Chapter 13
Thirteen
Ivy lay down in the nest, shivering with delight as Vale ran his hands over her dress.
It was actually very enjoyable to do this without the pollen.
Before, she had been crazed with desire.
Which was fun, but there was something wonderful about being able to luxuriate in his touch.
His big, gentle hands stroking over her gauzy dress…
His claws retracting as they slowly pushed the fabric up over her legs…
His scarred fingers stroking her thighs…
Ivy frowned. Scarred fingers?
She sat up. Vale’s hands were covered in healing burns.
“What happened to your hands?” Ivy asked, bewildered. Then she gasped, remembering the arrow he’d caught in midair. “The malblossom! Does the soothepine not work on burns?”
“It works on any wound,” Vale said.
Ivy touched the back of his scarred palm. “Then why didn’t you heal them?”
“I was busy,” Vale said simply.
Ivy welled up again. She wiped her puffy cheeks, determined not to cry again. Then Vale ran his thumbs over her nipples, and Ivy let herself get lost in her growing arousal.
Vale nuzzled her thigh, where he’d pushed her dress up almost enough to expose her.
“Your scent drives me to distraction,” he growled.
“Every time the pollen began and your desire hung thick in the air, I was hardly able to keep working. But you kept working. You would squirm and pant and sweat. It would be all I could do not to pin you against the dirt and rut you until you screamed. You wanted to prove yourself to me. That you were worth keeping. Even when you thought I would be hauled out in a month.”
Ivy averted her eyes. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look down at him again.
“You did well,” he said. “You are a good assistant.”
Ivy smiled, stupidly proud. “You still want me as an assistant?”
Vale hesitated. His tail flicked behind him, then lowered to curl around her exposed ankle.
“You are more than that,” he said. He didn’t sound entirely happy about it.
Before Ivy could think why, Vale sat up, looming over her.
“You are connected to the void,” he said. “It has chosen you. It will not be content with you being a mere assistant. Neither would…”
He trailed off. His glowing eyes dropped to the plants crowding around the nest, flowers fluttering and vines writhing. Then he looked back at her, and his gaze went hungry.
“I can smell how wet you are,” he said. He lifted his robes off, and Ivy’s mouth dropped open as she saw his naked body outside of the river for the first time.
Usually, he just took himself out of his robes.
There was so much pale blue skin pulled strangely over his toned body.
And, of course, his beautiful cock, hard and heavy, his shiny flat cockhead poking out from above the foreskin.
Ivy’s mouth watered. She thought about pushing him back and taking him into her mouth, pushing that impossible length down her throat like he had done with his tongue. She had never sucked him before, always too desperate to get him inside her hole.
“Still so ready for me, even without the pollen,” Vale continued, his voice dropping into a low, almost unintelligible rasp that made Ivy shiver. “Except if you still had the pollen, you would be begging by now.”
“Please,” Ivy said quietly.
Vale growled. “Beg better.”
“Please,” Ivy said, louder.
“You need better motivation,” Vale told her.
Vines circled her wrists. Ivy twisted to look at them, smiling when they squeezed. Then the void’s emotions leaked into her, and her smile faltered.
The void was tired. Scared. Rotting, slowly but surely. Then the vines squeezed again, and the fear and exhaustion were replaced by quiet excitement.
Ivy looked back at Vale. He stared down at her, his glowing eyes wide. He had felt the same thing, knotted into the same magic she was.
“Do we—” Ivy licked her lips. “Should we be doing something else? How are you feeling?”
“As good as I ever feel, these days,” Vale said. He spared another glance at the plants wavering around them. “The void wants me to be with you. The void always wants me to be with you. And if what the mage said was true, and there is no antidote…”
His mouth hardened. He bent down, kissing her arrow scar and then moving up to her face, kissing her viciously.
Ivy kissed back, gasping as his fang tore into her lip. He lapped at the blood with a hungry noise and smeared his bloody lips down her neck.
“We can worry about our fate later,” he said. “Open your legs.”
Heart pounding, Ivy did. She had a vague wish that vines would grab her ankles, and just as the thought appeared, vines snaked around her ankles and pulled her legs wider apart.
Ivy grinned, biting her lip. She wasn’t in control of the vines in the same way that Vale didn’t control them.
But they heard her. Even as tired as they were, they still wanted to please her.
Or maybe it just wanted to touch her, Ivy considered as Vale pulled her dress up until she was exposed.
Either idea made her tingle with desire.
Vale bunched her dress higher, nestling it over her breasts. He licked them, fangs grazing her nipples tantalizingly before pulling back to admire her.
“My strange little gift,” he said. “All tied up for me.”
“Come and have me,” Ivy said, feeling very bold. Or maybe still full of adrenaline. She had been thrown out of the void and then shot by her uncle; she could be forgiven for feeling a little loopy.
Vale’s cock throbbed, a bead of precum welling on his flat cockhead. He grabbed her waist and pulled her toward him, rubbing his cock against her hole.
Ivy moaned. For the first time since the first time, she wasn’t sore. She almost missed it. But it was nice not to brace herself when he started pressing in.
For a moment, Ivy thought the spell hadn’t worked.
The stretch was still impossible, her entire body straining against it.
But Vale’s cock just kept going. In and in and in, not even needing to slowly work his way in with tiny thrusts like he’d been forced to do before.
No tongue or fingers, or even a vine opening her up beforehand.
Just a long, long slide, until he was pushing beyond where he usually stopped.
Ivy gasped, staring down at his cock as it slowly disappeared into her body.
Half his cock.
Two-thirds.
Then his balls were settling against her for the first time, both of them letting out wrecked noises as he bottomed out.
Ivy’s stomach bulged. She gaped at it in disbelief. No wonder she couldn’t fit all of him inside.
“You’re so full of me,” Vale groaned. “How does it feel? You do not smell like pain.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” said Ivy faintly. She pulled at the vines around her wrists, suddenly wanting to touch the bulge of his cock inside her.
She could feel every inch of him, her body barely stretching to fit.
The spell must have… rearranged things. She should have been horrified.
But she just wanted him to fuck her senseless.
Ivy stared up at him, her thighs shaking where they were being pulled apart by the vines. She felt wild with it, blood pumping, legs dripping with her own slick. She had no clue how she must smell to him right now, only that he would go feral over it.
“What else do I smell like?” she asked.
Vale growled. “Mine.”
He thrust again. Ivy watched as that gorgeous cock pushed in and out of her, filling her up in ways that were impossible this morning. Pleasure crackled through her core, and she squeezed her eyes shut against her will.
It felt so strange. It felt incredible. Like she’d been craving something her whole life and was only realizing now, while Vale fucked her faster and faster, his claws popping out as he lost himself in her.
“So soft,” Vale panted, nuzzling her breasts.
He fondled her stomach, running his claws over her folds.
Ivy should have felt self-conscious, but it was difficult when his gaze was so reverent, his clawed hands coming up to stroke her cheeks and press into the softness like she was something worth keeping.
He had never touched her like this before. There were always moments, but he had never been so open about it. Never let her see how hungry he was for her.
The vines tightened around her wrists. The ones around her legs pulled her wider, spreading her open for him. Vale thrust harder, balls slapping loudly every time he pushed into the hilt.
Ivy heard herself whine. She had been concerned she wouldn’t be able to let herself go without the pollen, but it turned out that she needn’t have worried: Vale’s inhuman cock could pull those noises out of her easily.
“I am close,” Vale said raggedly.
Ivy’s legs quivered in anticipation. She’d felt him come inside her before, but never all of him. What would it feel like, his whole length throbbing inside her as he came?
Vale opened his mouth, tongue lolling out. At first, Ivy thought he would circle her breasts again, or even shove down her throat. But Vale arched his head downward, his tongue slipping down over her stomach and the coarse hair covering her cunt, all the way down until it smeared over her clit.
Ivy arched up with a scream and came. She was dimly aware of his tongue still working at her, rubbing and even trying to fold around the tiny nub, his movements clumsy as his thrusts sped up.
She was riding out the last waves of her orgasm when he reared back and roared, spilling deep inside her.
Ivy felt all of it. Every lovely inch of him twitched with each spurt, filling her until his release gushed down her legs and puddled in the nest.
Vale collapsed on top of her, panting. The vines retreated from Ivy’s limbs, and she ran a cautious hand over his antlers. His head twitched, and Ivy waited for him to pull away. But after a moment, he pressed his antlers harder into her grip.
“Well,” Ivy said when she could breathe again. “The pollen is definitely gone.”
Vale rumbled against her scalp.
“I kind of miss it,” Ivy admitted. She thought about running her hands over all the places she had been too afraid to touch: his skull mask, the tips of his fangs, even his tail. But she didn’t want to push her luck. He had let her touch his antlers; that had to be enough for now.
Vale rumbled louder, nuzzling her hair. “You could find another heatbloom.”
Ivy laughed. It didn’t last long.
“I don’t know if we can afford to get distracted like that again,” she said slowly.
Vale’s face, lit up with amusement for once, dimmed instantly. He looked at the plants surrounding the nest, and Ivy wondered if he, too, felt the pulse of their exhaustion. Could he even untangle the void’s tiredness from his own?
“What will we do?” Ivy asked him. “If there really isn’t an antidote.”
“We will make one,” Vale said. But there was a hint of uncertainty in his tone. He had already asked all the Skullstalkers he knew. Skullstalkers were the oldest creatures Ivy knew of. If they didn’t know, who else would?
“We could…” Ivy stopped, petting the vines that had been around her wrists. “We could find a way to sever you?”
Vale looked down at her gravely. He knew what she meant. But he was still going to make her say it.
“Sever me,” Vale repeated.
The vine Ivy was petting nudged her hand. Like a dog asking for more affection, Ivy thought sadly. She didn’t want to continue, but she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t suggest it.
“So, you don’t die with the void,” Ivy whispered.
Vale answered just as she expected. “No. The void has been with me since the beginning. I will not—”
He went silent. His head snapped up, his glowing eyes darting around the trees.
Ivy sat up, alarmed. “What is it?”
Vale shook his head. He pulled his softening cock out of her, and Ivy gasped at the impossible slide. A flurry of emotions blurred through her until she couldn’t tell which was hers and which was the void’s: panic, pain, deep desire.
The forest shook.
Ivy braced herself against the nest, yanking her dress back into place over her sweaty skin. “What is it?”
“The pool,” Vale growled.
He yanked on his robes. Then he grabbed her and slung her onto his shoulder. Ivy grabbed his antlers, and Vale took off for the silver pool. Foliage shuddered and tried to bend out of the way, but always a moment too late. Ivy covered her face as sharp sticks caught her arms and tore her dress.
The ground went white under their feet. Vale stumbled, his claws sticking in the cracks. The poison had spread so much further than they thought.
Vale came to a stop, panting.
Ivy lowered her scratched arms and gasped.
The silver pool was empty.