She trails off, but I understand.
She wants to know she's still desirable. Still wanted. Still Kess, underneath all the scales and claws and divine curse.
"You're still you," I tell her. "You're still the woman who bit my throat open the first time we met. Who fought me in the training yard until we cracked the walls. Who looked at three hundred years of monster and saw something worth saving." I kiss her jaw, the corner of her mouth, the pulse point in her throat where her heartbeat flutters. "The scales don't change that. Nothing changes that."
"Prove it."
So I do.
I start at her throat. Kiss the place where I first marked her, where my claiming bite scarred over and became something permanent. She shivers when my tongue traces the raised edges, when my teeth graze the sensitive skin.
"Still so responsive here." I murmur it against her pulse. "Still mine."
"Still yours," she agrees, and her claws curl into my shoulders.
I work my way down. Kiss across her collarbone, where scales give way to skin and back again. Trace the pattern of transformation with my tongue, learning the new geography of her body. The scales are smooth under my mouth—not cold like I expected, but warm, blood-hot, alive.
"Does this feel different?" I ask against her sternum. "The scales—can you feel through them?"
"Yes." Her breath catches. "More sensitive, actually. Like—like the nerve endings are closer to the surface."
I file that away. Press my mouth to a scaled patch along her ribs and feel her whole body arch toward me.
"Good to know."
Her laugh is shaky. "You're going to use that against me."
"Absolutely."
I keep moving down. Kiss the swell of her breasts, the tight peaks of her nipples, take one into my mouth and suck until she's gasping. Her pregnancy has made them fuller, more sensitive—she cries out when I scrape my teeth across the peak, her claws digging into my back hard enough to sting.
"More," she demands. "Rhystan?—"
"Patience." I switch to the other breast, give it the same treatment. "We have time. No flash heat driving us. No battle raging outside. Just us."
"I don't want patient." Her hips roll against me, and I can smell her arousal already—slick and sweet and entirely Kess. "I want you."
"You have me." I kiss down the curve of her belly, over the taut skin where our children are growing. Press my lips to the place where I can feel them shifting, dreaming their small dreams. "You've had me since the first time you looked at me like I was a problem to be solved instead of a monster to be feared."
She makes a sound that might be a laugh or a sob. Her clawed fingers thread through my hair, not pushing, just holding.
I settle between her thighs.
She's wet already—slick coating her inner thighs, her cunt swollen and flushed and desperate. The sight of her makes my cock throb where it's pressed against the mattress, but I ignore it. This isn't about me. This is about showing her that every part of her is still wanted. Still worshipped. Still mine.
I lean in and lick a slow stripe through her folds.
The sound she makes is inhuman. Literally—a growling moan that resonates with frequencies her human throat couldn't have produced. Her thighs clamp around my head, claws scraping against my scalp, hips bucking toward my mouth.
"Fuck—Rhystan?—"
I do it again. And again. Take my time learning how her body responds now, what makes her gasp and what makes her growl, where the scales thin out and where they're thickest. Her clit is still bare skin, still exquisitely sensitive, and when I seal my lips around it and suck she nearly comes off the bed.
"Please—" The word tears out of her. "Please, I need?—"
I slide two fingers inside her while I work her clit with my tongue. She's tight, still swollen from last night, but so wet that my fingers glide in easily. I curl them, find the spot that makes her see stars, press and stroke while my mouth drives her higher.
She comes with a scream that shakes the walls.
