chest, nuzzling it until she found a comfortable position. "You do make a really cute fox," Samantha teased, "So, that would be nice, as long as you don't mind." Spencer smiled and said, "Whichever form I'm in, I'm still me. I'm happy to be with you as a fox or a beastman as long as you're happy, too."

The stream appeared below them as if from nowhere, and their conversation stopped as Spencer gently lowered Samantha to the ground. Tenderly grasping her wrist, he led her to the edge of the water. Samantha squatted down to put her aching hands in the refreshingly cold water, hoping she could still get some benefit from leeching heat away from her burned skin. The water stung both her burns and her open wounds, but before long, her palms and fingers became numb. She began to shiver from the cold, but she kept her hands in the water, and she felt something warm surround her back. Spencer had embraced her from behind, and Samantha began to warm up again. "Thank you," she sighed, touching her head to the one bent down to rest on her shoulder. Finally convinced that her hands were completely numb, she reached to her waist to finally untie her unconventionally-worn pajama pants. "Please, let me," Spencer requested, not wanting her to make the injuries on her hands any worse. He untied the flannel garment for her and pulled it through the bottom of her underwear, where she'd threaded it before to absorb the blood from her cycle. Thankful that he couldn't see the awkward look on her face as she felt the fabric come loose and then drag itself over her sensitive pubic mound, she was still ashamed of the sharp gasp that caught in her throat because of the unexpected sensation.

"Are you okay?" the fox beastman asked. Nodding, she took her stained pants from his hands and submerged them in the water, wanting to seize this opportunity to scrub the bloodstains out of one of her few possessions in this world. Not missing a beat, Spencer gently took her pajama pants and began to rub the stained fabric against itself as he had just seen Samantha doing. Samantha, not wanting to feel helpless, pulled her top over her head and began to wash it as well, not having noticed before how dirty and smelly it had also become since she had regained possession of it. There was obviously no soap to be had, but certainly plain water would do more to rid it of her sweat and body odor than nothing. Hooking the wide neck of her knit top over a rock, she allowed the current of the stream to do some of the work for her as she began to rid herself of her panties as well. If beastmen were used to being naked around each other, she wasn't going to be shy about doing her own laundry. This was the first clean source of water she had seen since her bath at the river, and she was going to take full advantage of it. She stooped again to wash her underwear, not having paid attention to the fact that her naked hips had just been at face-level for Spencer.

Since he had seen her naked plenty of times as Ao-ao with no observable reaction, Samantha felt perfectly comfortable around him with no clothing on. Spencer, on the other hand, was doing his best to keep his composure when he felt her soft curves brush up against him while he vigorously washed the same spot on Samantha's pants for longer than strictly necessary. Noticing in the moonlight that her pants were clean, she took them from Spencer's hands and draped them over a branch not far from the stream, having swapped her undies for them before leaving. She hoped he wouldn't mind, but she was parched and the cold water looked so clear that it was nigh irresistable. She wandered upstream, not noticing the brown fox eyes that followed her. Spencer found himself almost unable to breathe between holding such an intimate piece of clothing and watching the moonbeams embrace Samantha's luxuriously curvy figure. She bent down and cupped her hands under the water's surface, bringing two dripping handfuls of water to her dry lips. She turned her head up as she finished drinking so that she could use her wet hands to wipe her neck. Spencer decided he'd better start washing her unusual article of clothing before she'd had enough to drink and decided to come back.

Samantha lost track of how many times she brought her cold, shaking hands to her face to drink, but after her thirst was quenched, she grit her teeth and decided to wash up a bit more. Scooping up more handfuls of water, she splashed her underarms repeatedly, feeling self-conscious of her smell. Looking back at Spencer, who was somehow still washing her panties, she realized that she was making them both late for dinner, so she picked up the pace. Samantha stepped into the water, and the coldness was both wonderfully soothing on her scratched-up feet and nearly overwhelming when combined with her naked wetness. She crouched in the stream, cleaning both her vulva and her butt while trying to remain thankful for the opportunity. Finally, cleaning her hands once again, she rinsed both under and around her breasts, lifting them as high as she could so that she wouldn't need to make them any more frozen than necessary through repetition. Sticking her hands in the mud one last time, she cleaned them as best she could before getting up to find Spencer. She nearly yelped with surprise when she found him standing next to her, her sopping wet clothes draped over her arms. "It's time to head back," he said, looking into her eyes before lifting her over his shoulder and giving her a fireman-carry lift back to their camp.

St. Benjamin, who had finished off nearly half the venison and a few birds while waiting for Samantha and that fox to return, heard the pair approaching long before he saw them because of the female's teeth chattering. Looking up from the remains of his meal, he saw her legs and bottom completely covered in goosebumps, though he couldn't tell whether the dark, hair-covered lump between her legs had done the same. He pressed his lips into his mouth to taste them once again, and continued to enjoy his eyefuls of naked female. Spencer was so irritated that he was beginning to wonder why St. Benjamin was still around at all. He put her wet clothing on the spikes that had previously held roasting prey, again shooting a dirty look in the scorpion's direction. Spencer could think of no reason for Samantha to have given herself a nighttime bath, but he fetched the untreated deer pelt for her regardless, putting it bloodied side down on his lap closer to the fire and the meat. He pulled his beloved, shivering female from his shoulder and cradled her in his lap. "What would you like to eat, Samantha?" he asked her lovingly. "Don't worry, I can get it," she reassured him; she was already extremely touched by his actions and didn't dare expect more.

"Your hands are hurt," he pointed out. "They feel better after having been in the water; the injuries will turn to calluses after a while, anyway," Samantha responded, "I need to get used to living in this world, and having soft hands won't do me much good when I need to use them to survive." Spencer had no intention of ever letting her hands become rough like his own, but Samantha seemed determined and he was becoming too hungry to argue. Using a claw, he cut off a piece of well-done venison and held it to Samantha's mouth. Looking at him with uncertainty, she opened her mouth and he slid the roasted meat inside. Trying to bite off a piece, Samantha found that the meat was too tough and instead tore the entire piece off his claw. Her eyes were wide as she tried to chew the hunk of dry, bland meat, and she did her best to gracefully pull the remainder into her mouth to chew as well. She did her best to chew, but her jaw quickly grew tired and she gave up, swallowing the mostly-chewed ball in its entirety.

By the time she was done, Spencer had already delivered another piece of venison to her mouth, this time looking for a piece that might be more tender. Instead of opening her mouth again, Samantha took the meat with her fingers and held it to Spencer's mouth instead. "We'll take turns," she said, the smile she graced him with reaching her sparkling eyes. Unwilling to tell her that only mated couples would ever do such a thing, the fox beastman ate the offering from her hand delicately. He had never been fed by a female before, not counting his own mother, and he wanted to be sure not to nip Samantha with his teeth if he got too enthusiastic. He could see St. Benjamin glowering at him from the other side of the campfire, which only added to the joy he felt thrumming through his entire body. Samantha, seeing a drop of fat near Spencer's lips, wiped it off gently with her thumb, her own heart rate beginning to rise as she touched his mouth. Before he could think to do otherwise, the fox licked her thumb gently with his barbed tongue, and returned to feeding Samantha. The two carried on until Samantha got full, though Spencer began to offer her several different kinds of meat to keep the act going if only for a few more minutes.

St. Benjamin had long left the fireside, tossing the unused spikes into the flames in an attempt to distract the others. When even the popping of the greasy wood failed to draw their attention, he returned to the cave to sleep and perhaps to pout. Samantha was getting sleepy now that she had a belly full of food at long last, and although she was still having fun feeding Spencer, she couldn't stop a small yawn from escaping her mouth. Spencer, not full at all, scooped Samantha up in the deer pelt and placed her near the fire, tidying the area and putting out the fire before shifting into his fox form and making quick work of the remainders of the meat. Samantha, not willing to sit still while her companion worked, took the bones from their supper and leaned them up against rocks to dry in the sun the next day. She had just finished placing the smaller bones on top of one of the rocks when she felt a wet nose behind her knees. Spencer stood behind her in his fox form, Samantha's damp pajamas looped over the base of his tail and the deer pelt hanging delicately from his teeth. It was impossible to misunderstand his meaning, and Samantha raised a sore hand to stroke his soft fur before accompanying him into the cave to sleep.