Chapter 19
NO, YOU CANNOT DO A NAKED VICTORY LAP
MIKAELA
Iam not alone in my own head.
There is a hum in my brain. A low, golden, vibrating sound that feels like sunlight turned into audio. And it’s smug. It’s deeply, aggressively satisfied.
And it is loud.
“Mine,” the thought booms, echoing off the inside of my skull. “Good. Warm. Mine.”
I groan, cracking one eye open. The cave alcove is dim, but I don’t need light to know exactly where I am. I am plastered against a solid wall of radiating heat. Sarven is wrapped around me like a vine, one arm banded across my back, thigh wedged between mine, face buried in the crook of my neck.
I try to shift.
I can’t.
Not just because he’s heavy, but because we are literally stuck together.
His knot is still swollen inside me.
It’s a strange, impossible fullness that defies physics. By all rights, it should be uncomfortable given the angle of my hips against the unforgiving stone floor. But instead, it feels… anchoring. Like I’ve been bolted to him and nothing, not even a tornado, could move me.
I wiggle, just a fraction.
The hum in my head spikes into a roar of pleasure.
“Stay,” the thought commands, heavy and lazy. “Perfect fit.”
“I can hear you purring in my brain,” I croak, my voice raspy from the water and the screaming.
Sarven stirs. He lifts his head, blinking bleary eyes at me. The deep starry voids are fading, his natural crimson coming through. He looks like a dragon waking up on a hoard of gold, except the gold is me, and he looks ready to bite anyone who tries to make a withdrawal.
“Good sound,” he projects, nuzzling his cold nose against my jaw. “Happy sound.”
“It’s loud,” I mutter, though I’m fighting a smile. “Is there a volume knob on this bond? Or a mute button?”
He pulls back just enough to look at me, genuine confusion growing in the mindspace.
“Mute?” The concept reaches me as a disturbing image of a severed tongue.
“No, not—Jesus, never mind.” I laugh, which jostles our joined bodies. The sensation of him moving inside me sends a fresh, startling jolt of heat straight to my core.
Sarven’s red irises get even darker.
“Heat,” he notices instantly. “You want… more?”
His hips buck. A shallow, instinctive thrust that hits a spot deep inside me I didn’t even know had a zip code.
“Oh,” I gasp, gripping his biceps to steady the world. “No. I mean, yes, but no. We’re stuck. We physically cannot do more.”
He looks down at where our bodies are fused. Another wave of smug satisfaction crashes into my mind so hard it nearly knocks the wind out of me.
“Knot holds,” he projects, looking incredibly proud of himself. “Good knot.”
“Great knot,” I agree, patting his cheek. “A-plus knotting. You get a gold star. But we have a problem.”
His ears swivel, alerted by the change in my tone. “Problem?”
“The water,” I say aloud, trying to keep my thoughts focused so he gets the picture. “The clan. We’ve been gone a long time. People are sick.”
The reminder shatters the smug golden hum in the mindspace.
“The water,” he echoes.
He tries to pull away, but he can’t.
He shifts his hips, trying to withdraw, but the knot is utterly unyielding. It’s locked in place like a spherical deadbolt. He winces, a flash of frustration spiking through the bond.
“Stuck,” he grumbles.
“Yeah. That’s how knots work.” I run my hand down his back, tracing his spine. “We just have to wait for you to… deflate.”
He freezes.
“De-flate?” The word translates in his head to something like ‘wither’ or ‘die’ or ‘fall off.’
“Calm down.” I have to suppress a snort. “Relax. It goes down when you relax. You have to stop being…” I gesture to all of him. “…a giant wall of possessive intent.”
He huffs, dropping his forehead to my shoulder with a dramatic sigh.
“Do not want to relax.” The thought is so sulky, I have to suppress another smile. “Want to stay. Here. Inside.”
“I know,” I whisper. “Me too.”
And I do. That’s the scary part. I feel gross, sticky, and thoroughly used in the best way possible. I need a bath almost as much as the clan needs water. But lying here on the hard stone, covered in sweat and dust, still joined to him like this… I don’t want to leave.
But we have to. Eventually.
I try to pass the time by organizing my thoughts. Unfortunately, my brain doesn’t want to focus on anything that will make me think hard. Instead, my gaze drifts to Sarven’s chest. To the way the muscles of his abdomen flex against my stomach.
He’s really hard, my brain supplies helpfully. I wonder if I licked that line of muscle right there—
Sarven’s hips snap forward.
“Yes,” his voice booms in my head, eager and hot.
“Stop!” I yelp, slapping a hand over my eyes. “Don’t listen to that! That was private!”
He chuckles a low rumble that vibrates directly against my clit.
“No privacy,” he projects, and I swear he sounds delighted by this development. “I hear all. You want to lick.”
“I don’t want to lick right now!” I lie.
“You lie,” he tilts his head.
“Oh my god, you’re insufferable.”
“I am mated,” he corrects.
Finally, after what feels like an hour of me trying to think about baseball stats and Sarven aggressively broadcasting his satisfaction, the pressure shifts. The bulb at the base finally softens enough to release me, even if the rest of him is still enthusiastic.
When gravity finally takes over and he slides free, Sarven sits up, his movements stiff as he adjusts to his new, slightly broader frame.
His golden skin has mostly returned, just a few spots of stars slowly fading now.
He looks at me, his gaze sweeping over my body with a heavy, hooded possessiveness that makes my toes curl.
Then he looks at my clothes.
Or, what’s left of them.
My scale-tunic has pieces missing, and the rest are basically hanging on by a prayer and some sinew.
Sarven’s brow tightens.
“No armor,” he projects. “Skin soft. Rock sharp.”
“I know,” I say, sitting up and wincing as gravity reminds me of my sore muscles. “But unless you have a spare dress in that magic pouch of yours, this is what I’ve got.”
He looks at the pouch attached to his hip. Then he looks down at his own waist. He’s wearing his harness straps, but nothing else. No hidden pockets. No spare clothes.
I guess I don’t have a choice. I sigh, reaching for the sad little heap of my scale-tunic, shimmying into it. It’s worse for wear, but it covers the essentials. Mostly.
“It’ll do,” I say, adjusting a scale that’s trying to dislodge.
Sarven is standing by the tunnel entrance, checking his knife.
He is still naked.
And because we just spent an hour knotted, and because he is looking at me with that dark, possessive hunger, he isn’t exactly in a resting state. He is semi-hard, heavy and thick, swaying slightly as he moves.
I stare.
My brain immediately supplies a high-definition replay of exactly what that felt like inside me.
Heat.
I see when the thought hits him. His cock twitches, thickening in response.
“You need… clothes.”
He looks down at himself. Then he looks at me. Then he shrugs.
A massive, golden, indifferent shrug.
“Why?” he sends.
“Because!” I gesture vaguely at his lower half. “We are going back to the clan. There are people there. Women. You can’t just walk in swinging… that… around.”
He tilts his head, confused.
“I am mated,” he projects, with a wave of simple, rock-solid logic accompanying the thought. “I am proud. The bond makes me strong. Why hide strength?”
“Because it’s not just strength!” I sputter, gesturing to his package again.
He puffs out his chest.
“Let them see,” he sends, the thought rippling with smug, masculine vanity. “Let them see I am chosen. Let the other males see what you have taken.”
My jaw drops.
He absolutely CANNOT walk into the cave, dick out.
“Absolutely not,” I say, pointing a finger at him. “No. Vetoed.”
He frowns, a ripple of hurt hitting me through the mindspace. “You are ashamed?”
“Ashamed?” I let out a sound that is half-laugh, half-whimper. “Sarven, have you seen yourself?”
I step into his space, resting my hands on his chest.
“I’m not ashamed. I’m greedy.”
His head tilts.
“You are mine,” I tell him, keeping my voice level. “To see. To touch. If Pam looks at you, I’m going to have to fight her. If Erika looks at you, I’ll bite her. Do you really want me fighting the whole clan?”
For a moment, he just blinks at me, then his amusement pulses between us.
“Greedy,” he projects back, the thought thick with satisfaction. “Good.”
“Exactly,” I say, letting him go. “So, we have to cover it up.”
I look around the cave floor and spot the largest remaining scrap of my ruined scale-tunic.
I pick it up, turning it this way and that, before tying it to the harness around his hips.
It covers the essentials. Barely.
“Better?”
I sigh and nod. It’ll have to do.
“Ready?” he asks.
I take a breath. My body aches in a good way.
“Yes.” I take a step toward the tunnel mouth, and my legs choose that moment to wobble.
Okay, maybe more than wobble.
Sarven catches me before I drop three inches.
One arm sweeps under my knees, the other around my back, and suddenly I am airborne. He cradles me against his chest like I weigh nothing more than a basket of gourds.
“I can walk,” I protest automatically, though I wrap my arms around his neck immediately.
“You wobble,” he corrects. “I carry.”
“I’m heavy.”
He snorts. It’s a derisive, amused sound.
“You are a pebble,” he sends. “I could carry you up a cliff. I could carry you to the moons.”
He starts walking, his stride eating up the distance that took us hours to traverse before.
“The moons seems excessive,” I mumble against his shoulder.
“I am strong,” he projects, the thought radiating simple, unadulterated joy. “I am bonded. I am endless.”
I rest my head against him, listening to the thud of his heart. He feels endless. He feels like he could carry the weight of the mountain if he had to.
As we step out of the alcove and into the main tunnel, the world shifts.
I can feel the air currents moving against Sarven’s skin. I can sense the density of the rock walls. I can hear echoes through the stone that I never heard until now.
It’s overwhelming. It’s dizzying.
It’s like walking with the lights on for the first time.
“You see?” he asks, feeling my wonder.
“I see,” I whisper.
He squeezes me tighter.
“Then we run.”
And we do. We move through the dark, racing to save a world that finally feels like it might be worth saving.