“Well, we do, but it’s not the same. The egg is super fucking tiny. Like, microscopic. And the sperm that lives in the cum you like so much fertilizes the egg.”
His eyes widen with horror. “We have been consuming breeding seed?”
“I mean, yeah. Did you not realize that?” I frown at him.
He goes the Vyastil version of pale. It’s like a sickly periwinkle, and he tries to pull away, but I don’t let him. I can tell he’s panicking.
“How could you part with something so precious? I did not realize that was how humans…” He stops. “It is not…precious?”
I almost laugh? Precious? Fuck no. We have it in abundance. “Relax,” I command. I twist away from his tail and straddle his hips, giving him all my weight. I know damn well he can throw me off if he wants to, but his breathing starts to even out as I lie on him. “Relax,” I say again. “Almost every person with a cock on this planet produces sperm. It’s not a loss, okay? We’re not, like, affecting the birthrate from monster blow jobs.”
His nostrils flare, and his ears are still twitching, but I can sense him calming down. After a short forever, he turns his gaze back to mine. His fingers trace a light touch down my arms. It’s tender. Soft.
They link with mine, and he squeezes both of my hands in a pulsing rhythm.
“We do not breed often,” he says. “All males are tested for seed bearing. Those that are fertile are sent to Aurelis to be mated.”
“How many children do you have a year?”
He looks shocked. “A year?”
“Uh…I mean, how often are children born?”
He frowns, then shrugs. “Breeding season is once every twenty of your years. There are two—maybe three children per season.”
Holy fuck. Well. That answers that.
“Sometimes, in the case of war, when our population is decimated, more will be hatched. But that hasn’t happened in…” He stops for a long moment, and I wait, but he doesn’t finish his sentence.
I get the sense I shouldn’t push it. Maybe someday, but not yet.
Dropping back against him, I rest my face in the crook of his neck, and I can feel his hearts beating against my chest. It’s soothing. More than I expected.
“Vyastil don’t do this either, do they?”
“Not after we are weaned,” he says. Before I can speak again, he wraps his tail back around me, and then his arms. “This is considered a useless distraction.”
“Well, to properly love and care for your human,” I tell him, “wedorequire physical affection along with food, water, and regular sex.”
“Sex…”
“Fine. Orgasms,” I clarify. “That obviously won’t be a problem.”
He huffs a sort of purring laugh and nuzzles my temple with the tip of his nose. I can feel his ears flicking in amusement. I’m starting to read them a little better, and I don’t know what that says about me.
“Do you require food now?”
“Nah. I ate a Pop-Tart earlier. Before you tried to rip Cielo’s hand off.” I sit up abruptly and stare at him. “Would you have actually torn his hand off?”
Rathyn huffs. “He touched what is mine. It would have been an appropriate punishment.”
I groan and flop back down. “I’d prefer you didn’t de-limb someone for that. I didn’t know.”
“He should have.”
“Well. I guess he does now.” I push up on his chest and meet his gaze. “Can you, like, not hurt anyone because of me, though? I don’t want to walk around terrified I’m going to get someone’s arm ripped off, or eyes gouged out, because I pushed boundaries. That’s kind of my thing.”
He stares for a beat, then lifts his fingers and claws through my hair. It’s gentle enough, but I like the way they scrape along my scalp. “I have noticed. It is…different from most humans I’ve encountered.”
