12. Chapter 12
twelve
Hue
It has been several ontics, and I am still dangling underneath him like a stubborn virusbot on the belly of a ship.
And we’re still outside.
I huff, glancing at Melion from underneath the snarling beast who keeps teetering on all fours. “Any help?”
My frown deepens as he dissipates.
Okay, so maybe this mating thing is pretty serious.
I’m his balance?
Fuck, I’m not balanced. I’m like the least qualified person to balance another being. I’m pissy and selfish, mean and just overall pretty unpleasant. Not to mention the lying and theft.
I wiggle, earning me a heated snarl from Sor’en-not-Sor’en above me. My flesh breaks out in unwelcome and unhelpful goosebumps as his long, purplish colored tongue dips out to lap up my neck in a languid, slick trail. My core tightens, clenching in anticipation of… what?
Neither of us knows a single thing about shit down there, so she needs to knock it off.
But it… feels funny, and I think I can feel my pulse down by that bundle of nerves I always avoid touching. Sor’en keeps licking and growling, I keep dangling, and my body is being weird.
I slap at him, earning myself a deafening roar in my face. So forceful my hair shifts, and I have to squint my eyes at his dumb upside-down head-not-head.
“Don’t yell at me!” I scream back, now feverishly trying to wiggle free.
When he comes back in for another taste, I swat again, this time my swat is dodged before I’m promptly hauled out from underneath him and planted roughly on the ground in front of his massive body.
I gawk, my eyes so wide they might pop out of my head because like this…
Sor’en looks so different. I hadn’t really had a chance to appreciate how drastic the change was, although abstractly from underneath and behind him, I knew there was one.
Where there once stood an eight-foot-tall sauvé and calculated bipedal humanoid alien, what stands over me now is…
larger, and there’s nothing remotely humanoid about him.
Nothing familiar in the giant quadruped now, his neck is longer, uncomfortably so.
His white silken hair hangs to the ground, the white ends brushing the bitter teal grass.
Sor’en’s arms have grown too, far longer than what rationally makes sense, and he is bisected into two front legs supporting his upper half, the same with the back.
His once straight, graceful spine bowed impossibly and…
forked? Both ends slightly protruding from the bottom of his back like wicked spikes.
His clothes are nothing more than tatters on his body, clinging by their hardened tech structures.
“Sor’en…” I choke.
His head tilts, listening to me as he sways again.
He’s still so exhausted, guilt swarms me, heady and choking.
He’s been wiping that oil on me in hopes of bonding.
What the hell does bonding even mean to his species?
Mom used to talk about it a lot, different kinds of bondings.
Some can change the very genetic makeup of a person.
Others, nothing more than a spoken vow, honored until the end of time.
I sigh, reaching out and tugging on his weird horns.
“I need you to come back so you can help me understand what’s going to happen next,” I plead.
To my surprise, he lets me move him.
Okay, time for plan… like E or something by now.
Slamming my hands onto my hips, I glance beside me at the house, finding Melion there in the doorway, watching us, still offering no help either way. Very well then. I grip one of his horns before turning and shifting all of my weight forward. “Come on, let's at least go inside. I’m hungry.”
I glance over my shoulder, ensuring he’s still coming.
He is. His mostly unchanged face regarding me carefully as that long purple tongue hangs lazily out of his mouth.
All that goes smoothly enough until we get to the shimmering door and I realize he might not fit.
A gentle tug forward, and yeah, no, not going to fit.
“Well, shit. No chance you’re cooking tonight, huh? ”
He doesn’t respond.
Not until I walk inside and leave him behind.
Then he has a lot to say, er roar at the least. Only halfway to the kitchen, mumbling all sorts of curses under my breath, I snag a bowl just as Sor’en tries to force his wide upper half through the door.
The veil tech covering it blinks and shudders, making me heave another sigh. “Stop that! You’re going to break it!”
Melion warbles beside me, and I have nothing to back this up, but I’m at least seventy percent certain that was a laugh. He zooms back out the door, simply going through Sor’en-not-Sor’en while I stand there now trapped on the other side with a bowl of fruit almost too heavy for my arms.
I grunt, heaving the heavy dish into one arm and shooing at him with the other. “Back up, I’m coming out.”
He lingers in the doorway, sticking out his purple tongue like he’s reaching for me.
Laughter bursts out of me abruptly, startling us both into a ceasefire.
But he starts doing it again.
His upper half caught in the narrow doorway, his tongue just swiping at empty air.
The bowl clatters to the ground loudly as I double over and cackle even louder.
My footing slips, making me fall back onto my butt as he swipes for me with a long arm connected to a shoulder still straining in the doorway.
But he reaches me this time. Long, slender fingers, tipped with claws that tickle my ankle jerk me toward the door.
I screech as I’m pulled damn near into him, still blocking the exit.
No sooner than I’m there, though, his milky eyes flutter, the amusement leaving me abruptly as he stumbles, this time fully falling to the ground in a heap of limbs and bone.
Something slices deep into my chest at the sight of him.
Of the proud, calm, sauvé male who cares about his flowers, weakened like this.
I quickly snag the bowl and the fallen, now bruised fruit off the ground, scooting it as close to the door as I can before I settle for scrambling over the top of Sor’en.
“Hang on, I’ll fix this,” I promise him, and for the life of me, I don’t know what made the words leave my mouth. I can’t fix this.
I have no idea how.
I’m struggling to keep one promise I had already made.
He doesn’t protest as I clamber ungracefully over him, though, doesn’t make a sound, his breathing now labored from exhaustion as I settle myself in the curl of his animal form.
Like a huge Earth horse if the horse were made of obsidian flesh and bone.
I curse under my breath, remembering the bowl of fruit.
Sor’en doesn’t react as I scramble my way underneath his long neck, lifting just enough for me to maneuver on all fours to drag the bowl to us.
It's not until something hot and wet tickles my inner thigh that I squeal, shooting up so fast I knock my head off one of his elongated bones. Plain flares on my scalp, my hands going up to check for bleeding. There is none, but he does it again. I gasp, fighting to jerk my dress back down when I’m suddenly shoved to my chest in the long grass, a low, eerie reverberating growl sounding as Sor’en nestles his face between my legs.
It vibrates the skin there, making me jerk.
My cheeks flush crimson, my long red hair hiding my face as my core pulses underneath his hot breath. “Sor’en, stop,” I whisper.
But he doesn’t and… I’m not sure what's happening, but I’m almost entirely sure I don’t want him to.
When that long, hot tongue dances across my opening, I buck forward at the sudden onslaught of sensation, only for another growl to sound from behind and a sharp, clawed hand to force me harder into the ground.
My fingers flex as they dig into the grass, feeling each blade as he presses me harder in warning.
His message is clear.
Don’t move.
And I don’t.
What happens next is… agonizing, but in the best way.
It’s sensation and tension and stars bursting behind my eyes.
Because Sor’en licks…
A sharp cry escapes my throat as his tongue laps up toward that tiny bundle of nerves and circles it, latching on.
Something deep and large vibrates, but I’m beyond hearing it.
Beyond caring what, or why, or where. I bare back tighter against him and try to pull away, all at once, my body a flurry of feeling.
The ground underneath me suddenly rough on my flushed skin.
Some part of his odd new form pressed against my pebbled breasts.
Pointed claws prick my flesh through the garment while he holds me down, feasting on my center.
When the tip of his tongue finally releases my tiny bundle, I collapse, screaming into the ground, allowing him to keep my hips up and legs splayed wide.
My own moans turn guttural and whining, sounding so strange to my own ears as he prods my opening with his tongue lapping and pressing, before baking out and trying again.
Kissing and sucking somewhere nobody has ever been before.
Somewhere I’m certain nobody will ever be again.
Something hot and wild builds deep in my stomach, low and terrifying.
I try to scramble away from the rising tightness deep in my core, but his answering growl explodes on my aching, wet center.
I scream as sensation rips through me, light bursting behind my eyes.
My entire body shuddering with the force of something I’m not even sure I can name.
He keeps me there for a few more lingering moments, that buzzing increasing with each lap of his tongue, savoring the taste of me.
My hands are trembling, and my face is flushed, chest heaving by the time he finally lets me up.
My mind is numb, chest still heaving, and there are butterflies lodged so deep in my stomach I’ll never be rid of them as I settle in against Sor’en-not-Sor’en and blindingly reach for the bowl of bruised fruit.