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The bond warms with amusement and dark pride, but he doesn’t tease me more. He carries me to the creek instead, moving through the trees with that impossible ease, his huge body agile around branches and uneven ground. My head rests against his chest, and I listen to the heavy rhythm of his heart, slower than mine but no less alive.
At the water, he kneels with me still in his arms.
The creek is cold and clear, sliding over stones with a quiet sound that feels too gentle for the state I’m in. Onyx lowers me onto a patch of moss warmed by stray sunlight and keeps one arm behind my back until he’s sure I can sit without collapsing sideways. I could tell him I’m fine, but that would be a lie, and he’d know, so I let him fuss.
He dips one hand into the creek, shakes off the worst of the cold, then brings it to my back. The water hits the bark scrapes first, and I tense. Onyx stops immediately.
I sigh. “It’s fine.” His pale eyes fix on me through the skull. I soften my voice. “It stings, that’s all. And it’s cold.”
He waits one more second, then continues, cleaning the scratches with slow, careful passes. He touches the places where the bark broke skin, where dirt clings to sweat, and the contrast makes me ache worse than the sex did.
A few minutes ago, he was a beast driving me into a tree while I begged him not to stop. Now, he’s cleaning my scrapes like each one offends him personally.
“You know I asked for rough, right?” I murmur.
His hand stills. Yes.
“And you know I liked it?”
His eyes burn brighter. Yes.
“Then stop glarin’ at my back like the tree committed a crime.”
The bond gives me a dark pulse. Tree held you too harshly.
I stare at him, then I laugh, tired and helpless. “You were the one holdin’ me against the tree.”
I held you correctly.
“Oh, yes, of course,” I say, looking away so I can roll my eyes.
He lowers his skull toward my shoulder and licks carefully over one scrape with a tongue that is much too warm and much too strange. I jolt, more from surprise than pain, and then feel the sting fade beneath a soft, healing warmth. Okay, so that heals too.
I close my eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”
Useful, he sends, with a smugness so immediate I regret every word I have ever spoken. Mate said useful before.
“I was delirious.”
Mate says many true things when full of beast.
My face goes hot. “Onyx.”
His chest rumbles. The sound is pleased, but his touch stays gentle. He cleans me with water and tongue and careful hands, moving from my chest to my back, then lower with enough respect that my body doesn’t tense.
When he reaches between my thighs, his touch turns almost reverent. He wipes away slick and cum with cool water, then uses his own warmth to soothe the places that received him. There’s no shame in it because he doesn’t leave room for shame. He treats the aftermath as seriously as the act itself.
My throat tightens as I watch him kneel there in his true form, skull bowed, antlers casting long shadows over the creek, claws careful against my skin. Terrifying, every inch of him. Gentle, every inch of him too.
Eventually, Onyx lifts me again. I don’t protest because walking feels ambitious, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise. He collects my clothes and carries me back toward the den.
He’s careful with my legs, careful with the torn remains of my clothes, careful with everything except the smug satisfaction still humming under his skin.
“I feel that,” I mutter against his chest.
Feel what?
“Your ego.”
