Dante
Ifeel my little flame relaxing under my touch, like a warrior after a battle. I know how important it is to be well cleansed and how much I enjoy it.
It would appear she does too. And, despite the fact another warrior allowed her to touch him, I am entirely in awe of how she wanted to help my downed warriors and the sarkarnlings when she has no real need to offer me anything.
I’m the one who did the biting because I couldn’t help myself when I found her all alone in that darkened aquium, not unlike this one, only not as good because it wasn’t on my ship.
Her scent drew me to her, my fangs lengthening, my shift almost uncontrollable as the fog I had descended into after trying not to take anything new for the past three nova days had a grip on me.
It was all instinct. It was all about her, the tasty morsel who had drifted on the edges of my life until that very moment.
The moment I knew she was my mate, my fate, sent by the ancestors to be mine. To hold until the stars go out. To pleasure and worship.
“Are you purring, Dante?” Rosalie asks, her voice soft as I continue to work my claws over her head and through the strands of her hair which is the color of flame.
“Purring?”
“The noise you are making, in your chest.”
“It is a sound Sarkarnii make when they are content,” I hear myself saying. “I do not remember the last time I purred.”
I like purring for my mate. I like cleansing her long hair, the strands deliciously silky between my fingers and flowing beautifully over my claws.
I revel in the color of her skin against mine.
It’s so soft, with a slight bounce to it that my scales do not have.
I trace a finger over her shoulder, marveling at how wonderful she is.
My purr rises in volume. It seems I am unable to help myself. The more I am with her, the more I want to purr and purr. The pit of my stomach unclenches, and the fog which seems a constant battle inside my head has eased. I feel the mating mix pumping around my body, and it feels incredible.
Rosalie is my heart.
“Lean back,” I say to her and assist as she dips her head into the water and I carefully remove the cleanser.
“Do you want me to help you with your spines?” she asks as I squeeze the excess water out of her hair.
“You would do that?” I ask.
“If you want.”
I don’t know if I can trust my shift around her, but as she is my mate, I know I’m going to need to shift at some point.
I carefully send her into the deeper water as I shift to my Sarkarnii form and present her with my tail. It’s easier to lift my spines in this form, creating the gaps which always need cleansing from the grime which goes hand in claw with being a Sarkarnii.
Rosalie stands and inspects my tail, picking up the cleansing bar and swishing it around in the water before pouring it over the spines near the tip.
“Little flame?” I query.
“I’ve not been this close to a Sarkarnii in shifted form before,” she says quietly. “On my planet, we would have called you dragons.”
“Drakkons?”
“Dragons.” She replies, emphasising the word. “They were mythical creatures with scales and wings. They could breathe fire and ate humans.”
“I do not wish to eat you, little flame.” I put my head down on my paw so I am closer to her as she slowly works her way around my spines.
Her touch makes my scales ripple over my body from the front to the back, and the urge to purr is even greater than ever, so I do, and the entire aquium reverberates with the sound. “But I would like to taste you.”
For a moment, her movements stop, but then she starts up again.
“Am I doing this right, Dante?” Rosalie asks.
I’m not sure I can trust my voice, so I purr a bit more. If this never ended, I would happily die here. My cock has already pushed its way out of my pouch, and there is absolutely nothing whatsoever I can do about it. Instead I shift my leg to cover the unruly appendage.
Rosalie seems to accept my purr as encouragement and steps up on my back leg to work at the spines at the base of my tail.
As long as I take care, given my mate is currently doing things to my spines which make me want to go straight to the ancestors, she might consent to do the same with my cock. Even let me mate with her…
Another alarm blares out across my ship, penetrating the serenity of the aquium and meaning my shift has to be cut short.
“Dante,” Rosalie says as I stand next to her. “How typical a day is this for you?”
“I don’t get my spines cleaned every day, so not that typical.”
“I mean the alarms.”
“They happen,” I respond and listen a little. “This one is not so much of an issue. It is one of my scout ships returning.”
“You have an alarm for that?”
“It is likely my warriors will need a dose of paraxio on their return due to our mutation. They are unable to take any with them.”
“Why?”
“In order to be sure we have our full wits, and the edge needed, we cannot use it whilst we trade,” I explain. “But we become more and more dangerous without it.”
Rosalie reaches up and gently brushes my hair back behind my ears, her bright eyes studying my face carefully. “That’s no way to live, Dante.”
“It is not, little flame, which is why my crew volunteer to take risk after risk in trying to find a cure,” I say. “And why they get to do what they like when they like at all other times.”