Chapter 14 #2
I flick mine out, and he rolls his eyes, but I know he doesn’t mean that literally. “So, why me?”
“You were different,” he says. “Your taste. Your scent. And…and the manner in which you like to challenge me.” He pauses, then flicks his ears again. “I liked it.”
I don’t know why that makes me want to curl up like a little pill bug on his chest, but I do. The beats of his hearts soothe me again, just like the rumble of his purr, and the way his tail gently vibrates.
Sleep is tugging at my edges.
“Tomorrow, we will see Erethar.”
My head shoots up. “Seriously?”
“Mm.” He nods once. “There are rules you must follow. Rules you cannot break. But if you promise to restrain yourself, my little human, I will give you free rein over my apartment and perhaps take you to the caves.”
The caves. Holy fuck. I don’t even know what that is, and I already can’t wait.
“Sleep now,” he tells me. “You’ve exhausted yourself.”
I want to argue, but he’s not wrong. Even with the promise of stepping through the portal—and all the anxiety that comes with it—I can’t run from my fatigue.
“Wake me for dinner,” I murmur.
He says nothing, just holds me tighter, and it’s not long before I’m slipping away, dreaming of an orange and purple sky with four moons and, in the distance, pink trees.
Rathyn doesn’t wake me for dinner. He lets me sleep, so when I finally peel my eyelids back, I’m famished.
“Seriously, dude. Next time, wake me up,” I say as I shovel food into my mouth. “You need to make sure I’m fed, not just bred.”
Rathyn’s ears flicker as he stares down at me. I’m at the kitchen island, and he isn’t sitting next to me. He’s just lingering like a ghost.
“I cannot breed humans. You do not have an egg.”
I snort as I shove some bacon into my mouth. “Yeah, I just have delicious cum or something. I never did ask why you need it.”
He doesn’t answer that, just nods. “You do taste…good.”
He picks at a bushel of the moss-looking stuff that he pulled from the fridge, and I nod toward it. “What is that called?”
“You would call it lettuce—”
“No way, we’d call that moss—and we don’t eat moss, but go on.”
He stares at me in annoyance for interrupting him. “—but we call it kirrashev.”
“Hm, is it good?”
“It is…enough.”
I stare at him and then hold out a piece of bacon. “Want to try this? It’s delicious.”
He shakes his head and leans back slightly. “We do not eat meat. It is…our bodies cannot process it.”
“Hm. Although you do eat a certain kind of meat.” When he cocks his head, I add, “Mine.”
His hum is low and deep. “You are in an odd mood this morning.”
I shift in my seat as my fork scrapes over the plate. “Just feeling rejuvenated and you know…nervous to go into your world. It’s making me feel all sorts of ways.”
“Why are you nervous?”
I think back to the many long years stuck in my aunt and uncle’s house, staring at old travel magazines, wondering what it would be like to escape, to visit places I never got the chance to see.
“I’ve never been through a portal before. Hell, I’ve never traveled outside this town. It’s…overwhelming and exciting.”
I push my plate away and stare at him. The bushel of kirrashev is nearly gone, and I wonder if I should try some, but then again, I don’t want to ruin my chance of going through the portal by eating something that gives me a stomachache.
Rathyn’s long tongue snakes out, and he engulfs the rest, chewing for a moment before swallowing. He eats like he sucks cock.
My cheeks flush at the thought—the way he spread me out last night.
I liked that a lot.
“We can leave soon. But first, you must adorn the traditional dress for companions.”
I glance up at him and then down at my bare chest, and my pierced nipples are slightly red and puffy, but not painful. Then my gaze slips down to my tight sweatpants, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot less than I’m wearing now.
“What kind of outfit?”
“I have several being delivered which you can try on.”
“I mean, are you really going to let me pick?”
He stares at me, and I wink at him, making his skin shimmer. “I do not know what this eye twitch was, but I think it is an insult.”
“It’s called flirting, which I’m pretty sure you don’t do. I’ll teach you how to, though.”
I wink again, and he turns around, his tail twisted tightly around his thigh. “Is it like kissing?”
I shrug. “It usually leads to kissing.”
His ears flutter again, and he nods. “Cielo will arrive soon with the garments. Do not flirt with him.”
“I won’t. Jesus.”
“I do not know this Jesus, but do not make your eye twitch near Cielo.”
I stand up and move toward Rathyn, my hands landing on his bare chest. “You know I’m your companion, not anyone else’s. And I don’t cheat. Ever. But I promise no winking. Just…I want a friend, and I think Cielo can be mine.”
His hearts thump angrily in his chest. “He is not yours.”
I shove at him slightly. He doesn’t move. “You’re so literal. I mean, he could be my friend.”
He doesn’t look very sure, so I roll my eyes and head toward the shower. “Alright, well, we can discuss this later. I need to clean up. You made a mess of me last night.”
I hear his hum follow me into the bathroom, and as I’m washing myself, I hear his voice in my mind.
“You were not a mess last night, my Everest. You looked beautiful.”
I can’t even ask him to get out of my head when he’s giving me such nice compliments, so I let him linger, conjuring up visions of him sucking my dick as I wash myself.
When I reappear, Cielo is here, several garments in his hands, his face downturned. After how Rathyn reacted last time, I get why.
And it probably doesn’t help that Rathyn is staring at him intently, saying something in his language that I cannot understand. It doesn’t sound nice, though.
I sigh loudly, and Rathyn peers over at me. “Whatever you’re saying to him, he obviously feels bad about it. Can you stop now?”
Rathyn straightens, that hum dulling slightly. I move over to Cielo and stop a few feet from him.
“Hello, friend.”
His gaze peeks up at mine, and his tongue slashes out. “Frennn.”
“Yes. You and I are friends.”
I turn toward Rathyn and arch an eyebrow. His tail twitches around his thigh. “What did you bring me? These look really nice.”
Cielo holds them out toward me, and I take them in my hands. They’re lightweight, made of the same fabric the Vyastil wear.
I wonder how a human will look wearing the same thing.
“I think I’m gonna try these on. Come on, Cielo, you can help me.”
Rathyn’s body vibrates, low and dangerous. “I will help you. No one else will touch you.”
“He’s not going to touch me. He’s going to help me figure out how to wear these things, but you can watch. And you get to pick which one I wear. Capiche?”
His ears flutter. “I do not know this word.”
“It’s an agreement. Like an understanding. Cielo and I are friends, and you have to accept that.”
“I do not accept this.”
“Babe, you’ll have to get over it because I get to decide who’s in my life and who isn’t.
” His ears flutter, and I wink at him. “Babe is a term of endearment, by the way.” I nod toward Cielo to help me, and he peers over at Rathyn with nerves written all over his face.
“Alright, Rath, enough. Or I’m going to renegotiate those fifteen blow jobs down to five. ”
He takes a step toward me, but I stand my ground. I refuse to be a captive to this Vyastil. I refuse. I was held hostage by my aunt and uncle for years. I won’t go down that road again.
“You cannot do this.”
“I can and I will. Now let Cielo help me try these on, and we can go to Erethar.”
His tail tightens, and his body hums, but he finally nods. “I will watch.”
“Yes, you will.”
“And you will wear my mark.”
“Yeah, I will.”
The chain he put on me was taken off while I slept, but I saw it when I rolled out of bed. He set it on the end table, probably to give my newly pierced nipples a break.
We move into the bedroom where the full-length mirror is, and Cielo’s tail untwines from his waist and twists around the hangers.
“Cool trick,” I say as I move toward them. “Which one should I try on first?”
“This one,” Rathyn says, plucking a deep purple robe off Cielo’s tail.
“Yeah, alright.” I pull it off the hanger and hold it up. “So, how does this work?”
“You need to disrobe.”
I wasn’t feeling super keen about getting naked in front of Cielo, but… “Yeah, alright.”
I peel off my sweatpants and kick them to the side. I didn’t bother with underwear. I mean, why should I when Rathyn might want to collect his blow jobs at any moment?
Cielo peers over at me and then quickly looks away. His tail twitches, and his ears dip down slightly. Not sure what that means, but there is no time to dissect it.
I need to get ready to go through the portal.
I shrug the gown on and stare down at it. “So where are the bottoms?”
“There are no bottoms,” Rathyn says. “This is what you’ll wear.”
My eyebrows rise. “What? Are you serious? My dick is on display.”
“Yes, it is. And it will be adorned as well, depending on the color robe you choose.”
My eyes widen. “Adorned?”
He nods toward Cielo, who produces a woven pouch from his robe. He hands it to Rathyn, who holds it in the palm of his hand.
“Come, let me show you.”
My dick twitches at his command, and I step forward, the robe fluttering behind me. It does nothing to cover me. My nipples and cock will be entirely exposed.
Rathyn says something to Cielo in his language, and I see Cielo move toward the bed, but my gaze is on Rathyn’s hand.
“Show me,” I say, and he pulls the pouch open, reaching in and pulling out a woven, bejeweled chain.
“You will wear this. It will match your robe.”
I look at the deep purple gems. “How does it work?”
“You will see, once your color is chosen.”
I glance at Cielo, who hands Rathyn the nipple chain. Carefully, he attaches it, and I feel my cock perk up a little more. This is all very erotic. And I’m not entirely sure how I feel about him parading me around Erethar wearing a nipple chain and dick adornments, but here we are.
“Alright, well, let’s pick a color then.”
“You will do this?” he asks, seeming to almost expect a fight. The thing is, I usually would, but I’m too excited about traveling to Erethar to argue.
“Yeah.”
His tongue flicks out, and I lean up, kissing him softly. Cielo makes a small high-pitched hum in the corner, but he goes ignored as I bite down gently on Rathyn’s bottom lip. When we pull away, I see his skin glimmering, his eyes flashing.
“I like this color on you,” he says, his fingers dancing along the hem of it. “But let us try the blue. It will match your eyes.”
I swallow and nod, allowing the purple robe to slip from my fingers and then letting Cielo help me put on the blue one.
The flash of Rathyn’s eyes lets me know that this is the one he wants me to wear. There’s no doubt about it. I’m going to go to Erethar in this robe, marked as his.
When we walk toward the portal, I fight the urge to cover my cock.
It’s bouncing between my legs, wrapped with a chain covered in sapphire blue gems. It twists around my balls and up around my cock.
And right over the slit is a gleaming gem I’ve never seen before, but it is rainbow in color and has an odd shape.
My mind flicks back to when Rathyn kneeled down before me and placed this final adornment on me. The way his eyes shone as he looked up at me.
“My family crest. The Dark Vale. To show who you belong to.”
I couldn’t help but reach out and touch his face tenderly. Cielo made another high-pitched sound, but he went ignored.
“Now, breathe deeply, Everest.”
I watched as his fingers spread my slit open and he pushed the slim end of it into me.
I let out a gasp at the feeling of something entering my urethra, but I didn’t hate it.
“Does it hurt?” he asked when it settled in me.
“No,” I breathed.
He leaned forward and licked up my dick, wetting the chain and gem, making my cock harden.
And it’s remained that way.
I don’t know how it’s staying on, but the gem-lined chain clings to my cock as I move.
Rathyn seems to like that I’m still hard because he keeps glancing down at my dick and meeting my gaze.
“God, you really like that, don’t you?” I say, and his gaze flickers happily.
“Yes. It shows you are mine.”
“Yeah, seems so.” My cock bobs between my legs, and I peer down at it.
It does look nice now that I think about it. I look nice. I wonder what the Vyastil will think of me when I step through the portal. Will he be proud of me?
Or are humans something to be ashamed of?
I take a breath as Rathyn guides me to the portal entrance, and he releases my hand, which is probably because of propriety and protocol.
I swallow heavily. “Will traveling through hurt?”
His gaze flickers down to me, and a tiny smile touches his lips before his expression fades back into neutral. “It will not hurt. I would never let anything cause you pain.”
I believe him, god help me. And right after he steps through, his form shimmering and then disappearing, I close my eyes and follow.