CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Skallagrim

Ialways thought I’d have more time.

The phrase felt oddly familiar as my chattering mind threw it against the dome of my skull.

I always thought I’d have more time.

More time before I starburned.

More time to make Suvi love me.

Well, there was no blasted time left now. The starburn had already begun. A hot magma creep along my spine that had made me feel like if I just rutted against my mate hardenough then I could spew that venomous heat right out of me.

It hadn’t worked. Of course it hadn’t.

I hurled myself into the bathtub, claws shaking as I wrenched the tap to the side. Frigid water poured into the tub, and I got onto my weakened knees, angling myself so that the icy torrent flowed directly over my viciously engorged cocks.

I hissed haltingly, screwing my eye shut as the water sluiced, liquid torture. But it was better than that heat. The heat that even now felt like it was stretching my very cells until they split.

Water pooled around my knees, then rose to my thighs, until my hips were submerged in the freezing stuff. The tub would overflow soon. Gritting my fangs, I turned off the water. Then I waited.

Waited... For what, I was not sure. The agony to end, I supposed.

But it couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Not until Suvi starburned and accepted me into her sucking depths.

Skies take me, I couldn’t stop picturing it. It was as if some cruel artist had painted it on the back of my eyelid, so that even when I closed my eye, chasing escape, all I saw was Suvi ripe and glistening, splayed beneath me, begging for my knot.

The image was so close to the reality I’d just experienced in the bed with her. She’d been so perfect, wet and wanting beneath me, that I’d had to get away from her. Had to put space between us – not just space, but a door. Though the river knew how flimsy a thing a wooden door would be under the hammer blows of my lust.

Groaning, I let my hips twitch forward. Even the cold motion of water along my cocks was too much to bear. My larger, lower cock seemed to be more effected than the other, and when I cautiously probed the fiery shaft, I jolted in shock at the foreign shape I felt there.

I stood, sending water rushing against the sides of the bath. Fingers clenched at my sides, my lungs bellowing with breath, I stared down at myself.

My smaller upper cock looked much as it ever did, though more painfully engorged than usual. But my larger one...

My larger one looked like someone had shoved their fist inside it.

Halfway down the ridged green shaft was a bulbous, pulsing mass. When I grazed my claws over the bulge, my spine nearly snapped itself in half. I couldn’t think of any sensation to compare it to. The closest thing, perhaps, was that it felt like touching the exposed nerve on a broken fang, at least in terms of how sensitive the flesh was. But though it was painful, pain wasn’t the only, or even the most important feeling.

Because chasing the pain was furious, feral need. Need like fire, like acid, like...

Like the hungry heat of a star.

Now I know why they call it starburning.

I collapsed back into the cold water, misery clawing its way through my veins. There would be no relief from this until Suvi could take my knot. And she wouldn’t be able to do that until she starburned.

But perhaps there was some hope. Maybe Suvi was already going into heat as well, her body spurred on by the pleasure we’d just shared. I stilled myself, holding my breath and straining my ears.

But I heard nothing besides the soft padding of Suvi’s feet across the floor, then the sound of her getting into bed. Nothing to indicate she starburned on the other side of that door.

Blast!

I let out my breath in a raging snarl, leaning back against the tub and gripping its sides so hard the metal warped under my fingers. No, she was certainly not in heat. If she were, I would hear her. Hear her panting, moaning. Hear her dragging herself to the door. She’d collapse against it, the musk of her heat penetrating through the wood. She’d place her little hand against that barrier and whimper for me. She would weep my name. Skalla. Skalla. Skalla!

I could practically hear it, her voice strained by the starburn. She would beg for me and only me.

And oh, how I would soothe her. How I would care for my little burning mate as only I could. I’d rut her, slow, and then fast, fast and ferocious. Maybe from behind, letting my upper cock slide against her sensitive nub while my other speared her. And then, when neither of us could stand it anymore, when we were both coming, coming, coming completely undone, I’d knot her. Sink my new, hot bulge so deep that she would forget what it was like to breathe without me in her.

And then, the moment she was ready, I would do it all over again.

I fisted my knot, shuddering at that ragged sensitivity, but I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. I needed something. I stroked and squeezed, knowing that my fingers would be nothing compared to Suvi’s cunt but also knowing I had no other options at the moment. The knot throbbed under my touch. There was no sensual pleasure in this. This was merely a terrible necessity, the clutching motion of my hand mindless and mechanical as I hunched over myself.

When I came, it was not from the cock I squeezed. It was my smaller, upper cock that spewed. My knot throbbed, that entire lower shaft straining with a new rush of blood. But there was no relief. No eruption of seed. No easing of the knot.

The starburn will not last forever.

The knot would remain after this, but it would not always hurt so.

But for now, while the starburn was upon me, I grimly resigned myself to the fact that I would not be able to come from this cock until it was inside Suvi.

How long would it take for her to descend into this torment with me? For her to submit to the fated heat that would bind us? Stone of the skies, I hoped it would be soon.

I hated myself for wanting to bring about anything that might make her suffer. It was a selfish thing, to long for the moment when she’d burn, too.

But in my agony, I was weak.

And so, weak male that I was, I remained alone in the frigid water, tugging my knot again and again. Even though I knew it would not do a single, wretched thing to help.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Suvi

Iwoke up to morning sunlight falling over me in such blissfully thick waves that I thought Skalla was beside me, his body heat accounting for at least some of that warmth.

My first sleepy reaction was happiness that he was there. Comfort. Relief. I had the slight tickle of a feeling that I should be annoyed, and with my eyes still luxuriously closed, I thought back to last night and remembered why.

So, I suppose he decided to come to bed after all. After I fixed it all by myself, that is.

I opened my eyes, fully expecting to see the broad, starry expanse of his wing tossed over me and his face still in sleep, hair mussed.

But he wasn’t there.

The languid comfort I’d been basking in vanished. I sat up, confusion turning to concern when I didn’t see Skalla anywhere.

The bathroom door was still closed.

I bolted out of the bed.

I should have checked on him last night! I was too annoyed, too hurt, and let my pride get in the way. What if something’s happened to him?

I pounded on the door.

There was no answer.