It’s dangerous, the tech. I know that now, and part of me doesn’t want anything to do with it. I don’t think I want this responsibility.
He lifts me and turns my body to face him. “I know,” he says with a throaty rasp.
“Then why?”
“Because what you said was true—mates shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. Are you ready, Gemma?”
I swallow, look at the scuffed door, the forest behind us, and even the sky. I look to the wispy clouds and the faraway twinkle of stars beginning to emerge behind them.
To the bright moon ascending and the giant warship I know is hiding behind it.
I recall the way the Lurkers looked in the video, their leathery, scaled flesh. Their reptilian features. Their black, emotionless eyes.
“I’m ready,” I say.
Vruksha pushes the door open, and darkness greets us.
Epilogue
Vruksha
Two weeks later.
“I choose you today, Vruksha,” Gemma yawns, stretching in our nest. Her breasts rise as she takes in a deep breath, teasing me to play with them. I do, often. The marks around her nipples are proof enough for that. They’re pink and swollen, perking up to meet the tips of my claws and my rough fingertips.
I show her my love with caresses and sweet kisses. I make her take my love with daily vicious rutting, and my unending need to spill my soul inside her.
“And you, female,” I groan, tickling my tailtip between her legs where she’s wet. She’s always wet. I think my scent makes her that way but I’m not sure… If I want her, and she’s not in the mood, I pull her close to breathe me in, and she melts—always. She opens up like a flower. But if my seed isn’t trickling from between her legs from our last rutting, she’s wet from my saliva, if not arousal. I am a lucky male.
A hungry one as well.
I rise over her as she opens her bleary eyes. She spreads her legs with another yawn, and I push my tailtip into her relaxed sheath. I reach down and pull out my shaft, curling my fingers around the bulge in the middle. It never gets large anymore. It never has a chance to, not with my Gemma.
But she is much smaller than me, and we are different species. No matter how much, or how rough we get, I have to coax her body to accept me. She’s tight, cursedly so. I do not want to bring her discomfort when all I feel is sweet agony when her brow furrows and accepts me.
I ready her now, pumping my tailtip in and out. She grips me, quivering around it.
“Vruksha,” she moans, lifting her arms above her head, threading her fingers into her messy hair.
It’s enough to make me spill. It’s enough to make any male insane. My seed shoots out all over her breasts and stomach and I hiss, annoyed. I wipe the clear, watery seed off her stomach.
Gemma smiles lazily at me and spreads her legs further. Her little hole constricts.
“Female,” I rasp. “You tease.”
I slip out my tail and sink my fingers deep inside her to rub the spot that makes her squirm and balk. When she does, when she writhes, I replace my fingers with my prick, thrusting hard.
She gasps, tensing, and I snarl. I spill again, and her legs hook around me, keeping us locked.
It’s the last straw. I drop my weight, trapping her, thrusting violently. I take my mate the way I need to. I take her until there’s nothing left in her entire world but me, and only me. I thrust until she’s screaming, until any trace of sleep is banished from her body. And when she clenches around me, making me roar, I flood her full of seed.
She’s kept her promise.
She’s stayed.
And every day her laughter gets louder, her smiles more forthcoming, and I find that laughter and smiles have returned to me as well. I want them always.
I also want her screams.
She’s a well-loved mess by the time I rise off her.
“Now I’m not going to be able to walk again today,” she moans, bringing a pelt up to her chin, throwing her leg over the side of it. “I have so much work to do, dammit!”
“Tell me what you want done, and I will do it.” I turn on the burner to heat the bunker. It’s closer to our nest now. Gemma has rearranged everything in the weeks we have been home.
Gone are the stacks of crates, the makeshift spaces between, and the items I collected over the years. Everything worth keeping, we moved into the tunnels, cleaning out the space. Now, the bunker is segmented with different ‘spaces’ down the long length, with a straight path to the back where our nest lies.
Gone are the baubles that don’t work and the flashlights that no longer have batteries. Now there’s only stuff we need—or stuff Gemma wants to fix. The walls are covered in pelts she didn’t want to use as blankets, and even the flickering lights have been taken down.
There are only dim lights now, and we know we will have to find a better source of light at some point when those die too.
But that’s for another day.
“I wanted to start going through the crates we removed and empty them. It’ll be good to have empty boxes at our disposal,” she says this lying back and yawning again, loudly.
“Easy enough.”
“I need another bath now too.”
“Yes. You do.” She is covered with my spill. It glistens her skin.
She needs a bath every day, apparently, and taking her to the creek has gotten easier. I rarely bathed before she entered my life, but now I swim with her each day. Water is foreign to
