Vruksha
Gemma plans on leaving me.
I see it in her eyes every time she wakes to eat, have her bandages changed, or tries to take a step. I’m always there to catch her when she falls.
My only comfort is seeing her on the mend. It has been over a week since I carried her limp, lifeless body back to my bunker, and in the days since, she has gotten better—stronger—every day.
Some of the fury, the guilt has lifted watching her get better. But it will never fully go away. I hope it never does.
I failed.
She was wounded… Wounds that, if I had been more diligent, if I had been keener, she would have never received. Zhallaix should have never been able to sneak up on me. He should have never been close to Gemma. I’m not comforted by his death, but I am glad I won’t have to worry about him any longer.
No wonder she chose another male over me.
She’s all I think about. My mind is clouded with thoughts of her. It’s a poor excuse though it is true. She is my weakness. I have never been weak before, not until she entered my world. Now, it is all I am.
I’ve had plenty of time to think while she healed. I’ve spent so much time watching her sleep, lost in thought as I’ve tried unclouding my mind.
Flicking my eyes over her, she’s burrowed in the soft pelts of my many, many kills. She’s chosen the thinnest pelt to use as a dress since her clothes are beyond repair. They had plastered to her skin from blood and sweat, and I had to tear them off with my fangs to undress her. Now they are nothing but shreds of cloth buried deep in the ground.
I curl my finger under a strand of her hair and twirl it.
The thought of her leaving worries me.
She only has one place to go…
Back to the facility where there’s a ship to take her to the stars. Far, far from me. To a place I couldn’t follow her. Not unless she takes me with her.
A soft moan escapes her parted lips, stealing my attention. She is so beautiful that it hurts. Staring at her in my nest, where she’s firmly mine, I can’t imagine not having her here. I do not want to gaze at the stars and wonder where she is among them.
It’s true what I told her. Loneliness hurts, especially since I know what it’s like to not be that way. Especially when, until recently, there was no hope for anything but a lonely existence.
I gently pull her hair from under her head and span it out on the fur above. I work the tangles out of her strands. Worshiping her this way eases me. I can’t keep her knowing she is hurting, but I can have this. I can groom her to my heart’s desire. She is in my nest, after all, and a naga male is king to his nest.
But I nearly lost her. Again.
The recollection of her on the mountainside, curled, bloody, and trapped with nowhere to go sickens me. With the amount of blood and her pallor flesh, I thought she had died, but she’s a fighter, my female, and she managed to survive long enough for me to find her.
I kiss her hair, breathing in her scent.
A shiver streaks through me, hardening me with lust.
How can I lose her again? She wants to go back to her humans. To her puny males. To a world where she is clearly not treated like the precious jewel she is. She has told me some about her life, and it sounds miserable. I am better than what awaits her there.
So why does she want to go back?
I pull away and find her looking at me when I do.
“Vruksha,” she says my name with a softness that rends my heart into pieces.
“I did not mean to wake you.”
Her face scrunches cutely, and she brings her hands up to rub the sleep from her eyes. In doing so, her pale breasts lift upward. They beg to be devoured and suckled until peaked, but I hold off, knowing she is not ready for such attention.
“I’d like to try and walk again today.”
I grab the cup with my tail and hand it to her. “After your bath. I’ve made you some tea.”
She pushes it away. “Not today. That stuff makes me sleepy, and I want a clear head today.”
I put the cup away. I like her sleepy, I like her like this, needing me. If she’s awake and alert, she may want to take risks again, and knowing her, she needs to be watched at all times because of this.
I’ve learned.
“Later then,” I say.
Gemma rises from my nest, sitting up. Her silky, wavy hair falls around her shoulders to tease me. Her strands caress and brush her upper breasts, her tips, and my mouth waters. But I still don’t push her into my furs and devour them.
It’s taken days for her to be comfortable enough to be naked around me.
And as an obsessed male, her nudity tortures me constantly.
I like her needing me so, but burning tech, I want her healthy again so she will let me spill my seed inside her. I need to claim her, to reassure my soul she is well. I need to cover her, coil my tail around her, and clear my head of the dark thoughts of possessing her.
She nearly died.
If I had not gotten there in time...
Gemma grabs her dress-pelt and wraps it around her body, tying the lanks I’d cut days earlier to keep it in place. I hand her the other ties so she can position the pelt more securely. She moves to rise, and I catch her in my arms.
She gasps. “I wanted to try walking.”
I cradle her close, carrying her away from my nest to the tub of water I have waiting. “Bath first.”
“But I just dressed.”
“Perhaps you ssshouldn’t have.”
She grumps and kicks her
