Maxym
MAXYM
My sweet mate slumbers in my nest, curled up next to me, as I cup her stomach protectively. I love the fact I can get the whole little bulge in my hand at the moment, although I’m sure once she progresses, I will need more than one hand.
I cannot wait until she is huge, due to birth, and needs my seed more than ever. Especially as she’s a greedy little mate already. One who took my cocks twice after I nested, and it’s only because she couldn’t stay awake she didn’t get them a third time.
As I gaze on her, watching her body move in time to her breathing, her pretty face wreathed in sleep, her soft skin warm and glowing, I know she is more than mine. She is my everything. When her youngling arrives, it is going to be the most glorious moment of my life.
“Do you really mean that?” Cleo says, her eyelids fluttering open. “About the baby.” She curls her hand around mine.
“Why wouldn’t I feel that way?” I ask, wondering if I said something out loud.
“Because my baby isn’t yours,” she says, water hovering in her eyes.
“But it is yours. It is part of you, and anything which belongs to you is mine,” I growl.
It’s simple. So simple, she shouldn’t even be considering the alternative.
My sweet mate buries her face in my chest. She says nothing but the relief which flows from her is palpable.
“Thank you,” she says eventually.
“Thanks are not required. This is non-negotiable. Even if you didn’t want me to claim the youngling as my own, I will.”
She opens her mouth to protest, but I put a finger over it before moving in for a kiss to remind her I am her mate. When I release her, there are no more protests and no further mentions of what her youngling is to me.
I made my nest next to a small roughhewn sanitary facility, and after we have bathed (as far as we can without proper baths, which I find I miss) and I have made sure she is fully cleansed (something we both enjoy), we dress and return to the small makeshift living area where the Cirmos is producing food including, somehow, fresh baked goods.
She places a tray of them in front of me.
“Nesting is hungry work,” she says with a half smile.
“Yes, it is. So is mating, and my pregnant mate is insatiable,” I respond.
Cleo gasps out my name, covering her mouth with one hand and her little rounded stomach with the other. I put my hand over hers, feeling the swell of her belly. “Tell me it isn’t true,” I murmur.
She attempts to look at me like her eyes are weapons, but other than completely disarming me with their beauty, my Cleo isn’t getting anywhere, so instead she takes one of the rolls from the tray and bites into it ravenously with her blunt little teeth.
My cocks nearly punch through my pants, again.
“Wow, Tibi!” she exclaims. “These are so good. How did you manage it?”
“I can make my food wherever I am.” The Cirmos shrugs. “Here is no exception.”
“I’m very glad for it,” Cleo says with a wide smile on her face.
She radiates pleasure, but not the sort from mating, the sort from being here, with me, with Tibi, and even with Retah. It should make me want to rip things apart, but it does not. It makes me…happy?
I take some of the rolls and follow my Cleo’s lead in consuming them. The soft baked items are as delicious as I was led to believe, made doubly tasty because we were rarely allowed such things in the dome, and the captain had got to most of the bakeries in the area around to stop them selling the things to us.
I can only think his zeal was probably wasted. These things give me energy and vigour like I’ve never felt before.
Or it could be the mating…
“!” Cleo hisses my name and jabs her elbow into my side. She squirms, and the scent of her arousal greets me. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it!”
I wrap my arm around her and press a kiss to her dusty sweet lips. “How can I with you around?”
“You could try not to think those things?”
“I could try, but I don’t want to, not with you so close.” I add another kiss and feel her shudder under my touch. “It is a curse and a pleasure for fated mates to have this link,” I say. “I rather like knowing how much you enjoy my cocks.” I run my claws through her hair.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Cleo says, attempting to hide the smile her mouth wants to make.
“Not where you are concerned, eregri. You are the light from the stars which touches me every day, my celestial body, my wings and my claws. You make this world, this galaxy, this universe better for being in it.” I kiss her again, this time long and slow. “I will destroy it all piece by piece to make you mine.”
“It’s a good thing you feel that way,” Retah says, limping to the table. “Because we’re going to need your expertise with the sword in the next few nova-days if we’re to take back Trefa.”
He sits and pours himself a drink, taking a sweet roll as well.
“What makes you think I want to fight for Trefa? I’d rather get the vrex off this doomed planet and be done. It hasn’t helped me, so why should I help it?” I respond.
“Because I won’t lose another planet to an invader,” Retah says, thumping a closed fist on the table. “And because you care about the fight. It’s what you’ve been made for.” He lifts his horned head, and his glowing eyes bore into me. “And it will bring you closer to the truth.”