3. Fiona
Fiona
The days pass in a blissful rhythm. I spend my days in Penridge, the survival fear of my old life replaced by a calm, steady rhythm.
Food is plentiful, peace abounded, and due to the distance my husband maintains from the villagers, I am never bothered with any chores.
The staff runs the house smoothly, and they have taken to me as their new mistress. I have taken to them too.
Mrs. Holloway, the head housekeeper, a stout woman with kind eyes and a serpentine tail of her own that she keeps tucked beneath her skirts, teaches me the running of the household with patient hands.
The gardener, Mr. Reeves, who is entirely human but has worked for the Drakes since before my birth, tends to the gardens and cultivates the most fascinating roses.
The butler, Mr. Aldridge, who first opened the door to me that grey afternoon, now greets me each morning with a tray of tea and a folded newspaper, and calls me “my lady” without a trace of irony.
I spend my mornings in the manor’s library, which is my sanctuary.
Thanks to my upbringing in the rectory, I learned to read and write, and it is now my greatest asset.
I spend all day reading the history of the Nagas, the manor’s past, and learning as much as I can about my husband and his kind.
The fire is always lit. The tea is always warm.
No one tells me I eat too much, or that I take up too much space, or that I am a burden.
Here, I am simply Fiona. Lady Penridge. Severin’s wife.
And I never thought I’d love being a wife so much.
Each night, after the candles gutter low and the manor settles into silence, I wait for him.
I lie in that enormous bed with anticipation humming in my breast, my entire body warm for my husband.
He is the most exquisite lover, making love to me slowly each night before taking me with a fierce passion that leaves me breathless and screaming.
He comes inside me several times, and I love when he claims me with his cocks, playing with me with his tail and tongue, my body a willing slave to his ministrations.
However, that night, he doesn’t come. It’s the first time he hasn’t visited my door since we got married.
As I lie in the cold bed alone, I realize that I haven’t seen him all day.
My husband usually looks over estate matters, reads, or spends time in the gardens, but he wasn’t there today.
Restless and needy, I stand up, wrapping a shawl around my shoulders and light a candle, exiting my bedroom with a candlestick.
The hallway is empty, and the staff is asleep, making me wonder if Severin went out on business. I pad down the corridor in my bare feet, the stone cold beneath my soles, the candle flame trembling in my hand. My heart is beating fast, and not from fear. It is beating because I miss him.
I miss the weight of his body on mine. I miss the cool press of his scales against my inner thighs.
I miss the way his golden eyes go liquid when he is buried inside me, the way his forked tongue slides between my lips and makes my knees buckle.
He has awakened something in me that I never knew existed, a hunger that lives in my belly and my breasts and between my legs, a hunger that only he can feed.
Every night when he comes to my bed, I become someone else—a bold and shameless woman desperate for his touch.
A woman who begs and moans and wraps her legs around his tail and takes everything her husband gives her. A woman who is falling in love.
I exhale, seeing a faint light coming from the slightly ajar library door, and begin walking in that direction.
I am falling for my husband, for the quiet walks we share in the morning sometimes, for the feel of his solid body against mine while I sleep, for the peace and security he makes me feel like it’s nothing.
With Severin, I feel safe, wanted, desired in a way that makes me feel powerful for the first time in my life. He looks at me like I’m valuable, precious, worth saving. He is a monster, a serpent viscount who should never be right for me, but when I’m with him, I feel at home.
I push the library door open, noticing the flame growing stronger. The fireplace is blazing with a freshly started fire, the books filling shelves glowing in the semi-darkness.
“My lord?” I step inside, looking around for the source of the faint breathing I hear. I find it soon enough.
Severin is huddled in one corner of the library, his majestic sixteen-foot tail unbound and slithering over the carpet. He isn’t wearing anything, his dark hair falling over his brow as his golden eyes flash at me, glowing with unholy light. He is sweaty, panting, as if he’s in pain.
“Are you all right, Severin?” I ask, moving toward him in haste.
“Don’t come near me,” he snarls, holding his hand up, pushing me away just as I reach him.
His voice is not his own. It is guttural, feral, a sound that scrapes the back of his throat like scales on stone.
His golden eyes are not the warm, liquid amber I have grown to love.
They are molten, the slit pupils blown wide and burning, and they fix on me with a hunger that makes my breath catch in my chest. Heat radiates off him in waves, and when I gaze down, I see that he is aroused.
I know what this is. I have read about it in the ancient leather-bound tomes in the library.
Severin is in the clutches of his heat. It is when a naga’s blood runs hottest, and his body demands what it was built for—to breed, to claim, to fill a mate until she swells with his young.
This is what he has been waiting for. If he takes me now, the books said, I will conceive.
There is no chance of failure. His seed will find its mark and root deep inside my womb, and I will carry his child.
The thought sends a bolt of heat straight between my thighs.
“Severin,” I say again, softer this time.
I take another step toward him. The candle in my hand trembles, casting wild shadows across his face.
His bare chest glistens with sweat, the pale skin flushed pink, and beneath the smooth transition where his human torso meets his serpentine form, his scales have darkened from their usual iridescent emerald to a deep, bruised charcoal.
They are flushed, almost black, and they radiate heat I can feel from three paces away.
“Why are you alone in here? Why didn’t you come to me? ”
“Leave now, Fiona. I am in no state to make love to you.” I can sense his control, which leaves me confused.
“Why not? Aren’t you in your heat? If we make love now, I am sure to conceive.
You can have your heir.” I place the candlestick on the table, sitting down next to him.
My shawl slides off my back and onto the carpet.
Severin’s eyes flicker to my body, so ripe, fertile, and needy for him, my nipples hard under the white nightgown, their rosy outline visible through the thin fabric.
“Fiona, go. I cannot control myself. If I take you now, I will be rough, far rougher than your soft, human body can handle.”
“Is that why you didn’t come to my bed tonight?” I lean over the neck of my gown, slipping to reveal the swells of my breasts. Before I know it, I hear a hissing sound and Severin’s hands grab mine, pinning me against the shelf as his serpent rises from the floor, holding me.
“I cannot take you in this state. I will break you.” I moan as I feel his dual hemipenes already unsheathed, grinding into the apex of my thighs through my clothing.
His grip is iron, his fingers digging into my wrists, and I can feel the tremor running through his arms. Not from weakness but from the effort of holding himself back.
“You didn’t come to dinner,” I say, sounding like a miffed wife. “Or breakfast. I thought you weren’t in the manor.”
“I was trying to spare you the pain.” His hemipenes grind against my mound through the thin fabric of my nightgown, and I feel them pulse, thick and heavy and impossibly hard, slick already soaking through the silk and painting my skin with that golden, intoxicating warmth.
My pussy sparks to life, liquid pooling between my legs.
“Fiona.” His voice cracks on my name. The golden fire in his eyes wavers, and for one raw, unguarded moment, I see the terror beneath the heat.
“Please. Go. Lock the door behind you. If you don’t leave now, I will breed you.
I will take you roughly, and I will not be able to stop until you’re bred and knotted.
If I hurt you, and I could not live with myself, little one. ”
I do not move. I do not pull away. Instead, I raise my free hand slowly, carefully, and I cup his jaw. His skin is burning hot beneath my palm, feverish, and I feel the muscles in his jaw clench and unclench as he fights himself.
“Severin.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
His slit pupils narrow, then widen. His breath comes in ragged, hissing pulls.
“I am not going anywhere. Stop pushing me away. I am your wife,” I tell him, my thumb tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone.
“I am not going to shy away from you. Not tonight.
Not ever. This is what you are, and this is who I married. A monster who needs me during his heat.
I lean forward, my lips brushing his as he lets out an agonized groan. “I know you’d never hurt me. From the moment I stepped into this manor, you’ve been nothing but kind to me. I’ve lived long enough to know that everyone isn’t like you.”
“Fiona…” His voice shakes, his hands gripping my waist.
“I’m not afraid of you, Severin.”
“You should be. We’ve barely known each other a week. I am a monster whose nature you do not understand.”
“No, but I understand your heart. And my heart tells me that you are my monster. My protector, my husband, the one I want inside me tonight.”