Chapter 25
Holding Lacey’s trembling body against him, Telok raised his torso upright and sat back on his hindquarters.
The new position brought her weight down atop him, forcing his stem and knot deeper.
Moaning, Lacey ground her pelvis against his, rubbing their slits.
Fresh pleasure cleaved through him, making him shudder, and his tendrils thrummed inside her. His claspers cinched around her thighs.
“This feels so good,” she said, her ragged breaths whispering over his heaving chest. Her tight pussy continued convulsing around his cock, prolonging those sensations, keeping him at that peak, instilling him with unending bliss.
Shutting his eyes, he held her close, soothingly petting her back and combing his claws through her unbraided, disheveled hair as his claspers brushed her thighs. If there were some way to make this moment last forever, he would’ve done it without hesitation, damn the consequences.
He enjoyed the feel of her sweat-slicked flesh dampening his hide, enjoyed the way she clung to him in the throes of passion, enjoyed the press of her soft breasts with their hard nipples against his chest. He was eager to explore them—to explore her—properly, to trail his hands over her entire body and learn its feel. To learn her taste.
Telok’s body tensed as more seed spurted from his stem, and he groaned, his lower hands flexing on her ass to clutch her even closer.
Such explorations will have to wait.
“That is…so much cum,” Lacey breathed, slipping a hand between their bodies and pressing it low on her belly.
Trilling, Telok nuzzled the side of her face.
Then it occurred to him.
His seed—his cum—was filling his mate. Would this mating result in a broodling?
He couldn’t deny his joy and excitement at the thought of watching her belly grow with a new life inside it, a life they’d created. But neither could he ignore the fear and uncertainty that came along with it.
According to the humans, pregnancy came with many risks to both mother and broodling.
Risks that none of Telok’s skill, ferocity, and determination could overcome.
If he and Lacey were to have a broodling, there would be another thread bound to his hearts, one that was delicate, helpless, vulnerable.
There would be another potential loss that would tear his spirit to shreds.
Could he protect Lacey and their broodling?
Telok rubbed his mouth against Lacey’s temple as he tightened his embrace.
No. He would not allow any of those threads to be severed.
All his strength, all his hearts and soul, would be dedicated to protecting his mate and their broodling.
So long as life pulsed in his veins, he would shield them with a savagery to make the Tangle itself recoil.
He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with his mate’s scent—with the scent of their mating—as he trailed his mouth down her neck. But that fragrance was tinged with blood now.
He lifted his head enough to stare at the bite mark on her shoulder.
Pride swelled in his chest even as guilt knotted in his stomach.
It would leave a scar, and that scar would mark her as his to everyone.
His Lacey, his mate, his heartsthread. But he’d hurt her to leave it.
He’d added another scar to her body, when she carried the rest of them with sorrow and regret.
Gently, he licked the wound.
Lacey shivered and canted her head, allowing him freer access. He laved the marks, cleaning the blood away, then trailed his tongue up the side of her neck to swirl beneath her ear.
She sighed softly, her fingers threading through his hair before she wiggled her hips and bore down upon him farther.
Telok grunted and tightened his grip on her hips in warning. “Lacey…”
“I can’t help it. Those tendrils feel so good. How long will we be stuck—” She gasped. “Oh…oh… Oh God, it’s happening again!” With a keen, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held onto him as she quivered and writhed, her inner walls constricting around his stem.
Telok growled at the pleasurable squeeze of her body as his went taut. Burying a clawed hand in her hair, he lost himself to his own release, once more spilling inside her. His cock vibrated, his tendrils fluttered, and her pussy drew upon him, greedily drinking his essence.
“Ah, kir’ani vi’jatai. My Lacey,” he purred.
In all his years, had anything felt as good as her? Had anything even come close?
No. And nothing ever will.
Those sensations held him aloft, high above the jungle floor, above the thick ceiling of leaves and branches, above the sky itself, leaving him and his mate to float amongst the stars.
Until a sound, heard in the fleeting silence between heavy breaths and thumping hearts, snared Telok’s attention and dragged him back toward the ground. The fine hairs on his legs rose.
The undergrowth rustled behind him.
Mine.
Clutching Lacey against him with his left arms, he leaned hard to the side, snatched up the weapons from the ground with his right hands, and swung his spear in a wide arc as he spun around on his bent leg joints. Lacey let out a startled shriek.
The beast, which had prowled to within two segments of him, scurried back and shrank away from the weapon with a growl.
At the shoulder, it was as tall as Lacey’s chest, and would likely surpass Telok’s height were it to stand on its hind legs.
Its short fur was mottled with shades of green and textured like fuzzy moss.
Hooked black claws tipped its thick toes, brown spines jutted from its shoulders and the end of its tail, and its lipless muzzle left its long fangs bared in a ceaseless snarl.
Fury swelled in Telok with all the power and swiftness of a river flooded by torrential rains.
Lacey tensed. “Oh shit, is that a—”
“Kurghest.”
A female, fully grown.
Telok surged up onto his legs. The suddenness and force of the movement snapped Lacey’s mouth shut with a clack and drove her down even harder on his stem, jolting him with pleasure.
At that same instant, the brush to either side shook violently.
Kurghests did not hunt alone.
“Hold me,” he commanded.
Telok leapt back as two more female kurghests burst from the undergrowth, twisting his torso to shield his mate from their swiping claws. He hurriedly passed her shorter spear to his upper left hand, using his lower hands to keep his mate tucked securely against him.
A red haze swallowed him again, rage, passion, and instinct swirling into a chaotic, fiery storm.
Lacey was in danger.
His mate was in danger.
The Tangle had taken everything from him once. But it would not take her, not this day, not ever. So long as his hearts beat, nothing would harm her.
The beasts released low, ululating growls and charged in unison, two of them spreading out to the sides to get at Telok’s flanks.
He let out a roar and threw himself into motion. The spears darted out faster than eyes could track, forcing one kurghest to veer away to avoid injury and disrupting another’s charge by tearing a gash in its front shoulder. The middle beast leapt directly at Telok’s front—at Lacey’s back.
Rearing back, he raised his forelegs high, bending them to shield his mate. The kurghest’s chest slammed into his leg joints, its momentum and weight making him rock, and its claws bit into the hide of his legs as the beast fought to get past his defenses.
Somewhere in the distance, perhaps in another world, a larkhet’s alarmed cawing echoed through the trees.
The beast’s fangs chomped the air barely a handspan from Lacey’s head.
Crying out, she flinched away, turning her face into Telok’s chest, squeezing him with her entire body. A shudder rippled through him.
“Mine,” he snarled, pushing off the ground with his other four legs to heave the kurghest aside. Before it had even crashed down, the other two beasts were attacking again.
Kill.
Telok removed his lower arms from Lacey, leaving only his claspers in place as he spun, using his whole body to shield her. Despite her desperate hold, the wild movements caused her to bounce on him, blasting him with bursts of ecstasy that silenced the pain of claws tearing his hide.
Heat built in him rapidly, the result of those ever-growing flames being stoked, and his cock ached more deeply than any wound he’d ever suffered.
He lashed out with limbs and spears, answering every wound with eightfold the strength and brutality. And his stem’s tendrils lashed Lacey from within with equal ferocity. Kurghest blood sprayed his hide, cold in comparison to his inner heat, and his hearts beat only louder, only faster.
With each pulse, he became more aware of his mate. His Lacey. Of her warm breath against his chest, her blunt nails digging into his back, her legs constricting his waist with crushing force, her quivering thighs and pulsating inner walls.
“Telok,” she rasped through rapid breaths, “are you…serious? Oh, fuck!”
Her body seized around him, nails raking his hide, as several escalating, high-pitched cries escaped her. Her slit squeezed his stem so hard that he felt ready to burst. More hot essence flooded her.
With another roar, Telok thrust Lacey’s spear down into the back of a kurghest, drowning out its pained snarl. Stars flashed through his crimson stained vision as seed spurted from his cock and his muscles flexed involuntarily.
But despite the ecstasy flowing through him, his focus remained on the threat at hand.
Driving his weight down, he pinned the flailing beast to the ground. He hammered his forelegs into its ribs again and again. “She. Is. Mine!”
He emphasized each word with another bone-crunching kick; each jolt of impact renewed the sensations in his stem, forcing more seed out of him.
“Oh God,” Lacey whimpered shakily. “This can’t be happening.”
A kurghest pounced on Telok’s back. Lacey screamed, jerking back. He banded an arm around his mate, whipped his torso downward, plunging his cock deeper into her, and shoved up hard with his rear legs to flip the beast off over his head.