Chapter 23
One day later.
It had taken me hours to come back to myself after we’d touched down in Aer. Well, I’d never really left—no out-of-body experience for me—but still, something had not been set to the standard configurations.
I hadn’t lost time or anything. I knew perfectly well that as soon as we got here, Inkiri had wrapped me into his arms, clicked, sniffed me, and called me precious and a lot of other things that let me know I was cherished.
Everyone else had looked freaked out. Most of all Nokim.
Nokim had been dead. I knew that—another piece of foreign knowledge.
Lissir was walking again, properly, and he came over to press a gentle kiss to my cheek.
Lissir was fine. I knew he wouldn’t have lasted much longer though, like I knew Nokim had been dead, but now he was okay.
“I was wrong,” Vergis said. “He’s not a conduit.”
“Then what?” Fellisse asked as he ran his hands over Nokim’s body where it had been broken. Where it wasn’t broken anymore.
“No clue. Not a one.” Vergis looked at me. Not with his resting bitch face this time. I didn’t know what this face of his was called. The color-me-surprised face?
“It doesn’t matter,” Inkiri said. “Sweet thing, say something.” His voice was so gentle. It was the voice I’d melted for. But I couldn’t really speak or engage. I was too full. It had been too much. I was there with them though, and it had to be enough.
Inkiri carried on clicking at me as he scooped me up, and then they talked in LaGuardia, picked a direction, and walked.
We got to a town. It was my first time seeing a town where everyone had horns. Everyone but the children, anyway, who were still growing them and had sort of stubbly, cute little ones.
People gawked at us. They probably thought Inkiri had taken me as a pet or something, or they might’ve been gawking at all the blood all over us. Honestly, we were soaked in the stuff, all but Vergis, who seemed the kind of guy to walk out clean after a bloodbath.
We made it to a hotel or inn or tavern. I didn’t know what the best word was, but there was a bathhouse there, and Inkiri cleaned me with the utmost care, taking his time to lave his tongue all over my throat and wrists.
While the others went to soak in a big, common pool after washing, Inkiri carried me to a room once he’d dried me off and deposited me in a bed. That was good. I knew I needed sleep. The magic had wounded, and I needed to heal from that. Another thing I knew without knowing how I knew.
I slipped into sleep promptly, but even as I slept, I could tell that Inkiri was there with me. I had a new kind of awareness that let me know he was in bed with me, or close to me, like once when he sat at a low table with the others in our room and they talked in low voices so as not to wake me.
The awareness faded gradually as I slept, and when Inkiri wrapped me in his arms next, I felt the last bits of it dissolve. Only then did I slip into normal sleep.
When I stirred again, it was still dark outside, but a gray light was outlining the windows. They were tall and narrow, reminding me of the light reflecting off skyscrapers.
I stroked the blue hand across my chest. “I love you,” I said.
Inkiri shifted. “You speak again. Fellisse—neither he nor Vergis were sure what was wrong with you, but now you speak. My Rory.”
I turned around to face him. “I mean it this time. About the loving you thing. I need to get that out while I still have the courage. Also, nothing was really wrong with me. I was all there. Just a bit tired, I guess.”
“Sadir.” Inkiri bent toward my throat.
I felt his tongue. My skin was so sensitive.
“I’m okay. We all are.”
“We shouldn’t be, but we are.” Inkiri kissed me on the mouth.
I surrendered. It was easy. So easy. I reached down between his legs, and he was hard for me. Slick too. He moaned into my mouth.
“Sweet thing, you need rest,” Inkiri mumbled against my lips when he broke the kiss. His voice sounded strained.
“What I need now is your strange blue cock. I need you to ravish me.” I felt my face turn cabbage red. “I maybe even want to feel, you know, your barb thing. Inside me. Again.”
Inkiri growled. “Rory, by the ancestors. As you wish. But we stop if you look unwell. If anything hurts, you say so. Yes?”
I snorted. He stopped moving entirely. I groaned. “Okay, fine.”
The bed was spacious enough for two of Inkiri’s size, so we had plenty of room.
He carefully guided me to the middle of it.
The pillows were fluffier here, likely to accommodate the horns, and when the light brightened, I realized it wasn’t a bed at all, but bedding laid out on the floor like a traditional futon.
It fit with the low table I spotted when I looked to my left.
Whether it was the type of bed I was used to stopped mattering entirely as soon as Inkiri’s body was on top of mine. Yes, this was perfect. Pillow princess energy for the win, and I had won with this guy. I’d won big.
I surrendered to more kisses, to him paying very close and thorough attention to my throat. It was almost too much, but then he stopped to lick my nipples raw with that tongue of his. That set me to moaning, and I could only hope the walls here were thick.
My own cock was rising to the task at hand all too eagerly, and Inkiri touched it, making an approving noise in the back of his throat.
“Good and firm. It speaks to your health, Sadir.”
I groaned. “Well, thanks for that diagnosis.”
“Don’t be annoyed, sweet thing. You shouldn’t take a cock if you cannot get yours hard. Unless it’s during pleasure and you just spilled, of course.”
Even while his hand ventured lower to stroke between my cheeks, I groaned. “Seriously, you need to improve your sexy talk.”
“Oh, you mean dirty talk?” He rubbed his own very hard and very slick cock over my ass, using his fingers to spread his slickness all over my hole.
“I’ve read some of it. I don’t know all the words, and I wouldn’t wish to insult you while we’re together like this.
” He paused, and the light was bright enough now that I could see the indigo of his eyes even though his pupils were dilated.
“A hangu I would compliment on the lovely color of his nipples.” He pinched the right one for emphasis.
I moaned. “That works.”
“You have beautiful nipples, Rory. I love paying attention to them and making them firm up. Your cock too. I’ll take it inside one day soon. Your ejaculate tastes so good, and I cannot wait to feel it wet and warm inside of me.”
“Cum. Please say cum, okay?”
He clicked. “I can barely wait to see you spill your cum now, sweet thing. I cannot wait to spill my own inside you.”
I groaned when he pushed a finger inside me. “Oh my god.”
He touched me like he was born to do it, and I was getting quite loud. It felt so good to have him touch me and stimulate me. Him stretching me was thrilling, the almost-pain turning sweet with how gentle he was.
“Sadir, you look beautiful. Ripe. I know you’re not hangu, but I swear to the ancients you wouldn’t know it from how you writhe around my fingers.”
Oh, his fingers. His stretching fingers had become methodical now, scissoring inside me, and all I could do was endure. I didn’t think it would take long now for him to be satisfied.
When he pulled out, I whimpered, but all he was doing was repositioning me. He pulled me down on the bedding and hooked my legs over his arms so he had access.
“Ink, I want you.”
“And you shall have me, sweet thing.” He rubbed his own cock to gather the slickness. “But you’re frail. We cannot overdo it, or else it’ll hurt.”
We had to talk about how he kept calling me frail. Or maybe we didn’t. In fact, it wasn’t too bad at all, especially if it meant I would get more of this. Maybe being frail wasn’t too bad if it meant he’d take care of me. I liked that idea.
Inkiri finally, finally shifted and lined up. “Relax as you take it, Sadir. Bear down. Just like when I opened you up.”
I felt him push into me. He was big; of course he was. It burned, and the pain was bright, but I breathed through it and relaxed.
The next thing I knew, it was getting good. Better. My own precum was pooling on my belly as Inkiri pushed deeper inside of me. His clicks were urgent and seductive, and the sharply sweet joy was almost too much.
I dug the fingers of my right hand into his shoulder, and with my left, I reached out to grab Inkiri’s horn. Soon, he was all the way inside of me, our bodies connected. He stilled, and I relaxed. I focused on feeling, on giving myself.
We looked at each other in the breaking daylight, me on my back, him on top as color bled back into the world.
“You are mine,” Inkiri said in a low, low voice. “Mate. Lover. Everything.”
“Yes.”
That seemed to be enough. Inkiri moved, slow at first, but not for long. Everything was more intense this morning, and my nerve endings were like dry kindling.
With embarrassment washing over me, I ended up coming after only a few thrusts. The orgasm hit suddenly and took me completely by surprise, just like the scream that tore through me as I shot pale stickiness between our bodies.
“Yes, very nice.” Inkiri’s restraint slipped. He was moving faster, deeper, chasing his own release.
“Your barb…” I had no idea how that weird thing would feel now, but a part of me wanted and needed it, craved it.
At the demand, Inkiri couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He slammed into me with a force that would probably bruise, but I didn’t care. I screamed all over again, another tremor of pleasure running through me.
I could feel it inside me when he came, so much of it, flooding me. His barb set in sooner this time than it had before. I felt that pinching deep inside me, riding that very subtle edge between pain and pleasure, but coming down on the side of pleasure in the end.
“Did I said I love you too?” I asked over the echoes of our panting.
“You said that. I heard it. I carry the words inside me now, Sadir.”
Inkiri lowered his body, shifted this way and that, and hugged me close, and by the end of it, we were lying side by side, our bodies connected by his barb.
“That’s good.” I slung my arm over him and lifted my leg higher up his hip. “What now?”
He clicked. “We wait until my barb goes down.”
I blushed beyond the red apple cheeks of orgasm. “No, I mean, like, what happened? And with the cola ash—I mean, the Koa Esher people. The gunfight… What happened at the Stone, and what do we do about it?”
“Ah.” Inkiri ran a hand over my hair and down the back of my head. “Vergis found out a few things, and we will talk about it. Not now. Not until the sun has fully risen. Until then, you’re mine, Rory.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I leaned in to press a kiss to his lips, wishing furiously that the sun would take its time.