But I couldn't wait much longer. My body wouldn't allow it.
She was sufferingon the sleeping platform. Thrashing. Moaning. The fever had broken sometime during the night, but the need remained, intensified by the partial penetration I'd given her. Her body knew now exactly what it was missing. Knewthe shape of me, the heat of me, the texture of ridges she'd only felt at the very tip.
I watched her try to satisfy herself. Her hands between her legs, fingers working desperately, trying to recreate what I could give her. It was useless. The tonic had conditioned her too thoroughly. Only I could end her suffering now.
And I would. When she was ready.
The ferals tested my boundary again around midnight.
I felt them before I saw them. Five of them now, drawn by her scent, by the pheromones she was broadcasting across kilometers. They lurked just beyond my scent markers, their broken minds focused on one thing: the female in heat.
I left the Keep long enough to reinforce the warning. Showed myself on the ridge, let them see eight feet of calcified armor and barely contained aggression. One of them was bolder than the others, taking a step forward, testing.
I killed it.
My claws opened its throat before it could react, and I let the body fall where the others could see it. A message. My female. My territory.
The remaining four retreated, but not far. They would return. More would come. Her scent was too strong, the pull too powerful. Eventually they would attack in force, and I would have to fight them all.
I needed to claim her before that happened. Needed to breed her properly, mark her with my seed, make her mine beyond dispute. Once she carried my scent inside her, once my offspring grew in her womb, the ferals would know she was taken. Would know that challenging me meant death.
But I couldn't take what wasn't offered. Not yet. Not until she could say the words.
Dawn broke gray and quiet.The storm had passed completely, leaving the air clean and still.
I returned to the Keep to find her awake. Sitting on the edge of the sleeping platform, watching me. Her body was a ruin of need: flushed, trembling, her pussy visibly swollen and wet. But her eyes were different.
Clear. Focused. Decided.
My chest tightened.
"Bruk." My name. She said my name, and the sound of it in her voice made my cock pulse.
"Kerris."
She stood. Walked toward me on legs that shook but held. Stopped close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from her fevered skin.
"I've been thinking," she said. "All night. About what you asked. About what you've been waiting for."
I didn't speak. Didn't move. Every muscle in my body was locked, waiting.
"You asked what I was running toward." She met my eyes. "I've never runtowardanything. My whole life, I've been running away. From my family. From the debt. From anyone who might hurt me the way they did."
Her hand touched my chest. Tentative. Careful. The contact sent heat through my armor, through my skin, straight to my aching cock.
"But I don't want to run anymore." Her voice was quiet but steady. "I want to stay. Not because I'm trapped. Not because the tonic made me. Because I've seen what you built, and it's beautiful. Because you waited twenty cycles for someone like me. Because you keep stopping when you could take, and that makes you different from everyone I've ever known."
She stepped closer. Her body pressed against mine, soft where I was hard, small where I was massive. My arms wrapped around her before I could stop them.
"I want you to breed me." The words were barely a whisper. "I want to carry your offspring. I want to fill that nursery with..."
She didn't finish the sentence. My mouth found hers.
I'd never kissed a human before. Never understood the appeal of pressing mouths together when there were so many other ways to claim. But the moment her lips parted against mine, I understood. The intimacy of it. The vulnerability. The taste of her, sweet and desperate and finally, finally offering herself to me.
I pulled back. Looked into her eyes. I needed to be sure.
"Say it again."
