Epilogue
M y web stretched between trees that had not existed one year before, the silver strands matching the light of the full moon.
My serpent hung suspended in the center, her silver scales reflecting with an iridescent sheen in the moonlight.
Her hair caught the light in the same way, and her golden eyes followed my every move.
“Comfortable?” I asked her, moving behind her, where her gaze could not follow.
“A bit too comfortable, perhaps.” She teased me, snapping a few of the bonds. It was easy for her now, and a reminder of the gift she gave me when she allowed me to bind her.
“Always a gluttony for punishment, my hungry serpent.” I traced my serrated claws along her sinuous tail, and buried my nose in the soft strands of her hair.
I traced a finger along the scar I had created on her chest, a mirror of the web that held her.
Now not a mark of possession, but of a promise, between two creatures to share eternity.
“I’m always curious to see what you come up with.” She turned her head, ensnaring my lips with hers, our tongues entangling until my whole body burned with need. But we had all the time in the world, there was no need to rush things.
“Do you know what the wolf told me yesterday?” I asked.
My serpent frowned as I pulled away from her. Always so impatient. “Which wolf? The territory is crawling with them now.” She shifted in the bonds, not to escape but to feel the silk slide against her scales. “Ever since you let them den in the northern groves?—”
“Gysgod said the Romans have a new name for this place.” She was moving too much. I tied more silk around her, slowly, watching her pupils expand with need. “Silva Devoratrix. The Devouring Forest.”
“Fitting.” She gasped as I tightened a knot over a particularly sensitive place we had found on her tail. “How many legions have fed the roots now? Four? Five?”
“Six. Though the last hardly counted. They fled before crossing the boundary stones.” I leaned closer, mandibles clicking near her ear. “The stories the survivors spread have done more than any battle. Entire regions avoid the deep woods now.”
“Our reputation precedes us.” She said, arching into my touch. “The Spider and the Serpent. Guardians of the expanding wild.”
“Is that what we are? Guardians?” I chuckled, my thoughts quickly turning darker as she writhed in my grip. “I thought we were monsters.”
“To humans, is there a difference?” She smiled wide, her fangs dripping with sweet venom.
I leaned in and licked it, my tongue catching on the tip of her fang so that the taste of iron filled both our mouths.
She moaned so sweetly and I knew I wouldn’t be able to tease her much longer.
Years hadn’t diminished the hunger between us—if anything, our mutual claiming had deepened it, made it more complex.
“Ysu…” she growled at me, and I heard more of my web snap as she writhed with impatience.
“Always so hungry.”
“You made me this way.”
“Oh no, my serpent, we both know you were always insatiable.” I ran my hands down the smooth scales that ran over her waist, where they still merged with soft human skin. Lower and lower I ventured until I found the place where they parted, revealing her deep heat to me.
I pressed aside the scales covering her slit, and plunged my clawed fingers into the velvety confines of her cunt. She threw her head back against my shoulder, panting.
“Not enough, Ysu…”
“ Insatiable. ”
I used my legs to adjust my web so she whipped around, suspended upside down. Her face was now level with my completely emerged cocks. She immediately wrapped her long tongue around one, and I watched her try to free an arm from my bindings to toy with the other.
Instead, two of my limbs bound her tighter. She groaned in frustration, but it only had more precum dripping down her cheeks and into her hot mouth.
I had long ago stopped needing to be gentle with her, especially not when she was like this. I thrust in until I felt the tight ring at the back of her throat, and her tongue followed the twisted grooves as I pulled back again.
My claws found the back of her head, holding her still as I fucked deeper into her throat, opening her. I felt her jaw unlatch, and when I pushed back in, she took both of my cocks into her mouth.
“You’re perfect.” I groaned against the scales of her hip, before my own long tongue pushed its way inside of her. Her taste satisfied my hunger as nothing else ever had, and as I drew back, circling the soft bud that hid beneath her scales, she hummed around me.
It wasn’t long before my knots began to swell, and as divine as her mouth felt, I knew we both needed more.
I manipulated my web again and she was upright, her eyes dazed with the rush of blood and lust. Her lips were swollen and laced with tiny dots of blood, and I licked them off, tasting her and me and the sweet venom that sang between us.
“My arrogant spider, my light in the darkness,” The words were soft as she gave me a lazy smile, “kiss me and tell me you love me.”
I kissed her deep, every single one of my limbs holding her close, except the hand which held my cocks together as I pushed into the tight entrance of her slit.
She moaned into my mouth as I seated completely inside her. “I love you, my serpent.” I pulled out and slammed back in. “You brought me back to life when there was nothing but the void, and you showed me what true strength was.”
“Ysu…” Her eyes rolled back and I felt her tightening around me even as I started to swell. “Tell me you’re mine.”
Her whole body shook, my bindings starting to snap.
I wrapped her in my arms as she came undone, feeling the pleasure wash through her.
I thrust into that perfect, velvety heat one last time as I followed her over the edge.
My knots caught inside her, and that last bit of pressure had wave after wave of come pouring into her.
“I’m yours, my serpent. And I would tear apart the very web of reality to hold you in my arms.”
Now I was the one shaking, and as I filled her, she sank her fangs into my shoulder, completing the cycle as she pumped her venom into me.
It amplified the pleasure, until I was completely lost in bliss, the light of the moon splitting into prismatic colors as every part of me was filled with her. I wanted nothing else.
When we had both come down from the high of lust and venom, she freed herself from the last of her bindings, and curled against my chest, her tail wrapping around my waist. “And I am yours, Ysu. This forest may have called me, but you made me want to stay. I was taught to fear monsters, but you taught me to fear nothing at all. I love you Ysu, from now until the last star falls from the sky. ”
A folk song for Roman children, dated 323 AD
When moonlit scales shine in the night,
beware the Serpent’s hungry bite.
She calls with eyes like molten gold,
to make the young and lost grow bold .
Beside her waits her Spider king,
together death is what they bring.
So stay on paths both straight and true,
lest ancient hunger Devours you.