I scrubbed fast and got out before I could do something stupid like try to touch myself in the water. The air on wet skin was too much sensation. I wanted to cry from pure frustration.
Eating was worse than bathing. My body had zero interest in food. It wanted one thing and protein bars weren't it. I forced down half of one anyway because I needed calories, needed to stay functional even though functional felt impossible. The bar tasted like cardboard and my stomach threatened to reject it, but I kept it down through sheer stubbornness.
I still had the climbing shoes. Still had the chalk bag. Everything else was destroyed or useless. I put the shoes on because at least my feet would be protected, and headed deeper into the cave system to keep mapping routes. Maybe I'd find away out. Maybe I'd find something useful. Maybe I'd just walk until my legs gave out and I could stop thinking for a while.
I'd been exploring for maybe an hour when his scent hit me.
Stronger than before. Fresh. Close.
I froze mid-step and turned around slowly.
He was there. Ten feet away, standing at the junction of two passages. Watching me with those solid gold eyes that tracked every tiny movement I made.
And I could finally see him clearly in the dim light from the glowing veins.
Seven feet tall at least. Wings folded against his back, massive things that had to be fifteen feet across, dark membrane stretched between elongated finger bones that looked delicate but probably weren't. His upper body was humanoid enough. Broad shoulders, defined chest, arms roped with muscle that moved under his skin when he shifted his weight. But the skin itself was wrong. Dark gray-black with copper undertones that caught the light from the glowing veins, and it looked smooth but also somehow textured, like scales that had been worn down. His hands ended in claws. Not retractable, just there, part of his fingers, sharp enough to carve stone.
His face was almost human if you didn't look too close. Sharp jaw, high cheekbones, full mouth that was currently set in a slight smile like he knew exactly what I was thinking. But his eyes gave him away. Solid gold with vertical pupils that dilated as I watched, predator eyes that saw too much. And horns curved back from his temples, smooth and integrated into his skull, not separate pieces but part of his actual bone structure.
Lower, he was completely naked. No clothing, no coverings, no attempt to hide anything. Just his body on full display like nudity was the default state.
And his cocks. Both of them.
I couldn't stop staring even though I knew I should look away, should focus on his face, should do literally anything except stand there gaping at his anatomy.
The breeding cock was enormous. Thick as my wrist, ridged along the shaft with bumps that I could see pulsing slightly in time with his heartbeat. At the base there was a swollen knot, not fully inflated but visible enough to make my cunt clench involuntarily. The whole thing was darker than his skin, flushed with blood, hard and angled upward in a way that looked almost aggressive.
Below it, the pleasure cock. Smaller, maybe two-thirds the size, more flexible and curved. As I watched it moved independently of the breeding cock, not like it was controlled by muscles but like it was tasting the air somehow. Seeking. The tip was forked, both prongs glistening with something that caught the light.
Both cocks were hard. Both were clearly for me. My body knew it instantly.
My cunt clenched so hard I actually gasped out loud.
"You've been exploring," he said. His voice resonated in the stone, deep and layered. The translator made his words clear but I could hear the underneath, clicks and resonance that weren't quite language. "Mapping routes. Looking for escape. There isn't any."
I tried to form words and failed completely. My throat had closed and my brain had stopped working. The tonic was screaming at me. Viable mate, compatible, breed breed breed.
He took a step closer. Just one step but it closed the distance between us significantly. "You smell ready. Desperate." Another step. "The tonic's progressed far. You're wet right now, aren't you? Soaked. Empty. Aching."
"Stay back." My voice came out hoarse and shaky.
"Why?" He kept coming, moving like someone who'd never been told no in his life. "Your body wants me closer. Wants my hands on you. Wants what I can give you."
I retreated to the south opening. The stone pulsed under my bare shoulders and the sensation went straight to my core. A broken noise escaped my throat, somewhere between a whimper and a moan.
"There," he said, sounding satisfied. "Feel that? The cliff knows you're compatible. Responds to you the way it responds to me." He was five feet away now; the heat radiating off his body hit me like a physical wave. "That's how I knew you were different when you arrived. The veins lit up brighter for you than they have in forty seasons."
"What do you want?"
"I want to breed you." He said it like he was discussing the weather. Plain, simple, obvious. "Want to put my cock inside you, the breeding cock, the big one, and knot you until you take my seed. Want to fill you until you're carrying my offspring. Want to mark you with the bite and watch wings grow from your back."
The words made me clench again, made more wetness flood down my thighs. Every nerve ending demanded I give in.
He spread his wings suddenly. Huge, blocking the passage behind him, blocking any possible escape route. I was caged, trapped between him and the wall with nowhere to go.
"But I won't," he continued, voice dropping lower. "Not today. Not until you ask."
"I won't ask."
