I need to make a new plan.
I won’t just let her leave. I told her twice, and it cost me nothing, because she has nowhere to go, and we both know it. She can’t be here for another week. So, I’ll take her and Darina to any city in Alia Terra they name, I’ll give them money and make sure they don’t know the coordinates to come back. I havesavings I meant to die on. It’s enough to rent a house, buy food, enough for a whole new start. Maybe Esme won’t even have to work. She won’t have to go back to Concord. I can’t give her anything else she needs, but I can give her that.
The decision brings me no relief, and nothing else will either. Not tonight.
I can’t sleep. The tincture wears off, the heat climbs until I’m burning from the inside, and I pace my room in the dark from wall to wall, sweat gathering at the seams of my shell, the clicking constant now. I ache all over with predatory lust.
I try to take the edge off. I sit on the edge of the bed, open my pants, and take my cock in my hand. I’ve been hard since I locked the door. The shell is softer than anywhere else on my body, smooth and giving under my fingers, deep purple from base to tip. Slick pours from the tip at the first stroke. My kind needs no oil; the rut makes its own. My fist glides wet along the throbbing length.
I think about her. I can’t stop myself.
I know one thing about Esme’s body: the way her hand felt under mine at the silk stall, warm and soft. I build from that. I imagine that softness on her throat, her belly, the inside of her thighs. In my head, I lay her down on the bed and bury my face between her legs.
What would she taste like? Would she be wet for me? I picture her pussy against my tongue, her thighs closing around my head, her hands pulling my hair instead of pushing me away while I lick her slow and deep. My hands fill with her firm breasts, her nipples harden against my palms, and her back lifts off the bed. When she’s undone, my cock sinks into her pussy, stretching her open while I watch her face and whisper to her how well she takes me.
As I get close, my tail moves on its own. It curls up over my shoulder and hangs there with the stinger pointed down atmy chest. Venom beads at the tip and drips on the plates over my heart. My own venom can’t harm me. I watch, mesmerized, how it drenches me, how it flows in thin rivulets down my hard stomach.
I come hard, spilling over my fist. I’m panting, nearly breathless. Within seconds, the heat recedes, and I feel like I can think clearly again. I look at myself.
Disgusting. Weak.
I go into the bathroom and clean myself with a wet cloth, then return and drop onto the bed, closing my eyes, hoping sleep will come soon enough. It doesn’t. Instead, the heat climbs back up, and before I know it, my hand wraps around my painfully hard cock, and I do it again, slower this time, dragging it out.
I picture Esme under me, her red hair spread across my pillow. I come a second time, my tail twitching above my shoulder, venom running down my throat and chest. The relief lasts no longer than the first.
The third time, near dawn, I’m nearly unconscious, but still hard and needy. I work my cock with my fist so slick that I’m drenched up to my wrist, and when I spill, it’s close to pain.
I can’t get release. I could empty myself into my own hand until I have nothing left, and it would change nothing. I don’t want my hand. I want her, running under the moon. I want her caught, claimed, stung, and bonded. I want Esme, and nothing else will do.
I can’t do this much longer.
When my control slips, the male who chases her won’t care that she’s terrified, won’t care that she doesn’t want it, and won’t pause to wonder whether his venom might kill her or not.
I’ll only know when it’s over, and she’ll either be alive or dead under me.
The light coming through the window turns gray, then gold. The house is quiet. The venom has dried on my chest in thin trails, and I tell myself I’ll get up and wash.
I tell myself I’ll go downstairs and tell Esme and Darina to pack their bags.
A wave of heat hits me again. I’m sweating, shaking, my stinger dripping venom while my cock weeps. I can’t walk out of the room like this, can’t see Esme when I’m nearly feral. I’ll have to wait it out. I reach for the tincture and pour a few drops right onto my tongue. I don’t count them.
I squeeze my eyes shut and hope.
Chapter Eleven
Esme
Osric doesn’t come down to breakfast. I try not to stare at his empty chair.
I butter my bread, drink my tea, and I look out the window at his car, which is parked exactly where he left it.
“He’s probably still sleeping,” Darina says.
“Oh?”
“You’ve checked the stairs four times.”
“I’m allowed to do that.” I take another bite and keep my eyes on my plate. “He can sleep for as long as he likes. It makes no difference to me.”
