"You'd have to get through me first."
It lunged.
I dove sideways, slashing with the bone shard as it passed. The edge caught its arm, opening a gash that leaked dark fluid. Not enough to stop it. Just enough to make it angry.
It spun, faster than I expected. Claws raked the air where I'd been standing. I scrambled backward, putting distance between us, trying to reach the reinforced archway.
Too slow. It grabbed my ankle, yanked me off my feet. I hit the ground hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs. It dragged me toward it, claws digging into my skin.
"Mine," it growled. "Mine now."
Bruk slammed into it from the side.
The impact tore me free, sent the feral crashing into the far wall. Bruk was on it before it could recover, his claws finding the gaps in its degraded armor, tearing, rending.
The feral screamed. Thrashed. Went still.
Silence fell over the Keep.
"How many?"I asked.
Bruk stood over the body of the feral that had attacked me, his armor splattered with dark fluid. His breathing was heavy, his muscles trembling with post-combat adrenaline.
"Fifteen total. Seven in the ceiling collapse. One in the pit trap. One in the snare." He looked at me. "The rest I killed directly."
Six ferals. He'd killed six ferals in direct combat while I'd been cornered by a seventh.
"You're hurt," I said, noticing the gashes on his arms, the places where claws had found the gaps in his armor.
"Minor." He crossed to me, knelt beside where I sat against the wall. His hand found my belly. "The offspring?"
"Fine. We're both fine." I touched his face, traced the line of his jaw. "You saved us."
"You designed the system that killed half of them." His forehead pressed against mine. "We saved each other."
We stayed like that for a long moment. Breathing. Existing. Alive.
Then the adrenaline shifted into something else.
I kissed him. Hard. Desperate. The relief of survival mixing with something primal, something that needed to confirm we were both still here.
He responded instantly. His hands found my body, pulling me against him, lifting me off the ground. We stumbled toward the sleeping platform, mouths locked together, touching everywhere we could reach.
"Need you," I gasped against his lips. "Need to feel you."
"Yes."
He laid me down on the furs and spread my thighs. No foreplay. No patience. Just the head of his cock pressing against my entrance and then thrusting deep.
I cried out at the fullness. After hours of fear and tension, the sensation of him inside me was overwhelming. He didn't start slow. Didn't give me time to adjust. He fucked me hard and fast, claiming, possessing, proving that we'd survived.
"Mine," he growled with each thrust. "You're mine. Both of you."
"Yours." The word came out broken, punctuated by moans. "Always. Always yours."
He knotted me faster than ever before. The swelling, the stretch, the lock of his body inside mine. Then he came, floodingme with seed I didn't need, marking me from the inside even though I was already pregnant with his offspring.
I came with him. The orgasm rolling through me, my walls clenching around his knot, my whole body shaking with release.
