Chapter 19
Morning was a cruel thing. I could feel it looming and gnawing away at the darkness behind my eyelids like a hungover teenager chewing on last night’s pizza rinds.
There was a moment, just a second or two, when I thought that everything—the apocalypse, my mate, my guys, Vergis and me in the hammock, Kinnek and Charles, and even Donna and her chicken—had been a dream, and it was enough to scare my cat socks off of me.
When a rough tongue licked over the back of my neck, I relaxed.
“You’re awake, sadir.”
I turned around. Dang it, but this bed was small. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and looked around.
We were back in the dorms, in the same room we’d snuck off to yesterday.
The one in which, two and a half years ago, someone had made the bed and pulled the door shut, never to return.
I had no idea who’d lived and studied here, but I wished I could tell them that I’d made things right again, that I had reversed that terrible magic they had been used for.
They were gone though.
“Thanks for going to get Aragis,” I said. “And thanks for protecting me.”
I remembered the wound I’d closed and scrambled around under the sheets Inkiri had wrapped me in so I could get his shirt open.
He clicked. “Ah. You want my barb now, sadir, yes? To help you heal?”
“Uhm. Yes, please,” I said, proving that I wasn’t fully awake yet, and maybe just a bit too horny for someone who’d just thrown lightning at the Koa Esher.
Inkiri nodded. “I’m glad. Ever since yesterday, you smell of magic, but different from bagu magic. Sweeter.” He licked my neck again. “I’m quite glad you want pleasure play now. You’re feeling well enough for it?”
I hadn’t known he could smell magic on me. Obviously, that was no reason to keep doing the kind of stuff I’d done last night, but maybe some dispensing here and there was okay. If he liked it.
“I think I had a good night’s sleep. Just as if I’d partied, except that was no party at all.
I… The magic didn’t hurt me all that bad this time.
” I opened my mouth to tell him about Death and how the Lady had come to help save all of us.
I wanted to tell him what she’d said, that there would be a price.
I snapped my mouth closed. Hearing that might worry him, and I didn’t want that. I’d made the decision, and I would pay the cost. Until then, I’d love him as best as I was able.
Plus, his mind was on the ravishing train of thought, right along with my own. I gave him the slowest eyelash batting I could. Inkiri growl-purred.
“Sweet thing, you make me the luckiest hangu-na on Earth, maybe even on Aer.”
He undressed me. He’d put me in a soft set of shibiya last night, and now he peeled me out of them as if I were jewelry wrapped in silk. I chuckled as I watched him carefully pull a fresh pair of cat socks off my feet.
“No matter what you say, I’m not getting on all fours today. But you’ll take care of me, right?”
I combined that with some more blinking, and yes, I was a mighty pillow queen. My mate ate it up.
“Always, sadir. I know you like being on your back when you take my barb.”
He stripped out of his own clothes, and I saw the scar from last night finally, slightly puckered and flaring out like a starburst. I let out a long breath and reached for the mark, carefully running my fingers over it. Inkiri was undeterred, pushing my legs apart so he could settle between them.
“Does this hurt?”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. It will show everyone I bleed willingly for my mate.”
“I could’ve healed it fully, but then I realized you’d say that, so I left you with that scar.”
Inkiri’s eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open. He ran the knuckles of his right hand over my cheek.
“My Rory. My precious mate. I don’t understand how you wish I wouldn’t fight, but I try. Thank you for letting me keep this.”
“Sure, anytime,” I said, then realized what I’d said. “Like, I’d rather not see you in a gunfight ever again, but, you know. Happy to make you happy. If that means not healing your wounds fully, I’ll do that, but of course I like it best if you don’t get hurt.”
Inkiri ran his fingers all over my skin, smiling as if he was examining a piece of art or watching a really good stage performance.
“I don’t know yet what will make you happy, but I do want to learn. I want to be worthy of a hangu like you, of a powerful mage.”
This guy. How was I supposed to not tear up at that? His fault. He was being too good for me, and the waterworks were his fault, whether he went about clicking at me as soon as he saw them or not.
“Oh…”
“Sweet thing, what is it? Pain from the magic? Tell me what you want, tell me what I should do.”
I shook my head and reeled him in by his arm. He yielded, clicking until he was on top of me, close and warm. I kissed him, tangled my fingers in his long hair.
“Happy tears,” I told him. “But I really want—” I reached down to where I felt his slick cock next to my own and stroked, reveling in the differences, loving that it made me feel so good to touch him. “I want you.”
“Yes. But you’ll have to let go of me so I can get you ready first.”
I felt ready. So ready. I was hard, and the emptiness in my ass ached to be filled. I groaned, but that wouldn’t get me filled up faster, so I did the next best thing—I let Inkiri go and spread my legs. Pillow queen energy for the win.
He smiled at me as he started getting me ready, although he spent a lot of time running his hands over my belly and thighs as if I were special. All it did was make me blush.
“You’re so brave, sadir. So beautiful. You’re everything to me, Rory.”
That big blue meanie. I didn’t know what to say, and I was trembling with anticipation and too many emotions, all stirred up into this confusion cocktail inside of me.
Inkiri brushed his hand all the way from my cheek over my chest and belly toward my legs, finally, but this time he went all the way to my taint.
“If anything doesn’t feel good, you will say it?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “Yup, sure thing.” And I added a thumbs-up.
I was the real weirdo husband in this relationship, wasn’t I? He was the normal one. Oh fudge, he was the normal one.
Inkiri smiled and nodded, almost like he’d read my mind, then finally proceeded to share his cock-made lube with me.
“You’re very open today. Almost like hangua get…sometimes.”
He looked at me all thoughtful, his eyes narrowing. Uh-oh. Thinking wasn’t what either of us needed in this moment, but especially not him. He was going to have to do the majority of the work here.
I wiggled my hips and blinked as seductively as I was able. “Maybe I’m adapting. Or my body knows it needs you. It has to be magic. Does that mean you’ll barb me already?”
He laughed while at the same time pushing his fingers into me and scissoring them open. The stretch was easy, and it felt so good that I moaned loudly.
“You’re very greedy for that today, sadir.”
“I like your barb.”
“Yes, you said that.”
“Well, that’s because I mean it. I love your barb. I’m sorry it shocked me that first time. You know, I’m sort of glad you didn’t tell me before…you know.”
“I opened you up and put my cock in you?”
“Yeah. It might’ve freaked me out then, but no more.”
He clicked. “It really doesn’t? Not even a little?” He lowered his gaze. “I’m not like a human.”
I shook my head. “Not one bit, and I like you better than a human.” He zeroed in on my happy spot and curled his fingers, so I went on blabbering.
“I think humans should have barbs. On their cocks. Oh, yesss, there. I like barbed cocks. Not barbed cocks in general, just yours. Even if humans had them, I’d still only want yours. ”
Inkiri chuckled. “Another hangu-na might think you’re voicing what you want right now, what you imagine trying out.”
“No! No-oh. Ink, fuck…”
He pulled his fingers free and lined himself up. I felt hot all over, and I shivered at the thought of what was coming, that feeling of being stretched. I ached for it. I needed it.
When he pushed into me, I mewled. I was being so noisy, and the small room made me even more aware of that, but there was no one but us in this building, so I could be as loud as I needed to be, which was very.
Inkiri rocked his hips, spreading his lubrication all over my insides, and picked up speed.
Yes, I needed to be extra noisy when he hooked my legs over his arms so he had the best access, so he could please me while I lay there, enthralled by the sight of daylight rippling over his horns and making his indigo eyes shine.
“Sadir.”
He lowered one of my legs carefully. I moaned because he’d slowed down, and I felt so hot, so itchy, my skin overly sensitive in a way it had never been before.
It was like ants were crawling all over me, and there was just one thing that was going to make it stop: his barb.
I squeezed my muscles to encourage him to give it to me.
He hissed, his brow furrowing. He didn’t thrust any harder than he had been though. What he wanted was one hand free to take care of my cock. He played with my balls for a bit, then went right to dipping his thumb in my precum while teasing my slit.
I shivered, watching, perfectly enchanted as he lifted his thumb to his mouth and licked. He savored, making a sound of culinary approval.
“So good.”
I wiggled my hips. I was going to go mad if I didn’t get his barb soon. I needed him to focus. “Iiiink…”
My perfectly normal mate chuckled at my weirdo antics, put a calming hand on my belly, and rocked his hips at a leisurely pace.
“What an eager mate you are today, sadir.”
“Pleeease.”
Finally, he got his head in the game. He took my cock in hand again and worked it properly while thrusting harder, which was so good.
My eyes fell closed, and I let go of all higher thought. The orgasm came quickly and with decisive certainty. I screamed, my eyes going wide when I realized I was making that much noise.