She laughs, the sound breaking into a moan as another pulse floods her. I can feel her belly pressing against mine, swelling slightly with the sheer volume. Too much. Always too much with me.
Her walls clench again and I groan. The pressure triggers another release, smaller now but still there. Still filling her.
"I can feel every time you—" She breaks off with a gasp as I shift my hips, grinding the knot against that spot inside her. "Oh gods. Do that again."
I grind against her and we both shudder. The movement wrings another pulse from me, another clench from her. Pleasure feeding pleasure in a loop that seems endless.
She comes again—sudden and sharp, triggered by the fullness and the pressure. Her orgasm makes her clench harder around my knot and that pulls another release from me, and we're caught in a cycle neither of us can break.
"Rhystan." My name broken on her lips. "I can't—it's too much?—"
"One more." I shift angle, grinding the knot against her sweet spot. "Give me one more."
She shatters, crying out, nails raking down my back hard enough to draw blood. And I follow her over, the final release flooding deep as her walls pulse and milk me dry.
Finally—finally—it stops.
The pulses slow, fade, cease entirely. We collapse together, both shaking, both struggling to breathe.
I roll us carefully so I'm not crushing her, keeping us locked together, her body draped across mine like a blanket made of warmth and satisfaction.
"That," she says after a long moment, voice wrecked, "was intense."
I start scenting her without thinking—nuzzling into her throat, behind her ear, the hollow of her collarbone. Marking her with my scent while the knot keeps us joined.
"The scenting thing is new," she observes. "You've never done that before."
"Mine," I murmur against her skin. Can't help it—the word rises from somewhere deep, somewhere primal. "Need everyone to know. My mate. My omega. Mine."
She shivers. "Say that again."
"My omega." I kiss the words into her pulse point. "My mate. Mine."
"Fuck." She pulls me closer, fingers sliding into my hair. "I shouldn't like that as much as I do."
"But you do."
"Yeah." Her voice goes soft. "I really do."
The rut lasts three days.
Three days of claiming her without heat to match, her warrior body handling my demands with fierce enthusiasm. Three days of scenting her obsessively, marking her skin with bites and bruises, making sure every inch of her smells like me.
Three days of knowing she's pregnant and not telling her.
On the fourth morning, when the rut finally breaks and leaves me hollowed out and human again, she's curled against my chest, tracing idle patterns on my skin.
"That was intense," she murmurs. "Three days of you barely letting me out of bed."
"Dragon biology." I press a kiss to her hair, breathing in her changed scent. "Rut makes me... possessive."
"I noticed." She tilts her head up to look at me, amber eyes soft in the morning light. "Not complaining. Just observing."
I should tell her now. Should explain why the rut hit so hard, why I couldn't stop scenting her, why my dragon has been rumblingprotect, keep, minefor days straight.
Instead I say, "I'll bring your tea. You should drink it while it's warm."
She nods, stretching, and I slip out of bed to retrieve the cup I prepared earlier.
