My thoughts go silent.
I stare down at the narrow, delicate spread of her hips. I stare at her small frame. Then I try to do the mental calculation of a Drakav youngling, with claws, exiting her body. It has been many moons since we have had to take a dying warrior to the Giving Stone. Many moons since I last saw a youngling. But we leave the stone ready to fight. A Drakav youngling is almost the same size as Eh-ree-kah.
A low, guttural noise tears from my chest. It is impossible for one to grow within her.
“You will be weighed down,” my thoughts pour directly into her mind. “You will be slow. And then it will tear you apart. And even if it does not, I can never place my shafts inside you again. I can never share my water with you. It is too dangerous.”
A soft, sudden sound echoes in the mindspace. It takes my frantic brain a full second to realize she ischuckling.
“Kol, breathe,” she projects warmly, the humor radiating from her. “Human babies don’t start out that big. They start out smaller than a pebble. And human women have been having babies since the dawn of time. I am not going to explode.”
”A pebble?” I project back, stunned.
“A pebble,” she confirms. And then her soft, slick hips deliberately roll upwards, grinding directly against my hyper-sensitive ridges.
A breathless, ragged groan rips out of my throat. My claws dig into the furs as both shafts jump wildly between our bodies.
“And for the record,” she projects, her mental voice suddenly flushed with heat, “you are still allowed to put your shafts inside me.”
My logic shatters. The panic is instantly vaporized by a tidal wave of hunger.
“Even so,” I press my forehead flush against hers, crushing her against the furs as my possessiveness surges back. “You will not leave the safety of this alcove. I will bring you all the food. I will bring you water. I will slay any creature that looks at the entrance to this cave. You will not walk outside again until the young are safely removed from your body.”
“I am not spending nine months in a pile of furs!” she shouts out loud, slapping my solid chest with a loud smack. “I have chores! I have a schedule! You can’t just mandate bed rest for an entire year over a hypothetical pregnancy!”
“I can,” I project. “And I will kill anyone who tries to hand you a water filter.”
Her pulse spikes wildly against my hand. The absolute, unyielding wall of my possessiveness crashes against her in the mindspace.
“Say it,” I command, pinning her under the weight of my focus. “Say you will remain in the furs.”
She glares up at me. “I’m not saying that.”
A low rumble builds in my chest. “Then I will not let you sleep.”
Chapter 19
PEE. ZAH.
KOL
My eyes open. The alcove is dark.
Normally, my claw is wrapped around the hilt of my bone-knife before my lungs even take a breath. The dust trains you to wake up ready to bleed. You listen for the scrape of claws on stone. You smell the air for danger.
This dawn, I do not reach for my knife. I do not check the air currents for predators.
I reach for the female tangled in the furs beneath me, dragging her small, soft body firmly against my chest, and I bury my face in her mane.
She smells like Ain’s warmth. She smells like the storm winds that rage across the flats. And beneath that, underneath the warmth of her skin, she smells likeme.
My scent is completely ground into her skin. It is a thick, musky brand that tells every single creature on this planet that this female belongs to me. The beast in my blood, the thing that has been tearing me apart from the inside out for sols, is finally, completely silent. It is fed. It is triumphant.
And I am...happy.
I drag my nose along the curve of her jaw, inhaling deeply. A low, chest-rattling purr builds in my throat, and I press my mouth against her neck, vibrating the rumbling sound directly into her skin.
Eh-ree-kah shifts in her sleep, letting out a small, exhausted sigh. Her hand uncurls, resting flat against my collarbone.
