20
Hannah
I didn’t sleep but rather faded in and out of consciousness all night…or maybe all day.
The lack of windows down here bothers me more than I thought it would.
Would Gleb let me paint the walls? I could paint a happy forest.
Oooh, a fall forest! He said this home is used at the very beginning and end of the niibin season. Reds, oranges, golds, and browns would make this room warm and cozy.
Not that the snoring furnace curled around my side isn’t warm.
I have flashes of Gleb cleaning, crying, snoring, and sobbing from last night.
My energy ached to soothe him, so why didn’t I? Herbs! He must have given me a whopping dose of wacky grass because I was flying high.
Did he dose me to clean my cuts?
Oh my…he stitched my arm…in the dark… My side pulls and I examine the wonky stitches in my side.
The angry, red zigzag makes me giggle.
I clap my hands over my mouth to stifle the sounds.
I’ll sport twin lightning rod scars from this. Proof that lightning strikes twice and my soulmate found me in the Arctic…twice.
My tour bus stopped and sank on his doorstep the first time.
The second was when Jack thought he tricked me into trekking west when I wanted to travel north.
He circled our path back to where I left Gleb…so Gleb could rescue me.
Had we gone north, it would have taken Gleb months to find me in his northern home…if I could break into it.
I want to thank him, confess my undying love to him, or smother him with kisses, but his face is boyish in sleep.
His dreams are sweet, based on the coy smirk he wears.
My bladder screams for relief when I roll toward him for kisses.
Where do I pee? His other home had two options—the bathing pool crevice or outside. This home doesn’t have the rocky coast hazards on its doorstep, but it has wild animals and dropping temperatures.
I slip from his snuggly nest of furs.
The cold stone on the soles of my feet steals the air from my lungs.
I add fuzzy socks to my wish list.
Gleb mentioned Vera orders their batteries online. If I can access my online shopping account, I can deck this place out with all the comforts of home.
…except in there.
The first room I investigate is a terrifying collection of butcher’s equipment.
If I saw this first, I’d assume that Gleb was a serial killer and ran away screaming.
The bloodstains dried into the stone floor’s crevices are just the right touch of horror. Shiver.
The second room is a pantry like the one in his northern home…but more messy.
Maybe he’s not a Virgo or Capricorn.
My Capricorn parents would itch until they lined up the baskets and bladders.
Wait? This label says Lavendar , yet the shelf holds bladders of liquid. Hazelnut paste shelf is empty, but not surprising with the way he licked his lips when he talked about it. The dried apples shelf contains bladders of a dark and syrupy liquid—maple? Here are the apples—on the salt shelf.
Ooh, there’s a stack of cloth strips on the shelf labeled bowls .
I snag two of them for makeshift bandages.
Jackpot! There’s a roll of packing tape.
It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a first aid kit since I left the US. If I’m bathing, I’m cleaning myself from head to toe. Must cover these bad boys just in case the stitches aren’t as tight as they feel.
I’d bet my last pair of undies that Gleb didn’t write these labels.
He probably didn’t write them because he can’t read or write.
This must be the handy work of his mentor, Sergei, and his human mate, Sydney.
Sydney would have the ability to write the labels at Sergei’s request. Gleb would be so starved for their approval that he would fake using them. My poor mate. Empathy squeezes my heart for him. How many things did I try because I thought they would impress my parents? Of course, each activity blew up in my face because I don’t have the innate skills or drive that have.
But Gleb doesn’t have to pretend to impress me.
In an act of Gemini defiance, I rip the Lavendar label off the shelf and ball it between my fingers.
I flick it against the wall of the third room.
“Look at the size of this bathing pool! It’s like an underground ocean! The edges reach my shoulders.
I’ll have to climb in—literally.
Gleb must swim with me when he wakes.
Oooh, the water’s hot too. My muscles want me to jump in here right now! This makes up for the horror movie room. I’ll just live in here.”
I kick my blood-soaked undies against the wall.
The warm water stings my frozen toes, but I quickly equilibrate.
Each muscle sighs with delight as I lower myself over the rocky ledge.
I can see my feet balancing on a rocky ledge through the clean water.
When was the last time I felt clean? I’ll pretend I’m a mermaid and this is my habitat! My fingers release the side and I drift to the bottom. I tease my hair to release the funk I’ve collected over the last few days. My hands rub my body to wipe away where Jack touched me. I’m blissfully smiling until my palm smooths over my stitches.
Ugh, reality.
“I didn’t know you could wander out of my sight.
Not that there are many places to go.
If you prefer the humidity of the bathing pool, the room’s large enough for a bedding nest.”
And just like a snap of my fingers, the fantasy reignites.
Why pretend to be a mythical creature when you can mate one? I giggle with joy.
“Seriously,”
he says, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“If you hate sleeping out there, I’ll move the bedding into the bathing chamber.
There’s room.
Oh, I must check your wounds first—”
I love how his words die on his tongue when I float on my back and he takes in his mate’s naked form.
His jaw is on the floor.
“I’d love that.
Can I paint the walls too? I want to paint the big room to look like it has fall-colored trees.”
“It’s my life’s mission to please you,”
he whispers.
I take advantage of the attention and roll onto my belly.
My curves are slight, but I know how to use them.
“You can change my homes into our homes in any way you see fit.”
“Nothing too dramatic,”
I say with another giggle.
My heart is free and light.
The stitches tingle, but the packing tape keeps out the water.
“I also want to paint this room blue and purple with stars. It will be so fun to pick a sweet memory’s constellation pattern. We should paint the stars as they were the night we met! Oh, that was a disaster where people died…better pick a different day.”
“What about tonight’s sky? Now that we’re together, I can do everything in my power to make you happy.
All your days will be sweet.”
“Really?”
“Imagine bathing our kit in this pool, surrounded by your painted stars,”
he says, leaning on the pool’s edge.
I swim to meet him and kiss his nose.
“You could teach them the patterns while they play.”
“Oh Gleb,”
I reply with tears threatening to spill onto my cheeks.
“You’d let me teach our kids about the stars?”
“Of course, it’s up to us to pass the traditions down to the next generation.
Everyone has a purpose in a clan, so each kit learns the purpose of both their parents.
Each generation gets stronger and smarter than the ones before.”
“Your words are so beautiful.”
“Teaching’s the responsibility that comes with the gift of a beautiful dushevnayasvyaz .
The clan’s counting on us.”
“Counting on us to teach our imaginary kits?”
“Maybe someday they won’t be imaginary…”
The heat in his gaze awakens my libido.
There isn’t a ledge for me to balance on this side, so I tread water.
The ripples on the surface obscure my a-cup and give the illusion of larger swells.
Normally, I’d be covering my figure and apologizing for not being curvier. The way Gleb runs his tongue down his fangs tells me I don’t have to worry about him not wanting me.
“May I join you, svet kamina? May I bask in your firelight?”
“Yes, please,”
I blurt out.
I have no sultry persona.
Knowing which way to wiggle to highlight my assets is my limit, and there’s no sexy siren within me.
Gleb makes me happy to be plain ol’me. What we have is honest and natural. There’s no seduction—just two people who want to communicate their love to one another.
Not that Gleb is seductive either.
He vaults over the side and cannonballs into the bathing pool.
I’m swept under a tidal wave.
My hands push the wall away in case there’s a jagged piece at the bottom. The middle is flat and my feet appreciate the smooth surface when I reach it. I surface in a sputtering mess of coughing and snarls of red hair. After one breath, I’m dragged down again.
Gleb’s hands wrap my legs around his waist as his mouth fastens to mine.
We share air as our tongues duel to collect our mingled flavor.
I grind on his cock, trapped between us, and rub my nipples against his chest.
Ooh, he’s not so soft and fuzzy underwater. I’m disappointed he will feel like a man for our first time, but a lifetime of sharing furs will give me every opportunity to play with Gleb’s body. The bathing pool is best because I have the last drippings of my period, and I will die if I disappoint him. The denied orgasm will make me implode.
“I’ll try to be gentle,”
he whispers when we resurface.
“I know you’re hurt.”
“Gentle is good.
Gentle is good.”
I pant the refrain as I boost myself up and fall back down.
Squeezing my ankles into his lower back, I get just enough leverage to guide his massive rod through my folds and along my clit.
“Slow down, svet kamina, let’s enjoy our first time,”
he says with a chuckle against my nipple.
I arch backward when his lips close around my right one, causing me to grind harder.
We share a moan before he switches to my left.
“Can we savor later? We have a lifetime, right? I’m so close,”
I whine.
I don’t care if it’s over before it begins.
I need to peak now.
“Now, now,”
he mock-scolds and lifts me from my prize.
I growl at him and pull the fur matted to his shoulders.
The maddening male just chuckles at my frustration.
He lifts me from the water, and I squeal as the cool air assaults my body.
My sensitized nipples tingle and beg for attention as the cold rushes over them.
I’d fold my arms over them, but his arms are in the way.
I cling to his neck and kick my feet to splash him.
My shriek echoes when my ass hits the cool rock on the far ledge.
“You don’t want to take me up here—”
“I promise I do.”
“My period isn’t finished.
I could still bleed on you.
It doesn’t hurt, but I don’t want to gross you out.”
“Nothing about you could gross me out.
In fact, I find every inch of you exciting,”
he says, wiping my hair from my forehead.
“I love your eyelashes that blaze like the sun’s rays.”
He kisses each eye and says, “I love the stars decorating your cheeks and the angles your bones give your face.”
Kisses dance over my left cheek before trailing over my nose.
“I love the dark pools of your brown eyes.
They remind me of two—”
“Don’t say pots of hazelnut paste!”
I interrupt because I’m so flattered I don’t know how to take the compliment.
If I don’t break his spell with silliness, I won’t know what to do with myself.
I’m already flustered, and he just talked about my face.
“I was going to say pools of niibin moonlight—treasured,”
he whispers.
Our kiss isn’t the frenzied one of moments ago, but a sweeter, mature meeting.
I feel loved.
“As for your monthly bleed, it will lubricate what will be an uncomfortable stretch.”
“Uncomfortable? Speak for yourself! This is the type of impaling a woman dreams about when flying solo—Don’t ask me to explain.
Here, how about I just lay back and shut up?”
“Never,”
he barks with a flash of fangs that curl my toes.
“I want your every sound.
Your cries of pleasure.
Your whines when you hit the edge. Your every whimper belongs to me. Don’t deny your dushevnayasvyaz .”
Holy hell.
When I nod, he scoots me to the rounded edge so my hips dip into the water.
He runs his tip through my folds and finds I’m soaked again…and it’s not the water.
His thumb rocks my clit as he works his first inch inside me.
What a delicious stretch! I bite my lip when he pulls out, so I don’t lash out in frustration. He takes such loving care of me. I don’t want to ruin it by launching myself off these rocks, diving onto his cock, and splitting myself in half. My lip catches between my teeth as I stare at the ceiling and pray for patience.
“Eyes on me,”
he growls, spearing into me.
My moan rocks my head back as my jaw hits my chest.
The burn kisses my insides and lights up every pleasure point I possess.
I lean forward in wonder.
Our joining isn’t flush! He’s got a few inches to go! Will I stretch to accommodate him or die trying? Oh, but the pleasure of his tip dragging over my G-spot as he withdraws has my eyes crossing in bliss.
“You can take me,”
he growls, and I see the beast struggling beneath his veneer.
Sweat drips down his temples.
His lips are flat as pencil lines over his protruding fangs.
His fingers shake on my hips with the struggle to hold back.
They flutter over my skin until he reaches the juncture between my legs. His thumb teases my clit while the others test my entrance. He adjusts his stance, sloshing water over my perch. It laps at my feverish skin and kicks up my arousal. His every move is calculated to ensure my pleasure matches or even surpasses his.
I’ll have to thank his pleasure mate when I meet her.
Gleb is a sex god.
“It’s just period blood.
You aren’t hurting me.
I need more,”
I beg.
“Stretch me again.
I want to go up in flames as you wreck my pussy.”
His eyebrows climb his forehead at that one.
Too much? Well, dirty isn’t my forte.
“I don’t want to hurt—”
“Forget hurting me and make me peak!”
His face is comically worried as he enters me a third time.
The first half is fine—I was stretched before.
Then the sizzling starts.
Is his base wider than his tip? A sting at my cervix makes my pelvis dance away from him. His right hand snatches my hip and forces me still. All the while, his left thumb hasn’t stopped teasing my clit.
I must be careful what I ask for…I don’t have a first aid kit.
“Reshaping you to be mine,”
he snaps as he bottoms out.
My scream hurts my ears.
We pause, staring at one another as it fades to the surface.
“I’ve adjusted,”
I say with a wiggle.
“You can move.”
“I’ve made you mine.
We will wait for you to recover.”
“I said move, dammit!”
His hips snap with a speed no human man could achieve.
At first, I try to match him thrust for thrust, but my stamina isn’t at his level.
I huff and puff as pleasure explodes through my body.
My chin rocks as my soft flesh jiggles. I cramp hard in my pelvis, deeper than any arousal I’ve felt before.
I mew like a kitten as my body is used.
He lifts his thumb from my clit and shows me where I’ve soaked his hand.
His elongated tongue snakes out of his mouth and fills my head with promises to lick a stripe up his palm.
With a satisfied growl, he reaches beneath my body to play with my rear entrance, which has been exit-only this far into my life. I light up with excitement at the new stimulation.
He taps my star hard as he grinds his cock deep.
My eyes bug out as my jaw drops in a silent scream as my orgasm barrels through the deep tissues within my body.
Holy hell, what was that?! I pulse within the deep recesses of my body as if he implanted an orgasm in my abdomen.
No orgasm in my past has shaken me to my core like this.
It’s new territory when I thought I had explored all my body had to give.
His sure thrusts reduce to tiny jerks. I stretch more without him jamming more into me. What’s happening?
We’re stuck.
Oh God, oh God, oh God, I’ll be the laughingstock of some ER because my boyfriend’s cock is stuck inside me.
Wait, not even that because I can’t take my snow monster boyfriend into an ER.
We will be jammed together until one of his clan mates finds us and must surgically separate us…in the wild…without antiseptic or anesthesia… Great, I’ve lost the beautiful orgasm that was supposed to make the misery worth it.
“Gleb! Gleb! We don’t fit! We’re stuck! My poor coochy will never be the same!”
“That’s right,”
he growls with a fangy smile that I don’t know if I like.
“My knot has changed your cunt, so only I can satisfy you.
We’re stuck together until my seed takes and your body learns who owns it.”
Knowing this isn’t a freak accident…and that he’s in control…is totally hot.
When I fail to deliver a sexy retort, he roars.
My body reacts with pulsing aftershocks.
His peak fills me, but my greedy reverberations drink what threatens to spill down my legs.
He lowers his body onto his forearms, so we’re inches apart, but I don’t bear his weight. I reach for him to cuddle, but he pins my hands to frame my head.
“I’ll cuddle you when I’m finished.
My knot won’t deflate until I say so.
If this were the mating chase, I’d hold us together until my clan has a chance to witness us and show their support.
Then they would prepare a feast in honor of how long I held my knot in you—”
“They what?!”
“A feast,”
he says, nuzzling my hair.
“Smoked meats, dried fruits—”
“Not that!”
I screech, twisting around to check his eyes for signs he’s joking.
“A mating chase where others watch us have sex? How do they make a sign of support? By offering towels? And to top it off, they have a party for your cock?”
“It’s not for my cock.
The feast is to celebrate another breeding pair.
A pair in dushevnayasvyaz is the last hope for our dying numbers.
New kits are treasured more than life itself.”
“Okay, much more sentimental and beautiful than a party for your knot.”
“The only one worshiping my knot is you, svet kamina ,”
he says with a chuckle that vibrates us into matching groans.
“If a Chuchunya or their mate taps their fist over their heart, they will come to your aid in the zima season.
It’s a closer tie than just the opposite of shunning.
Our families will be trading partners, hunting groups, and an extended family to raise our kits together in hopes they find dushevnayasvyaz in one another.”
“I’d love our home to be where all the kits play.
Please tell me you want a dozen babies too.
A noisy, wild place with kits running everywhere, filled with laughter and silliness would be my dream come true.”
“If it’s kits you want, I’ll spend the day filling you, pushing my seed deeper, and forcing the memories of any former lovers from your mind.”
“I’m still feeling the aftershocks from the first time,”
I stammer.
“Good,”
he says as he rolls his hips and sets my insides ablaze, “because I’m far from finished.”