Chapter 6
Six
Ivy was not fine.
The pollen fever was taking over again. She thought it had “worked its way from her blood,” as Vale had put it. But here it was, heating her skin and filling her with want.
Another pulse of lust shot through her, making her gasp. At least, Vale had left her to wash the blood off. He had invited her to join, but Ivy had waved him off and said she was still eating.
Ivy patted the fire out with the remnants of the firewood he had broken off for her and stood. Her vision swam, making her stumble against a tree.
“No,” Ivy told herself, as if she could force the pollen to stop from sheer will. “I won’t do this again. He already fixed it once. He—he brought me food, and gave me his nest! He’s done enough!”
Another explosion of lust burst through her, so intense it made her curl over with a whimper.
Something brushed her bare foot. Ivy looked down to see something strange: an ivy vine studded with roses. Like it had combined her namesake with the rose that pollen plant had lured her in with, the same roses it had showered her with while she was waiting for Vale to come back with the root-deer.
Ivy nudged the ivy-rose vine with her foot. “Are you doing this on purpose? He doesn’t even want me!”
The strange ivy-rose vine curled around her ankle. At first, Ivy thought it was restraining her, like when she was splayed out in the nest. Then the pressure eased, and Ivy realized it was a strange, thin hug.
Ivy teared up. She didn’t want to hurt this place. And the more she spoke to Vale, the less she wanted to chain him. But she would have to move past it, right? For the sake of the Circle.
She pushed away any thoughts of the void, sickened and pale, while her uncle slid an enchanted collar around Vale’s neck. Then she straightened and headed for the weak rumble of the waterfall.
It’s fine, Ivy assured herself as she walked along the riverbank, strange dark grass tufting between her toes. You’ll stay away. Maybe he won’t notice.
She came to a stop at a pile of black robes.
Vale stood naked under the waterfall with his back toward her.
There were miles of pale blue skin visible above the river water, which only rose to his shins.
She could see every inch of his strange, bony back, the barely-there curves of his ass, his strange whippy tail just above it.
He should have repulsed her. But she found herself entranced by the water running over his skin, muscles shifting so visibly every time he moved.
Another pulse of heat made Ivy hold back a moan. She squeezed her legs together, as if that would stop the warmth pooling between them. She wanted to touch him so badly. She wanted to feel his hands on her again, those clawed hands curled dangerously around her thighs—
Ivy forced back her thoughts and considered the river. The water looked normal enough. Surely it would be okay to wash in.
She gathered her dress, lifting it over her head and forcing herself not to feel self-conscious as the air touched her skin. It was just like bathing with the Circle. Except they usually separated that by gender, unless they were truly desperate.
She waded into the river up to her knees, sighing in relief as the cool water rushed over her flushed skin. Then she dropped her dress in, wishing for soap.
But as soon as she started rubbing at the stains, something strange happened. They vanished. The water carried them out like they were never there.
Ivy held up her sopping dress, shocked. The void did like her, she supposed. Apparently, that translated into rivers that washed her clothes as well as the palace staff.
She should have taken the dress back to the riverbank. Started washing the grit and sweat off her own body. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Vale, who was under the waterfall just out of view.
She wouldn’t look. She wouldn’t.
Another wave of pollen-heat surged through her. She clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her moan, but it wasn’t enough.
“You need it again,” came Vale’s gruff voice.
Ivy hugged her wet dress to her front and turned.
Vale was still standing under the waterfall, water streaming down his bare body. But unlike last time, he was facing her.
Ivy couldn’t help it: her eyes sank to his cock.
It was big, of course. He was a Skullstalker; it was only proportional.
It was human-shaped, and the same pale blue as the rest of him, soft and oddly vulnerable.
He had a foreskin, she noted with hazy surprise.
She had never seen it in the flesh. Most men in her country had it removed at birth.
It filled her with a blazing curiosity to see the cockhead hiding underneath it, foreskin retreating as he hardened—
A low growl dragged her out of her fantasies. Ivy tore her gaze away to see Vale growling, irritated. Her cheeks flushed harder, ashamed. She had annoyed him so much since she arrived, and now she would inconvenience him again?
“You don’t need to,” Ivy blurted as he stepped out of the waterfall.
“I do,” Vale said. “It will kill you otherwise.”
Ivy laughed uncomfortably. “Do you care?”
Vale stopped. His tail swished thoughtfully, water dripping down his antlers and through the moss growing on the side of his skull.
“I would not lose the first assistant I have had in centuries,” he said slowly. “Get out of the river. Drop your dress.”
Ivy shivered. Not from the river, which was no match for her fevered skin. But from his voice, so rough and commanding. The way he loomed over her as he approached, that glowing green gaze fixed so intently on her.
Ivy climbed onto the riverbank and wrung her dress out, then laid it on the strange, dark grass.
Everything inside her wanted to lie down and let him do whatever he wanted to her or, failing that, leap into his giant arms. But she held herself back, turning again to face him as he arrived in front of her.
“You don’t—” Ivy stopped, gasping as another rush of heat ran through her. “Y-you don’t have to.”
Vale leaned over her. He was still standing in the river, cool water running around his shins.
“Do you not wish to?”
“No, I just…” Ivy sighed, wiping her stubborn, sweaty hair away from her forehead. “I thought this was done! How many times will it come back?”
“I have never seen a mortal afflicted with it.” Vale paused. Then he reached up and pushed away a strand of hair that kept falling into Ivy’s eyes, an action that made Ivy’s heart stutter in her chest.
Vale blinked rapidly. His hand dropped back to his side, his tail swishing.
“For a demon, it wears off in mere hours,” he said, too fast. “But in a mortal’s weak blood… I am unsure. Several weeks, perhaps.”
“Weeks?” Ivy repeated. She couldn’t be like this when her Circle barged into this void to take Vale prisoner. What would they say?
“But I can still work,” Ivy said desperately. “Right? I can be useful to you? A good assistant?”
Vale said nothing. He stared down at her, and Ivy thought back to being tied up on that stone slab, sure she would be devoured. This felt like that. Only now she wanted him to consume her—and in a very different way than he would have back in the mortal realm.
“You can be useful to me,” Vale said after a long moment. He blinked hard, as if resurfacing from a daze. “I will try to mate you properly this time. It might give you more of a reprieve between pollen heats.”
Ivy’s mouth dropped open. She looked down at his naked cock, which, to her terror and joy, was hardening. That gorgeous foreskin worked slowly back, revealing a shiny dark cockhead that made Ivy want to moan. Or better yet, sink to her knees.
She shook her head, clearing the fog. “You’ll try?”
Vale nodded. “You are very small. I will do my best. Lie down.”
Ivy did. It was getting more difficult to think, but she had to cling to the fear before it got buried under the pollen-heat. She couldn’t actually let him fuck her, right? She’d never taken a cock as big as his. Hells, she’d never seen a cock as big as his.
But the pollen was so strong. Any fear she had was drowned out by pure lust, making her whimper.
“Please,” she said, her hips lifting off the grass. “Oh, gods. I need it.”
Vale reached for her. Then he stopped, watching something to her left.
Ivy turned just in time to watch three shadowy vines creep up to her. They didn’t wrap themselves around her wrists, like they had in the nest. Two of them wound around her thighs instead, pulling them open. And the third…
Ivy cried out in shock as the third vine teased her entrance, sliding through the slick that had been gathering there since the second heat struck. She waited to see if Vale would do something, maybe rip the vine away, but he only stood there in the river, watching her with those big, glowing eyes.
“Are you…?” Ivy gasped as the third vine—velvety and oddly warm—pushed ever so gently inside her. “Are you doing this?”
“No,” said Vale, sounding surprised. “Can you feel it?”
“Of course, I—” Ivy stopped, her mouth falling open as the vine pressed deeper.
“Through the connection,” Vale explained. “Can you feel it?”
Ivy reached for the void through the haze of lust. There, in the very back of her mind, the void was sending her tiny pulses of excitement.
“Yes,” she gasped. “It feels… ohhh. It feels so strange!”
She laughed giddily, the noise trailing off on a groan as the vine pulsed inside her. Then, to her shock, the vine started to swell.
“Shit!” Ivy tried to close her legs instinctively. But the vines pried them apart again, giving the third vine more space. And in turn, it gave her more space, gently pulsing bigger and bigger, stretching her out.
Vale leaned over her, his tail flicking anxiously. “What is it?”
“It’s…” Ivy’s eyelids fluttered as the vine pulsed again, shrinking before expanding even bigger than before. “It’s getting me ready for you. F-for you to mate me.”