Epilogue
CHAR
Betty looked out over the view, so vast and so strange. She wasn’t sure she was ready for such a big adventure. But Todd was with her. They would figure it out together.
“ A nother bestseller?” Ryoch kissed the top of my head.
I sat back with a sigh, re-reading the final paragraph on the paper screen display.
I’d immediately fallen in love with the blend of technology and analog materials the Lydaxians used. They produced fine papers on Vytaris, and everyone read physical books. Writing was done on purpose-built devices that made it seem like you were typing directly on the printed page.
“We’ll see. It still has to be translated and edited.” After two years, I could speak the language, but writing was easier in English. Software did the initial translation, then my Lydaxian editor would polish it up.
“Loosa will be ecstatic. She loves being the first one to read your books.”
I turned and grinned up at him. “You don’t mind being the second?”
He shook his head, smiling back. “I like being the final set of eyes before it goes out to the universe. Speaking of which, did she tell you when the other translations are being released?”
“Really soon. Probably next week.”
Loosa was fluent in several languages, and she’d secured exclusive rights to market my work on other planets in the trade network. She was very optimistic about how they’d do, given the level of interest in my books so far.
On Vytaris, I was kind of killing it. Maybe it was the novelty of me being a different species, or the crazy interest here in everything to do with the human mates, or leftover excitement from all the drama when we first arrived. Ryoch insisted they were just really good love stories.
He nodded and bent down. “So proud of you,” he muttered against my lips. Then he was slanting his mouth over mine, his hands framing my face while his ta’laps started to brush against my arms and wind around my ankles.
I tasted sagar , and I knew where this was going, so I pulled back. “Wait a second,” I said, laughing while I pushed at his ridiculously muscular chest. “Are you done with work?”
His eyes were shining, and I could feel his lust through the bond. He blinked and blew out a breath.
“I am. Another human is pregnant.” I gasped, and he shook his head. “You know I can’t tell you who.” He winked. “She’s fine, but it means I’m on call for so many patients that my other work is being reduced. I’ll actually have more time at home.”
Ryoch was Vytaris’s leading medical expert on humans. He wasn’t working in the ER, but he was busy overseeing every issue that arose with the women who had come, from illnesses to pregnancy, and now pediatrics. Researchers also met with him regularly to document everything he’d learned about human biology, and to train. His schedule wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be, thankfully.
I couldn’t help the seductive purr in my voice. “More time at home is good.”
He growled, and then ta’laps were wrapping around me and pulling me to my feet. “More time to make sure you get on the patient list.”
My heart beat faster. We’d just made the decision to start trying for a baby, and even though I wrote these kinds of scenes, I was still surprised at how turned on it made me.
“You’re going to get me pregnant, Ryoch?” I reached for his hair, fingers stroking the base of his horns, and he groaned.
With seemingly no effort, his ta’laps pulled me closer, lifting until my feet were off the ground. He nipped at my neck as he carried me from my office, through the house, heading to our large bedroom. I moaned as his tentacles got between us to stroke the sensitive tips of my nipples.
Our house was big and private, facing out over a dense forest of tall, tree-like plants, with sharp mountain peaks in the distance. Light from the twin suns arrived tinted, filtered through lavender clouds high in the atmosphere. The interior of the house was clad in gleaming white surfaces, so when the angle of the sunlight was just right, like now, everything took on a purple glow.
The privacy was good, because Ryoch was already stripping off his clothes and mine as we walked through the glass-walled hallway outside our bedroom. The door slid open at our approach.
Ryoch ran his teeth along the shell of my ear and groaned low. “I’m going to breed you, pretty thing. Fill you with my cock and my seed until you swell with my child.”
I writhed in his grip, slick already dripping down my thighs. His nostrils flared as he scented my arousal, and the room spun as he turned me, setting me on the bed with my head down and my ass up. He only licked into me briefly, giving me the barest amount of sagar with his lithis , before he was thrusting his cock in, all the way to his seal.
We shouted at the same time. Combined with his deep, hard thrusts, the pulsing stimulation on my clit always sent me right to the edge. Sealing felt as good to him as it did to me, and the noises he made told me he was close.
Knowing he was about to come made me whimper with need. His ta’laps coiled around and under me, stroking my breasts, bringing me even closer to my own climax. Then he roared.
My nerve endings soared at the added pressure from his come, his seed pumping into me, all of it sealed inside. I cried out, clenching around him and feeling every last pulse lash inside me as I followed him.
Later, cradled in his arms and wrapped tightly by his ta’laps , my back to his chest, I sighed. He rubbed a hand over my belly, swollen with his seed after multiple rounds, and kissed our bond mark. I shivered.
“What is this emotion?” he asked.
“Worry, anticipation, and excitement,” I answered. “In that order.”
“Happiness too.” His hold around me tightened. “I love you so much, Charlotte. Whatever happens, I always will.”
A vivid image of a little boy with horns and a dimple came into my mind, and my heart felt like it would burst.
“And I’ll always love you, Ryoch.”
I couldn’t have written a happier ending.
I hope you loved Char and Ryoch’s story as much as I loved writing it. Please consider giving it a rating and/or a review - it’s the best way for more people to find the book.