Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Chapter
Twenty-Three
REM’EB
Iwake up in a strangely chilly environment, with my cock aching and hard, and my khui’s song booming in my chest. My frill is engorged and ready to splay open. A warm body is next to mine, the curve of it sweet, and I have my face buried in a coiling mass of mane.
Tia.
My mate. My resonance.
The one I do not get to keep.
I bite back a groan, sliding my arms around her and pulling her tighter to me, even as I know I should not. I should get up from this soft pile of fur blankets and prepare to return to my people now that Tia is safe. We will finish resonance soon enough, and the moment it is done, I must return. I cannot afford to laze about.
Even as I chide myself, I pull her tighter against me, pull her backside to my front, nestling my cock against her. She makes a soft sound in her sleep, her hips rocking against mine, and it takes everything I have not to push her thighs open and sink into her. We are both bare from the waist below, and it would be such a simple thing…and I would betray her. Because Tia has to look me in the eye and say yes. She has to tell me that she wants me. I cannot just take.
So I roll onto my back and take deep, steady breaths. The stahrs are gone from the smoke hole and so is the blackness. There is a murky gray overhead instead, and that looks far more familiar. The doubts I was filled with last night abate, just a little.
Tia yawns, stretching one arm over her head, and turns to look at me, a sleepy smile on her face. “Gmornin.”
Her coiling mane is in her face, and she looks delightfully tousled. I smile and brush it away from her brow. “You are beyond lovely every time I see you.”
“Fr dat choogetta mornin handee,” she says to me, a playful look on her face. Her hand goes to my cock and I suck in a breath as she smiles.
“Tia.”
“Yer harrd,” she murmurs, leaning over me to kiss me even as her fingers dance over my cock. “Noffor long tho.”
This time I do not put up much of a fight. Before I am even fully awake, she has her fist around the head of my cock, and my frill splays out, cupping her hand and sucking on it as she milks my release. She murmurs more nonsense words at me, then kisses me. When my frill releases her hand, she gets up and fills a bowl with slushy water, cleaning her skin.
I reach for her, intent upon giving her the same pleasure, but she only shakes her head and gives me a teasing smile. She will withhold herself from me this morning, then. Perhaps that is her game—to withhold herself until I swear to be hers.
It is an excellent ploy. I wish I could give her what she wants. I am obligated to return, though. As chief’s son, I have no choice. My people need me to lead them. I need to guide my father before he destroys those of us that are left entirely. “I am sorry, Tia. I cannot give you what you want.”
Her face falls and for a moment she looks so sad and hurt that it wounds me. But then she shakes her head and puts another smile on her face, pulling on fresh clothing. She tosses furs at me, indicating I should dress, too. All the while, she tries to teach me words. The shirt I put on is a too-nik. The fur-covered leggings, panntz. Chews go on my feet and a clowk over my shoulders. Once we are bundled up, we go outside of the hut and into the bracing cold air. It should not surprise me each time we emerge. I have been in the occasional above cave and I know that the world outside of the safety of the tunnels is a chilly one.
Yet each time I emerge, the air feels like a strike to my face. There is a low, constant roar in the air that I cannot mark, and a thick, strange fog hangs around us, as if we are in a smoky cavern…yet I know we are not. There is no ceiling here, which makes it all the more bewildering.
Tia notices my reaction and chuckles, pulling me close. She tugs a strange pouch of fabric out of the back of my clowk and pulls it down over my head as far as she can, tsking when my horns get in the way. “Gonna haftew makeyew a hatt,” she tells me, tucking the furs around my neck to keep it warm. “Anna skarff.”
“Does this cold not bother you?” I ask. “Do your people truly frolic in this air as if it is nothing?”