Hunter climbs in and stills my frantic movements. The drain gurgles and the disgusting water flows away.
He reaches up, taps a tile, and water cascades down from a hidden spout in the wall.
I stand under the spray and let my head fall back. “This is perfect. Like the waterfall.”
Hunter is at my back, running a rough cloth up my spine. I keep my eyes closed as he washes me. I let fresh water run into my mouth as the layers of filth peel off me. Like a Slythin, shedding the film on its scales.
I turn to face Hunter. The water is clear, running between us.
“You were able to speak to the snakes.”
He reaches out and presses the tile again, stopping the flow of water. He just looks at me, but I know the answer is yes. The largest Slythin bowed to him on the lawn with the firelight reflecting off its single fang. “But that was the snake you fought—its fang hangs in the throne room. What changed from the first time?”
“Curse,” he says, playing with a strand of my wet hair.
“The Stone King put a curse on them?”
Hunter rumbles at the Stone King’s name, but nods.
“And when he died, the curse lifted?”
He shrugs.
“You can speak to the Slythin,” I say. I reach up to finger the fang on the thong around his neck. Was this Slythin an enemy, or his friend? It seems macabre to wear this but maybe there’s a custom here I don’t understand. “You saved me. You brought the forest with you. You called it, and it came.” I gently let go of the fang and close the distance between us, molding my body to his. “You are an amazing king.”
He bows his head and kisses me, lifting me from the bath at the same time. The press of his lips breaks a dam in my sex, unleashing a flood. I lose the moments between the bath and when he lays me down on a thick bed of blankets.
He lets me go long enough to towel me off. I grab his hand, pressing it to my cheek.
“Hurt,” he rumbles.
“I’m okay,” I whisper.
“Show,” he orders.
I lie back, stretching out so he can examine every inch of me. Every mark, every bruise. I tell him of my escape as he follows the path of my story by cataloging each hurt.
Reaching for his cock, he grips the knot. It pulses in his hand, and my inner muscles pulse in echo, clamping down on air. I clench my teeth against the empty agony.
Seed spurts from his fisted cock. It anoints my breasts and splashes over the pointed tips of my nipples. I smear it down my stomach, greedy to taste it, to have it seep into my flesh. My insides quake with the heat and haze of going into estrus.
I am baptized in water, then in Hunter’s essence. The curse of the Stone King is gone as if it never was.
“Mine,” Hunter growls, and I mouth back the only thing I can.
“Yours.”
In the aftermath of our rutting, my body is sore but sated. I lie in Hunter’s arms. Our skin is glued together by slick and seed.
Hunter speaks. He lived in the forest, was raised by it. He spoke the language of the forest all along. His source, his strength.
His power is incredible. Compared to his abilities, I’ve got nothing to offer him as queen.
He traces a finger across my lips. “Sad,” he whispers.
“A little.” I snuggle closer, laying my hand over theflower-like tattoo on his heart. “I'm glad you saved us. That lady, she's been captive for a long time.”
“Omega,” he grunts.
