Yet.
I started walking toward the skull on the horizon. Every step made my pants drag against my swollen clit. Every movement reminded me of what he'd done to me, what he hadn't done, what I'd begged him to do.
My body had already decided. My mind was still fighting.
But I was walking toward him anyway.
And I couldn't tell anymore if I was running to survive or running toward surrender.
BRUK
Walking away from her was the hardest thing I'd done in twenty cycles.
I could smell her on my fingers. Sweet and musky and desperate, the scent of a female ready for breeding. My preparation fluid had been leaking since I'd touched her, coating the inside of my armor plates, making every movement slick and agonizing. My organs throbbed with a pressure that had become physical pain. The sheaths that normally contained them had given up trying to hold back the swelling, and I could feel my cock pressing against armor that wasn't designed to contain this level of arousal.
I'd had my fingers inside her, feeling her walls clamp down on me, hungry and desperate, trying to pull me deeper. I watched her come apart against my hand, screaming, sobbing, begging for more. Her body had gripped my fingers like it never wanted to let go, like it recognized on some biological level that I was what it had been waiting for.
And I'd walked away.
My cock throbbed at the memory, a pulse of need so sharp it made me stumble. Preparation fluid leaked from the tip, dripping down my inner thigh, leaving a trail of evidence of howbadly I wanted to go back. To pin her down. To finally, finally claim what the tonic had prepared for me.
The restraint was killing me. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to return, to find her still kneeling by that spring, to spread her open and bury myself in that wet heat. She was ready. More than ready. Her body had been screaming yes even while her mind tried to fight.
I'd pressed my cock against her entrance. Just the tip. Just enough to feel the heat of her, the slickness, the way her body had opened for me. It would have taken nothing to slide inside. One thrust and I'd have been buried in her, feeling those walls grip me the way they'd gripped my fingers.
But it had to be her choice. Not the tonic's choice. Hers.
I climbed to my observation point on the eastern ridge, my cock still aching against my armor plates, and looked down at the spring where I'd left her. She was still there, kneeling on the stone, naked and shaking. I could see the wetness on her thighs from here. Could see the way her body trembled with aftershocks from the orgasms I'd given her.
Seven. I'd given her seven, and she'd still begged for more. Still tried to pull me inside her when I'd pressed my cock against her entrance. The memory of her voice, broken and desperate, made my sheaths ache with fresh need.
Please. Please, I need you inside me.
She'd said that. Those exact words. And I'd pulled away.
The restraint was going to destroy me before the waiting did.
She carried structure in her bones. I'd known it the moment I watched her climb that first rib formation, testing load capacity before committing her weight. She thought like a builder, seeing the world in terms of angles and joints and weight distribution. When she'd looked at my maze walls, I'd seen recognition in her eyes. Not just fear. Understanding.
Forty-three females had come through the portal in forty cycles. Most of them had run. Screamed. Hidden in the first shelter they found and waited for me to drag them out. A few had tried to fight, which was brave but pointless. None of them had climbed for high ground. None of them had started mapping the territory. None of them had looked at my construction and seen the mathematics behind it.
She was different.
That difference was why I couldn't just take her. Couldn't reduce her to biology and breeding the way the tonic wanted. She deserved to choose with full understanding of what she was choosing.
Even if the waiting was destroying me.
I returnedto work because work was all I had.
The storm was coming. I tasted it in the air, feel it in the subtle shift of pressure that preceded the bone winds. Two days, maybe less. The maze needed to be reshaped, the path adjusted to funnel her toward the Keep faster than I'd originally planned.
Every step I took reminded me of my state. My cock had retreated partially back into its sheath, but the pressure remained, a constant ache that pulsed with every heartbeat. The preparation fluid had slicked everything between my legs, making my armor plates shift against each other with obscene ease. I was marked by my own arousal as thoroughly as I'd marked my territory.
I found a femur section that would work for the eastern approach and started calculating angles. The physical labor helped. Gave me something to focus on besides the ache in my sheaths and the memory of her body clenching around my fingers.
Her taste was still in my mouth. When I'd pulled my fingers from her, I'd licked them clean. The impulse had been immediate, undeniable. The flavor of her arousal was imprinted on my tongue, sweet and musky and addictive. I wanted more. Wanted to bury my face between her thighs and drink directly from the source.
The thought made my cock surge against my armor again. I growled and lifted the bone harder than necessary, channeling the frustration into movement.
