Z

Applauses cracked through the vaulted living room of Castle Dimitrescu, ricocheting off the crimson drapes and the gilt sconces that flickered with beeswax flame.

A family of monsters clapping for a union that had been decided way before asking your opinion.

Lady Alcina Dimitrescu was the first to lift her gloved hands and even her clapping was theatrical. She half-turned toward the black-cloaked figure of Mother Miranda, long dark cigarette held between two of her tallest fingers, smoke curling up past the brim of her wide sunhat.

"Mother," Alcina purred, voice honeyed and slick, "what a truly beautiful union you have brought to fruition beneath my roof. I am honored beyond measure that you would grace my humble castle with a ceremony so delicate." Her yellow eyes flicked to you and Ethan before back again to her Mother figure, the barb hidden in the compliment was so soft it barely showed its point. "It is my absolute pleasure to host it."

Standing there with Ethan's warm arm curled possessively over your hip, you knew that every syllable Alcina spoke was for Miranda's ears alone.

The tall Lady's crimson lips smiled at the crow-woman but her golden gaze slid toward Ethan.

Beside the far column, hunched almost double, Salvatore Moreau was clapping too. His two mismatched, deformed hands slapped together and a thin string of greenish bile crept out of the corner of his mouth and he caught it with the back of his wrist, swallowing hard, blinking those pale runny eyes. He was trying so terribly hard not to embarrass himself in front of his tall sister as you saw his throat bob three times in succession, forcing the vomit back down for the sake of the occasion.

Deep in the shadow of the tall bookcase, cradled on Donna Beneviento's lap, Angie was howling with glee, mouth clacking open and closing while her tiny wooden hands slapped together at manic speed.

"More kisses, more kisses, more kisses!" the doll shrieked, kicking her stiff legs. "Kiss him again, do it wet!"

Donna herself said nothing, face hidden behind that heavy black veil and her long lace-gloved hands only tightened just slightly around Angie's midsection to still her.

The remaining sibling of your new husband, Heisenberg, stood leaning heavy against the frame of the door that led into the dining room, weight pressing into the wood so hard the old timber creaked under him.

His round sunglasses caught the candlelight in two little copper coins and you couldn't see his eyes, but you felt them.

Broad hand resting on the head of that great steel hammer and his gloved fingers drummed on the metal. He tilted his head back enough that the light caught the smirk on his mouth.

Miranda finally lifted a slender hand and the room fell silent.

"Alcina, my dear," Miranda said, her voice cool and reverent-sounding, though nothing about it felt maternal. "Once again, my thanks. Your hospitality is, as always, exquisite." She turned that beaked mask toward you and Ethan. "Congratulations, my children. Ethan and you, little one. Do enjoy your—" her voice curled around the word with the barest, driest twist "—matrimony."

There was something almost mocking in the way she said it and Ethan's arm tightened at your waist, fingers spreading over your back, thumb rubbing circles through your shirt.

"Now, if you will forgive me, my work calls." Miranda spread her arms and her form began to fracture apart into black feathers and beating wings. In the space of two heartbeats she was gone and a small murder of crows launched themselves upward through the tall window arch, shrieking and dissolving into the darkening sky beyond.

A single black feather drifted down, landing on the marble at your feet.

The moment she was gone, the whole room seemed to exhale.

Heisenberg was first to leave, shoving himself off the doorframe with his shoulder and dragging his great hammer along, head of it scraping the polished stone floor with a shrill metallic screech that made you flinch.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

"Congraaaats," he drawled over his shoulder, giving a lazy two-fingered salute without turning. "Best fuckin' wishes. May your union be long and… fertile." He laughed once but loudly. "Try not to break him too fast, Winters."

Ethan's jaw locked and arm at your waist did not move, but you felt the muscles in his forearm cord up, hard as rope under your ribs.

Moreau limped after his brother with that lurching, sidelong gait but he stopped in front of you, short frame from his state barely reaching Ethan's chest. His fishy pale eyes flicked from Ethan to you and back, watering. He tried to smile, lower lip trembling and when his mouth opened, there was a small wet click as something in his palate resettled.

"C-congratulations, brother," Moreau stammered up at Ethan, his voice thin and slippery like something dragged from underwater. "And to you, t-too. You're—you're very lucky. It's… very special." His head bobbed as he swallowed hard again. "I'm so happy for you."

Before you could answer, his slimy palm reached out and settled on your thigh over your jeans. It was cold and damp and even through the denim you felt the moisture soaking through in a small dark patch. Something like fish oil that made your stomach lurch. You clamped down hard on the instinct to recoil, feeling so sorry for even thinking he was ugly and the disgust trying to twist your mouth, but the sensation of that hand was almost more than you could bear.

Ethan reacted instantly.

"Thank you, Salvatore," he said, warm and civil on the surface, but under the warmth there was a low bass hum of something else as he pulled you flush against him with the arm at your waist, hard enough that Moreau's damp hand slid off your jeans with a soft wet peel. Ethan tipped his head down and pressed his lips to your cheek, chaste but firm, marking you.

Then he looked down at his hunched brother and his tone gentled into almost pitying.

"I'm sure it won't be long," Ethan told him. "Mother Miranda will bring somebody home for you, too. You just have to be patient, brother. You'll have someone of your own."

Moreau's whole misshapen face lit up. His lopsided eyes went round and shining as he nodded and a bubble of drool broke at the corner of his mouth. "Th-thank you, Ethan. Thank you. That's— th-that's so kind of you to say.”

He lurched away toward the great doors, casting a damp wave over his shoulder to Alcina and she did not even acknowledge his existence, her yellow gaze had not left you and Ethan for a single second.

"So," Alcina said, taking a long, slow drag from her cigarette and letting the smoke drift down at you two in a thin gray curtain. "How very curious it is all very much attention Mother has been paying you lately, Ethan."

There was tension threaded through her every syllable, she was smiling in her own oblique, aristocratic way, telling him she was watching.

Ethan shrugged one shoulder. "I haven't asked for anything in all these years, Alcina. I think this was overdue."

"Mm." Her red mouth quirked. "How well you put things."

From the shadows, the tall Lady's three daughters all lifted small hands and waved to you with sinuous fingers and flirty actions before the three of them dissolved into whirring clouds of shining blowflies and were gone.

Ethan cleared his throat. "Alcina. The stones I asked, you have them?"

Alcina turned her sly gaze on him and held it, smile deepening while making him wait.

"Bela." She yelled loud enough for the eldest daughter to re-materialize only from the waist up, her lower body still a hovering churn of black insects. She held out one small palm and let two glimmering gems fall into her mother's huge, gloved hand. Then, without a word, Bela dissolved again into buzzing motes and streamed away.

Alcina let the gems roll around her palm a moment, admiring the way they caught the light. Then, with a lazy carelessness that was almost insulting, she flicked her wrist and tossed both of them at Ethan.

Before they had even reached the halfway point through the air, black mold erupted from the flagstones beneath his feet. A single sinuous vine, glossy and dark, uncurled upward and caught both stones on its blunt tip with unerring precision. It retracted, gliding back to Ethan's hand and he plucked the two rubies off it with two fingers. The vine sank silently back into the floor without so much as a scuff mark.

"Thank you, Alcina," Ethan said. "We'll take our leave now."

"Do enjoy your honeymoon, darlings.” Alcina nodded and gestured airily with her cigarette. “And take that hideous thing with you." Her eyes flicked, the trail of her smoke pointing as well in the direction you followed.

In the far corner stood Mold, hulking in a hunched-forward silhouette, all sinewy black musculature slick with a permanent oily sheen, taller shoulder cresting above the other.

Pinkish serum still oozed sluggishly from the torn stump, running in slow rivulets down the ridged flank of his body and dripping in fat drops on the marble.

He had been staring at the floor the whole time.

Ethan glanced at him, then nodded and turned toward the exit, keeping you tucked hard against his side and, in turn, you went with him while behind you, with a soft slurping shuffle of ichor-wet feet, Mold followed, single remaining arm hanging heavy at his side.

The great front doors of Castle Dimitrescu groaned outward and the freezing dusk-air of the mountain slammed into your face, snapping you awake.

Taking the same path of this afternoon now in reverse, snow crunched hard under your boots as Ethan's boots left deep, deliberate prints beside yours.

Overhead the sky had turned a bruised-gray, thickened with clouds and somewhere behind those clouds the sun was sinking.

Halfway down the switchback path, Ethan finally let go of your waist and you immediately felt the absence of him, a cold seam of air along your left side. He was digging in the pocket of that navy hoodie he wore under his golden heavy coat and pulled out two small silver bands, each had a small circular cavity set into its top face.

He held out one palm with both rings on it and with the other he took the two rubies to press them gently into its bezel. His thumbs worked around the edges, firming the settings, sealing the stones down snug. He held one ring up to the last of the light.

The crystal was deep red, pigeon-blood and unshadowed even in the failing evening, it seemed to glow from within.

He turned to you, blue eyes coming up under his brows almost shyly.

"Can I…?" he asked and lifted the ring between his fingers. "Would you let me put it on you?"

His voice was so soft that it was the thing undoing you every time. This gentle, hesitant Ethan, someone who could summon black tendrils out of the earth and turn anyone in awful monsters, asking you for permission to slide a ring onto your finger.

"Yes," you breathed and he took your left hand in his palm so warm, veins along the back of his hand faintly luminous, threads of pale blue moving under the skin as he lifted your knuckles to his mouth and pressed his lips to them.

A closed-mouth kiss, warm and dry, breath ghosting across your fingers.

When he lowered your hand slightly, his eyes glowed enough to be frightening, blue of his irises phosphorescent and you could see the reflection of your own face in them, small and pale, half hidden by your own knuckles.

Something warm and buoyant bloomed inside your ribcage that filled the whole cavity of your chest until your breath came shorter.

He slid the ring onto your ring finger and it fit perfectly as if he had measured you in your sleep.

Maybe he had.

The crystal caught the last strained shred of sunlight through the low clouds and threw a tiny red dot of light onto his cheek.

He put the other ring on his own finger and lifted your hand again to let both rings touch, tapping the stones together with a clear little tink.

"There," he murmured. "Now everybody knows."

You couldn't speak.

He tipped his head down the mountain and let his arm reclaim your waist. "Let's walk it, not that far if we cut through the trees. Duke's cart takes the long road but I know a shortcut."

Your stomach dropped a full inch at hearing his proposal.

"Wait. You want to walk through the woods?"

He turned his head sideways, corners of his eyes crinkling and his mouth pulled up into a small crooked grin. "You scared, sweetheart?"

"There are lycans in there, Ethan."

"Mm." That grin got wider. "I know."

"Nobody goes in there, since I was a kid, they've said—"

"You afraid to go in with me?" His arm at your waist pulled you into his side and the words were teasing before his voice dropped a shade. "A marriage means I protect what's mine now. You understand? That's what this is." He lifted your left hand, kissed the ring on your ring finger. "From now on, anything with teeth that comes near you goes through me first. That's a promise."

You couldn't argue with that, not with the way his glowing blue veins throbbed once at the base of his throat as he said it.

He led you off the switchback path and into the treeline, forest swallowing everything the instant you crossed under the first branches. Even without leaves, the trees were so thick and knotted that daylight didn't get through.

Every step crunched on a carpet of frozen needles and bracken and branch creaked overhead at every step, making your shoulders climb toward your ears, hair on your forearms wouldn't lie flat.

A shrill little screech came from behind and you spun your head sideways.

Mold had followed you in while walking with the same lumbering hunched gait, one arm hanging low, stump of the other still weeping pink.

"Ethan," you said, chest aching at the sight. "Can you help him?"

Ethan stopped mid-stride and turned to look at your same direction, then at you and his mouth quirked at the corner.

"How about you do it?"

"…What?"

He laughed at your face and the laugh puffed out in a small cloud of steam in the cold air. He fully turned to stand in front of you, boots crunching on frozen leaves and he tipped his chin toward Mold.

"Go on. Fix him."

"Ethan, I have no idea how to."

He stepped so close that his nose brushed the side of your face, mouth grazing your cheekbone and his breath was moist against your ear.

"Focus, sweetheart," he murmured. His voice had gone lower and private. "Focus on what you want, picture exactly every detail and close your eyes if it helps. Then… push it out of you."

You closed your eyes and held the shape of Mold's ruined side in your mind, remembering how his arm looked, all sinew and glossy black skin.

Something respond somewhere behind your ribcage, a warm little pull, like a thread being drawn out of you the more seconda passed by.

You opened your eyes just in time to see Mold's stump had erupted, this time there were fine white filaments braiding themselves out of the missing arm wound, millions of them spinning together like weaving thread, thickening and gathering density. The threads twisted around one another and hardened as, in seconds, a whole arm had reconstituted itself but where the old arm had been slick tar-black, this new one was pearl-white.

A very sharp sort of blade at its tip long and hooked but also ivory-pale. The whole arm gave off a mineral, mycelial smell.

Mold lifted his new arm slowly and turned the blade this way and that.

He didn’t had a face to read but the way he held that arm out and stared at it felt, unmistakably, like awe.

Ethan turned to you and his lips parted a fraction, glowing blue eyes going wide as they caught the last of the dusk.

"Sweetheart." His American accent was reverent, hand coming up and taking your waist, drawing you around to face him fully, chest to chest in the freezing dim of the forest. "I've never seen that white mold before. You’re really a special one."

His hand rose to your jaw and cupped it, the glowing blue veins in the back of his hand were pulsing faster now.

"How the hell was I even able to?" You started and your voice was shaking. "Ethan, I thought you were the only one able to—"

"Oh?" he said, teasing while leaning in, forehead touching yours. "Only me? Am I the only one allowed to do the freaky stuff? Because I'm the Lord? Because—" a soft laugh "—what was it? I'm the one who drives people crazy and… feeds on their energies? Isn't that what my sweet husband told me?"

You scoffed and lifted your free hand to smack him lightly on the chest, feeling the shape of his pectoral through the soft fabric of the hoodie, solid and dense, causing your hand to pause a second too long there before you remembered to pull it away.

"I never said any of that, you ass. That's what the crazy people in the village say."

"Mm-hm." His mouth was so close now. "So what do you say about me, then? How would you correct these legends?" His nose brushed yours and he tilted his head just slightly, lips nearly on yours. "What am I to you?"

Your gaze fell to his mouth and you couldn't help it. His lower lip was slightly chapped from the cold, upper one dipping in a soft cupid's bow and his stubble ran right up to the edge.

His pupils had dilated so wide that the blue of them was only a thin ring around the black now and even that thin ring was glowing.

There was a humming pressure in the air between you that you felt settle behind your sternum and thrum there. It made your breath come short and knees soften.

You had felt this before since he had come into your life, this warm, coaxing gravity around him drawing you into orbit.

He didn't have to try or force anything, his presence just reached into you and something in your chest opened toward him.

It was becoming harder to tell apart from your own will.

"You're someone I'm grateful for every day. You’ve saved my life and gave me a chance at something new and happier. Than I ever thought I could have." your voice cracked, softer now, hesitant.

His breath caught in his throat, fingers on your jaw moving to your cheek and then his whole palm settled there, cradling your face, thumb sweeping under your eye. The blue veins in the back of his hand were pulsing very fast now, bright as gaslamps, feeding light up into his fingertips and in the reflection of his glowing eyes, so close to your own, you saw yourself.

Your own eyes were glowing too and there were faint threads of that same light glowing under your skin, running down the sides of your neck and along the tendons of your arms.

His mold had taken hold in you or something newer the two of you had made together and it was answering him now, calling to him from inside your own flesh.

God, you were so breathtaking now under his eyes, still you yet remade entirely by him and for him.

His thumb traced the corner of your mouth possessively as he pulled back just enough to look around the darkening wood, hand sliding down and fingers threading through yours, ring clinking softly against his own.

"C'mere, I want to show you something."

He stepped further into the trees and Mold did not follow him this time but slid up to your side instead, walking on your right silently.

The white blade caught what little light there was and gleamed pale, almost bioluminescent. That clean cold mineral smell drifted off of it.

Ethan stopped in a small clearing where the trees opened slightly and he looked around, mouth pulling into something between a smile and a sad expression.

"A lot of people died here, sweetheart. All victims of experiments or attack from the results of said experiments. This whole slope is nothing but bones under the soil." He toed the frozen earth with the tip of his boot. "But you know what that means? I have material."

Soon the earth shuddered and you felt it up through the soles of your boots.

In a circle around the clearing, the ground broke open by clawed hands of the usual black fungal color, glossy with slime and fingers tipped in dagger-like nails, followed by the bodies of the molded creatures.

They pulled themselves up out of the earth. Some of them stood on two legs, hunched forward like Mold, teeth in their mouths in uneven rows and chins running with black liquid.

Others came out on four legs, low to the ground, quadrupedal, horribly agile and thin.

They rose and circled, a dozen of them or even more that oriented themselves on Ethan.

Some of them turned their eyeless faces toward you and inclined their heads.

Ethan turned back to you, face so calm and eyes still glowing while his hand extended towards you, waiting.

Placing your hand in his, the circle of monsters shifted and they took a step closer.

"I can teach you this," Ethan said softly. He raised your joined hands to his mouth and kissed your knuckles again, and even in the freezing air his lips were warm. "All I've figured out since I left everything behind." His thumb rubbed gentle circles over the back of your hand. "You have it in you, I felt it the first night and you could stand higher than anyone else, with me."

The monsters swayed and of them, a lean quadruped, took a slow step forward and lowered its head almost to the ground in front of you.

"And I promise you," Ethan whispered, so low you barely heard, "if you stay with me, I will make you happy.“

The wind moved through the black branches overhead and somewhere very far away a single lycan howled.

You looked up at the strange gentle terrible man Mother Miranda had given you, looking at the ruby on your finger, glowing faintly of its own accord in the gloom, warmed by the light under your skin.

Mold was at your right, standing patient and proud, new white blade held slightly lifted, catching the last thread of dusk.

You squeezed Ethan's hand.

"Alright," you said and a smile broke wide across his face.

"We're gonna have so much fun." He breathed and the black ring of monsters around you shivered as one at the sound of his voice.

The rest of the walk down through the wood felt more like a procession.

Ethan kept you tucked snug against his side, arm heavy and warm across your lower back. Every so often his thumb would rub a small slow circle into the denim just above the jut of the bone while the molded creatures were following in silence, or as close to silence as a horde of half-decayed fungal things could manage.

Their bare wet feet made no sound on the frozen needles as the bipedal ones lumbered in a loose wedge, long arms swinging heavy and their heads dipped side to side to smell the air.

The quadrupeds fanned out farther, ranging into the underbrush while occasionally one of them would pause, lift its faceless head and let out a small wet chuff of steam before it would keep moving. All of them oriented on Ethan but every few paces one or two would tilt their heads toward you very attentively.

Mold walked at your right, respectfully close with his new white blade that caught what little moonlight had begun to filter through the bare canopy, flashing ghost-luminous in the dark.

You had walked maybe another quarter mile when the first howl came but Ethan didn't even slow his pace, he glanced once toward the source and his glowing blue eyes narrowed.

The molded around you did not need to be told. Two of the quadrupeds peeled off from the flank and streaked away into the dark, black bodies vanishing between trunks in the space of two heartbeats.

A lycan had bursted out of the brush and Mold was already at your side with his new white blade already raised.

The lycan had slammed into him and tried to claw at his chest with both paws and the wounds were closing rapidly, white filaments spinning themselves back together, hair-fine, glittering and the ragged edges of Mold's flesh knit shut in front of your eyes.

While the lycan was rearing back for another blow, Mold turned his shoulder and drove the ivory blade forward as it went through the lycan's chest so cleanly and its whole body sagged onto the shaft up to the point where Mold's arm met its ribs.

Mold had let it slide off the blade and it hit the frozen ground before he had lowered his hunched black head and began to feed.

The wet ripping sounds each led inside your head still.

By the time you cleared the last of the trees, the sky over the mountain had gone full night, thick with clouds and the roof of Ethan's house was visible ahead.

The moment your boots touched the packed dirt of the yard, the molded creatures behind you stopped, both you and Ethan turned and he was smiling faintly.

All of them sank into the ground as their body dissolved and waited for their master to summon them again.

Mold had not gone with the others. He was standing at the edge of the yard, big hunched silhouette half-lit by moonlight while he was looking at you. Or, well, he did not have eyes, but his head was tilted in your direction, angled just slightly and the tilt was unmistakably at you.

Very slowly, Mold lowered his head and you found yourself, without meaning to, dipping your own head in return. When you raised your eyes again, he too was already melting into the earth.

"He likes you," Ethan said, low and amused, close to your ear.

Your throat was tight for reasons you didn't understand while Ethan led you up the porch, boots thudding on the wooden boards and he pushed open the front door.

He had a look on his face that was a mix between embarrassed and determination as he bent.

His right arm hooked under the crook of your knees, calloused pads of his fingers dragging warm across the denim of your thigh while his left arm slid behind your shoulder blades and settled hot into your back, broad palm splayed wide against you and he grunted low in his chest to lift you up.

Your center of gravity swung out and up and settled against him and there was one dizzying second of weightlessness where your stomach dropped, legs kicking out in surprise before your arms went, entirely on instinct, up around his neck.

Both hands locked behind his nape, face ending up tucked against the warm side of his throat right where his jaw met the tendon.

A breathless, boyish laugh left his mouth that cracked in the middle, half a wheeze. "God, you're heavier than you look, sweetheart."

"Hey!"

"Joking, I got you don’t worry." He was grinning against your temple. He hitched you slightly higher in his arms with a small bounce that made you gasp and clutch at his neck.

The door hadn't fully opened and he wasn't going to fumble with it while holding you.

As he approached the porch step, a whole cascade of thin black vines slithered up out of the boards at the base of the doorframe, moving with the smooth muscular grace of eels and they wound up the door itself, pushing it wide open in front of him.

He walked through the opening with you cradled tight against his chest, ducking his head slightly so your temple wouldn't catch the frame and the vines pulled the door softly shut behind him, withdrawing down into the floorboards, gone.

While carrying you through the foyer he was still grinning like an idiot, crooked flush-cheeked grin and every few steps he'd hitch you higher and mutter, "don't wiggle—" and you'd laugh helplessly into his neck.

At the foot of the stairs he paused to make a show of it and he looked down at you with those blue eyes, one eyebrow cocked.

"Ethan, put me down, I can walk."

"Nope." The banister creaked under his hand as he passed and halfway up you tried, very quietly, to peek at his face and see if he was struggling and he caught you looking, immediately making an exaggerated ‘hyuh!’ sound like he was going to drop you and you clutched at his neck, making him laugh so hard he actually did wobble one step.

"Ethan!"

"Sorry, sorry. Couldn't help it." He made it to the top landing and breathing harder now from laughing.

His cheeks were flushed pink under the stubble and his hair had gotten a bit messier.

The door to his room was already opening for him from a slender black vine that had unspooled from the wall to twist the handle down and press the door inward, it stayed there, curled around the doorknob.

He carried you through and the vine drew the door shut behind him with a soft click.

The bedroom was warmer than the rest of the house and he crossed to the bed to set you down on the coverlet with care before standing over you and just looking.

Looking around because you’ve actually never been in his bedroom before.

The floor was a warm herringbone of dark polished wood and there was a heavy dresser against the wall with a small oil lamp on it. A big bed you were currently lying on that had a chevron-patterned quilt in dark green and cream, mounded pillows.

On the floor at the foot of the bed, a soft green plush turtle with a pink shell, a set of wooden blocks in primary colors and a little painted wooden car, small pale yellow rubber ball and a baby's play arch with dangling animals stitched to it.

Your gaze moved slowly across the questionable toys in his room, up to Ethan's face that had gone briefly, terribly still. He was looking at the toys too before his eyes came back to yours and there was something in them, some unspeakable old grief, wrapped over so many years that it had gone smooth. His mouth did not curve down, jaw not clenching but only looking and then he let out a very small breath.

Neither of you said a thing and some part of you understood, without having to be told, that whatever those toys meant, they were very heavy in meaning and not to be touched with words.

His large calloused hand rose and cradled your cheek, thumb sweeping under your eye. His skin was warm and the veins in the back of his hand pulsed faint blue. M

"Hey, look at me. Your heart's going a mile a minute," he murmured, corner of his lips curling upward as his thumb traced the line of your cheekbone. "I can feel it right in here." His other hand had come to rest, flat and heavy, right over your sternum. "You don't have to do anything you don’t want, sweetheart." His eyes flicked around the room, back to you. “This doesn't have to happen, I'd be happy just to hold you."

His hand at your chest pressed lightly, reassuring.

You looked up at him and heart was, indeed, beating rather fast but the warmth radiating off his palm through the thin fabric of your shirt was working its steady way into the inside of your ribs and the humming pressure in the air around him had softened into something coaxing that reached into the base of your skull.

No clue honestly how much of what you felt now was yours and how much of it was his, but you weren't sure you cared.

"I want this with you," you said, voice coming out lower than you meant it to.

His pupils dilated, blue of his eyes narrowing into a thin ring around wide black.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," you whispered.

He was on you before you could take another breath, coming down over you slowly, planting one knee up on the mattress and easing his weight down with one big hand behind the back of your head cradling you flat, laying you back into the pillows. He propped himself over you on his forearms, hips braced above yours while lowering his mouth to yours.

The first kiss was just a press in greeting before his lips molded to yours and his mouth parted, wet warmth of him opening against you, followed by the slow soft slide of his tongue.

It traced the seam of your lips first, testing and when you opened for him with a small helpless breath, he came in slowly, tongue sliding against yours with heat that made a shiver run all the way down to your knees.

He rolled his tongue against yours and drew it back, every time he retreated a fraction and lured yours after him, drawing you in.

Your hands buried themselves in his hair, slightly damp from the woods as you fisted a handful of it at the crown of his skull and he made a low pleased sound against your mouth, vibrating through your lips into your teeth.

He tilted his head the other way and came back deeper as you felt your whole body warming, top of your head first, then your throat and after that, treacherously, further down.

His broad shoulders blotted out the lamplight and framed the whole room down to just him.

When he finally pulled back, he was breathing hard, mouth pinker than it had been and very wet, cheeks flushed and the ring around his blue irises had gone almost fully luminous, throbbing gently in time with the veins in his neck and the backs of his hands.

Something brushed your side.

You looked down, breath held as you saw black fungal tendrils, glossy while moving.

Two of them had risen from the sides of the mattress and were drifting just above your ribs, one of them lowered itself and grazed the exposed strip of skin above your hipbone where your shirt had ridden up.

Another traced the line of your bicep through the fabric of your sleeve, almost curious in their behavior

You made a soft sound in your throat.

Ethan smiled down at you, breathless, his mouth slick. "Sorry, sorry. I got a bit excited and it’s… kinda hard controlling everything every time. I can make 'em stop."

"No," you heard yourself say. "No. Don't."

His pupils blew out again, breath dragging in through his teeth.

"Sweetheart," he breathed and lowered his forehead to yours, breath ghosting hot across your mouth. "In those dreams you've been having…" his voice was so low and private that you felt the words vibrate on your own lips "we did a couple of things together, you remember?"

God, you did. As if waking up from those dreams flushed and shaking, unsure whether they had been sent to you or whether you had wanted them all along.

This was the confirm he had been the pioneer of those all along.

"I remember," you whispered.

"I was hoping if tonight we might try something a little… different." He smiled while those tendrils carassed all possible piece of skin exposed and it was a dangerous, tender smile.

He kissed the corner of your mouth. "But only if you want."

The pressure in the air around you thickened and the low warm hum that always spun out of him settled deep into the pit of your abdomen and pulled, feeling yourself opening toward him.

"Please, Ethan. Please. I want it… whatever you want." Your voice came out even smaller than before, rough at the bottom.

His eyes closed for a moment and he shuddered all the way down through his shoulders and into his hips where they braced above yours.

"Good," he breathed. "That's my good boy."

The tendrils moved and they came from every direction at once.

Two of them snaked up along your arms as your fingers, still buried deep in his dirty-blond hair, spasmed. They curled up your forearms in wet spirals and they so gently pried your hands free of Ethan's hair. They looped around your wrists and drew your arms up over your head to pin them into the pillows.

Then the two tendrils fused right at the point above your wrists, joining wetly into a single thicker cord, twice the strength and twice the grip so that both your wrists were bound together and held high. Your shoulders stretched and ribs lifted, back arching up off the mattress.

Another set of tendrils came up from below the bed and coiled around your ankles to spread you insistently, sliding your knees wide apart and settling your bare feet flat against the mattress with your legs bent at the knee.

Then they slithered further up under the hems of your jeans, over the tops of your socks and started their long slow travel up along the inside of your calves.

Goosebumps sparked wherever they touched, sharp constellations of them running up along your shins and up over your knees.

The instant they crossed your knees you gasped and they kept going.

Under your jeans, snugging against the skin of your inner thighs as they slid up until they reached the crease of your groin.

Together, they turned inward and they found your boxers, worm up under the waistband, and settled. One of them slid its cool wet length up along the underside of your cock, curling gently around the shaft from base to tip and the other spooled up under your sack, curling and stroking.

A soft high sound broke out of you before both tendrils withdrew backward, sliding along the crack and settling themselves.

One at each side of your hole, pressing in gently from both sides and framing the entrance without breaching it.

Two smooth cool weights right against your rim, pressure of them squeezing your entrance from either side, kneading softly.

This made you actually whine and Ethan was watching your face the whole time, blue eyes glowing and lips parting, worship and hunger all at once.

Your back arched as far as it could with your wrists pinned overhead and you bit your bottom lip until you tasted iron, cock throbbing hot inside your boxers, held snug in the coil of one of the tendrils, which had begun very lightly, to squeeze along its length in rippling pulses.

"Do you want—" Ethan asked and his voice was rough as gravel now, all boyishness burnt off it, "—this?"

The two tendrils at your entrance moved, one of them slid up as its tip pressed gently at your hole and you tensed on reflex, but it was so patient and you were already so slick (you hadn't even understood how you were slick, thought all your veins were currently phosphorescent so that could definitely had a contribution) while these tendrils themselves were coating you in some warm oil-thick fluid as they moved. The tip that went in first was small, not much thicker than a finger but it pressed deeper and sank while, surprisingly, beginning to swell.

You felt it thicken inside your walls as it went from finger-thick to two-fingers, then three till it got even wider and your mouth fell open, a punched-out sound came out from your throat and your hips lifted off the mattress on their own.

Another tendril drifted up beside your face and stroked slowly down your cheek, wiping the tear that had spilled out of the corner of your eye.

"—or…" Ethan breathed above you and his voice had gone hoarse, "this?"

The swelling tendril shrank back to its original size in one smooth pulse and then, before you could process the loss, a second tendril, matched in girth to the first, pressing itself alongside its twin at your entrance and began to ease in beside it.

Both at once, slow and patient, widening you out around them.

Your toes curled hard into the coverlet and both of your feet pointed, back arching so high that a second tear slid down your temple.

Ethan let out a husky, breathless laugh that got caught in his chest.

"Yeah," he murmured and there was a wolf-grin at the edges of his mouth. "I thought so. This one, then. Look at you." He lowered his forehead to yours and kissed the tip of your nose before rising up onto his knees.

The one maddening part was that he was still fully clothed while those things he summoned and controlled were stretching you open around, one of them curling around your cock inside your boxers, another stroking softly along your bound wrists and he was still in his blue hoodie and jeans.

He grinned down at you and reached over his shoulder with one hand to grab the hoodie by the back of the neck and hauling it up over his head in one long drag. The hem caught briefly on his stubble, hair mussing itself further as he tossed the hoodie somewhere behind him.

Underneath he wore a plain white t-shirt and that came off next in one quick motion that made the muscles across his shoulders roll.

Pale under the shirt, lean and corded, different scars. His left hand had awful stitches all around it at wrist level and some glossy black mold dripped from them occasionally, there were also blue veins pulsing beneath his sternum, radiating a bit everywhere just like your own body.

He unbuckled his belt, shoved the jeans down his hips and off, taking his boxers with them and he was hard, dick standing up thick and heavy against his lower abdomen along a subtle sheen at its base.

As if the mold's craftsmanship had extended even here, adding girth, length and a hot flushed weight that made your throat close.

He crawled back up over you.

"Not yet," he murmured, seeing where you were looking, running his knuckles down your cheek.

He hooked two fingers into the collar of your shirt and worked it off, lowering his mouth and pressing warm kisses to your collarbone, dip of your throat and valley between your pecs, stubble scraping soft against you and leaving behind an addictive burning sensation.

His tongue was hot as it flicked around your hard nipple right over the peak and you cried out involuntarily, hips bucking up off the mattress and driving the two tendrils deeper in and your bound wrists yanked hard against the tendril at your head as you sobbed.

Ethan hummed against your chest and his tongue circled you, every time making your cock throb harder inside the coil that held it.

He switched to your other nipple, tongue flattening and dragging before it peaked and flicked, dragging again right after as you writhed and shook your trembling bound arms.

All along your chest and your abdomen faint threads of light were pulsing under the skin, tracing the paths of veins, following the ladder of your ribs and gathering into a soft nimbus at the center of your sternum.

Every time your cock throbbed, the light did the same with it, running down the insides of your thighs, spreading up along your throat.

Ethan lowered his head to a rib and kissed one of the glowing lines.

"So handsome," he breathed.

He shifted to prop himself up on one elbow and his free hand went, unmistakably from what you could assume from the limited vision you had, down to his own cock.

Wrapping his fingers around it and began to stroke himself with his gaze fixed on your face and occasionally dropping the the work his mold powers had were up to, letting you know the sight of you like this was doing things to him.

The two tendrils inside you began to move, pumping in and out together, then alternating. When one withdrew, the other pushed deeper and they swelled by half a shade whenever they were fully seated inside before slimming to slide back out.

One of them had learned, already, exactly the angle that made you sob as it found your prostate ad hammered it, throbbing, while its twin fucked deep against it from the other side.

Those around your cock squeezed in matching pulses, slow up-strokes and slow down-strokes as its tip flicked cruelly along the slit at the head of you, gathering up the slick pre-come that dribbled out of you and smearing it back down along your shaft.

Ethan's fist worked his own cock in time with the tendrils.

"That's it," he was breathing and his abdomen muscles were flexing hard now, shadows between them deep and beautiful, "that's it, sweetheart, look at you, made for me."

You came without warning, the tendrils inside you pushed deep at exactly the wrong moment and the one around your cock squeezed tight, whole body of yours arching up off the mattress and into one long white line as your cock jerked hard inside the tendril's coil and hot spurts of come pumped out of you in thick pulses, hitting the underside of Ethan's abs and your own belly in many splashes.

The come landed white and hot on the glowing filaments under your skin and it lit up brighter where it fell, you could feel yourself glowing brighter through the release, mouth opening around a sound you didn't recognize as yours.

Ethan grabbed the base of his own cock hard and squeezed to stop himself.

"Fffff—" he hissed through his teeth, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched. "Christ, sweetheart."

You lay there panting while the tendrils inside you had slowed to a gentle rocking, keeping you stretched and warm. Your bound wrists tremble overhead, come cooling on your belly and your cock, still hard and trapped in its coil, twitches softly.

Ethan opened his eyes and looked down at the breath taking mess he had below.

"You want me?" he asked, hoarse. "You want me, sweetheart?"

The pressure in the room had gone thick, low humming behind your sternum climbing into your skull and it was pulling every good soft word you had ever thought about him up out of your throat, setting them on your tongue.

"Please," you whispered. "Please, Ethan. Please… in me. Please. I love—" your breath hitched and he made a broken sound that cracked out of his throat.

The two tendrils inside you slid out slowly both at once in one long retreat that left you gaping empty and gasping at the loss. The one at your cock loosened and slid down your thigh and unspooled while those at your ankles kept your legs spread, even the combined two at your wrists stayed.

He wanted you held as be crawled up over you on hands and knees, cock heavy between his hips, blue veins glowing in a slow throbbing tracery down his forearms. He hooked one of your knees up over his elbow and folded you nearly in half.

The veins of your body were glowing so bright than you could see the shadow of his cock against your inner thigh as lined himself up.

He was so much bigger than the tendrils, blunt hot pressure of him alone at your entrance making you hiss through clenched teeth and he leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours and his glowing blue eyes bored into yours.

"Breathe," he whispered. "Breathe, sweetheart. I got you. I'll go slow, promise."

Following his instructions as he breathed with you, in and out.

In and out.

He pushed, head of him breaching you and the world went white at the edges. Your hands fisted uselessly in the coil above your head, back arching as he pressed his mouth to yours in the same instant and swallowed the sound.

He sank in so slowly it felt like it took the whole night, every inch demanding a new adjustment that made you gasp and stretch, he was so hot and so thick inside you.

Thank God those molded tendrils helped out otherwise you wouldn’t imagine how unpleasant and challenging this would have been.

He bottomed out with a soft, deep grunt, hips flush against the backs of your thighs and he held there for a full ten seconds while both of you shook.

"Fuck," he breathed, eyes watering. "Christ, sweetheart."

You could only pant at this point and the situation got worse in the best way possible when he started to move.

He drew back only a few inches and pushed back in and even that was almost too much while he watched your face for any wince and adjusted every time. Slowly he let himself take more range, half of him and then most of him, the whole length going in long, deep drags that made the head of his cock hammer across your prostate.

It made a hoarse whimper break out of your throat.

His mouth was everywhere, kissing the glowing lines under your skin and murmuring into your ear a steady low stream of ‘you feel so good, look at you, my sweet boy, my sweetheart,‘

He picked up his pace.

Deeper and faster but never brutal, hips snapping into yours with a wet slap of skin on skin that echoed off the wood-paneled walls. The bed creaked under you rhythmically and the tendril at your wrists tightened its coil in time with his thrusts.

Those at your ankles held you wide open for him and every time he bottomed out they hitched a fraction wider, opening you further and giving him more.

His left hand came down to your cock, which was leaking and hard again, glowing so brightly that his fist around it lit up in a mixture of your colors as he stroked you in time with his thrusts.

"Ethan! Ohhhh God—"

"I know, sweetheart. Come for me, come on. Let me feel it."

You came harder this time, so hard you thought you might have broken something in yourself but even if that was the case you’d have healed in no time.

Your whole body clenched around him, tight and the light under your skin pulsed so bright that for a moment you couldn't see, cock spurting hot into his stroking fist in long ropes that landed on both of your abdomens as you sobbed his name.

He fucked you through it without slowing down while you spasmed around him, riding it out and drawing every last shudder out of you until you were boneless and shaking, whimpering with each stroke.

Then his rhythm broke and he drove in hard, broad chest crushing down against yours and his forehead ground into the pillow beside your head as he groaned deep in his chest.

Even through the shaking you felt the hot heavy pulse of him deep inside filling every inch of you and there was so much of it that just kept coming, his whole body shuddered against yours in long ragged waves and his fingers dug into the meat of your thigh where he was still holding your leg up, groaning your name into the pillow muffled and adoring.

He collapsed onto you but even then he caught himself on his elbows at the last second, caging your body without crushing you. His sweat-damp forehead pressed against your temple and warm breath tore out of him in ragged gulps.

His cock, still buried deep, twitched more times inside you and each motion pumped another slow warm pulse that made you moan softly against his neck.

The tendrils at your wrists uncurled slowly, your arms came down around him without your telling hold to and wrapped around his back to held him there against your chest.

Those at your ankles eased free too and your legs fell open around his hips while he just breathed against your throat.

"…hi," he mumbled after a long moment and it was so dreamy and wrecked that a broken laugh spilled out of you.

"Hi," you whispered back.

Truthfully, not that he was complaining, Zayne had brought this on himself. While Sylus was not shy about initiating, today it was Zayne’s turn. He’d started early in the day, sauntering into Sylus’ study on the morning of his day off wearing nothing but a sweater, and dropped an empty bottle of lube into the desk in front of Sylus, simply overlooking the important tasks Sylus no doubt had crowding his plate at work. Zayne had stared him down, daring him to break eye contact first as his mouth had curled up in the ghost of a smirk while Sylus stared up at him with an eyebrow crooked from behind his desk.

“We seem to be out of lubricant.” Zayne said with an even tone, and Sylus fought his own smirk, trying to battle Zaynes’ own cool expression. 

“Did you check the drawers of our other room?” he asked casually. Zayne shrugged, examining his nails for a moment before forcing a piercing gaze onto Sylus again.

“No.” he said simply, turning on his heel to walk away and giving Sylus a short flash of blue silicon peeking between the pert cheeks of his ass as he walked away with purpose. A clear challenge for Sylus to chase him, to press him into the nearest hard surface and do what some dormant plug could not. 

But this time, Sylus didn’t chase him. After all he had work to do, and Zayne had a full day off. The perfect guise to see just how desperate Zayne could get when given time to simmer. By noon Zayne had upped the ante, walking nonchalantly to the open door to Sylus’ office with a popsicle in between his lips, still completely nude from the waist down. Sylus pretended not to notice him, even when Zayne gently pushed the pear-flavored ice all the way to the stick as he stared Sylus down. Relaxing his throat, he pulled all the way back out again and let his tongue flick out to catch a drop of the melted juice at his lips. The corner of Sylus’ mouth twitched.

“Did you need something?” Sylus asked him with an innocent smile. Zayne’s eyes narrowed at him. Sylus’ act was convincing, but Zayne knew exactly what was hiding underneath that desk, straining against his slacks. He knew that Sylus would draw this out all day if he let him, and he had no interest in spending the rest of his day aching and hard just for Sylus’ entertainment.

“No. I’m perfectly satisfied.” Zayne replied, tilting his popsicle and sucking gently on the head. 

Sylus’ smile dropped for a fraction of a moment, and Zayne smirked. A sharp smile grew on Sylus’ face that fed the heat in his core, and he watched as Sylus calmly put down his pen and reached for the top drawer of the desk to pull out a blue remote that matched the shade of the  silicone buried inside of him. Zayne’s eyebrows shot up. He’d intentionally tucked the same remote into the drawer of his night stand this morning, did Sylus have a spare? There was no time to ask the question before Sylus pressed one of the buttons on the remote.

The effect was instant, and took Zayne by complete surprise. Sylus didn’t bother starting at the lowest setting, and Zayne let out an involuntary moan at the intense vibrations coming from his plug. He braced his free hand on the door jam, and turned to leave in a feeble attempt to save face, but his legs suddenly wobbled when Sylus turned the speed up. Zayne shot him a dirty look and Sylus grinned. 

“Don’t back down now, sweetie.” Sylus crooned. Zayne set his jaw and swallowed another moan. His popsicle was melting.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Zayne replied with a deep breath exhaled between his teeth. Sylus’ eyes sparkled. 

“Finish it.” Sylus ordered, nodding to the melting popsicle dripping over Zayne’s fingers. Zayne quirked an eyebrow at him. Sylus’ voice was velvet and sweet, but barely concealed the heat of a man who didn’t like to lose. “Slowly.”

Zayne knew that he was on the losing side. He knew that for every nudge he’d given, Sylus would shove him right back. He might as well make this worthwhile. Zayne took another steadying breath, trying to ignore his own stiffness tenting the fabric at his torso. With a sultry look and another shiver down his spine from the vibrating plug, he raised the popsicle to his lips and took a solid bite out of it in defiance. Sylus’ eyes flared and he was out of his chair and across the room in an instant. A satisfied smirk came home to rest on Zayne’s face as he swallowed and a thrill rippled through him. He knew that Sylus would do anything to get the upper hand again, and that was a victory that made Zayne’s cock twitch.

Sylus plucked the popsicle from Zayne’s hand and gripped him at the jaw, forcing his mouth open with gentle pressure. Zayne stiffened, the vibrations inside reacting wildly to the sudden force and the heat that spiked through his core. Sylus kept firm fingers on his chin and waited for his body to relax before gently feeding the half-melted popsicle into his mouth little by little. 

Zayne hollowed his cheeks, trying to keep up with the melting flavored ice with his tongue and lips with a hand clamped on Sylus’ wrist. Sylus let him adjust before gently sliding the popsicle in and out across his tongue towards the back of his mouth and then forward again. Zayne felt a crackle of excitement work down his spine as Sylus fucked his mouth with it. Sweet drips of the melting treat escaped his mouth, dribbling down his chin in a perfect reminder: provoking Sylus came at a price. One that Zayne was ready to pay time and time again.

“Looks like someone needs a refresher on the consequences of using their teeth.” Sylus purred dangerously.

And now, not much time later, here they were. Both naked and dripping in their special room. Sylus had long given up the pretense of working for the day, and Zayne had all of his attention for better or for worse.

Zayne screwed his eyes shut, trying not to turn his head or move a muscle. Reflex tears teemed down his cheeks, and he sniffed, trying to clear his nose to breathe as the airway of his throat was rather occupied. His throat spasmed and he tightened his abs to keep himself from gagging at the intrusion of Sylus’ thick cock nestled so deeply inside of his mouth and throat that the dusting of dark pubic hair at Sylus’ groin tickled the tip of his nose. Sylus smirked down at him, sitting comfortable in the plush armchair while Zayne was on his knees between his legs, hands on the floor in front of him. 

Sylus thumbed at a streak of tears on Zayne’s cheek and then raised it to his lips to get a taste. How long had they been here? Minutes? An hour? Zayne wasn’t sure. Long enough to make his lips hurt from stretching and his throat sore. He balled his hands on the ground, swallowing softly to keep himself from drooling all over himself but failed miserably once again. The low hum of a vibrating plug was muted by Zayne’s position on the floor, and Zayne moaned against Sylus’ cock every now and again from the sensation and the aching of his own dick flush with his slim figure. Sylus’ smile widened. 

It had taken time to get Zayne to this point. So much practice letting Sylus’ large cock invade his mouth, weighing heavy on his tongue before they slowly advanced to moving bit by bit down his throat. Teaching him to mind his teeth, showering him in praises when he sat so still and perfect, when those teary green eyes opened to show Sylus perfect adoration. All of it had left him here, on his knees moaning as if he wanted more. 

“Look at yourself, sweetie.” Sylus murmured, gesturing to the mirrored wall beside them. 

Zayne swallowed, and slid his eyes to take in his form, eyes red, expression blown out and desperate with a distinct lump in his throat. Sylus leaned over slowly, allowing Zayne to accommodate him before lifting his long fingers to brush against his neck affectionately, tracing the pronounced outline of his cock in Zayne’s throat. Zayne whined around the girth in his mouth, overwhelmed with the pure, clean scent of Sylus. 

Zayne felt his cock twitch and his shoulders shake, nostrils flaring just to take half a breath. His skin tingled, and his throat tightened with every gentle touch of Sylus’ fingers. He was so thick, so present inside of him that Zayne wondered if one could forget what it was like to breathe normally at all. He felt like a whore, prostrating himself at Sylus’ feet and whining for more. It was salacious and filthy, and Zayne wouldn’t give it up for the world. 

Sylus felt his own breathing pick up, hitching when he pet over the bulge in Zayne’s throat with gentle fingers. It was perfect, Zayne was perfect. They were aligned in the same goals, to devour and be devoured until Zayne was full of Sylus to the brim. Their little game of push and pull was just a thin illusion over how hungry Zayne was for him and how desperately Sylus desired to be consumed body and soul. Sylus gasped at another spasm from Zayne’s throat. They hadn't even begun the main course and they were both close to spilling before they’d had their fill.

Zayne seemed to realize it too, and his hands came off the floor to rest on Sylus’ knees. A strangled noise sounded around Sylus’ cock and his blurry eyes looked pitiful, needy. Sylus loved it when Zayne begged with his eyes. Slowly, Sylus sat back, and unsheathed himself from the slick heat of Zayne’s mouth. They took their time, making no sudden movements that could lead to injury or undue stress on his throat muscles or provoke a panic reaction in Zayne’s mouth that would cause him to try to close his mouth. 

Zayne moaned as Sylus slid out of him inch by inch, and tried to save his first pure breath of air until after the thick head of Sylus’ cock slid heavily over his tongue and beyond his teeth. The weight of Sylus’ impressive cock snapped back with a wet smack against his torso and they both hissed in unison at the filthy sound. The absence left a tickle in his throat and he coughed, lips and chin slick with drool and red eyes recovering from the oppressive force in his mouth. 

Sylus gave him time to compose himself, to take deep breaths and acclimate to the new soreness of his throat before he collapsed into the warmth of Sylus’ inner thigh to rest and plead up at him again with those glassy eyes and haggard expression. He looked used, fucked out already and he hadn’t even got to cum yet. Sylus ran a hand through his hair. The vibrations in his ass had been humming in the peripheral of his mind for so long it felt a part of him, as though he’d been desperate all his life. Hungry with no chance of being satiated for ages. Zayne’s gaze slid to Sylus’ cock and shuddered in want.

“‘s not enough…” Zayne slurred, sore throat objecting to the use of his voice but mind desperate to say the words. “Please?”

Sylus felt a ripple of pleasure to his core and fisted his cock firmly as if it was going to change how impossibly turned on he was. With his free hand he stroked the soft skin at Zayne’s cheek, and swallowed a groan when Zayne leaned into him, too lost at sea in the pleasure of touch. 

“Do you think you can make it to the bed?” Sylus coaxed him. Zayne shook his head, slowly, hypnotized. 

“Here.” Zayne insisted, eyes fluttering. 

Sylus chuckled, and leaned back in the wide armchair to allow Zayne to climb into his lap and position his knees on either side of Sylus to face him cock to cock. Zayne’s light, narrow form was barely an intrusion at all compared to Sylus’ solid broad chest. Sylus smoothed a hand over Zayne’s ass and up the sleep compact muscles of his back to make him writhe before reaching for the drawer of the end table to pull out a fresh bottle of lube. With sweet words into his ear, he reached behind Zayne to hook a finger in the back of his pretty blue plug. 

“Breathe for me.” Sylus commanded him in a whisper, and let Zayne circle his shoulders with his arms and rest his head in the warmth of his neck. When Sylus began to work the plug out in gentle wiggles and tugs he was rewarded by Zayne’s warm breath in his ear, the throaty moans shaking out of him in whimpers and sighs that only made him want to draw this out. Zayne cried out when the flared end was finally sliding out of his hole and through the plush cheeks of his ass with a filthy sound, and he clung to Sylus, nosing at his pulse and panting in his ear. 

Sylus took a moment to crane his head and kiss Zayne properly, slotting their lips together and dragging him deeper into his haze. He caught Zayne’s bottom lip between his teeth, and Zayne keened at the friction, hips working to rut his cock against Sylus’ and winding his slender fingers in his hair. Sylus had always been very well-endowed, to the point that they’d needed to take things very slow in the beginning of their relationship. How far you’ve come. Sylus thought greedily as he anchored a finger up to the knuckle easily within the whimpering mess Zayne had become above him.

Sylus took his time to make sure that Zayne was properly stretched, working fingers inside of him and cooing at Zayne’s reactions to every touch, every stroke within him. They slid their tongues against one another, and Zayne’s sighs and heated breaths were worth all of the extra time. Sylus had to brace a hand on Zayne’s hip while the other worked at his hole to keep Zayne from humping into Sylus impatiently. At this rate he was going to cum before Sylus had gotten a chance to slip inside of him. 

Finally, Sylus drew his fingers out of Zayne’s stretched hole and leaned back to signal him. Zayne moaned into his mouth, already mourning the loss of something to fill him. Sylus smiled sharply at the irony. The top cardio surgeon in Linkon City, the master of his domain in the operating room, was cockdrunk and writhing in his lap using sounds that only Sylus would ever get to hear because they were only ever made for him. Sylus helped Zayne position his cock at his fluttering entrance and Zayne stood to his knees, lips parted and glistening before he sank slowly onto Sylus’ length. 

The extra prep to Zayne’s hole had been completely necessary. Even now, Zayne keened at the way he was being split open on Sylus’ cock. The burn and stretch made him gasp, and if it wasn’t for how deeply Sylus was know for fucking him, this might have been his favorite part. A twist of pain to elevate the pleasure thrumming through his entire body like a drumbeat, a sharp sting to edge him in circles closer to the edge. Sylus hissed at how tight Zayne was around him despite his efforts. They took it slow. They had all the time in the world aside from the ticking time bomb of their climax, but Zayne endured until he was fully speared on the thick length wondering once again how something so solid and vast could possibly fit inside of him like it was always meant to be there.

“There’s so much…” Zayne panted, curling into Sylus’ chest as he caught his breath, and Sylus rubbed soft, sensual circles into his back before capturing him in a kiss.

“You’re the one who wanted to ride.” Sylus teased him, nipping at his lip. He drew back, holding his gaze in a dare. “So ride.”

Zayne shuddered, a renewed spike of energy surging through his cheeks and tingling down his limbs at Sylus’ taunts. He grit his teeth and though his legs were already tired, surely there was enough energy left within him to make Sylus eat his words. Zayne led the charge this time, delivering a bruising kiss to Sylus’ lips and anchoring himself on his shoulders by his nails and fingers. He rose, feeling the deep drag of Sylus’ cock gliding out of him before sinking down again, slowly building his pace. 

Tension built between them, flushing them both out until their skin glistened in the warm overhead lights. Zayne felt high on Sylus’ warm scent rolling off of him as his body heated up, just as powerless to Zayne as Zayne was to him. The heat in Zayne’s core stuttered his movements, threatening to break him beyond repair if he leaned into it now, and Sylus was no better. Zayne’s eyes fluttered open and found Sylus’ expression fascinated, completely enthralled with Zayne’s body. Following his eyeline, Zayne bit his lip to hold back another loud moan and he felt himself tighten around Sylus at the sight.

Zayne’s normally flat tummy, framed by narrow, lithe hips, had a prominent bulge. The impression of Sylus’ cock pulsed deep within, and Zayne’s nails dug into Sylus’ skin. Sylus was the one hypnotized now, and stroked the pale skin of Zayne’s abs to outline the bulge of his cock, mesmerized by it. Zayne’s whine came from the back of his throat at the sensation and Sylus wet his lips.

“Can you feel how deeply you’ve taken me, Zayne?” he crooned. Zayne swallowed, breather shuddering out of him with a hazy mind. How could he not? How could he not be overwhelmed with the feeling of Sylus possessing him body and soul like this, reaching deep enough to fuck his soul and consume him from the inside out. At his silence, Sylus pressed his fingers in with more pressure, thumbing over his own length that threatened to fill Zayne with more than he could hold.

“Ah…Yes…I can feel you…” Zayne yelped. As he tried to gain control he only found it slipping from his fingers. “Wait, Sylus…” 

But Sylus ignored him, too taken with the way Zayne’s small frame held him like a vice. And with another long stroke to the protrusion of Zayne’s abdomen, Zayne was cumming with a loud sob into Sylus’ hand. Sylus grunted, the pressure of Zayne’s hole gripping him as if it would never let him go and promising to drag him down too. 

As Sylus drew his hand back, Zayne snatched him by the wrist fingers trembling along with the rest of him through his climax. He wasn’t giving up so easily. With as much force as he could muster, Zayne held Sylus’ hand across his stomach sticky and depraved and rolled his hips weakly. He reveled in the sounds Sylus made as he tried to hold on as long as he could, and let his desperation fuel his afterglow with greed. 

“You can feel me too, right? You can feel my body memorizing your shape?” Zayne whispered to him, leaning in to take his ear between his teeth. Another involuntary moan was pulled from his when he felt Sylus’ cock throbbing, almost there. “I’ll never let you go now.” 

Sylus growled, fisting Zayne’s hair to force his neck to the side to bury his teeth in the crook where the pale flesh of his neck met the sharpness of his shoulder, and he cried out with the intensity of his own orgasm. Zayne felt his stomach roll, suddenly slightly more full than before with his spend. Sylus held him tight, latching on like a man starved as Zayne wrung every shard of pleasure from him. 

“It’s because you cheated at kitty cards.” Sylus told Zayne, barely concealing an excited grin as Zayne looked himself over in the mirror in horror. A fluffy tail beat unhappily behind him, and the black ears of a maine coon were flattened and pointed to the sides of his head. Zayne’s lip curled, exposing one of his pointed eye teeth, and he whipped around to point a finger, tipped with a small but sharp claw at Sylus’ smug face. 

“Knowing how to count is not cheating.” he hissed irritably, green eyes narrowing. Sylus raised an eyebrow.

“Counting cards is cheating, lover.” Sylus said with a scoff. Zayne rolled his eyes and went back to staring at his unfamiliar reflection in the mirror. 

“Unimportant. What is important is what I’m supposed to do with this.” he said with red cheeks, pointing downwards at the space between his legs.

When Zayne had woken up this morning with a pair of cat ears, a voluptuous tail and several feline features and instincts he’d been disturbed, but calm. He could have handled all of that. The truly shocking change when he felt an unfamiliar tingle through his underwear and noticed that the prominent bulge that he was accustomed to simply wasn’t there. In addition to his new features, Zayne had become the owner of a very sensitive pussy overnight. He pressed his thighs closer together, trying to ignore the urge to explore himself. 

“Well, I know what I would do with it. Sylus teased him. Zayne’s glare intensified.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, I need to go to work.” Zayne said tersely, turning to push past Sylus to get to the closet when movement caught his eye. His head snapped to the right and his pupils expanded at the flutter of movement from Mephisto adjusting himself to sit comfortably on his perch. A low chitter started in his chest, and his tail swung back and forth in interest. He walked silently, footsteps soft and gentle towards the mechanical bird, hand raised in front of him.

“Zayne, wait!” Sylus called to him, but it was too late. 

Zayne launched himself towards Mephisto to wrap his hands around him, knocking over the perch and landing on the floor while Mephisto gave a surprised, panicked squawk. Zayne’s tail whipped back and forth with the thrill of subduing his prey, wrestling to hold him with one hand against his body while the other raised to bat at the struggling crow. In an instant, he was holding nothing but air and his hands closed around red-black mist. 

Zayne turned to look up from the floor at Sylus, ears flat and annoyed before he froze. His expression melted into embarrassment under Sylus’ gaze. Mephisto was on his shoulder, wings held aloft and cawing incredulously at Zayne while he shook himself out. Zayne covered his mouth with his hand, unsure of what to say. Sylus’ mouth twitched, and gave way to a loud round of laughter that had Zayne’s human ears tipped in scarlet. 

“This isn’t funny!” Zayne said firmly, scrambling to his feet to pick up the perch he’d knocked over. Sylus was inconsolable, rich laughter sending wave after wave of humiliation through him. He huffed, digging through the closet for something to wear to work.

“You can’t possibly be considering going to work in this condition.” Sylus said, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“The fur isn’t conducive to a sterile surgical environment, but I can still practice medicine.” Zayne said with a frown. He felt scattered, he needed something to feel normal to him. He had things to do and patients to take care of. 

“Right, and if you see that squirrel outside of your office window you’re going to be completely composed.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Clopidogrel is perfectly safe. I wasn’t expecting…whatever that was. Now I’m prepared. It won’t happen again.” Zayne said matter of factly, dressing for the day. Sylus smirked.

“If you say so, dear Doctor.” 

Precisely five hours later, Sylus looked up from the gun he was cleaning at the sound of a door slamming. He lasted longer than I thought. Sylus thought with a smirk, getting up from his desk to greet his very irritated boyfriend. Zayne’s face was red with embarrassment, ears flat and tail whipping to and fro. 

“Not a word.” Zayne hissed, striding past Sylus towards the kitchen. Sylus followed behind him quietly, watching Zayne’s tail flick as Zayne poured himself a glass of water. 

“Are you alright?” Sylus asked him, shoving his humor aside to make way for a soft concern. Zayne finished his glass and took a deep breath. 

“I had followups scheduled for several pediatric cases. Constant requests to touch my ears and pulls at my tail…” Zayne trailed off, cringing at the phrase ‘my tail’. “This body is uncomfortable. I can’t control the tail or who it hits or what it flies into and it’s cramping because my clothes don’t fit around it correctly…everything is far too loud and the lights are too bright, these claws are in the way and…”

“And you feel out of control.” Sylus finished, walking closer to him to reach for his cheek. Zayne leaned into the touch, nodding miserably. Sylus raised a hand to scratch under his chin, trailing up to his sensitive cat ears to scratch behind them too. Zayne took another breath, nuzzling and bunting at Sylus’ palm. Sylus swallowed at the sudden tightness in his pants, focusing only on calming Zayne down with soft touches. “Why don’t we try what we usually do when you feel overwhelmed and out of control, hm?”

Zayne’s eyes flickered open in question, standing back to look at him in confusion. Sylus activated his Evol, holding out a hand to summon a thick black collar, lined on the inside with soft material that wouldn’t chafe Zayne’s skin or let the ring that displayed a golden nametag pinch at him. With hesitant hands, Zayne reached for it, feeling the supple material with the pads of his fingers and reading the name etched into the tag. His own. Zayne adjusted his standing position to suppress the sudden warmth tingling in his pussy.

“The cafe owner said it wouldn’t last more than a week. Let me take care of you for a few days.” Sylus said firmly but soft enough to not corner Zayne into agreeing if he didn’t want to. 

Zayne mulled it over. He’d been uncomfortable all day, and the only end in sight was days away. He didn’t want to manage this on his own, and his shoulders relaxed at the thought of Sylus making sure he had everything he needed. It was a bond of perfect trust, and Zayne needed to lean on it now. Tail drooping, he handed the collar back to Sylus and raised his head to expose his throat. 

“What a good kitten.” Sylus crooned, gently affixing it to his throat and letting his fingers stroke over Zayne’s face. 

Zayne cringed at the nickname but said nothing as he surrendered to the firm touches to his face and jawline. Already he felt just a little better. His tail was back to fluid swipes behind him, and his eyes closed while he rubbed the sides of his face deeper into Sylus’ palm. His chest fluttered, a deep calming vibration radiating from within. Sylus’ pupils widened at the realization that Zayne was purring for him. Sylus felt his pulse quicken and he leaned forward to place a kiss on Zayne’s forehead.

“Do you remember your safeword?” he murmured. Zayne scoffed.

“I’m feline, not stupid.” Zayne grumbled.

A sharp smile grew on Sylus face.

“Tone, kitten.” he warned.

___

Zayne lounged on a plush carpet in the warmest part of the house. The N109 Zone was bereft of sunbeams, and Zayne had made due by finding the spot on the floors of the large manor where the hot water pipes were laid below the surface. He stretched, eyes hazy from napping and trilled with the satisfaction of moving his body. The sweater he wore rode up to expose his belly button, touched only by the lining of his briefs. It was day three, and it hadn’t been all bad. 

In the privacy of Sylus’ home, Zayne had opted to go without pants so the base of his tail wouldn’t need to strain against the heaviness of a belt. Sylus had encouraged him to go fully nude, but Zayne still felt bashful and exposed with a cunt that didn’t belong to him. The sweater was comfortable, light grey material loosely hanging off of his shoulders. It was Sylus’, and Zayne was only wearing it because he liked the way it fit, definitely not because Sylus’ scent was comforting and calming to him. 

The instincts were still offputting, particularly the deep urge to track movement with his eyes and chase after flickers of light or small moving objects. His libido was through the roof, but he was constantly pushing back on the instinct to pounce on Sylus and rip his clothes off of him at a moment’s notice. It still felt strange, going through his day to day with the heavy weight of his cock absent from between his legs. Sylus had given him space in that regard, waiting for the perfect moment where Zayne would feel comfortable enough to be touched there. 

In every other regard, Sylus’ guidance was playful but firm. He played with Zayne, encouraging him with small balls of energy from his Evol or a cat wand he’d procured to lean deeper into some urges (even the ones Zayne pretended not to acknowledge,) while he guided him away from things like attempting to climb the curtains or looking at Mephisto with a little too much interest. Sylus had been right, their dynamic worked seamlessly with the changes to Zayne’s body; he wanted to be grounded, instructed, taken care of, and Sylus was doing beautifully. Zayne was secretly delighted that as odd as his changes were, they did allow for him to brat in new and creative ways.

Zayne idly set his sights on such a task now, rolling off of his back and on to his knees to scoot closer to the arm of a very expensive-looking couch. With a quick look at his surroundings, Zayne rose to his knees, fluffy tail curling behind him, and sank his short claws into the smooth fabric of the couch. The sensation was utterly satisfying, claws catching and ribbing at the fabric and providing just the right amount of pressure against his nail beds. He lost himself in it, dragging at the shredded fabric again and again until he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him. 

Zayne’s ears flew back and his tail poofed up flitting in surprise to see Sylus standing above him, looming over him with his height with his arms crossed and a red spray bottle in his hand. Zayne did not like the red spray bottle. Thinking quickly, he melted his expression into a soft pout, eyes wide and misty, shoulders curling into his chest delicately. 

“I’m sorry…” he said sweetly. “It’s these instincts, I just cant help myself…”

Sylus regarded him with amusement and aimed the pray bottle at Zayne, pulling the trigger to deliver a soft spurt of water to his forehead. Zayne’s ears fell back and his tail thumped against the floor. His pathetic expression screwed up into irritation and he bared his teeth with a tiny hiss of displeasure. 

“Nice try.” Sylus taunted him. Zayne rolled his eyes with an irritated noise.

“Why do you care? You could fill a house with fancy couches.” Zayne pouted. Sylus chuckled, and raised the spray bottle again and Zayne regarded it coldly. 

“Tone, kitten. Don’t make me tell you again.” Sylus said in a warning voice, lowering the spray bottle. He crouched, setting it aside and reaching for Zayne’s face to scratch behind his fluffy ears. “It’s the principle of the matter.”

Zayne ignored Sylus, letting his eyes fall closed and a purr start to ripple from his throat. His tail contentedly glided behind him, and he nuzzled into his palm, letting his tongue drift between his parted lips to lick at Sylus’ hand. The warmth between his legs surged and he felt himself flush with arousal. Sylus chuckled, and he picked on the faintest hip roll towards nothing from Zayne’s lithe form. 

“Oh? Do you think you’re ready for a little help now?” Sylus cooed. Zayne’s cheeks dusted pink, and he nodded around a soft moan. A flash of something sinister moved behind Sylus’ crimson eyes. He felt his cock pulse in his pants, and let out a deep breath at the hungry kitty in front of him.

Zayne continued to rub into Sylus’ skin, inching forward on his knees. Sylus brought his face forward, puzzling their lips together in a filthy kiss. Zayne moaned, mind fogging and legs spreading to allow his hips to angle towards the floor and grind. His purrs were erratic and loud, accompanied by the wet noises of their lips and tongue taking and caressing. His body felt hot and alive, blissful contentment relaxed his limbs and shoulders…until he heard the metallic clink right below his chin.

Zayne’s eyes flew open and his desperate expression tightened into a frown when he saw that Sylus had clipped a black leash onto his collar. His lip curled and he looked at Sylus with murderous distaste.

“You have to be joking.” he spat in disbelief. “Have you ever heard of a cat letting someone put a leash on them?”

Sylus smiled smugly, and gave the leash a tug, just enough to make the metal clasp and the nametag clink together in a mocking symphony. 

“The very well behaved ones do.” Sylus teased in velvet tones. Zayne’s impudent little pout came out again, and Sylus felt his cock stiffen. “So tell me, are you going to be a well behaved kitten?”

Zayne’s eyes were flattened to the side again, and he looked away from Sylus. Sylus moved his hand from Zayne’s ear to grip his jaw firmly and pull his gaze back to center. 

“I’m waiting.”

Zayne’s glare was fiery, but his core was aching for a touch. His hands balled until the tips of his claws scratched at his palms. His tail rattled, and his desire to to whatever Sylus told him to do fought bitterly with his desire to never let Sylus win. 

“...yes.” 

Sylus arched an eyebrow at Zayne and tugged the leash taut to deliver a firmer pressure to his pretty neck. They had a standoff. And neither looked away as they stood their ground. Sylus stared with a calm and dangerous quiet, which Zayne’s mind shouted at him to respond. After an agonizing thirty seconds, Zayne huffed and spoke again.

“Yes sir.”

“Better.” Sylus commented, rising to his feet and letting the leash loose with a satisfied smile. “It suits you, and from the look of the furniture it’s my only means to keep you out of trouble.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Zayne said defensively, crossing his arms across his chest from where he sat on his knees. Sylus raised a finger, activating his Evol to flick a small burst of red-black energy at the carpet in front of Zayne. Zayne’s eyes widened and his muscles tensed, mind locked on to the small burst. He dove in front of him, claws outstretched for it but gagged, choked by Sylus’ hold on his leash. Felt himself be pulled back a bit and he coughed, angling another signature glare Sylus’ way. 

“Am I?” Sylus asked sweetly. Zayne gave another exasperated huff and looked away. “That’s what I thought. Now walk pretty for me.”

Sylus tugged at Zayne’s leash to prompt him forward, and for a moment, Zayne didn’t move, ears twitching and tail spiraling. He was reminded again of the sticky heat at his core, and how desperate he was for attention. Sylus let him ponder for a few moments, but only because the face Zayne made to surrender control was worth it every time. 

Zayne leaned forward, stretching out his back elegantly as his hands met the carpet. He inched forward to crawl towards Sylus with unsure steps on his hands and knees. He could feel Sylus staring at him and it was making him feel flustered and nervous. His face burned with humility, and shame spiced his every move at how much it was turning him on. One he was a few steps in front of Sylus, he tensed, feeling the skittering tingle of mist on his body. When Sylus’ Evol dissipated, he was fully nude. He threw a shocked look back at Sylus who simply shrugged at him. 

“I want to see how your body moves when you crawl across my floors like a good kitten.” he said far too casually. Zayne tensed up again, and Sylus could tell that he was working on a snarky retort. “Every second you spend here is a second away from getting what you want.”

Zayne shivered, a fresh wave of arousal settling into his skin. Again, he surrendered control, and began to crawl towards the door. Sylus sighed, watching his fluffy tail swish back and forth and strong muscles of his back moving and tensing when he moved. When they exited the room and into the hall, Zayne’s claws clacked against the ground, and the anticipation it created in both of them felt like electricity in the air. Zayne felt his insides curl with want, and impatience gripped him. This was taking too long. Finally he stopped moving, turning back to rub against Sylus’ legs with a sigh, nuzzling into his pants to take in Sylus’ scent and leave his own behind. Sylus stumbled, but caught himself, and let out a hitch of surprise. 

“Focus, kitten.” he chided, shaking the leed to jingle the clink of metal in Zayne’s ears again. Zayne sniffed, but turned to resume his walk, agile and proper like a regal cat of the perfect pedigree. Sylus stopped them in front of a closed door and made haste to open it. 

Zayne flushed at the feeling of walking back into their special room, pussy pulsing with excitement. There was a luxurious chair against one wall near a bed of silk sheets with a mirror mounted directly above it. The walls were painted a rich, deep color and lined with dark shelves and cases to display the toys the liked the most, while the rest were stored in the closet near the door. Zayne’s mouth watered at the idea of using any of them, wondering what it felt like to be penetrated so deeply from the front. Sylus led him by the leash over the soft carpeting, which took away the clacking of his claws but soothed Zayne’s knees and hands. 

When Sylus stopped in front of the chair, Zayne pressed his luck, bunting into the hand that held the leash gently. 

“It’s good form to reward good behavior with something sweet.” Zayne breathed. Sylus chuckled, and moved his hand away from Zayne’s face. 

“Do you believe that almost tripping your owner in the hall was good behaviour?” Sylus chuckled, and Zayne’s ears flattened, eyes going wide and misty again. He reached a hand to lay on Sylus’ thigh, pawing like a cat would. Sylus felt his cock strain in his pants and his cheeks went pink before he narrowed his eyes in realization. “Admittedly, you are getting better at that. I was almost convinced this time.”

The cute, crestfallen look on Zayne’s face vanished again and he clicked his tongue against his teeth with a harsh tsch in annoyance. Worth a try.

They began with Sylus in the comfortable chair with Zayne on his knees in front of him, leash looped around Sylus’ wrist. Zayne watched eagerly while Sylus unbuckled his belt and fished out his cock, letting it tap back against his abs with a hss of his own. His impressive length was red at the tip and begging for affection. Zayne had never wanted anything more than to put it in his mouth. His tail vibrated behind him, and his claws dug into the carpet to keep him from moving forward. Still, he never missed an opportunity to be a brat.

“You can’t expect a cat to fulfill all of your requests.” he said in a low, sultry tone that betrayed his true intentions. There was a flash of danger in Sylus’ eyes and a smirk pulled at his mouth. He gave the leash a firm tug, dragging Zayne by the neck with controlled pressure to come face to face with the warmth of Sylus’ cock.

“Is that so? Then I’m afraid that poor cat will never get what he really wants.” Syus said darkly. He moved the toe of his shoe, dragging the tip of the designer leather through the slit of Zayne’s pussy firmly. Zayne cried out, body seizing and mouth falling open at the foreign sensation. His eyes were truly desperate now. “That’s where you’d really like to be pet isn’t it?”

This time Zayne did not hesitate.

“Yes sir…” he whined. Sylus guided his face towards his cock expectantly. 

“Then be a good kitten.”

Sylus was biding his time. The purpose of having Zayne suck him off was less about an orgasm, though the thought of coming across Zayne’s lips and face was tempting, it was about power. It was about making Zayne lose himself just a little more by the second until he finally unwound around him. And Zayne was fitting into that plan perfectly. He nuzzled against Sylus’ inner thigh before laying a kiss against the head of his cock. He breathed in the scent of amber and musk and began to lick. And worship. And rut. He tried different ways of taking it into his mouth to avoid his pointed eye teeth, and became bolder as he began to purr. Soon, Sylus was twitching against the plush softness of his tongue at the sight of Zayne’s lips stretched around him.

Zayne squeezed his eyes shut in a falling attempt to hold back reflex tears, and worked to open his throat. He couldn’t stop himself from drooling, and his purr made Sylus groan, chest rising and falling in ecstasy of being serviced. Sylus took pity on Zayne, and bruised against his weeping cunt with the tip of his shoe once again, Zayne popped off his cock with a cough, face wrecked and thighs glistening. His hips worked down and he clung to sylus thighs, clown unconsciously digging in to ground himself. He rolled his hips again and again, trying to find friction for his clit, and his cheek nuzzled against Sylus length. 

“Go ahead kitten, cum.” Sylus ordered him, Zayne picked up his pace, tail drawing S shapes in the air and ears twitching with stimulation. 

It didn’t take long for Zayne to experience his first orgasm. His body shuddered, moans laced with a feline whine, and his eeys rolled back as he crashed over the edge. Sylus winced at the feeling of claws in his legs, but it was a small price to pay to watch Zayne moan his name like a prayer. Sylus let Zayne slump against his thighs, panting and shaking beneath him where he belonged. As Zayne’s awareness came back, he rubbed his cheek against Sylus’ cock near his face.

“Are you scenting me now?” Sylus said, voice thick with both arousal and amusement.

“It means…” Zayne said hoarsely, “...that this is mine.”

Sylus suppressed a shudder. He wouldn’t last at this rate and he wasn’t done with Zayne yet. 

“We’ll see.”

He pulled gently at the leach, just hard enough to prompt Zayne back to his hands and knees to walk him across the room like a show animal. Zayne’s movements were much less fluid now, his legs were jelly and his arms were tired, and his orgasm had thrown him into a soft silence that had Sylus preening in victory. Sylus looked down at him with affection and reached down to Zayne’s collar to unclasp his leash. He didn’t need it anymore. Sylus hand patted the soft comforter of the bed, and Zayne rose on shaky legs to climb on top. When was the last time he’d walked on two legs? He couldn’t remember or bring himself to care.

“Such a good listener for me now.” Sylus praised him and began to unbutton his shirt. Zayne moaned at that, fully enmeshed in the pleasure of his words and aching for the touch of his hand. Zayne liked subspace, despite how long it took him to get there. In this state, Sylus could have told him to walk off the roof and he would have considered it, but the danger of his foggy mind was overridden by the fact that Sylus would never harm him. Another purr erupted from him, reminding him that he was safe and loved. 

Sylus had meant to undress faster, but then he saw Zayne on his knees on top of the comforter, chest buried in the silk, face against the blanket, perfect ass in the air and pussy on perfect display with his tail up high. All without having to be prompted. You will be my undoing. Sylus thought ravenously as he used his Evol on the rest of his clothes and climbed up on the bed to join Zayne. His hands moved to Zayne’s ass out of force of habit, but he corrected course to reach lower, running his fingers through Zayne’s pretty pussy. 

Zayne moaned, trying to back into his touch, and Sylus ran a soothing hand on his back, scratching at the base of his tail before gliding a finger inside of him. He knew Zayne hadn’t touched himself. He’d been embarrassed, and the claws on his hands wouldn’t get him anywhere. He took things gentle, taking the time to let Zayne accommodate to the feeling of being filled in a completely different way. Zayne had no such thoughts, and grinded his hips back and forth, greedy for more. The stretch was achingly deep and he forced himself to relax around the fingers inside of him in anticipation of more. Even the pain of it was delicious to him, and there were so many places deep deep within him that made him squirm.

“What does this cat like better, my fingers or my shoe?” Sylus teased him. New tears from desperation and reflex had formed, staining the blanket around Zayne’s cheek and his words were slurred from stimulation. He shook his head.

“Neither.” Zayne rasped. “He likes his owner more than anything else.”

Now it was Sylus’ turn to lose it. Zayne yelped when Sylus slid his fingers out of his cunt and licked at the slick coating his fingers. He was playing a dangerous game with his own orgasm building in his core, but he couldn’t let the game go, not yet. Fisting his cock and slicking it with his fingers, Sylus roughly grabbed at Zayne’s tail, enough to make him gasp but not hard enough to hurt him. The texture of his fur was luxurious, silky to the touch, and Sylus indulgently ran his cheek against it affectionately while he lined himself up to Zayne’s pussy. 

“Think you’ve earned it yet?” Sylus taunted, running the tip of his dick teasingly up the glide of his slit. 

“Please…I can be good, I’ve been good. Please!” Zayne babbled, shredding the blanket in front of him, knuckles white with how hard he was holding on to the silk. Sylus loomed over him, angling his torso to press his chest and abs against Zayne’s back and whisper in his ear. 

“Do you want it kitten?” he growled. Even Sylus could feel Zayne grow even wetter at that. Zayne nodded, face against the sheets. 

“Yes sir.” 

Sylus pulled back quickly, finding his place and gently pushing into Zayne’s cunt. He wanted to ravage him, to spear him with his full length at once. Instead he took the time to let Zayne acclimate. All smugness was gone from his mind as Zayne gripped and fluttered around him. It was such a different sensation from his ass, and the vision of his ears and tail and perverse moans made for a brand new experience. Finally seated inside of the incredible heat, Sylus began to move. 

Zayne had lost the ability to form a coherent thought. He drooled against the blanket, eyes rolling back, completely beholden to the unique pressure of having his pussy fucked. He felt like he could feel it in his guts, and he clenched around Sylus as a vague question came into his mind and he imagined what it would be like for Sylus to get him pregnant. 

Sylus grabbed at Zayne’s tail again, using it to help guide Zayne’s hips back and forth to give some direction to his writhing in front of him. He hadn’t even thought of a condom, or the consequences of filling Zayne to the brim and ruining him from the inside out. He snapped his hips aggressively, and Zayne yelped, babbling madness in syllables that sounded like Sylus’ name. 

Sylus came first, fireworks dancing behind his eyes and fling Zayne’s greedy cunt with pump after pump of his seed. He shouted, echoing off the walls of their special room, free hand grabbing at his hip hard enough to leave a mark for him to fawn over the next day. He let Zayne’s tail go, breaths deep and ragged, and reached around Zayne’s fucked out form to feel for his clit. 

“You did so well.” Sylus praised him, kissing and nosing along his neck. “Cum for me, show me who owns you.” 

And Zayne did just that. It was different from his first climax, this time a pressure unique flooded out of him, squirting in a wave of pure arousal, soaking the bedsheets and drenching Sylus’ cock while he screamed with a pleasure so intense it almost bled over into pain. Zayne panted, too tired to even try to talk or move, and Sylus let him go to roll over onto the bed away from the cold wet spot he’d just created. He whined at the feeling of Sylus slipping out of him, but Sylus was right there next to him in an instant to brush his hair out of his eyes and kiss his cheek sweetly. 

With affection, zayne turned his head to nip at Sylus’ finger. Sylus chuckled. 

“Good cats don’t bite their owner. I thought you were going to be good?” he said with a soft smile. Zayne lapped at the area he’d bitten with gentle kitten licks.

“It’s…how I show affection.” Zayne said softly. Sylus pressed a kiss into his forehead and nuzzled his cheek against the soft fur of Zayne’s ears. 

He turned a fascinated eye to the way his cum leaked out between Zayne’s legs, and brought a careful finger through the mess at his slit. Zayne tensed, a soft cry bubbling out of him before he began to purr again. Sylus brought his finger back to Zayne’s lips and felt his cock strain with the desire to stiffen again when Zayne wrapped his lips around it without question.

The night air was silent and cold, even in the shadows of a dark alley where a man took his last breath. Rafayel felt the corners of his lips turn up as he dragged the blade across the throat of a man without a second thought, gloved hand covering his victim’s mouth to keep him from screaming. The only sound around was the heavy plop on the ground and faint snap of blood splatter against the concrete when Rafayel flicked his blade clean. He stood over his work, and indulged himself in a cold smile. Good. Another name off the list. 

Rafayel adjusted his hood over his head and crouched down to fish through the dead man’s pockets. He ignored the wallet in his jacket pocket, and drew out a key card that granted access to an office building and a ring of keys. Just as he twirled the metal around his finger with pride, he froze. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and a prickle of awareness raced across his shoulders and down his arms. 

He was being watched.

Rafayel stood, grip tightening on the hilt of his dagger. His sunset eyes flicked to the end of the alley to a layer of security provided by one of the streetlights bathing the sidewalk in an orange-hued light. Act natural. he told himself, slipping into the calm nonchalance and confidence as he strode forward. He was no prey.

The feeling of pins and needles on his skin remained with every step he took. All he had to do was get out to the sidewalk, and then it was just a matter of losing whoever was watching him. If the watcher in the dark was stupid enough to confront him, Rafayel was more than happy to rob them of the element of surprise. Leaving someone else bleeding out in his wake was annoying but manageable.

Rafayel was almost at the end of the alley when he heard the movement from the rooftop above him. He did not flinch, he did not hesitate. As soon as the solid body of a man landed on the ground in front of him, Rafayel aimed for the torso and drove his blade with a grunt of calculated strength. For all his readiness, Rafayel’s eyes widened in surprise now as his blade hit not soft flesh and blood but…metal?

The tip of Rafayel’s dagger broke and he dropped it in shock. He yelped as he was shoved back by a strong hand, but he caught his balance and came face to face with a man who offered him an infuriatingly smug grin. 

He was dressed simply; a sleeveless compression shirt that clung to every muscle of his broad chest and a pair of black canvas pants and tactical boots. He didn’t even bother to cover his face. He had a cleanly cut crop of russet hair, captured by a light breeze and left his handsome features untouched. Rafayel swore that there was a dull glow emanating from a pair of mocking golden eyes, and his face pulled into a frown as he saw a ripple of dark metal fade away on his abs where Rafayel had been focused on burying his blade. Some sort of Evol. 

“Is that how you say ‘hello’ where you’re from?” the stranger taunted him. There was a playfulness buried within the warmth of his deep voice, a certain casual lilt to his tone that only pissed Rafayel off.

“You shouldn’t ambush strangers in the dark if you don’t want a fight.” Rafayel scoffed. The stranger chuckled and raised an eyebrow to gesture with a nod of his head at the darkness behind Rafayel. 

“Is that what happened to him?” he asked sarcastically. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” Rafayel said innocently, stepping to the side to walk past the tall stranger. Predictably, the man moved to black his exit with his body, eyes narrowing with a warning. 

“Dumping a body in my territory…looks like a threat if you ask me.” said the man with an edge in his tone. Rafayel kept his magnetizing gaze as he slowly reached for a sheathe strapped to his hip.

“<i>Your</i> territory?” Rafayel sneered. “I don’t see your name on it.”

“I don’t think you know my name, otherwise you wouldn’t be here in the first place.” said the stranger, taking a step forward to crowd Rafayel’s space. “It’s Valko.”

“Didn’t ask.” Rafayel quipped, and drew his second blade. With an artful thrust he aimed for Valko’s throat, hoping to force him to move out of his way on instinct. Valko leapt back but darted to move in front of Rafayel again to keep him from escaping. A new glimmer of dark metal coalesced on Valko’s arm, crafting a long and lethal blade on the back of his forearm and hand. 

Another clang of metal on metal rang out in the alleyway as Valko parried Rafayel’s blade once more, and the two were stuck in a deadlock. Rafayel’s expression was fierce and angry, while Valko’s remained smug and playful. 

“That’s not very nice.” he said sweetly. 

“What about me makes you think that I’m nice?” Rafayel hissed, pushing back with all of his strength to throw Valko off balance. Valko’s golden eyes narrowed, surprised that Rafayel’s compact frame had the strength to move him, but he adapted and flashed Rafayel a wicked grin that showed off pointed sets of eyeteeth and canines. 

There was something wild about Valko, he was smooth and playful but unpredictable and dangerous. He was undeniably gorgeous with a strong nose and chiseled jaw, and Rafayel found it such a waste that this wolf of man had found himself on the receiving end of a knife instead of a paintbrush. He would have enjoyed mixing the perfect honey-gold to capture his striking eyes or the perfect pink for his lips…Oh well. he thought with a huff as he parried another heavy strike. 

“Kitty’s got claws, huh? Scary.” Valko teased him as their blades clashed again. Another scoff from Rafayel.

“And a dog always barks.” Rafayel bit back. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

This time it was Valko to lash out, and Rafayel effortlessly avoided his blade, darting away from strike after strike with his eyes on Valko’s body to look for an opening to make him pay for running his mouth. Valko picked up on his plan, and even though Rafayel was nimble and precise, Valko’s heavy bladed arm was the perfect shield against his sharp stabs and slashes. Rafayel huffed. He was going to have to get more creative. 

“Havin’ fun yet?” Valko winked, clearly having the time of his life. 

Rafayel grit his teeth, expression enraged as he lashed out again and again to no avail. The worst part was that, yes, in spite of his irritation Rafayel was having fun. This opponent was interesting, and his Evol was new to Rafayel in a way that made him want to observe. He seemed to command attention and humor, but the beast of a fighter underneath those playful words was scratching an itch in him that he couldn’t deny. His heart raced with adrenaline and an excitement he hadn’t felt in a fight for some time.

At first the goal had been to escape and evade, but now this was a matter of principle. Valko was playing with him, and that was an offense that would not stand. With one final attempt at sliding his knife into the ample muscle of Valko’s thigh, Valko blocked him and flicked the large blade on his forearm in just the right measure to send the dagger flying into the alleyway and well out of Rafayel’s reach.

“Have you had enough?” Valko asked him with an oppressive authority, his chest falling and rising from exertion and sweat darkening the lines between his pecs and the ripple of his abs. Rafayel forced himself not to look too closely. “Just tell me what you’re doing here, I could smell you from a mile away. You’re far from home.”

“I’ll say when it’s enough.” Rafayel snarled, and activated his own Evol. 

From Rafayel’s palm, fire sparked and ignited. A bright stream of red-yellow flames sparked a surprised breath from Valko who shielded himself under his metal blade and fed his Evol into it to make it grow larger, wider. Rafayel smirked, and he intensified the heat of his flame. Valko attempted to take a step forward, but Rafayel did not let up. He extended his other hand, pouring in another streak of flame aimed directly at the center of the metal shield. He smirked. 

It didn’t take long for the metal to heat up and Rafayel smiled at the sound of a pained cry from his adversary. Evol or not, red hot metal was painful to the touch. Rafayel watched his opponent take a knee, trying to dissipate the pain in his forearm but unable to let the metal construct go for fear of being burned alive. Rafayel liked that he had to choose between pains and his grin turned cold. Serves you right. he thought, ego flourishing on the act. He was so swept up in the feeling of besting his enemy that he did not hear the metal construct grow over the flames. 

The cries of pain died down, a metal clang sounded, and Rafayel looked up just in time to see a man leaping over his wall of flame with an agility he should not have possessed. Those pointed teeth were bared at him now, and the flowing tail of a wolf swept behind him along with two furry ears that matched the dusty brick red of his hair had appeared at the crown of his head. Rafayel was the one taken aback at the sight now before he was pounced on and cratered to the ground under pure muscle and focus.

Rafayel felt the breath kick from his lungs and his vision danced. The weight on his chest dissipated and allowed him to cough as his stomach rolled and his mind scrambled to take weight of this situation. His next blow was instinctual, a blast of fire in his attacker’s face. Valko rolled off of Rafayel’s body to avoid it, and it gave Rafayel the chance he needed to scramble to his feet only to find that the path out of the alley was blocked by a cold metal blockade, born of the weapon and shield Valko had summoned around him in the fire fight. 

Fingers closed around Rafayel’s throat and yet again breath was robbed from his lungs as he was shoved into one of the cold walls of the alley. His hands had no chance to respond, as Valko’s Evol pinned them in sturdy restraints of metal in a “V” shape that kept him from casting his fire with any sort of aim or pulling a weapon. His legs were drawn up to his toes and setting his feet flush to the ground put strain on his wrists, which forced Rafayel to focus on more than one thing and weakened his unnaturally fast adaptation to battle.

Rafayel raged against his restraints with an indignant shout, the mask of calm and confidence fully dropped now. Valko smirked at the sight, eyes fully alert and seeming to revel in the back and forth between them.

“You’re fast. That was a workout.” Valko said with that arrogant sideways grin. Rafayel set his jaw. This was not what he had intended to be doing tonight. “So let’s talk. Who are you, and what did that poor bastard do to get iced off the street like that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Rafayel’s tone was acid behind his teeth. “I don’t trade information with wolf men who try to gut me in a back alley. What’s that about? Was I right that you're just a barking dog?”

Valko smoothed his tongue against his teeth and kept his lips tight to hold back a laugh at how humorously wrong his prey was. It wouldn’t do him any favors. He looked Rafeyal over, forcing himself not to dwell too long on a face so startlingly beautiful before he turned away to get back to his point. He approached Rafayel’s angered form pinned against the wall and used his Evol to form two more bolts of metal bracers to secure his ankles and keep Rafayel from kicking him. He briefly considered one more for his arrogant mouth.

“Hey, you were the one who swung first.” Valko shrugged. The tail he now sported behind him flicked back and worth with interest and Rafayel felt long fingers digging into his pockets. “I think I deserve to ask a few questions after all that. Walking around smelling like you do, someone was bound to find you. Just be glad it was me.”

Rafayel swallowed. He hadn’t wanted to pull out every weapon he had in the arsenal, but Valko was a breath away from disrupting a plan he’d already cycled into motion. When he blinked up again to meet Valko’s golden gaze, his eyes were glowing with a cerulean hue. When he spoke, the vocal chords that had killed many before spoke his intention with absolute command. The voice of a siren. Valko’s eyes went wide and his lips parted at the spectacle. His top ears pinned back in surprise, and his tail was raised, fur completely bristled in alarm. 

“Let. Me. Go.” Rafayel commanded him. 

Valko acted at once, as though he were a puppet on a string, Rafayel’s arms and ankles were released and the shield of metal blocking the alley dissolved at a grip of Valko’s fist. The air between them was different. Valko’s eyes were glazed over and his chest rose and fell with heavy, thick breaths. His wolf ears were forward and at attention now, trained on Rafayel as though waiting for another command. His tail swayed back and forth, relaxing into a needy pattern. Valko’s entire body felt tensed, primed to do what he was told. His mind felt blank and cloudy, pleasantly warm and receptive to Rafayel’s every word.

But something darker lingered in his chest. It felt like claws scraping against his reason. Despite the cold night, Valko felt heated. A storm brewed in his veins as his mind slipped into the trap of being completely and suddenly enamored with the man in front of him. He was lost in the unnatural blue glow of Rafayel’s eyes, and powerless against his beauty. He wanted to do anything he was told. He wanted to be praised by him. He wanted to give Rafayel the world for a shred of his attention. He wanted to feel what Rafayel’s slender wrists felt like when he pinned them down. He was hungry. And he wanted to consume.

Rafayel smiled with a hint of malice at how quickly Valko’s mind had taken to his voice. He looked as though he was offering so little resistance to his charm. He could do anything he wanted with him now. He could have a new follower. He could leave him bleeding for the crows to find. As far as Rafayel could tell, Valko was completely at his mercy.

“Not so tough now, are you?” He sneered. “This is just too easy. That’s what happens when you–!”

Rafayel’s sentence was cut off mid-insult with the feeling of intense heat and the powerful muscles of his enemy shoving him into the wall. Something had snapped in Valko’s calm from a moment before, as if the door to a cage had been flung open. Rafayel’s eyes went wide, and he struggled to speak, unable to form words as Valko crashed their lips together with brutal force. 

Rafayel’s first instinct was to shove, to push back against the sudden advance, but the scent of Valko was thinning his resolve. He smelled of the forest, of cedar and pine on warm earth. A deep dizzying edge of musk and metal tickled his senses, and the soft sweetness of cocoa teased him. It woke something in him. Something primal and inhuman stirred. Valko’s long fingers brushed his sides and a hand stroked at his abs before sweeping over his lower belly towards the ache that throbbed to life between his legs. The hands raised to push Valko away found themselves twining in his short hair to pull him closer. 

Valko groaned into Rafayel’s lips, exhilarated when Rafayel kissed him back and gave a sharp nip to his lip to demand more. He was no stranger to inner wildness and the power of his instincts, but Rafayel was something different. Something much older and rare, but every bit as dangerous. He was an ambush predator that waited in the depths. He was a poisonous thorn hidden by the petals of a flower. What tangled in Valko’s senses along with this mysterious power of voice and command was the incredible smell of him that had made Valko investigate in the first place. He smelled like the spray of the ocean under a summer sun. A curl of iris in the spring. The smell of the crisp wind over the cliffs at high tide in a sleepy autumn. A flash of searing fire and spiced pink pepper that ripped through cold in a desolate winter. Refined and built to entice and delight until you drowned with a smile on your face.

Valko’s hand stayed firm over the softness of Rafayel’s lower abdomen, and his fingers itched to rip at the material covering it. The place where life began. He could feel the hunger deep within Rafayel’s body that echoed his own. He wanted to rip him apart, to bend him over and sink so deep within him that the beasts inside them would both howl for mercy. Rafayel’s lips fell open, inviting Valko to take more, to follow his newfound obsession blindly simply to find out where it would lead him. Valko obliged, his tail making frantic, energetic swipes through the air. 

Greed made Rafayel feral. He wanted more. He wanted to be touched, kissed, fucked with the intensity Valko had used to fight him and more. He barely noticed a speckle of blue scales emerging on his cheeks and along his neck, over the overwhelming sensation of their tongues sliding together. Valko moved the hand on Rafayel’s torso to grab at his ass and rut into him, and Rafayel gasped at the feeling of Valko’s cock within his tightening pants. 

Valko finched when his tongue brushed against the edge of something sharp, and it briefly startled him out of the spell Rafayel had put him under. He pulled away at the taste of copper in his mouth and his glassy eyes widened and focused when he realized the source. Rafayel panted in front of him, plush lips open to reveal a set of small pointed fangs. His scales dotted his flushed skin like stars in the sky, and a smear of blood lined the corner of his mouth. Idly, Rafayel licked it away, eyes focusing on Valko’s stunned face before he realized what he was staring at.

Rafayel stiffened, and he clapped a hand over his neck as if it would help anything. His mind scrambled for explanation: his Ebb day was over a month away, how was this possible? He shoved aside his confusion and his eyes flicked to the end of the alley. He had to get away. He’d been caught at the scene of a murder and now his own body was betraying him. Before Valko could speak up, Rafayel’s eyes flashed again.

“Sit.” Rafayel ordered him coldly with the voice of a siren. 

Valko seemed to fight the hypnotic pull this time and his muscles twitched, but he succumbed to the order. Slowly he lowered himself to the ground, kneeling in front of Rafayel as he was told. Rafayel’s eyes darted around in panic, and he turned to leave, but paused when he felt strong fingers circling his wrist. Valko’s gaze was pleading, begging him not to go, asking wordlessly for answers. Rafayel’s face hardened. 

“Stay.” he commanded, ripping his hand away and running for the street, throwing his hood back over his head as he went. 

He sprinted down the street to where his car was parked a few blocks over. His chest hammered with a caustic blend of confusion, panic, and spiked irritation. What were you thinking!? He screamed at himself internally. His fingers shook as he fished his car key from his pocket and he hauled himself into the driver’s seat. A lingering tang of copper tingled on his tongue and his fangs weighed in his mouth. He cringed to see that his fingernails had lengthened and sharpened into claws, and the insatiable throb between his legs wouldn’t go away. What had that mutt done to him!?

Rafayel drove home as fast as he could. His siren’s hold on Valko would dissipate and when it did, Rafayel would be far away.

___

Valko wasn’t sure how long it took before he was able to leave from his place on the ground, but as he was finally able to break through the haziness in his mind he could see the sky beginning to brighten.The pretty face of the killer he’d faced off with the night before hadn’t left his mind. He was sweating, and face was flushed. All night he’d sat outside, and it wasn’t the cold that had been torture, it had been the ache of his hardened cock and the blistering heat under his skin. The physical burns had faded within the first hour, a reminder of their tussle and the beginning of this madness.

His muscles and joints screamed in protest as he lifted himself off of the ground and he reached to balance himself on the wall for support. He could smell the stench of death from the other side of the alley were the killer’s victim still rested, discarded like trash.

He jaw clenched and his tired eyes narrowed. Who was that man? Why had he been able to order him around like a leashed dog the way he had. A better question was what was that man? His eyes had been striking, but his features had gone sharp and uncanny. Fangs, scales, claws…he was something completely different. But the question that had burned the brightest in Valko’s addled, spellbound mind was simply: Why had he smelled so delicious?

The night before had started out normal enough. Valko liked to patrol his territory, he did his best to protect his turf from both enemies and outsiders so when the scent of blood appeared in the air nearby he’d gone to investigate. The closer he’d gotten the more the sticky metallic rot-scent of blood and death had dissipated to make room for the mouthwatering smell that clung to a beautiful man that tried to filet him on sight. His ears twitched and his tail whipped, remembering the scuffle. His cock ached. 

Valko pressed a hand into his forehead with a groan. This flushing, this intensity, the way his senses felt like a live wire, the persistent ache between his legs and wolf features that wouldn’t go away. He knew what this was, though he was sick to admit it: whatever that man had done to him had triggered a rut. 

He was in the beginning stages now, but soon he’d be overwhelmed with the smell of anything too strong. He’d be lost to the fog of desire, emotions would clog his reason, and he’d need a few days to fully recover from the tidal wave of hormones that steered him by the cock and pheromones plainly palpable to anyone that got too close. The physical sensations were already setting in, and he bit back the urge to scratch at his skin which suddenly felt too tight to contain him.

His logical mind told him to go home, knot into his hand and go to bed, but the animal side argued back.

Hunt him down.

Catch him.

Make him yours. 

Come on, you smelled it on him. Do it. He wants you to.

PUT A KNOT IN HIM. 

Valko snarled and snapped his jaws at no one and nothing. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thoughts of a predator. His mouth watered as he thought of the stranger again; how pretty that violet hair would make him moan  if he pulled it, how good he’d look pressed into the floor, writhing under his cock...This wasn’t like him. He was a man of principle. A man of science. He always looked before he leapt, always thought of the consequences first. He didn’t even know that stranger’s name. What if he hurt him?

Valko rolled his eyes at the thought. From what I can tell, every word’s a safe word for that guy. The thought, remembering how quickly the intruder had called him to heel. He tried to think clearly, and his animal side took a more cunning approach. He lied to himself:

I just wanna talk. 

I deserve answers, I need to know what he did to me.

He’s dangerous. If he comes back he’ll put others at risk. I should find him first.

Just talking. He foolishly promised himself. That’s all. Just a friendly chat.

Dawn split across the sky, and Valko’s golden eyes caught the sun before they narrowed with his choice. He turned to the smell of rot in the alley. He knew what his prey smelled like, but he’d need more clues if he was going to find him. He quieted the rational parts of his mind that begged him to go home and rest. He’d need to be quick; was running out of both time and logic.

__

The day was drawing nearly to a close, and Rafayel was still completely miserable. His skin felt like it was on fire. His senses were on overdrive. Scales patterned his body like mosaic that exposed every filthy, horrid carnal desire he had. And the ache…god the ache between his legs was insatiable. He’d lost count of the orgasms he’d had thus far today. It just wasn’t enough. And it’s all the fault of that damned mutt. He thought angrily. 

He closed his eyes, hissing through his fangs wantonly as his clawed fingers pumped his vibrator as deep as it could possibly go into his pussy. The silicone attachment in the shape of bunny ears fluttered at his clit, and Rafayel cupped one of his pecs, tugging a nipple between the pads of his fingers with a whine. He was almost there…so close now. Maybe this time it would be enough to stave off the heat…

The vibrator went dead, out of charge. Rafayel hissed through his fangs, nose ridged and angry. He tried the buttons, but only tiny pulses of a battery worn out answered him. He smoothly pulled the bulbed vibrator out of his desperate cunt as gently as he could muster with this mood and hurled it across the room with an irate cry. The silicone toy bounced off of the wall and a framed picture hanging up tumbled down with it to join the graveyard of dead vibrators on the floor. Raf flopped over, hunched against a pillow, not caring about the mess. It didn’t matter. 

He’d carried himself through the ebb every single year by himself. Why was this different, and why was it happening now? Again the thoughts of the stranger from last night flooded his brain. “Valko.” There was something powerfully attractive about him, and Rafayel flicked his tongue to the corner of his mouth as if he could still taste the tang of his blood. He shook his head, hair curling across his forehead from the sweat of his heat. Stop. He chided himself. We hate him, remember?

His pussy did not agree, and fluttered at the intrusive memory of Valko’s hardon sliding across his pussy, obstructed by the obstacle of fabric between their pants. He shivered. As ridiculous as their encounter had been, Rafayel wondered how far it would have gone if Valko hadn’t cut his tongue last night. He supposed he’d never know. All that mattered now was getting through this impromptu ebb that Rafayel chose to blame exclusively on the dog he’d abandoned in the alley.

The hammer of a bold knock sounded at the door. The glowing halo of fins on Rafyel’s ears angled up towards the sound but his head was too heavy to lift. Whatever. A package perhaps. He ignored the noise, pressing his head into a pillow with a loud groan. Leave me alone!

But the knocking did not stop. Loud pounding at his door ignited sparks behind his eyes with pangs of a headache and Rafayel used pure irritation to prop himself up in bed. It sounded like someone was using the side of their fist to urgently pommel at the door. The thundering would not stop. Rafayel gave another shout from his chest. And rolled out of bed, carried on spite alone to answer the door. 

Whatever unfortunate delivery person was on the other end was going to receive the brunt of his indignation. His rational mind was eclipsed by his need for either someone to save him from this sweltering agony or the fright of their life. He crossed the studio, the back doors opened to allow a breeze in and Rafayel exhaled at the soft feeling of the air on his scales. Maybe he could calm down and tell the person on the other side he was busy through the door. He wasn’t a monster. 

Rafayel took a deep breath in, expecting to smell the simple breeze off of the ocean and the soothing sounds of the waves crashing over the rocks and smoothing up the sand on his private beach outside. The musk of wood; cedar, walnut filled his nose. The leather and rowling of metal with a hint of cocoa. This time without the dinge of concrete or the wave of blood in the air. It was much more clear in this setting, but agonizingly stronger in a way that sent a flutter to his pussy.

Rafayel threw the door open in front of him, fully prepared for the mountain of a man he’d faced in the alley the night before. But no one was there. Rafayel’s eyes were dilated to the point of looking dark and alien in nature, but he swept his glance around anyway, nose tipped up to breathe in the fragrance. He’d certainly been here, but was nowhere in sight now. With a slight pang of disappointment in his chest, Rafayel closed the door but remained plagued by the scent that surrounded him like a blanket. 

He took a shaky breath and closed the door. The amber glow of the sunset poured in through the open back door, bathing the room with a coziness that looked far too calming to be a match for Rafayel’s desperate body and his paranoid mind. He was panting, his pussy was throbbing. He closed his eyes and groaned, pressing his forehead into the door in an attempt to steady himself. He sighed, and decided to get to the ocean. The cold temperature would be soothing to his scales, even if it wouldn’t give him what he really wanted. If nothing else it would help him escape this scent that Rafayel was half convinced he was imagining.

Suddenly, the scent got stronger in the air. Rafayel stiffened when he heard heavy footsteps behind him, but his sluggish mind took too long to will his body to move. He turned around only to be shoved harshly into the door, and a hand clamped over his mouth to keep him from speaking. Rafayel’s bleary eyes made contact with those golden eyes he couldn’t stop thinking about. 

The sunset at Valko’s back outlined his form like a halo, making his hair and the fur of his ears seem to glow heavenly. But the look on his face was wild and out of sorts. Sweat beaded his brow and his cheeks were red. His lips were parted and his chest heaved with heavy breaths. Rafayel could smell arousal and flicked his eyes to the hardon straining against his zipper and he couldn’t tell if Valko’s heavy panting was from exertion or from being brutally turned on. 

“Rafayel, is it?” Valko said darkly, holding up an envelope he’d scavenged from Rafayel’s mailbox that had his name and address neatly typed. His lip curled as he waved it in front of Rafayel’s face and tossed it aside to flutter to the floor. 

Rafayel brought a shaking hand to Valko’s wrist in an attempt to move his hand, but Valko stayed firm, unwilling to give him the power to spell him again. Valko tilted his head as he sniffed the air and then used his grip to pull Rafayel’s head to the side, exposing the delicate skin of his neck, speckled in shimmering scales. Valko exhaled another shaky breath and dove in, nosing along the column of his throat and breathed deeply with a soft moan.

“I was gonna ask what you did to me…” Valko panted, and licked a long, thick stripe up Rafayel’s neck. Rafayel whimpered behind the hand clamped over his mouth, and his eyes rolled back at the heat of Valko’s mouth that ended with hot breaths in his ear and a gruff voice that lowered to a whisper. “...but maybe I should be askin’ what I did to you instead. I can smell you dripping.”

That voice went right to Rafayel’s pussy and he stifled a moan. He thought of a thousand uses for Valko’s tongue, and not one of them included talking. Again he tried to wrench Valko’s hand off of his mouth but Valko growled, a sound that rumbled out from deep in his chest and vibrated across the skin of Rafayel’s throat. Rafayel made a strangled, frustrated noise and raked his sharp claws down Valko’s arm hard enough to slice the skin. 

Valko swore with surprise and it gave Rafayel the opening he needed to shove Valko off of him. Rafayel hissed through his fangs like a serpent, a warning. The cuts on the back of Valko’s forearm were shallow, but bled enough to get his point across. Valko cradled his bleeding arm and glared at Rafayel like a wolf staring down a rabbit, but Rafayel only glared back, taking a gasp of air with his own labored breaths. 

“The siren call should have worn off by now, I didn’t do anything to you.” Rafayel seethed. Irritation and arousal twisted together in a confusing battle in his mind, and he tried not to preen when he saw Valko’s eyes rake over his naked body with barely contained hunger. “And it’s illegal to go through someone’s mail.”

“Then call the police.” Valko said darkly, taking a step forward to crowd Rafayel’s space. His gaze lingered on Rafayel’s dark eyes and exposed fangs. He shivered. So beautiful and yet so dangerous. He liked it. “I’ll be glad to let them know what you were up to last night.”

“Try it. They wouldn’t get here fast enough to save you.” Rafayel bit back. Valko was under the impression that he wasn't kidding at all. Rafayel stared at him defiantly, and his hand darted out to grab Valko around the throat. Valko grunted with the flash of movement, but it didn’t hurt. Another warning. Another attempt at dominance. If he hadn’t been so turned on, he would have been amused. “I take it that this is your first time meeting a Lemurian.”

“And you’ve never tangled with a wolf.” Valko crooned. He smirked between heavy breaths. “First time for everything.”

Rafayel set his jaw, and Valko watched carefully as he seemed to make a decision. Rafayel pulled him forward, forcing Valko to bend down slightly so Rafayel could kiss him violently. Instantly Valko fell in line, leaning into the tangle of lips and tongues and teeth. One of them was bleeding again, but neither of them stopped to figure out who. Neither were satisfied. This was merely the tip of the shattering iceberg and the death of self control.

“I don’t know how you found me.” Rafayel gasped, shoving Valko away by the throat. “But if you’re gonna stay, make yourself useful.”

Rafayel used his grip on Valko’s neck to pull him down and Valko complied, kneeling to the ground. His ears twitched when he came face to face with Rafayel’s perfect pussy and the heady scent of arousal made his mouth water. His expression was ravenous, and his tail beat against the ground in anticipation.

“That an invitation?” Valko asked, eyebrow quirking up. His words were lighthearted, playful even but his tone was almost pleading, begging for the go ahead. Rafayel smirked. Valko was all but drooling for him, and it only added to the ache between his legs. Both of them knew that this was the last chance to back down, because once they started neither knew when it would stop.

“That’s an order.” Rafayel replied, tangling his fingers in Valko’s hair between the ears of a wolf to force him forward. 

Valko’s eyes slid closed, and he pinned Rafayel’s hips back flush to the door to keep him from moving. His mouth opened, and he lost himself in the act of taking long, liberal licks to Rafayel’s fold’s, exploring by taste and the touch of his tongue to find his clit. He reveled in the scent kept close to him with a neatly trimmed patch of pubic hair that tickled his nose when he scooted closer. 

Rafayel covered his mouth to stifle a moan, but it was no use, the musical desperate noises spilled between his fingers, and Valko’s tail wagged back and forth at the indirect praise. Strong hands came to his pale thighs, and fingers gripped at skin and scales to urge them open. Rafayal indulged him, widening his stance to give Valko more room. He gasped sharply when Valko wound a hand around his knee and hiked it up to throw over his shoulder so he could properly sink his tongue into Rafayel’s needy cunt. 

Rafayel tried to stifle the build up to an orgasm; Valko’s mouth felt like heaven and he didn’t want it to end, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of his hair. He rolled his hips and Valko moaned into the action. His cock twitched as Rafayel continued to fuck himself on his tongue, and he snarled with greed that matched the intensity of the night before. 

Rafayel felt the grip on his other knee and wobbled, nearly falling over when Valko lifted his leg off the ground to secure over his shoulder. His hands lifted Rafayel by the thighs to keep him secured, and Rafayel was suspended, only supported by the closed door at his back and Valko’s hands below. There was nowhere to run; he was trapped deliciously in this very spot and completely at the mercy of long licks of Valko’s tongue and his nose teasing at his clit.

Rafayel felt it building, a fresh gush of slick greeting Valko’s mouth, and his thighs squeezed both sides of his head. Valko’s biceps flexed and his neck bobbed him back and forth in search of every last drop of Rafayel’s pleasure. The front room of Rafayel’s house had become a den of sin under the symphony of slick, wet noises and moans. 

Valko could have stayed between Rafayel’s legs forever, trapped between the plush of his thighs and drowning in his scent. His lungs burned, but he couldn’t bring himself to come up for air. His muscles twitched from keeping position for so long with his shoulders, arms and knees, but the wild animal within urged him on. More. Make him scream for what’s to come.

Rafayel’s thighs started to shake and the tension in his core grew and grew. His grip on Valko’s hair only tightened as his moans tore out of him like sobs. He could feel Valko’s mouth curl up in that antagonistic smile, and it was his undoing. 

Rafayel came with a loud cry, body twitching and tingling all over. He saw stars, and again felt that his balance was in jeopardy, but Valko kept him steady and safe as he licked him with dedicated attention through every list spark of his orgasm. Only when Rafayel had stopped twitching did Valko lean his head back to take deep gasps of air and slowly let Rafayel’s feet back down to the ground, where he swayed in his afterglow. He licked his lips and the corners of his mouth indulgently, and when he looked back to Rafayel’s face he felt a chill run through him. 

Rafayel looked like a shark waiting for a moment to ambush. This orgasm hadn’t tired him out, it had only made him hungrier. His eyes were dark, and his fangs glinted in the light of a dying sunset behind his reddened bitten lips. Valko grinned at him wickedly and moved to speak, but Rafayel wasn’t interested in his little quips. 

He stepped forward and summoned a loud whine from Valko’s chest by pressing the ball of his foot firmly into his aching cock. Valko’s tail bristled and his top ears flew back. The look he gave to Rafayel was absolutely pathetic. Rafayel gave a cruel smile, pausing for just a moment to memorize it.

“More.” Rafayel said, his voice dark and gravelly. He leaned over, putting more pressure into Valko’s cock and hissed directly into one of Valko’s top ears. “Now.”

Valko choked back another moan, and his tail thumped behind him. Rafayel lifted his foot off of Valko’s cock and turned towards the bedroom. Valko was on his feet in an instant, kicking off his boots and pulling his shirt over his head with urgency. 

“Are you always this bossy?” Valko asked, following behind him. If he’d meant to rile Rafayel up even more, he’d done his job. Rafayel whipped back around with a snarl and hooked a hand into Valko’s belt, using it to haul him across the room hips-first and causing him to trip and fall onto the couch with a surprised grunt and a wince from the awkward way he’d fallen on his own tail. 

Rafayel loomed over him and grabbed him at the crotch firmly. Valko felt his cock twitch, and rolled his hips up at the pressure. He needed to knot, and he needed it now. Rafayel leaned in until their lips nearly touched. 

“Only when I want something.” he said, capturing his lips again for another searing kiss. Rafayel licked into his mouth, and flicked open Valko’s belt with deft fingers before nearly tearing open his zipper to grip him through his briefs. As hot as it was, Valko’s ego flared. He smirked, and gently pulled away from the kiss.

“Me too.” he said with an edge, and before Rafayel could question him Valko hooked an arm around Rafayel’s waist and hauled him over his shoulder. Rafayel yelped when Valko stood up, easily carrying him towards the open door of the bedroom while Rafayel squirmed in his arms. 

“You’ve lost your mind, I am a god!” he shouted petulantly, beating a fist on Valko’s back as they crossed the threshold. Valko scoffed. 

“Sure. God of prissy brats maybe.” he said with a roll of his eyes. He paused, glancing down at the ground where seven dildos were haplessly discarded on the ground. Rafayel’s cheeks burned and Valko held in a mocking laugh. “Busy day?”

“I could kill you with my voice.” Rafayel snapped, delivering another blow to Valko’s back. “And all of that is your fault. Take some responsibility.”

Valko approached the bed and threw Rafayel on top of it. He was capable of being gentle and soft, but Rafayel had clearly shown him that despite his delicate beauty, he was clearly not in need of being treated like glass. Valko had hit his last nerve and if he didn’t cum soon he was going to lose it. Tasting Rafayel up close had been a balm for some of the animal madness in him, but it wouldn’t last long. Not when he could clearly envision what sounds Rafayel would make spasming around a knot.

Rafayel scrambled to sit up on the bed and face Valko, who was finally ridding himself of his pants. Whatever cutting remark he’d had ready to go dissolved from his tongue the moment he took in Valko’s cock. It was long, proportional to Valko’s tall, muscular stature with a deep angry red around the head. It was a cock one might need to apologize for in advance, but to Rafayel, it was exactly what he was looking for. He felt his mouth fall open and his eyes were mesmerized, picturing the way it would feel in his mouth and throat, his pussy fluttered at the idea of being impossibly full of it.

Valko saw him staring and gave him another infuriating lopsided grin as he stroked himself. He walked forward, the pump in the muscles of his thighs, chest and arms brought a glimmer to his skin. He was built like a gladiator, carved, well-used muscle with a thick torso and hands strong enough to both catch and keep whatever he desired. Rafayel wanted to be covered in him, to sink into the solid muscle while Valko sank into him. If Rafayel’s voice could produce a siren song, Valko’s body might as well have been able to do the same. 

Valko wet his lips. Clearly the hormones to attract a partner during a rut cycle were at play, and Rafayel was getting more worked up by the second. In contrast, Valko took full view of Rafayel, the poisonous flower with a god complex. Excitement brewed in him as he approached. 

“You like being told how pretty you are, don’t you?” Valko said gruffly, crawling onto the bed with his tail swinging wildly behind him. 

Rafayel was, for once, lost for words. His cheeks felt hot. His mouth watered. His hands rose up to frame Valko’s face in claw-tipped fingers. Through the haze of incredible sexual instinct, there was something nice about being seen for who and what he was. Valko’s wolfish features only encouraged him. He didn't feel like a monster here. Both of them were odd and out of the norm, and in the presence of one another there was nothing to be afraid of, nothing they had to explain while their logic escaped them in the throes of heat and rut. They were different and yet so similar. Valko rubbed firm hands down Rafayels’s sides to bring him back to his words. 

“Do you think I’m pretty?” Rafayel slurred, fishing for praise as Valko cupped his ass to tilt his hips up. 

“I think you’re lethal.” Valko said, his own words beginning to tumble together. The head of his cock brushed against the entrance to Rafayel’s pussy and they were both breathless in the moment. “I think you’re powerful.”

As Valko said it, he gently nudged inside of Rafayel, who arched his back at the intrusion. He was wet at the praise. Somehow being told about the nature he kept under wraps every day with a sweet smile and eccentric reputation felt validating to him. He felt those gold eyes rake over him again, and the praise went to his head. He scooted up on the mattress and relaxed his abdomen, greedily taking as much of Valko’s cock as he could at a time. He threw his arms around those broad carved shoulders and tried to pull him forward. 

Valko went slow even though Rafayel didn’t seem to need it. The red haze of a true rut was seeping into his skull and urging him to fuck, to take, to breed. And Rafayel made no attempt to slow him down. Valko leaned in to lick at one of Rafayel’s nipples, still puffy from a full day of trying to stimulate them, trying to bring him to an edge that satisfied him. Valko sank his teeth into his soft skin, fangs piercing flesh just a little, and sucked as he lathed his tongue on top of it. He was almost to the hilt now, and his instincts were screaming again when he felt Lemurian claws scrape at his upper back with needle-like intensity.

“You’re strong. That fight was pretty intense.” Valko praised Rafayel, who sucked in a breath at the satisfying stretch of his pussy. “I can see why you talk a big game.”

Rafayel was beyond words to respond, only concerned with the deep-seated pleasure-cusping pain between his legs. His claws carved more cuts into Valko’s back and he moaned as Valko brushed a sensitive part inside of him that had him drooling from the corner of his mouth. He could hear Valko’s tail wagging wildly behind him, sweeping over the sheets excitedly.

“Wow, this is what it took to keep you quiet?” Valko said snidely, giving a cheeky smirk that Rafayel could not process with his eyes closed. “Shoulda tried this in the alley. Pressed up against the wall like that, you were good enough to eat.”

Valko rolled his hips in a slow, controlled measure even when Rafayel squeezed around him with a breathy moan. Rafayel’s hips rode up to meet him, spine curling to bring Valko and his wild scent closer to him. The pace wasn’t enough, the teasing was too much. With an exhale that betrayed his pleasure, his urgency won out and he raised a heavy hand to yank at Valko’s hair behind his top ear in a prompt. 

“Faster.” Rafayel said drunkenly, using his hold to drag their lips together again. Between obscene noises from their kiss he spoke another command. “Harder.”

They swallowed eerie grunt, every moan from each other with their fangs clicking together. Valko did as he was told, and picked up the pace. His hips pounded into Rafayel and his lips broke their kiss and focused on his neck instead, marking him with harsh hickeys that would leave him red for days before soothing them with his tongue to capture the scent of him. Furious rhythm was established, and Rafayel’s hand climbed over his back; cutting with claws, cupping the hard muscle of his ass, pulling him as close as he could without melting into his skin. 

Valko felt on the cusp of nirvana. Rafayel was velvet-smooth and so warm to the touch. His pussy was needy and his appetite was ferocious. He could handle the intensity, and even better, he welcomed it, craved it. Rafayel felt a deep itch being soothed inside of him and sighed at the feeling. More. He needed more.

“I’m not human…”Rafayel moaned. Valko’s ears twitched and he raised an eyebrow confused. Rfayel’s eyes opened to reveal the cerulean blue glow once again. It spoke of power, but his face was desperate. “...so take off the gloves. I can take it. You don’t have to hold yourself back with me.”

Valko’s wolf ears twitched again, this time in excitement. A smile spread itself across his face. The instincts begging for a chance to call the shots were magnified. He’d already gone harder than we would with a human, but Rafayel wanted it all. This really was a heat responding to the perilous hunger of a rut. Valko snapped his hips with extraordinary force and Rafayel cried out at the sudden pressure and force, carving more cat-like scratches in his back. 

“Yeah, like that…Don’t stop!” Rafayel shouted, his voice punctuated by deep, intense thrusts. His legs wrapped around Valko’s torso and Valko moved a hand to cup his ass in a way that could’ve bruised his fingerprints into the rosy skin there. Valko was off the leash of his own self control. Rafayel wanted it? He’d surely get it. 

The room and house filled to the brim with moans, grunts, swearing as they attacked each other like animals. Valko licked across Rafayel’s cheek before claiming his lips in a filthy kiss. A tightness was beginning to form at the base of his cock that made him groan into Rafayel’s mouth. His eyes were glowing, his blood boiled, his hands gripped tighter. Valko tried to calm his mind, tried to find reason. He was going to cum, and along with it would come a knot. 

“I need to pull out.” he said thickly, fighting himself. “I don’t wanna hurt you and I don’t know what’ll happen.”

“Don’t you dare.” Rafayel hissed, nipping at his earlobe with a fang to slice it in a warning. The tang of his blood spurred him on. “I want it all.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for.” Valko argued between heavy breaths with a pleading voice as the knot began to form inside of Rafayel. Rafayel felt his toes curl at the feeling of being so perfectly full, just like he wanted. He locked his ankles around Valko’s torso in protest.

“Stop talking.” Rafayel growled, yanking Valko’s lips back into his.

Before Valko could protest, his knot swelled, and suddenly he was cumming. His vision spotted white, and the feeling of warmth was earth shattering. THe dissertation of discomfort was its own euphoria, and for an insane moment he felt as though realising in Rafael was what he was born to do. Valko pulled back from the kis and arched his back like a wolf howling at the moon to shout with the pleasure of it all.

Rafayel’s entire body was eclipsed in an incredible rapture. He felt his limbs twitch and then his pussy as he came violently with the foreign weight of Valko’s knot. He spasmed, his voice was almost gone but she screamed anyway. He felt fluid, malleable, and warm. IT was the hardest orgasm of his life and he crashed down to earth in the arms of a wolf. 

Clearly tired himself, Valko still made the effort to assure that he was alright. Rafayel felt rough fingers stroking his face, and realized that he’d passed out. His head tingled with the aftershocks of his climax and Valko still hadn’t pulled out. Rafayel’s hips moved back but Valko’s moved with him. Rafayel’s eyes widened in alarm. 

“What did you do now?” He said with sleep still on the horizon. Valko’s tail jittered nervously behind him, and his ears pinned back with a slight irritation. 

“I tried to tell you, but you didn’t listen.” he said with an annoyed tone and heavy eyelids. “It’s a knot. It’s gonna last for a while. I can’t pull out like this, so get comfortable.”

Rafayel’s typical protocol was to lash out, to respond to confusion and panic with orders or defensiveness, but now? He just felt calm. The itch of the ebb was less severe. His body had simmered from his frenzy and the weight of a cock and knot in his pussy felt satisfying. Valko’s ears twitched in concern and his tail swept against the bed. 

“Are you okay? How do you feel?” he asked, golden eyes still bright but now examining him for signs of pain or discomfort. Rafayel only looked at him with sleepy, almost fond eyes. 

“It feels…good.” he admitted. Once understanding took hold, he felt safe, as if he could fall asleep with someone standing watch. 

“Just rest. It’ll let up soon.” Valko promised. Rafayel’s lips curled up into a smile and he raised his head to kiss Valko softly. 

“I hope not too soon.” he slurred, leaning back into the temptation of rest. Valko’s tail bristled and his ears gave a light twitch. What?

Valko was able to position their bodies both to sleep on their sides, and Rafayel had been malleable like clay, clearly content with their encounter. Valko cast another worried look to Rafayel’s face, but only saw peaceful sleep. He raised a hand to brush his violet bangs away from his eyes. Rafayel wrinkled his nose at the touch and Valko was astounded when he scooted even closer to wrap his arms around him for comfort, breathing in his scent. 

Less than twenty-hour hours ago he had fought this man with death on the line in a dingy alley and now he was wrapped around his knot? 

Valko heard a soft sigh of breath from Rafayel right next to his ear and he looked like an angel while he slept. His claws were starting to withdraw, his scales to disappear beneath his skin. Valko almost felt bad for that. Rafayel seemed more satisfied in that form. He enjoyed seeing someone else in their base instincts. It made him feel seen, less alone. While he’d flung insults he wasn’t scared or disgusted by him. His tail wagged involuntarily behind him. Valko felt a pang of embarrassment, but the more prominent pull was sleep. He’d been awake for far too long. Rafayel was asleep, and he took that as permission. Without realizing it, he wrapped his strong arms around Rafayel, and kept him close. To protect him even though he did not need it. To reassure him in case he wanted it. Sleep found them both with peaceful dreams.

__

When Valko woke, it was right before sunrise, and Rafayel was not beside him. Valko panicked for a moment, but tried to keep his wits. He didn’t feel the twitch of sensitive ears on his head or the weight of his tail behind him. Had his rut calmed for now? A small streak of confusion hit him; why was he so concerned? This wasn’t his house and Rafayel wasn’t his. 

Still, after the events of the night before, Valko felt remiss just leaving out the back like he’d prowled in. He moved his body off of the mattress and several still-healing cuts lingered on his back. He thought of last night, and shivered. It had been mindblowing. He’d shared rut with heat before, but this was unparalleled. Rafayel was not a wolf, but their foreign ferocities caught up to each other. They rhymed even if they weren’t the same. Curious.

Valko got out of the bed, trying not to spy the stains they’d left on the sheets. He checked the bathroom. He checked the kitchen. He checked the living room bordering the studio. His nose picked up a scent in the studio, the earthy smell of mixed pigment with a natural oil for medium. It had been one of the ways Valko found him. Rafayel’s heavenly seabreeze smell was utterly enchanting but the smell of hand-mixed paint had brought him closer and closer until his craven instincts had struck gold. In a twist of irony, Valko looked down at the palette of recently mixed pain and a small smile creeped along his face. 

In the pan with a painter’s knife still angled beside it was a smear of gold. Pale, more citrine than amber in the perfect yellow. The exact color of Valko’s eyes. A swell of pride graced his chest and from the corner of his eyes he glanced out the glass sliding back door, left open, and saw a spark of purple on the private beach caught directly in the surf of the incoming tide. 

Valko briefly wondered if he should cover himself, but was entranced by the reflected hue enough to slowly step outside. His feet padded over the sturdy dark wood of a back deck and then sank into the soft sand of a private beach. Brilliant hues of purple, red and orange blistered the horizon, but Valko’s eyes only cared about the figure on the beach. He walked forward and realized that the glimmer of lavender was from a tail of iridescent scales rising and falling indulgently in the waves on the beach. 

As if sensing his approach the figure twisted, and turned itself over to raise up on humanoid arms and arch his back as he smirked with a humor to his face unmatched. Rafayel. Valko’s breath was robbed from his lungs as he got closer. He’d already know Rafayel to be strikingly beautiful, but his face marked with cultural patterns under his eyes and across his cheeks, and how relaxed he looked in this form was eart shattering. 

Valko’s lips were parted and though Rafayel had not said a word, he was hypnotized again dead set on exploring this fascinating and alluring creature. In a tease, Rafayel brought his hips up, showcasing an abdomen that tapered further down to his narrow tail, covered in scales and thriving in the waves. 

A new spread of water and foam lapped against his back, and Valko watched with an astounded grin as a slit formed where his pussy would normally be on a human body. Together, a set of appendages emerged from the slit, narrowed at the top, but perfectly in tandem. Alive, blushed with arousal. Valko’s parted lips shifted to his jaw dropping and his eyes widening. He has two cocks. He realized with interest. He felt his own cock begin to stir.

Rafayel’s plush smile deepened at Valko’s stunned expression. With a scaled, clawed hand, he reached towards the shore, and beckoned with his fingers. 

You and Emperor Sylus got married a little while ago, as part of a treaty between your two countries. You didn’t want to marry him, but you have to out of duty.

For the sake of your country.

The wedding was grand, extravagant in ways you wouldn’t have thought of if you got to plan it. Silk white drapes embroidered with golden threads hang from the ceiling, it takes you a while to realize that the pattern of the thread was that of a dragon.

Unsurprising considering who you were marrying.

Royals and nobles alike offered nothing but jewels and gold as a congratulatory gift, most were for you surprising even your husband.

Everyone knows how much a dragon likes to hoard.

Speaking of your husband— throughout the entire event, his eyes never left you. No matter where you were in the room you were always able to turn and see his piercing red eyes boring into you, his gaze cold, distant.

As rude as his staring was when your gazes met he had the decency to at least pretend he hadn’t been staring at you all night.

Your wedding day came and went and for a long while after it, you felt empty.

After your wedding ceremony, you were stuffed into a carriage and sent to a separate manor, one far away from your newly wedded husband.

If you can even call him that.

After all, you’re not properly married until you consummate your marriage at least that’s how the world in this day and age sees it.

Why would he marry you if he was just going to drop you off a half an hour away from him, surrounded by people you don’t know.

People who could want to assassinate you for all you know.

Not that he would care, he seems to busy doing other things.

He rides past your manor almost daily and yet he doesn’t stop, not for anything. The servants seem to pity you, but they think too highly of him to smudge his name with gossip.

That’s something you come to notice about the citizens here, they adore their emperor.

At first, you thought they feared him.

When he was near they didn’t talk loudly and they hardly dropped anything, but the moment he was gone they’d fawn over him and tell you how lucky you are that you’re the one who got to marry him.

A common phrase was always repeated

“I can’t believe we’re here with him!!”

The dragon emperor would visit you at times.

Briefly, almost as quick as it took you to take a piss.

He’d ask “How are you? Is there anything you need?” And right as the answer is out of your mouth he’s out the door.

He does this every week like clockwork.

And today, it seems, is the day he’ll do so this week.

You can hear is carriage stop outside your manor, the horses neighing as the coachman tries—and fails, to quiet them.

You can hear the tassel on his hilt clang against his scabbard as he hurries up the stairs, and finally, as he reaches the door he knocks.

Softly, as if he knows it’ll echo across the manor with how empty it is.

And he waits, patient as you walk towards the door.

He can hear you too.

You debate whether or not you should leave him there, tired of his pointless questions, tired of him acknowledging you then ignoring you in the same minute.

Your steps are slow and deliberate, waiting to see if he’ll get impatient and knock again, or better yet leave.

But no. He stays. Patient as always.

With a long sigh, you grab hold of the golden door handle, taking a deep breath before cracking it open.

“Hello, darling.” He drawls, his deep voice sending shivers down your spine. “Is everything okay with you?” He says, so low it’s almost like a whisper a look of concern on his face.

You can’t blame him for asking, especially with that look on his face.

You don’t exactly look your best today.

“I’m fine, my lord.” You say smiling tightly, “Nothing is better than spending your birthday alone after all.” Your voice drips with sarcasm as you say this, glaring at the dragonic man in front of you.

“Today’s your birthday?” He rushed out, tilting his head as he took a half step towards you.

“No, tomorrow is.” You chuckled out stepping further away from him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He growls, stepping further towards you.

For every step backwards you took he took another one forward as if something inside him was compelling him to do so, “you didn’t ask” you mumble, wincing when you bump into the corner of the wall too harshly.

The dragon huff’s obviously annoyed by this secret you decided to keep from him.

“Come with me” he demands, grabbing hold of your wrist before you can protest and dragging you out of your manor.

Sylus marched out of your manor and towards his carriage dragging you along with him, “My lord! Wait!” You yelp, trying to get him to slow down.

But that was all for naught, he’s a dragon for goodness’ sake, and you’re but a lord.

“Do not call me that,” he growls at you, “I am your husband, and you shall address me as such” he snarled lifting you and placing you inside the carriage.

“Well, I’m sorry, husband. It’s hard to remember I’m married when we live in separate manors.” You hum, turning away from him.

“If you didn’t like it, why didn’t you tell me?” He grunts out kneeling on the floor of the carriage in front of you, his eyes filled with a longing you’ve never seen before.

“Why would I? It’s quite obvious you don’t want to be wed to me, I mean, you didn’t even consummate our marriage.” You blurt out, before you could stop yourself.

Your face grew red as a small smirk made its way onto the dragon lord's face, “I’ve been holding myself back for nothing.” He purrs, shuffling closer towards you.

“The only reason you were in the blasted manor is because I was afraid I’d hurt you,” he says voice soft as cotton, “Since the moment I laid eyes upon you my dragon has longed to claim you” he pauses placing his hand on your hip and rubbing small circles there with his thumb, “I have longed to claim you.”

This statement from him shocks you.

You thought he was just waiting for you to die so he could marry someone else, someone he actually loves and wishes to have a family with.

“What..?” You query, eyebrows raised and eyes slanted. He's playing with you, he has to be.

“I’m not going to humor you nor play along with your game.” You huff, leaning back against the seat of the carriage, “I know you want nothing to do with me, it’s okay to be honest.” You mumble, deciding you had enough of your husband’s shenanigans and turning your head to look out the window.

“You’re my husband.”

“Out of political obligation, you didn’t even want to marry me.”

“If I didn’t want to marry you, the wedding wouldn’t have happened,” he snarls, smoke escaping from his nostrils.

“You-”

“ENOUGH!” He yells, cutting off your sentence, “You are my husband, my mate, my everything. A dragon wedding is more than that of a human's; it's not something you can force. It is the binding of our souls, yet our bond is incomplete, something I shall rectify immediately.” The way he says it scares you in a way, a very arousing way but in your defense as bad as you want to hate him he’s just so bloody attractive.

As if he can hear your thoughts he chooses that very moment to take a deep breath.

He pauses, eyes dilated as his gaze locks onto you.

You ignore the sight of his nostrils flaring and the trilling that starts in the back of his throat, focusing on the scenery outside of the carriage.

“Immediately indeed” he mutters, sighing as he finally sits down in a proper seat.

In the seat next to you no less.

“We have arrived!” The coachman yells as the carriage comes to a stop.

“Come, I wish to show you my hoard.” He purrs out, moving ahead of the coachman and opening the carriage door, jumping out and holding his hand out towards you.

You scoff, glaring down at him before ignoring his outstretched hand entirely stepping out of the carriage on your own.

The dragon merely smiles down at you, unfazed by your attitude, and grabs your hand, interlocking your fingers.

“Don’t worry, baobei. By the end of the night, all of those untoward feelings towards me will be nothing but a bad dream” he hums, looking down at your interlaced hands, smiling as he takes in the difference between the sizes of your hands.

He nods to the coachman signaling that he can leave, before marching up the stairs to his palace or, ‘hoard’ as he put it.

This isn’t the palace where you married, you realize as you take in the scenery around you. This one is more secluded.. more private. Covered in the wilderness of the earth around it, “Do you like it?” A voice tones, interrupting your thought process.

You glanced up at the male next to you, fixing your lips to mutter the word ‘no’ before you take one more glance at your surroundings. You realize that the sights surrounding you are too beautiful to lie about.. and he’d probably know you were lying anyway. So, you grant him a single nod.

“I’m glad you like it,” he rumbles, leaning down towards you and placing a small peck on your temple.

You glare in response, frustrated that after all this time he finally wants to act like a true husband because it’s your birthday.

“Oh don’t look at me like that,” he pleads, opening the door to his hoard, “in you go baobei.” he muses, placing a hand on the small of your back and shoving you—not pushing— shoving you inside.

The moment you’re both inside the door is closed and locked, the hall is dark except for the red glow of your husband’s eyes.

You blink trying to adjust your eyesight to the darkness of the room, before you realize that the dragon's hand is still on the small of your back.

The claws at his fingertips sink into your flesh, possessive in a way, and you’re suddenly all too aware of how alone you both truly are.

“My darling,” he purrs, leaning down to place his chin on the top of your head.

There’s something in his voice when he says it, something dark, something you can’t exactly pinpoint.

He slides his hand from the small of your back to your pelvis, right atop your uterus.

He sinks his claws into there too.

You bite back a whine, the shock of it sending you into the tips of your toes.

“I have longed to have you here with me” he whispers, voice soft and gentle despite his actions.

“It took everything in me not to use my rule as your husband— your emperor to have you with me.” As he says this his claws dig deeper, hooking onto the flesh they’ve penetrated.

“I had to settle for coming to see you once a week— my visits short and brief out of fear I’d lose control.” He pauses, listening to your soft and short whines as you grip at his wrist trying to get his claws out of you. “But that only keeps a dragon sane for so long” he moans out, finally listening to your pleading whines and removing his claws from so deep in your flesh. “A dragon cannot rest until its most precious treasure is lying within its hoard,” he chimes, grabbing your shoulders and turning you around, smiling when he sees the stray tear trailing down your face.

He leans down, opens his mouth, and licks the tear up before it could fall onto the fabric of your vest. “Oh don’t cry, my darling,” he pouts, getting down on his knees in front of you, grabbing onto your hips and pulling you closer to him.

“You see, I put you in that cursed manor to protect you. For I knew, if I had you where I wanted you. I wouldn’t be able to control myself” he whines, nuzzling into your pelvis, shushing you when you cry out from the pressure.

“Don’t worry sweetheart,” he purrs, hooking his claws into your pants, “I’m gonna take such good care of you.” And with that, he pulls, tearing the clothes from your body .

“My lord-” you choked out, shocked at how he’s behaving before you’re interrupted by a deep growl, filled with rage.

“I told you not to call me that.”

You cover your body in shame, embarrassed that you’re nude in such a public place, where anyone can just walk in and see.

“I am your husband, you shall address me as such” he snarls, glancing up at you and frowning once he sees you covering yourself, “I am your husband, there’s no need to hide yourself from me.” He says it softly, a complete contrast to how he’s been acting lately.

“Are you embarrassed?” He questions, smiling before kissing your stomach.

“There’s no need, the servants won’t tell a soul” he hums, trying to reassure you. “And if they do, I’ll simply eat theirs” with that he attacks. Yanking you down by your legs so that you fall perfectly into his lap, you scream— obviously— the suddenness of the act frightening you. A few hours ago this man was a cold and distant husband, practically a stranger to you. But now…now he’s on his knees practically worshiping you.

He mutters fervent whispers against your naked flesh, clutching at every part of you that he can reach. “I shall take you, properly. As a husband should.” His voice is strained, almost like he’s struggling to get his words out.

“But first, we must make it to our nest” he purrs, the strange, inhuman sound building up in his chest and shaking your body with it. And suddenly, with no time to process, you’re being carried down stairs, bridal style of course, nothing less for an emperor’s mate.

Candle flames begin to appear like magic, lighting up the faces of the servants eagerly taking in your naked form. Strangely enough, their eyes do not hold a speck of lust in them. They’re simply excited to see you, in the emperor’s hoard— where you belong.

Your husband is focused on the task of getting you to the center of the room, where a bed of furs lies, surrounded by all the jewels the dragon has collected over the years.

His strides are long and hurried, barely paying attention to his servants as he heads toward his goal that is mere steps away.

In a breath, you are there. Your husband apparently remembered that it’s much faster to fly than walk, the flashed movement catches you off guard. Not used to being teleported halfway across a room, in less than a second.

Unfortunately, your husband could not care less.

Too focused on getting in between your legs and breeding you than making sure you’re okay with the sudden change in scenery.

“My darling” he drawls, breathing heavily as he carefully sets you down on the layer of furs. “I’m afraid I cannot be as gentle, about this moment as I would like to be,” he says ‘gentle’ like the word has personally wronged him by simply existing, “my dragon will not let me.”

He strips quickly, frustrated that he’s even wearing robes in the first place. His tail comes to wrap itself around your thigh, as he tears the last of the clothes away from his skin; he sighs in relief as he’s finally freed from them, his eyes falling shut as he welcomes the cool air against his heated skin.

His eyes stay shut as he regulates his breathing, then his tail tightens around your thigh, he plays with the flesh there, drawing invisible shapes onto it using the tip of his tail to do so. Then with a lick of his lips, he opens his eyes, just a sliver, you barely noticed at first until you saw the red glow to them, shining down at you in the dimly lit room.

He reaches out towards you, placing his hand on your clawed pelvis, he presses down on it before humming unhappily, “It’s so empty” he hisses, upset that he has yet to fill you.

“Don’t worry, my sweet.” He croons, caressing the injured flesh there. “I shall fix that” he trails his clawed hands downward, towards his treasured goal, “I shall fill your empty, hollow womb with my essence,” he promises, using his tail's grip on your thigh to spread your legs apart for him.

His eyes widen once your moistened cunt comes into view, the glow of his eyes brightening as he takes in the sight of it. His clawed fingers eagerly come to caress it, his pupils sharpen as he watches your back arch at the sudden pleasure bestowed upon you.

“I cannot use my fingers upon you,” he mutters, a mocking tone lingering underneath the words, “but-“ he pauses, his tails unraveling from around your thigh and slithering towards your core, “I suppose this will do?” He phrases it like it’s a question, but you both know it’s not. His tail is already pressing against your opening when it is said, not waiting for permission to enter you.

“My lord-”

“Husband” you are interrupted by him, his tail steadily pushing into you, “or better yet, Sylus” he hums, watching you with glee as you shake and writhe as his tail splits you open.

“Sylus, husband— please” you whine, your thighs shake as his hand begins to play with your clit as if it’s a fidget toy. “That’s it, call out my name” he groans, sliding himself between your thighs as his tail finally reaches the barrier to your womb.

“ I shall see that all your needs are seen to” he hums, leaning down to kiss your clavicle, he offers it a soft peck before sinking his fangs into the thin flesh there. Groaning out as he listens to your pleasure-pained cries, he bites down harder, drawing out your delicious blood.

The taste of your blood sparks a noticeable change in the dragon hybrid atop you, his hand moves from your clit to your thigh and he uses that grip to hike your leg onto his hip, shifting his tail deeper into you past that cursed barrier and further into the deepest part of you.

With an unhappy grunt, the dragon removes himself from his spot, “We’re almost there, my darling” he purrs, thrusting his tail further into you.

Answering your whines and whimpers with kisses of devotion and reverence.

He moved his tail impatiently as he fucks it into you, tired of feeling you warming his tail and longing for you to warm his cocks instead.

“I can’t” he whines out, abruptly pulling his tail out of your cunt, chirring at the loud whimper it drew from you, “I can’t wait any longer, I must have you” he trills like a madman, letting his cocks fall from the slit between his legs, grinning down at you when you gasp at the sight of them.

He cannot blame you, they are not like human cocks. Textured with smooth black scales and blood red barbs, lines of crimson red are branched out across both his cocks. The hole of the top one is wider— for the depositing of eggs, his ovipositor. The one at the bottom is longer, it will reach the deepest parts of you and fill you in ways unbeknownst to you. He will use both of them to ruin you for any and everyone, both human and dragon. He will claim you entirely.

He offers you a soft kiss upon the lips, savoring the taste of you. Humming in key with your whine as he brutally pushes into you, only one of his cocks— his ovipositor. He wasn’t lying when he said he would see you filled tonight.

He laughs as you cry out to the skies, he thrusts into you steadily, hard and fast, his speed doesn’t waver unless it is to speed up. He smiles down at you as you try to escape his powerful thrusts, clawing at the furs beneath as if that would help you.

“Look, my love” he quips, tilting your head to the side, towards the eyes of the servants eagerly taking in your coupling with childish cheer hidden in their eyes. Sylus kisses down your neck as you take in the gaze of the servants watching you, chuckling as he watches you gaze back at them.

“They have longed to see you,” he whispers into your ear, sliding his hand from your thigh to your waist as he listens to your choked off moans. “Moreso than me it would seem,” You would expect him to sound jealous of that fact, but instead he sounds absolutely delighted. Happy that his servants— citizens welcomed and embraced you.

“They have accepted you as my one and only mate” he purrs, closing his eyes in pleasure as he feels his eggs begin to make their descent. “My eggs” he chokes out, tightening his grip on you, ignoring your pained cries as his claws find home in your unsullied flesh. “They’re coming” he cries out, almost pained in the way he says it.

“You’ll take them” he whines out, eyes wide and glowing as he turns your head back towards him, “you’ll take them for me, yes?” He whimpers, he asks this but his hips do not slow. He doesn’t even brace for the possibility of you saying no, he just thrusts into you nonstop, unyielding.

“Please, say you will darling,” he cries, speeding his hips up as his first egg begins to push itself out of him and into you. “Sylus” you cry as it begins to spread you wide. “I can’t” you hiccup, clawing at the furs now soaked with both your juices. “It’s too much” you whine, as the egg continues to spread you wide, “Sylus.” You whimper, tears filling your eyes as you gaze up at him.

“You can take it, sweetheart, I know you can.” He pants trying to coax his egg into you so that it may lie safely in your womb, “you can take all of me, I know it.” He groans, hissing in pleasure as the egg finally passes into you.

He shushes you as the egg is pushed past your cervix and into your once-empty womb, “There is much more to follow,” he groans out, sighing in relief as the rest of the eggs pile up in his ovipositor, awaiting their turn to enter you.

“Sylus,” you whine, lifting your hands to weakly push at his shoulders, “wait- I have to” you pant, tears spilling down your face as you try to get the words out. It doesn’t matter, he’s a one-minded man, focused only on filling your cunt with his eggs and seed.

You’re cumming before you can get the words out, thighs twitching, back arching as the overwhelming pleasure courses through you.

“That’s a good boy,” he grins, watching as you cum undone as he fills you with his eggs, one by one. He watches as your eyes flutter shut in pleasure only to reopen as yet another is stuffed inside your womb, he watches as your moans become hums and whines. He watches as your stomach rounds with his eggs and your mouth fills with drool, eyes rolling into the back of your head as pleasure overcomes you.

“That’s all of them” he pants once all the eggs are pushed into you, leaning down to press a kiss to your soft open lips, “there’s roughly twenty of them,” he says, caressing your round stomach with his hand.

He smiles as you slow blink at him, barely registering what he’s saying just knowing that he’s saying something, “regrettably, we’re not done yet,” he trills, slowly pulling out of your swollen hole, shushing the whine it pulls from your lips. “We still have to fertilize them.” He crooned, sliding his other cock in as he said so. Groaning as he bottomed out, “I’ll try to make this quick my dear.”

“Sylus please, fill me.” You cry, fucking yourself on his cock. “I wanna be full” You’re delirious with pleasure, choking on saliva as he fucks into you as he had before. Jostling the eggs inside you, “I will, as I promised” he coos, watching intently as you fuck yourself onto his cock.

“I’m so close” you whimper, your over-sensitive nerves firing as they’re stimulated repeatedly. “Cum for me.” He calls, wrapping his tail around your waist, “cum on my cock, darling, milk me for all I’m worth” he begs, shuddering when you tighten around him in orgasm, “yes, that’s it.” He whispers, purring as he watches you twitch in pleasure. “Take what you want from me,” he coos, panting as his end comes near.

“I shall leave you full and satisfied, my love. Round with my seed, and draped in my jewels” he hums, speeding up his thrusts as his completion nears, kissing down your neck as he awaits it.

His tail tightens around his waist as his orgasm rolls over him, barbs sinking into the flesh of your walls, his wings spread behind him, fluttering as his cum spills in you. He roars as he fills you, wings lifting you both from the furs, the servants— you notice— are roaring with him. Cheering on his success in filling you with children, clapping with delight at the thought of having little dragons to attend to.

Once the emperor is fully emptied, he lowers you back down to the furs. Wrapping his wings around both of you, “Happy Birthday, darling.” He purrs, rubbing his horns against you. Trying to get more of his scent on you.

“Is this to your standards?” He asks, sighing against your neck, “I loved it, dear” you mutter, running your hands in his hair, scratching at the base of his horns. “The very best birthday gift.” You hum, tired from all of your previous activity.

“I didn’t hurt you?” He asks, tiredness evident in his voice as he does so. “No, of course not.” You assure him, smiling softly at him, “You did everything I asked.”

“Fucking hated it, being apart from you is the worst.” He pouts, trying to bury himself further into your neck. “Rest now, my love” he whispers, caressing your stomach. “I shall make sure you and the children are safe.” He coos, the glow of his eyes returning.

A rumble starts in his chest as he begins to purr, pulling you into the kingdom of dreams.

—

It left you with the task of “babysitting” his partner—the ever-famous and reliable Connor. 

You didn’t mind him. Truly, you had no qualms about working with an android. You’d much rather him than Detective Reed. He was a real piece of work. But, there were times when Connor could be a teensy bit unnerving, which was no fault of his. As far as you know, he’d only been made a few years ago.  

Hank had even invited you and a few other detectives and uniformed officers to watch a basketball game. Connor had told you he nudged him to be social, and you distinctly remembered snickering quietly as you stood next to him, bringing the plastic cup of alcohol to your lips as you told Connor he was performing miracles. 

So it wasn’t like you were unfamiliar with Connor. Neither of you had worked a case together. There was a difference between casually watching a game of basketball and working on an attempted homicide case.

“Yeah,” you slipped your eyes closed and peeled away from the window. “I’m just thinking. Sorry.”

“What are you apologising for?”  Connor tilts his head. Looking all the more puppy-like. 

You hesitated to answer him as you turned to face him. Would an android be able to understand the inner turmoil in your head at the moment? You doubted that they even had brain fog, or that their ability to be happy sometimes partially relied on the weather. The thought of even confessing this to him caused heat to rise to your cheeks and you shrugged it off.  

“Taking my sweet ass time to think,” your muttering earns another head-tilt from the detective. “It is a tough case,” he responds neutrally, “the circumstances have me…bewildered.”

You scoff as your expression turns incredulous. Connor offers a gentle smile, his brown eyes as warm as ever as his knees shift to point your way in his seat. It escapes your mind that this man was capable of inhuman feats— vaulting between the gaps of buildings, tanking bullets to his torso with minimal issues, being a walking forensics lab to name a few— and you loosen your grip on the steering wheel. 

“The evidence left was nearly nonexistent thanks to the rain. The victim’s in a coma, and the perp was careful. It was a methodically planned out crime. I’m frustrated.” 

“You don’t show it,” your tone is lighthearted and Connor breathes out a laugh. “Sorry, is that offensive?” you grimace, shoulders lifting. 

”Because I’m an android?” Connor laughs again. He leans into the seat, posture still impeccable somehow, and shakes his head. “I’m not offended. It is something I have to work on. Hank says my dry humour isn’t always appreciated. He suggests I have a sunnier disposition.”

”What? Like his?” 

Connor coughs into his fist— you belatedly realise he had snickered and feel the brain fog slowly begin to fade away as you turn your car's ignition. The smooth rumbling and the radio announcer's voice blend seamlessly with Connor and your laughter. 

“You don’t have to apologise for being thorough, detective. It’s an admirable trait to have.” His reassurance should not have your heart picking up speed, but it does and you focus on the road before you instead. Your brain reminds you of every little road law that you had not thought about for years as the other vehicles on the road— including yours— fall into a monotonous routine. 

“So you admire me? I’m honoured,” you jest. Connor knows you’re joking. But his gaze lingers on you, the darkening bags under your eyes, the grip on your steering wheel, and the way your heart rates slightly elevated despite simply driving. Connor is perceptive, he was made to be. He noticed just how— for lack of a better word— funny your body acted when you were alone with him. At first, he assumed the rush of blood to your face and your slightly clammy palms indicated anxiety. All signs pointed that way. 

But you carried on conversations with him as smoothly as ever. He wondered if you had a knack for acting, most people do in their own ways, but you weren’t someone that was distrustful. He could hardly imagine you being deceitful. You were like he had said; admirable. Maybe a little clumsy at times, hard-headed too when you find a lead but Hank says that’s normal for younger detectives. 

‘The need to prove themselves, make a name in the precinct.’

Hank had told him. The human desire to leave a mark on the world, to be remembered. Connor could flood his entire brain with historical figures with a blink. Some more infamous than famous, some with their names used as a stand-in for another word even. So he knows that’s a fact.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts as you stop at a red-light. The pitter-patter of rain makes you squint at the warbling sight past the windshield. You pinch your brows tight, and Connor says something funny. 

“I’m starving.” 

“…What?”

He points to a diner. The red and yellow colour scheme stands out brightly in the gloomy hues of the weather and Detroit smog. The place was less than desirable, and as Connor read through the reviews and health department ratings he found himself tightening his smile. Still, he urged you to park in the parking lot next to it because he was ‘starving.’

You didn’t want to offend him by asking what exactly he meant. Maybe he’d gotten a stomach upgrade or something to be able to fit in a bit better. Eating together was an important aspect in socializing after all. So you kept your questions to yourself, simply parking all the way in the back and unbuckling your seat belt. Only to stop when Connor places a hand on your shoulder. You stiffen, turning to face him with your eyes widened and your brows raised in question.

”How long have you been awake, detective?” 

You sputter, your words barely tangible as your mouth gapes. Connor’s head-tilt this time seemed more like a honed police dog than a puppy, and you pressed your lips together. 

“I don’t know. I don’t exactly count that down, ya’ know?” You motion your eyes between him and his hand. Connor reluctantly slips it away and folds them politely on his lap. You try to ignore the lingering feeling of his body warmth on you. Your brain was playing tricks on you, mocking you again for not having a supercomputer instead of a mass of flesh and short-circuiting neurons. 

“I estimate 16-hours.” 

‘Way to rub it in,’ you thought bitterly. More so to yourself than Connor. But he catches the twinge of displeasure in your eyes. 

“Maybe we should end our day early. Both of us are tired.”

”Jesus, Connor. First, you’re starving and now you’re tired? Are you trying to take pity on me, or something?”

The anger in your voice is beginning to make itself known. Your lips curl as you hastily unbuckle yourself and practically swing your door open. Cold air rushes in, and so does rain, but you stubbornly soldier through. 

“I’m a grown-ass man. I can take care of myself.”

The car shakes when you close your door and Connor’s reminded of Hank. Logically, there was no way every single detective he’d known could be such…hardasses, but yet here he was with his own sample size. The thought of you sharing similarities to Hank causes him to scrunch his nose, as if tasting something sour, and he sighs softly. Connor rushes towards your grumpy figure, entering into the restaurant just a few steps behind you. 

The servers glance Connor’s way, wary but trying their best not to show it. As long as they didn’t commit any crimes in front of him, Connor would stay out of their way. Besides that, he had more pressing things to attend to. You, in particular. You find a quiet corner to sit at and Connor sits across from you, watching as you rub your hands together. 

He wanted to ask if you were cold. But he shouldn’t push his luck. Maybe he should’ve been more tactful leading you here, but he wasn’t unhappy that you weren’t behind the wheel anymore. For a while, the ambience of the restaurant muffles the awkward silence. You reach for some of the tissues and wipe off as much water as you can from your jacket, and face. 

Then, you push the box to Connor. He nods, then methodically wipes off as much water as he can. The peace offering was taken, so the silence was less thick this time. 

“What can we get for you, man?” You give a tight smile to the waiter, telling him you’d like a warm cup of coffee. He tells you the coffee here is shit. Connor knows he isn’t lying— the reviews didn’t exactly hold back on them regarding that. 

“Shitty coffee is exactly what I need,” sarcasm drips from your words. You add on a sandwich with a side of fries and the waiter goes off to fulfill your order. Another bout of silence. 

“Is the case keeping you awake?” Connor takes in the micro-expressions on your face. The twitch in your cheek, the tension between your brows, and when you brush your tongue over your lips his eyelids flutter. 

“It’s frustrating. I know. But you’re one of the youngest detectives in our precinct for a reason, your record’s impeccable.” You know he’s telling the truth, and using it as a way to comfort you. It was sweet, and you resist the urge to grin his way and say ‘thanks’ like some bright-eyed idiot. 

“It’s not just that, Connor,” you knead at the nape of your neck. Barely straightening up when your shitty coffee arrives in a white mug. The smell and warmth loosens your shoulders, and even when you grimace as you take a gulp the comforting heat that travels through you further eases the tension from you. 

You dismiss his reassurance. He takes note of it, but doesn’t push. Connor slides the sugar your way and you squint your eyes up at him as your cheeks barely lift to give him a pursed-lip smile. You were exhausted. It’s like the walk from the car to the diner sapped everything out of you. 

“The victim’s mom…God, she was…”

Connor knows. He saw her rush to you with tears streaming down her face as she begged for answers that you didn’t have. Her daughter was in a coma from an attack, her stitches fresh and bruises discolouring her skin— it would cause any parent distress. 

“It’s been days of nothing. No trails, no motive, we have a shitty CCTV clip of him running out the door but then what? We owe it to her to find answers for her daughter.”

”I know, and we will bring him to justice. But, detective,” Connor’s voice turns severe as he searches for your gaze. “It does no one no good if you’re sleep deprived. I need my partner to solve this case, so I need you to be 100%”

You scoff, ignoring the clink of the plate of food being put down your table as your sandwich arrives. It’s suspiciously room temperature while the plate is warm, and the fries are a little limp but you just stare down at your coffee. 

“You don’t exactly need me. I can barely think.”

”Yes, that tends to happen when someone experiences sleep deprivation.” 

You curl your nose at him, and he just gestures to your plate of food. You take a few bites and with each of them your face twists into further confusion. Eventually, you settle on eating your fries, something Connor thought was the safest option. He tries not to stare at you too much, occasionally looking out the window and noticing the Raindrop Race as most people do during a storm. 

There that puppy is again. Your eyes soften, and you grumble with your mouth still full of food. ”Sorry for being a dick.” 

Connor just chuckles. 

“Sorry, but Detective Anderson’s got you beat there. I didn’t even notice you were being a dick.”

Connor can’t drive. Something they were still pending on regarding androids driving personal vehicles. It was dumb, if androids were allowed to commandeer buses and aeroplanes then why couldn’t they drive their own cars? 

He’s not happy with you buckling into the driver’s seat. But the shitty coffee wasn’t worth a refill and you were in no mood to order anything else. 

“You should rest before you get behind the wheel, detective.”

You look over your shoulder and sigh. “There’s a motel, but I’m not shelling out 40 bucks for a 3-hour nap. I’ll be—“ you yawn, and you try to speak through the yawn “—fineee. I just had a coffee anyway. It’ll kick in.”

When you reach for the gear, he places a hand over yours. You’re always a bit surprised at how skin-like his touch was. You’d seen him exchange information with other androids before, how the flesh just smooths away to reveal that pure-white shell. You didn’t hate it though. He felt nicer than the cup of coffee. The weight of him, the feeling of the lines on his palms. Artificial or not— it was still Connor.

He narrows his eyes. His head tilts. Connor leans in, and you don’t lean away. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, detective. Do I make you nervous?”

”E-excuse me?” Your grip loosens, but Connor keeps your hand pinned beneath his. It was effortless; naturally, what with him being made of some sort of metal. 

“Your heart rate rises, you get clammy palms, but your pupils they,” he trails off as he catches your gaze with his own. Curiosity was so clearly written across Connor’s face, you felt like he was attempting to read you— as though you were some case file that he wanted to pour hours of attentiveness into. A steel-trap resolve to understand you more, to know your motives and intentions and grasp you in his arms. 

If you were a criminal, maybe you’d feel much more frightened. 

You tried to mask your expression, twisting your mouth into a frown.

”My pupils…what?”

”They…expand.” Connor tilts his head, then his mouth parts like he came to a stunningly miraculous conclusion. 

“Detective, do you perhaps have an infatuation towards me?” 

The radio plays a jaunty tune from decades ago, and the rain doesn’t lighten up the slightest. You don’t say anything. Stunned at your own stupidity for thinking Connor out of all people wouldn’t have noticed— the guy read your heart rate for fucks sake!

You try to slip your hand away from him, but he carefully cinches his fingers around your wrist. 

“Connor,” you warn. Your voice coloured with embarrassment. 

“Please, I’d like to know,” he sounded sincere. You wondered if he was morbidly curious about it. It wasn’t that humans falling in love with androids were anything new, there were plenty of cases. 

“I…shit, maybe I do have an infatuation with you, okay? It’s not like there’s a lot of options at our precinct,” you grumble as you finally slip your hand away from him. You place your hands on the steering wheel, but make no move to actually drive. 

Connor’s lower lip almost juts out as he processes what you said. Then the corners of his mouth curl up, and he faces his knees your way again. 

“You had a process of elimination to determine who’d be your precinct eye candy, detective?”

Your ears nearly turned red at the teasing tone he takes. You narrow your eyes at him, cursing for him to shut up as you reach for the gear again. But again, Connor’s hand grasps yours. 

“Are you trying to fuck with me or something, Connor?” 

“…I could if it’d help you rest.”

”What?”

Connor offers that gentle smile again, then glances down at your hand in his. He smooths the pad of his thumb over your jutting knuckles, and he feels the rush of blood on the protruding vein. 

“Orgasms are known to help with sleep.”

Your jaw drops. 

“My model doesn’t have functioning genitalia, but I can still provide—“  He flutters his lashes when you slap a hand over his mouth. Your brows are furrowed as you try to find the words. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is the offer offensive to you, detective?” Connor’s voice is muffled from behind your hand but he continues.”I just assumed that it would…my apologies.”

”I didn’t even know you could talk about those sorts of things…” You said in a breathless voice, stuck between feeling appalled and amused at the absurdity of it all. He tilts his head and you unmask his mouth, retreating into your seat again as you try to process his words. 

“I am…” he searches for the word, and you watch as he thinks. “Fond of you, detective.” Fond wasn’t a common word in these modern scenarios, and you’re unsure what he means exactly by it but you allow him to continue. 

“And I would rather you be well-rested than not. I can help…if you’d like me to.” You try to find any trace of bullshit on his face. You find none.

”Christ, you do this for every partner you have?”  Connor’s face twists into genuine disgust at your lacklustre joke. “Please don’t even imply that with my relationship with Detective Anderson.” 

You grimace, and apologize as you knead at the back of your neck once again. 

“Do you even know how to—“ Connor smirks at you when you ask. You shut your mouth and scoff. Of course, even if he didn’t know now…he could learn how with a few blinks.

”Show off.”

”We all have our flaws.”

”Shit, am I really going to spend 40 bucks for a nap and a lay?” You reach again for the gear and Connor’s had it. He reaches for your chin, pinching it between his thumb and pointer finger and he forces you to look at him. 

“Visibility’s low with the rain, detective. This diner isn’t well-liked. Your window tint provides enough cover as is. You can rest in the backseat.”

“Holy shit,” you utter. A lazy roll of heat crawls down your spine at his assertiveness. You’d never seen it aimed your way before— maybe a few times towards Hank, and a few interrogations as well. But never at you. You gulped thickly, then nodded. 

“Okay.”

You’re both sitting side-by-side in the backseat. The rush of cold that flooded in from opening the car doors causes you to shiver, so Connor slides his hands into yours. He raise his body temperature and you sigh in relief. You turn when he gets closer and when your nose brushes against his own he pauses. 

You’re wide-eyed. So unlike the detective he’s known. It’s adorable. Connor reaches and cups your cheek in his warm palm. Your breath stutters when he ghosts his fingers over the curve of your cold ears. 

“May I kiss you, detective? Studies show that foreplay can lead to a more pleasurable—“ You press your lips together. His eyes widen a bit, but he then adjusts to accommodate. 

It’s unfair how good he is at kissing if this was his first kiss. You frown, and pull away as the thought crosses your mind. 

“Is this your first kiss?”

”Yes.” 

Connor pulls you in again and you gasp. He doesn’t slip his eyes closed. He didn’t want to— though he knows it's what was expected. Connor was curious, and he wanted to make sure you were enjoying yourself. His attentive, thorough, partner deserved the same dedication in the bedroom. Connor could keep watch while he read through the case files, it wouldn’t be any less productive. 

You made a sweet noise when he experimentally bit down on your lower lip. He slips his hands into your jacket and slips it off your shoulders. His warm touch causes goose flesh to ripple under your clothes. Your flesh is so soft— he’s always marvelling at how soft humans are. So plush, and so fragile. 

You flutter your eyes open when he trails his kisses down your chin, to your jaw, and after a sweet kiss under your jaw he descends to your neck. You crinkle his coat when he traces his tongue on your pulse. 

“Your neck is sensitive,” he notes in a whisper. You slip his coat off next, your fingers crawling up to his nape and feeling the scratchy texture of his ‘shaved’ hairs. He grasps at your waist and you groan his name.

It stokes something within Connor. 

“Am I doing good, detective?” You nod wordlessly against the junction of his neck and shoulder. Your body is louder than you are— rising heart rate, the flushed ears, the perspiration on your skin— and he finds himself a bit upset at it.

He calls out your name, and you turn your head to look at him questioningly. 

“I…” Connor pauses for a second. This word always felt foreign for Connor, but he should say what he means if he wanted this interaction to go well. Studies had shown open communication during intimate acts proved more positive results, and he didn’t want the foundation of trust and infatuation between you to become shaky. 

So he continues. 

“I need to know if I’m making you feel good.”

You press a kiss to his cheek, then to his lips as you nod again. 

“You’re making me feel really nice, Connor. Your hands are so warm, and as annoying as it is you’re a real good kisser.”

Connor preens inwardly, and his grip on your waist turns more confident. 

“I’m sorry for being a good kisser,” he teases. You chuckle, brushing your teeth over his neck as you undo his tie. There was something fun about unwrapping Connor from his usually perfect shell. You can’t deny the rush it gave you, and he returns the eager sentiment as he unbuttons your top. 

You shoulder it off and he presses his kisses there too. His warm hands touch your bare torso and when it reaches your pebbling nipple, you bite down gently on his neck. Connor chuckles, tilting his head down at you as he nips at your collarbones. 

“You might break your teeth if you try any harder.” 

“Worth it.”

”Absolutely not.”

You feel his hands reach to unzip your jeans and when he does, he pats your outer thigh. You look at him, panting while he motions for you to lay down. The second you do, he descends onto you like a heated and weighted blanket. A very handsome one. 

Your eyelids go a bit heavy and Connor relishes at the signs of success. You shimmy out of your jeans, Connor helps. 

You’re now in your underwear and Connor zeroes in at the darkening spot on it. You curse, telling him not to stare but he remains fixated on it. 

“You’re aroused. Very aroused.” 

”I’m very aware, Connor,” you reply dryly. 

He braces himself on his elbows, kissing you again and you’re struggling to keep up. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, his loosened tie dragging across your torso as his tongue battles for dominance. He reaches to place a palm against the window when he feels the seat under him giving away under his hand. It leaves a print, thanks to the panting you’re doing and him raising his body temperature. 

You inhaled sharply when that same hand sneaks down your sides. Connor watches you as your brows furrow, your jaw loose as every little noise excites him more and more. 

“Does this feel good?”

He slips his hands in your underwear and you flutter your eyes open. 

Connor’s eyes are hungry for your praise. 

“Touch me more, Connor. Please.”

He finds your slicked hole. You moan as he presses his fingers on your cock, and begins to rub you off. You stretch your back, tossing your head back as your hips ground on the seats. He’s entranced by it— by you. 

“Fuuuck, that feels good.”

”Forgive me, I didn’t think to ask what terms you’d like to use for your—“ Connor is cut off by your wanton groan. “Dick, cock, cunt,” you mutter against his lips before sneaking your tongue into his mouth again. He finally slips his eyes closed this time, focusing on your cock as he swallows your moans. 

“You’re too tense,” Connor tells you as he grasps the back of your neck. The car’s swaying slightly with the movement, and you mewl when he slides two fingers down to your cunt. 

“I was going to cum,” you pant out. Connor narrows his eyes at you. 

“Liar.”

He slides his fingers into you and you cover your mouth, thighs trying to snap shut around his hand if it weren’t for him quickly slipping out again. 

“Hm,” Connor peels away from you and you’re left a bit confused until he’s maneuvering your body around like a puppet master. You find yourself on his lap and he’s gazing up at you as your underwear is looped around your left thigh. You looked like a desperate slut— your button up still sleeved on your arms, your badge swaying between your bodies as your underwear’s rolled down, while your boots are still on. 

But Connor? 

With his loose tie and tousled brown hair. Pants still intact, and despite the crumpled shirt; he looked much more composed.

He holds your police badge, and then pulls you down for a kiss. Your bare cunts on his lap and he spreads your ass apart causing you to lift up. 

“You need to relax,” he whispers to your skin. “I can assure you that there’s no one here, just us. No one can see us.”

”This…This is still illegal I think,” you laugh at it. Connor gives you a pointed look, groaning a bit as you giggle about it. 

“Must you remind me?” Connor nearly grumbles. You press another kiss to his cheek, then to the tail of his eyebrows. 

“My bad, Mr Goody Two Shoes— Ah! Fuh—Fuck!”

He’s slipped two fingers in again, and you barely give any resistance to it. He presses a kiss to your shoulder, glancing out the window to ensure no one else can this— see you. So exposed on his lap, dishevelled and shivering in pleasure.

He presses a hand to the small of your back and it forces you to arch it further. He pumps his digits in and out of you. A slow pace that has you bunching his shirt in your fists as you mewl on top of him. He curls his fingers and you moan out his name.

That lick of fire within him grows bigger. You’re sweating now, and he strokes up your spine to impede the race your droplets of sweat were in. Connor takes your nipple in his mouth and you brace a hand on the roof of your car. 

You tighten around him, hips jerking and brushing your dripping dick onto the front of his pants. Marking him with your slick. 

“You’re— You’re making me— I’m going to—“

Connor looks up at you through his lashes, his expression puppy-like and you cum around his fingers. 

He releases your nipple with a lewd ‘pwah’ and reluctantly snaps the string of saliva that connects him to you with a sweep of his tongue. You try to catch your breath, swaying slightly as the aftershocks of your orgasm lazily wash over you. 

You fall forward into him and Connor wraps his arms around you, smiling a bit as he feels your breathing slowing down until you’re limp across him. 

He darts his eyes to his fingers, spreading two of them apart and admiring the traces of you still there. Connor brings them to his lips and into his mouth. 

“nothing,” you repeat quietly, and you both know it’s a white lie, yet he still holds you, even dips his hand underwater to pull up your thigh against his.

“you don’t mean that.” callahan inches forward, meeting your lips as he grumbles, “you’ve never been genuine in your life.”

you taste the faint traces of an unnameable alcohol on his lips, darted out your tongue to wet his bottom lip, and he reciprocated by nipping at the corner of your lips. callahan’s hand sweeps over your back, sliding his fingers downwards. the water slows his movement enough that you don’t notice until he prods a finger at the muscle.

“water isn’t too great.” he mumbles under his breath, pushing against the resistance until your body lets him in.

he’s impatient, evidently so as he slips a second finger in, curling against tight walls to coax them looser. your small gasps wisp past his ears, and he feels himself twitch. he pulls his fingers out and replaces it with the tip of his cock, rubbing the head along the curve of your ass before nestling it against the hole.

“don’t try to move if you’re tired.” being considerate, maybe.

he pushes in with a bit of encouragement from his hips, sliding home as he fills you, tip pressing just below your prostate. you’re already groaning, breath hitching, walls fluttering and squeezing against his girth.

“you can handle yourself better,” he groans, pushing that little bit upwards until he hits that spongey part. you keen, head now fully planted on his shoulders and your fingers rake faint dents into the muscle. you muster out a curse, only for callahan to promptly shut you up by rolling his hips upwards.

water threatens to spill over even more now as he grinds slowly, pushing his tip against that sweet spot of yours. he grips the curve of your ass roughly, spreading you so he could fuck up a smidge easier. your dick rubs against his pelvis from the proximity, his dark hairs that trail from his navel downwards add a delicate friction to the underside of your cock.

“f—fuck,” you punch out, dick leaking against callahan’s happy trail.

you tilt your pelvis to grind into the coarse hairs while the detective chases that movement with his hips. callahan burrows himself as deep as he could, gripping your body and pushing you down against him as he spurts cum into you in stuttered pulses.

you whine against him, not like you could really fight back since he’s got an arm around your back and his hand grips your nape, effectively holding you down against him. the pressure of your body and his pressing down on your cock short-circuits your brain, and you’re suddenly leaking cum all over callahan stomach.

“no point in taking a bath now,” callahan exhaled through his nose, “‘right, gotta drain the tub and hop in the shower.”

he catches a glimpse of your face that expects more and more of him in the corner of his eye, and he pushes you away with a palm against your cheek.