I feel the agony spike. The wave of it hits me so hard I gasp, my fingers gripping tight into his thick hair.
Before his knees give out, Kol scoops me off my feet, hauling my smaller frame squarely against his chest.
He stumbles blindly across the alcove toward the raised stone shelf.
He hits the edge of it, and the last of his strength shatters. We both go down.
He collapses face-first onto the thick furs, dragging me straight down underneath him. For a solid second, all the breath is knocked out of my lungs. A wall of solid, scorching muscle pins me flat against the bedding.
I try to shift. I try to pull one arm free. “Kol?”
Nothing. His eyes are closed. His chest heaves against mine, but when I call his name again there’s no response.
I’m trapped.
I definitely can’t move my legs. I can barely take a full breath. I am forced to just lie there under three hundred pounds of muscle and wait.
The starlight etched across his dark skin flashes blindingly bright, throwing wild, strobe-light against my face. The heat rolling off his body feels like I am pinned under an actual radiator.
I realize with a jolt that it’s not just his chest that’s moving with every breath. Other parts of him are moving too. Restructuring. The bones of his pelvis are pressed so hard against my hips that I can feel them shifting beneath his hot skin. They are expanding. The snap of cartilage and bone breaking and reforming echoes straight into my own marrow.
It’s terrifying, and deeply,deeplystrange. I lock my jaw, forcing my spine flat against the furs so I do not squirm away from the sensation of it.
I manage to wriggle my right hand free from underneath his broad shoulder. I bury my fingers into his thick, sandy hair, gripping the roots hard to ground him through the worst of the frantic convulsions.
“If you break my actual pelvis,” I grit out to his unconscious face, my voice strained under his dead weight, “I’m taking my answer back.”
It takes almost an hour before his entire body shudders one last time. He breathes out a long, ragged exhale, and his sheer dead weight relaxes fully against me.
Okay. We survived. Now I just have to wait for him to wake up so I can get the circulation back in my legs.
Except, he’s apparently not quite finished.
Pressed flush against my thigh, I feel it. It’s the pressure that I notice first. Then the heat of it. It’s thick, ridged, and growing steadily harder against the fabric of my pants.
Okay, wow. That is... substantial.
And then, exactly a second later, I feel another distinct, unyielding pressure right next to it. Slightly thinner, pressing solidly against my other leg.
My brain completely stalls.
I lie perfectly still underneath his sprawling body, staring blankly up at the uneven stone of the cavern ceiling.
I take one slow breath.
Either this man has developed a deeply alarming, perfectly cylindrical tumor in the last five minutes... or I have severely underestimated the ambition of Drakav biology.
Chapter 18
WELL, THOSE ARE TWO WAYS TO SOLVE A LANGUAGE BARRIER
ERIKA
Iam a highly organized, deeply practical woman.
I have a Master’s degree. I have successfully managed international software deployments. I know how to synthesize complex Jira tickets under extreme stakeholder duress.
But right now, lying flat on my back on a pile of animal furs, pinned beneath the male that is going to be my mate, my brain is failing me.
