Chapter 16 - Bea
When I wake, I wake alone. Just as I had been when I’d laid my head on Zyntarr’s feathered nest. Had he not come back to me last night? Whispers of that unanswered question haunt my mind. ‘Even without heart-stars that shine bright for you?’
The look on his face had nearly crushed me before Tryk had interrupted us.
But that answer he was searching for had stayed put on my tongue, like someone had superglued it there, never to move an inch.
It’s not that I can’t get past the thought of never having that definitive proof that Zyn was meant for me, that we are the only ones for each other, as deigned by some higher power, or nature itself. Relationships back on Earth were certainly never that clear-cut.
Which is probably why I shied away from them.
It’s just… I saw them that first time. I swear, I saw them burn bright, directly over his heart, like a big neon sign shouting my name, saying, ‘Bea! Bea! This is what’s right for you. This is correct. He is yours and always will be. You can’t mess this up.’
But they haven’t been lit up that brightly ever since.
They could do. I know he has a lot of scarring, but I know what I saw that time after my panic attack. His stars are capable of showing themselves over his heart, and the voices in my head scream at me to wait. Don’t rush into anything you can’t fix.
And it would be awfully hard to fix two broken hearts.
So, as hard as it was to see that big guy so open, vulnerable and just begging for me to leap off a mountain into this with him, I still think we can make those stars appear. I think we can make that man’s heart light up like the fourth of July.
Sitting up, I stretch out the last of my sleepiness, hoping beyond hope that I can explain all of that to Zyntarr in a way that doesn’t make him look at me the same way he had last night.
The light outside is still fresh and not yet overly bright or stained golden.
Which means it’s still early, with only one of this planet’s suns having risen.
Yawning, I push my hair back from my face, only for my fingers to brush against something tucked behind my ear.
I pull it out to examine it; a feather. It’s not the same as the downy ones that line Zyntarr’s nest. This one is long, with a firmer hold.
A flight feather. He had come back to me last night, then, and left this for me before I woke.
Smiling to myself, I stroke my pointer finger through the onyx barbs of his feather, watching how even though it’s not attached to him any longer, the stars still react to my touch, burning a bright aqua blue and neon pink.
“I had hoped to sneak back into our nest without waking you.”
The voice was like hot coco on a bitterly cold day, and I can’t help but brighten when I look up to see Zyn standing in the entrance to his hut. “Why did you leave in the first place?”
His smile is soft as he steps inside. “I need to keep my mate fed.” He is carrying another platter of food for me.
I scoot back on the nest. “You don’t have to-”
My words are cut short by Zyntarr holding up a hand, a single thick finger raised to object. “Please,” he rumbles, his voice low as he shakes his head. “Do not deny me this pleasure.”
I blink up at him for a moment or two, shaking my own head now.
This huge, scarred, mountain of a man is built for violence and brute strength.
But where he really excels is in kindness and caring.
He likes to look after people. And sure, a huge part of me wants to be able to purr just like he does at the thought that he likes to look after me in particular.
So, with a raised brow, I jerk my head to the space where he can sit and feed me if he likes. I don’t think there’s much I could deny this man, anyway.
Once he sits, I find myself crawling into his lap like I’m coming home.
His wings and arm wrap around me as if they were sturdy brick walls to keep me safe and warm.
Before he has a chance to start feeding me from the food platter, words spill out of my mouth like a hotspring, “you kept the eye patch off.”
It was just an observation, but one I had noticed straight away.
Zyntarr looks at me, one eye unseeing, the other as blue as the prettiest oceans, before he simply answers, “you did not flinch.”
“I don’t think I could ever flinch away from you, Zyntarr.”
It’s the truth. I don’t ever remember feeling safer than when I’m with him.
Zyntarr’s gaze drifts away from my eyes, falling down a lazy path to end at the destination of my lips, where it lingers. And, even in that milk-white eye - the one clouded over and unseeing - I swear there is something in it that matches the spark in its twin.
He stays absolutely still as I do the only thing that I think is right at that time - I lean forward and kiss him.
It starts off as a little peck, and then another, and another, but then Zyntarr groans in that warm, delicious way, his strong arms surrounding me and pulling me close.
I think the plate of food he’d brought falls to the ground - there’s a clattering noise coming from somewhere, at least. And Zyntarr is forced to lean back as I readjust myself to straddle his enormous thighs.
“I don’t want any part of you covered,” I murmur between presses of our lips.
Zyn’s answering rumbling chuckle is like slow molasses.
“I do not think my fellow tribesmales would appreciate me having my cock on display for them all day,” he says, pulling away ever so slightly, but keeping so close, we’re sharing breaths.
“Especially when my size may make them feel small in comparison.”
I lightly slap at his chest before giggling myself.
It’s true, though.
“I meant your eye,” I say, trying and failing to sound stern as I frame his beautiful face with my hands, watching as Zyntarr’s skin-stars trip over themselves to meet my touch.
Feeling bold, I slip one hand down his body, reveling in the way his breathing hitches with my exploration.
“You’re not wrong, though,” I tell him, as I try to cup the large bulge in his lap.
“Bea,” he pleads hoarsely.
“Show me.” The words are whispered out of me before my brain catches up with myself.
Honestly, it hadn’t even really sounded like me.
But it had been. And I won’t take the demand back, either.
Because I want to see him again - all of him.
He’s such a beautiful sight. “Please,” I add, giving a light squeeze of the bulge in my hand for emphasis.
Zyn swallows and nods quickly, laying back to untie the leather cords at his hip.
His big hands fumble with the knots and I shuffle back a little to give him more space.
My vision is caught on the long, defined line that cuts from his hip down, down, down, disappearing into his loincloth.
I bite my bottom lip. As if sensing my fascination with that particular area, Zyntarr’s skin-stars start dancing and whirling along that line, some disappearing as they meet with scarred claw marks there.
Without thought, I bend so that my lips hover over those scars. Zyntarr freezes, his hands still on the knots. When I press a kiss to his marred flesh, I swear I can feel the moan he lets out tickle down my spine.
I move onto another scar nearby, tracing it softly with my fingertips, loving the way my touch makes his taut abs jump beneath my attention.
“Bea,” he groans. “You are torturing me, female.”
“Nonsense,” I tell him, pressing another kiss to a scar on his other hip before following the silvery mark with a lick of my tongue. “I’m being very nice to you right now.”
Zyntarr’s head falls back with a huff. “The most wonderful torture a male could ever endure,” he mumbles.
When I playfully nip at some unmarked skin at his side, his head snaps up again.
And suddenly, in his hand is a wicked-looking dagger.
I barely have time to exhale before he’s using the weapon to slice through the corded ties at his hip, ripping the rest of his loincloth away to expose a very large, heavy-looking, swollen cock.
I can’t help but giggle.
“Is my body amusing to you, little female?” he asks, flopped back now that he has finally freed himself.
“No, just how eager you are. Your clothes are ruined now.”
“For you to touch me, I would burn all coverings I own twice over and then scatter the ashes as far as-”
His babbling words halt on his tongue as soon as my hand wraps around his thick, hot length.
“Oh, I don’t think you have to do all that,” I say in the most sultry voice I can muster, my hand sliding up and down him in a slow pump.
“Just maybe let me unwrap you like a present next time?” Leaning forward, I lick a wet stripe up the underside of Zyntarr’s impressive cock.
I can feel the groan he lets out reverberate deep in my marrow.
Then, before I get to wrap my lips around his length, Zyntarr growls before he hoists me up from under my arms and flips us, making me yelp. He’s hovering over me now, all strong muscles and large frame - all mismatched eyes and fearsome scars.
All mine.
I wet my lips, my pulse dancing erratically. “Have…” Zyntarr leans down for a slow kiss, his purr revving up, the sound feeling like it’s surrounding me.
He retreats from my lips a long moment later, opting to start peppering his mouth down my jaw and neck instead. “Have what, my little Bea?”
“H-have-” my mind is all fogged up from his mouth’s attention and the sheer size of him over me. I squeeze my legs where they currently rest around his hips. “Have you eaten the contraceptive leaf?”
The kissing stops. The purring becomes muted. Zyntarr pulls away, his beautiful blue eye searching both of mine. “I… I have, but-”
I reach up to kiss him again, pulling away breathless as I start to undress. “But?”
Zyntarr leans his weight on the forearm braced above my head, his wings blocking out the rest of the world behind him so it feels like it’s just me, him and this desperate need I feel blooming between my thighs.
“Bea…” my name ends on a breathy little whine dripping off his tongue.
“I… I do not know if I have consumed enough… or for long enough. Our Elders are not knowing of this leaf or how it would stop-”
His big, warm hand spans my now bare stomach. My breath hitches at the sheer possessiveness I feel in that one touch.
Good God, I like that.
When I finally look back up at him, the pupil in his seeing eye is blown wide and he’s almost panting. “I want more than anything the honor of giving you my seed,” he rasps so earnestly. “But I would like for you to have a choice as to whether my seed is allowed to take root.”
There’s some primal part of my mind - some really stupid, horny, drool-for-brains part - that wants to say fuck it. And by ‘it’, I mean him, specifically.
I lock away my mother’s disapproving voice before she even gets a chance to spit her bile about my poor choices, and stroke a loving hand down the side of Zyntarr’s face, neck and chest to try and ground myself again.
“You’re right,” I say, nodding shakily. “We shouldn’t… do everything until we know the leaf will work.” Zyntarr nods above me, too, leaning down to nuzzle into my temple. “But that doesn’t mean we have to stop.”