Vale was still standing under the waterfall, water streaming down his bare body. But unlike last time, he was facing her.
Ivy couldn’t help it: her eyes sank to his cock.
It was big, of course. He was a Skullstalker; it was only proportional. It was human-shaped, and the same pale blue as the rest of him, soft and oddly vulnerable. He had a foreskin, she noted with hazy surprise. She had never seen it in the flesh. Most men in her country had it removed at birth. It filled herwith a blazing curiosity to see the cockhead hiding underneath it, foreskin retreating as he hardened?—
A low growl dragged her out of her fantasies. Ivy tore her gaze away to see Vale growling, irritated. Her cheeks flushed harder, ashamed. She had annoyed him so much since she arrived, and now she would inconvenience him again?
“You don’t need to,” Ivy blurted as he stepped out of the waterfall.
“I do,” Vale said. “It will kill you otherwise.”
Ivy laughed uncomfortably. “Do you care?”
Vale stopped. His tail swished thoughtfully, water dripping down his antlers and through the moss growing on the side of his skull.
“I would not lose the first assistant I have had in centuries,” he said slowly. “Get out of the river. Drop your dress.”
Ivy shivered. Not from the river, which was no match for her fevered skin. But from his voice, so rough and commanding. The way he loomed over her as he approached, that glowing green gaze fixed so intently on her.
Ivy climbed onto the riverbank and wrung her dress out, then laid it on the strange, dark grass. Everything inside her wanted to lie down and let him do whatever he wanted to her or, failing that, leap into his giant arms. But she held herself back, turning again to face him as he arrived in front of her.
“You don’t—” Ivy stopped, gasping as another rush of heat ran through her. “Y-you don’t have to.”
Vale leaned over her. He was still standing in the river, cool water running around his shins.
“Do you not wish to?”
“No, I just…” Ivy sighed, wiping her stubborn, sweaty hair away from her forehead. “I thought this was done! How many times will it come back?”
“I have never seen a mortal afflicted with it.” Vale paused. Then he reached up and pushed away a strand of hair that kept falling into Ivy’s eyes, an action that made Ivy’s heart stutter in her chest.
Vale blinked rapidly. His hand dropped back to his side, his tail swishing.
“For a demon, it wears off in mere hours,” he said, too fast. “But in a mortal’s weak blood… I am unsure. Several weeks, perhaps.”
“Weeks?” Ivy repeated. She couldn’t be like this when her Circle barged into this void to take Vale prisoner. What would they say?
“But I can still work,” Ivy said desperately. “Right? I can be useful to you? A good assistant?”
Vale said nothing. He stared down at her, and Ivy thought back to being tied up on that stone slab, sure she would be devoured. This felt like that. Only now shewantedhim to consume her—and in a very different way than he would have back in the mortal realm.
“You can be useful to me,” Vale said after a long moment. He blinked hard, as if resurfacing from a daze. “I will try to mate you properly this time. It might give you more of a reprieve between pollen heats.”
Ivy’s mouth dropped open. She looked down at his naked cock, which, to her terror and joy, was hardening. That gorgeous foreskin worked slowly back, revealing a shiny dark cockhead that made Ivy want to moan. Or better yet, sink to her knees.
She shook her head, clearing the fog. “You’lltry?”
Vale nodded. “You are very small. I will do my best. Lie down.”
Ivy did. It was getting more difficult to think, but she had to cling to the fear before it got buried under the pollen-heat. Shecouldn’tactuallylet him fuck her, right? She’d never taken a cock as big as his. Hells, she’d neverseena cock as big as his.
But the pollen was so strong. Any fear she had was drowned out by pure lust, making her whimper.
“Please,” she said, her hips lifting off the grass. “Oh, gods. I need it.”
Vale reached for her. Then he stopped, watching something to her left.
Ivy turned just in time to watch three shadowy vines creep up to her. They didn’t wrap themselves around her wrists, like they had in the nest. Two of them wound around her thighs instead, pulling them open. And the third…
