No, the weight of her belly alone was enough.
Skin stretched taut, a grotesque mockery of middle pregnancy, she was swollen with shame. Bloated with monster cum. On full, lewd display where she’d been left in a puddle of cooling fluids on the beach. Exposed.
But there was no one to see her shame.
Only the harsh, unforgiving glare of the sun that never blinked.
Trying to roll, Kore twisted—and her belly shifted with her. Sloshing heat sealed inside her womb. Not a child, not a gluttonous meal… but the leavings of a leviathan too large for her body to contain.
Panting, she struggled to her hands and knees and let the sun scowl at her back. Sweat beading along her brow, she clenched her molars and hissed, “Get up. Now.”
There was work to be done.
Time to mark.
With a huff, she staggered to her feet—and fell. Wobbling with the change in her center of gravity, thrown off balance. Limbs shaking, her knees buckled.
The sun glowered at her back, mocking her effort.
Squinting against the brilliant glare, she clenched her eyes shut against that once-beloved golden radiance and shielded her face. Breath coming slow and thick.
Laboured.
Lungs squashed against the colossal weight pressing against her diaphragm, straining to draw a breath that wasn’t dry and thin, Kore gagged. Retching at the reek of rot bubbling in the heat, plagued by the memory of what she’d done.
That she could still taste him.
Still smell the brine.
Nothing but bile came up. Stringy and yellow, for her belly was empty. Gone was the desperation of yesterday. The need to fill her belly with something,anythingthat might wash the venom away.
Now, there was only him.
The bitter tang of salt. Sweet with the memory of the sea.
She lifted her head. Blinking glassy eyes at the glittering expanse sprawling out before her.
Was he there? Watching?
Lurking beneath the surface, biding his time.
Blood boiling with pure spite and self-loathing, she piled rocks atop the place she’d woken up—where the tide waters had been for his last visit. Marking an atoll in the sand, just so she could be ready to mark the next.
And the next.
Sweating freely in the heat, skin pale and blistered, she turned. One trembling hand raised to block the sun from her eyes, she waddled back. Away from the sea and all her dark promises. Away from the stabbing betrayal sending golden light slicing through her skull.
She fled.
Fast as she could.
Belly swollen, pendulous and shifting with every unsteady step, Kore wobbled back to the cave.
Her gait hesitant and wrong. Feet dragging in the sand, clumsy and unstable, she slogged toward the promise of shelter in the dark. Dodging slippery rocks wet with algae, shallow tide pools, and clumps of reeking beach rot, her ribs straining under the weight in her gut.
And when she was shielded in the gloom, hidden from the painful bite of searing heat, Kore allowed her gaze to stray.Inspecting her palm. The spot where a new barb had penetrated her flesh, where veins of toxic blue spidered out from a fresh wound.
Venom.
