His knot had released at some point while I was unconscious, but he was still inside me. Still hard. Still leaking occasional pulses of seed into my already-flooded womb.
"You passed out," he said. His voice was tender, concerned. "I didn't mean to overwhelm you."
"You bred me unconscious." I laughed weakly. "That's... that's a lot."
"Too much?"
I thought about it. About the fullness still inside me. About the warmth of his seed, the weight of it in my belly. About the soreness that would be there tomorrow and the next day and maybe forever.
"No," I said. "Not too much. Just... enough."
He pulled out slowly. I felt the gush of his seed leaving my body, so much of it, more than seemed possible. My thighs were coated. The furs beneath me were soaked. I was a mess.
I didn't care.
He lay down beside me and pulled me against his chest. His cock finally softened, retreating back into its sheath. For the first time in ten days, I felt peaceful. The tonic was satisfied. My body had gotten what it needed.
And more than that, I'd gotten what I needed. Not just relief. Not just an end to the suffering. A home. A future. Someone who'd waited twenty cycles for me and would wait twenty more.
"Sleep," he said. "Tomorrow we start building."
"Building what?"
"Everything." His hand rested on my belly, where his offspring might already be growing. "The nursery needs to be finished. The ventilation needs those modifications you suggested. And if the ferals attack..."
"Ferals?"
"Later." He kissed the top of my head. "Sleep now. We have twenty days until the portal. And a lifetime after that."
I closed my eyes and let sleep take me.
I wasn't running from anything. I was exactly where I wanted to be.
KERRIS
The routine established itself without discussion.
Morning: I woke to his hands on my body, his cock already hard against my thigh. He'd turn me onto my back or pull me onto my hands and knees, and he'd breed me slowly, thoroughly, until the knot locked us together and his seed flooded my womb. We'd stay connected for thirty or forty minutes, talking, planning, existing in that strange intimacy of being physically joined while our minds wandered.
Then breakfast. Water from the channel he'd carved through the Keep. Dried meat and preserved fruit from stores he'd built up over twenty cycles. He fed me more than I needed, watching to make sure I ate everything, already treating my body like something precious that required fuel.
Midday: Work. The ventilation modifications I'd suggested needed implementation, and he let me direct the project. I stood in the main chamber and pointed, explaining angles and airflow patterns, while he did the physical labor of carving new channels into ancient bone. Watching him work was its own kind of pleasure. The way he tested each cut before committing. The satisfaction on his face when a piece fit exactly as intended.
Sometimes he'd pause in his work to cross the chamber and touch me. Just a hand on my hip, a brush of claws through my hair, a kiss pressed to the top of my head. Small reminders that I was there. That I'd stayed.
Evening: He'd breed me again. Harder this time, hungrier, the day's restraint burning off in rough thrusts and growled commands. I'd come screaming, my voice bouncing off the walls he'd built, and then his knot would lock us together and we'd lie in the gathering dark while his seed pumped into me.
Night: We'd talk. About the Keep's structural integrity. About the modifications I wanted to make. About the ferals he could smell gathering at the boundary, drawn by my scent even though I was thoroughly claimed now. About the portal that would open in twenty days. Nineteen. Eighteen.
I stopped counting somewhere around day fifteen.
My body was changing.
I noticed it first in my breasts. Fuller than before, heavier, the nipples darker and more sensitive. When Bruk's mouth found them during our morning breeding, I gasped at sensations that hadn't been there a week ago.
"Tender?" he asked, lifting his head.
"Different." I touched my own breast, feeling the new weight of it. "Fuller."
