I hold up a hand to stop her. “I got it.”
We step into the clearing and see steam rising from the hot springs, the water’s surface glassy and undisturbed in the moonlight. No one else is here. Part of me relaxes—privacy is good—but another part tenses. Without other shifters around, I have no reason to delay answering Aurelia’s questions about knotting.
I rub the back of my neck, avoiding her gaze. “It’s...when shifters mate.” My voice drops lower. “The base of my cock would...swell. Lock us together.”
Aurelia blinks at me in the darkness. “Why?”
“Because then I…we…well, I wouldn’t be able to pull out for a while after.” My hands gesture vaguely in the space between us. “It’s to ensure...conception.” The last word comes out rough, almost a growl, and heat climbs up my neck despite the cool night air.
There’s another long pause while she seems to think about it.
“Huh, interesting,” she says in a bland tone, as if commenting on a footnote in one of her spell books.
“Interesting?” I echo, feeling almost offended by her casual reaction to something so intimate.
“Yeah. Can you show me?”
I choke. “Can Ishowyou?”
“Sure. If you don’t mind, of course.” She turns and practically skips off toward the spring, leaving me standing there with my mouth half-open.
“I really don’t know why you’re being so shy about all this,” she calls over her shoulder. “I think it’s interesting that you can all shift partially. Actually, is that why you’re better soldiers? Is there something…I don’t know…biological that makes you stronger?”
I have no fucking idea what to say, but Aurelia doesn’t seem to care. She keeps mumbling to herself as she strips her clothes off, as if all of this is just an academic curiosity to her. She drops her clothes on the bank before wading into the water, then turns around to give me a pointed look. “What are you waiting for?”
I shake my head in exasperation, and trudge after Aurelia with a resigned sigh. There’s no point in fighting it.
I can’t resist this chaotic, deeply weird little woman; and worse, I don’t think I want to. I think I might be obsessed with her.
I drop my clothes on top of Aurelia’s and wade into the water. It’s dark, so I can’t see much, but I feel the heat of her eyes.
She swims over, water rippling around her shoulders, and doesn’t bother to warn me as her fingers find my cock beneath the surface and squeezes. My vision blurs and I let out a hiss.
“I don’t feel anything unusual,” she says, her fingers exploring.
“‘Course not,” I grit out. I can’t focus while she’s stroking me like this. “I’m not going to do it if we’re not actually knotting.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I manage to say, but can’t finish the sentence.
Aurelia looks at me with those wide eyes, and pulls her hands back. It’s marginally easier to focus when she’s not touching me, but not that much when she’s still standing there wet and naked.
“Because,” I try again, “I don’t even know if I can if I’m not inside you.”
She blinks slowly. “Okay then. Do it.”
I splutter, nearly choking on my own saliva. “You want to get pregnant?”
She cocks her head, considering the question as if I’d asked her preference on dinner. I’d meant it sarcastically, but now I find myself holding my breath, heart hammering against my ribs.
“No,” she says after what feels like an eternity. “Not really. Not right now anyway.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. This is fucking insane.
What was I thinking? We have no future together, let alone one with children.
Yet watching her eyes widen with curiosity about something so primal, it stirs something dangerous in me. The very impossibility of it all only makes the wanting sharper.
