“Yes. Carefully. Female is still injured.”
The breeding is different this evening. He's gentler than ever before, supporting my weight entirely so I don't have to use my injured muscles. His coils create a living chair beneath me, taking all pressure off my wounds. The primary enters slowly, each ridge easing past my entrance with care. I'm less swollen than this morning but still tender.
The secondary coils more slowly too. Five loops instead of seven. A gentler lock that won't traumatize my already exhausted body.
“Storm coming,” he says as the first proto-eggs release. I can smell it too—electricity in the air, pressure dropping.
“Good. Rain will wash the blood scent away.”
“Female is practical even while breeding.”
Wave two brings twenty eggs. My belly swells but I watch it with acceptance now. This is what my body needs. What it will always need. The empty ache stays quiet only when I'm full of his eggs.
Thunder rumbles during wave three. By wave five, rain pounds the pool surface. He extends his hood over me, creating shelter. The rain drums against his scales while I stay dry beneath.
“This is becoming routine,” I observe.
“Female notices patterns.”
“Hard not to. Breeding, storms, breeding, storms.”
“Season for both.”
Waves six through eight trigger consecutive breeding orgasms. My pussy clenches around both cocks, milking them for more of the poison I need. The proto-eggs fill me beyond comfort but not beyond capacity. My modified body knows its limits now.
“Why me?” I ask during wave nine, the question that's been building all day. “Really. Not the anger thing, not the survival. Why me specifically out of all the females you could claim?”
He’s quiet through waves ten and eleven. My belly is enormous now, skin stretched tight and shiny with rain that occasionally breaks through his hood shelter.
“Female assumes there were others to choose from,” he finally says during wave twelve.
“Weren't there?”
“Yes. Many. Forty seasons of hunts. Hundreds of females.”
“So why?—”
Wave thirteen cuts me off, making me gasp at the volume of eggs.
“Female survived seven days alone before first breeding,” he continues during wave fourteen. “Most last two. Maybe three.Female didn't just survive. She mapped territory. Set traps. Threw rocks at shadows while dying of need.”
“So I'm stubborn.”
“So female is strongest I've found in forty seasons. Worth protecting. Worth keeping if she chooses. Worth waiting for that choice instead of forcing it.”
Wave fifteen—the last—comes with his statement. The massive final deposit floods into me while I process his words. He's had hundreds of opportunities. Chose none of them. Until me.
“That's why you didn't breed me those first days,” I realize. “You were deciding if I was worth it.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Female knows answer. Is here, filled with my eggs, under my protection.”
When we separate, when the flood of fluid escapes and my belly deflates, he carries me out immediately. I don't protest the help this time. Can't.
“Tomorrow will be easier,” he says as he settles us in our sleeping spot.
