Logic and will died that night. Died under the roiling realization that my mate was scared, that she was empty, that only my knot could fill her.

I lined up my large cock, losing what was left of my shredded mind at the feeling of her wetness coating my agonized tip.

Then I pushed inside.

The molten silk of Suvi’s body was beyond comprehension. A blistering miracle against me, around me. I moved, stroking powerfully inside her, my knot licking greedily against her folds, seeking entrance with each thrust.

Suvi’s mouth stretched in a soundless scream, her back bowing right off the bed. My knot was not inside her, not yet, but already she was coming again, her orgasming channel sucking at me, body begging.

There was no way to make this last. To draw it out. To be gentle or thorough or slow. The starburn needed what it needed and it took what it took.

From both of us.

As Suvi moaned and clenched, I pressed my knot against her, hard. There was some resistance – the knot was so much thicker than the rest of my shaft – but now she was begging, little pants of please, please, please, and the black ball of tentacles that was my brain told me to knot my mate so I did.

Swallowing a roar and bracing my hands on the mattress on either side of my mate’s heaving chest, I shoved against the resistance, every nerve fraying with the spine-bending sensation of having my knot almost, almost, almost inside her.

For a long, miserable moment, it seemed as if she would not admit me.

But then, all at once, with the wet popping sound of a stone being sucked into a mouth, Suvi took me. All of me.

My upper cock ejaculated instantly, its shaft jerking against her soft thatch of hair, spraying jets of fluid all over her abdomen and breasts. My knot swelled further inside the constricting tunnel of her cunt, something I had not known was possible. It surged with hot agony, twitching and pulsing like a creature of its own, some wretched, living thing I had neglected to feed until now.

Suvi didn’t make a single sound. She merely squeezed my braced forearms and stared at me, her eyes as round as moons and fixed on my face.

I did not ask her if it hurt. I was not even capable of that. And even if I had been, there was no way I could have ripped myself away now. Suvi clenched, dragging my roiling knot one tiny notch forward. Then her body clamped down so hard that she locked me entirely into place – a place deep inside that felt as if it had been moulded just for me.

She threw her head back, white throat bared, and came for a third time. Seeing her so lost to me, lost while I was inside her, sent my upper cock shooting yet more fluid across her skin. My claws sank into the mattress as I stared down at the sublime waves and valleys of my mate’s luscious body, a body soaked with my seed and stretching around my knot so perfectly that it was like a dream, a dream so vivid that someone could peel it right out of me. Pin it like a tapestry to a wall with a knife.

I had her now.

I loved her and I wanted her and I needed her and finally, finally, thank the cursed river, I had her. I had her beneath me, coming on my knot, commanding me and submissive to me all at once, so beautiful she broke my stone sky heart.

How absurdly and undeservedly lucky I was.

To have a little star like that fall down upon me.

To have her love me.

I could not move anymore, my knot as clutched by Suvi’s depths as it was. But I did not need to grind and rut her now. Release was coming. I could feel it, beginning with a throbbing warmth at the base of my tail, spreading into my groin, turning to prickling embers. My upper cock spasmed again, or maybe it had never stopped. Without warning my lower cock felt suddenly hotter. My knot gave one great, bruising throb, then burst.

Suvi gasped, digging her blunt claws against my scales, as I soaked the deepest parts of her over and over again.

It felt like I was bleeding out inside her. Like the very core of my being had liquified and was now surging entirely into my mate.

I was giving her everything.

I was coming home.

I could no longer tell what was her body and what was mine. The sensation was beyond pleasure, beyond climax, beyond anything I’d ever known, and it ripped me apart, broke me down, shattered me until the only thing holding me together was Suvi’s cunt tight on my cock and her hands upon my scales.

Time flowed around us like a river but we did not flow with it. The moment was endless. My seed was endless. My knot eternally swollen and seeming permanently fixed inside my mate, I came and came, spilled myself into her for hundreds of heartbeats until it truly felt as if my heart would beat no more. And that would be alright, I decided. Everything would be alright so long as I was with her.

But my heart kept on beating. My cocks kept on spewing, but more slowly now. Bit by bit, I became aware of things other than the life-ending ecstasy of Suvi locked around my knot. I noted the way I breathed so hard it scraped my throat raw. I felt the shaking tension in my arms as I kept myself from giving into the dangerous, physical urge to crush my heavy body down on top of hers. I felt the trembling caress of her fingers along my arms, heard her sated moans. Saw the fresh tears on her face.

Something must have blackened in my expression, because she drowsily shook her head.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered, and oh, how those words were like a balm upon my scales. Despite her lack of pain, though, she began to cry more intensely, her body shuddering with the force of it, making her tug and vibrate around my cock. I eased onto my elbows, sending the tips of my tongue along her cheeks, her jaw, tasting the tears and wiping them away. Soon, she’d calmed. She wrapped her little arms around my neck, nuzzling into me.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said again, sounding sedated. “I’m yours. And it doesn’t hurt one bit.”

She shifted her hips against mine, humming serenely at the feeling of my knot still in her.

Then she yawned against my throat and fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Suvi

Iwoke to the feeling of something very important being pulled gently from within my body. I moaned in groggy complaint at the sudden emptiness, and a resonant voice that I recognized rumbled soothingly. Something cool and damp began stroking at my face, and after it passed down to my neck I cracked open my eyes to find Skalla on his knees on the floor beside the bed. He was stroking me with a damp cloth, periodically pausing to dip it into a small basin of water before resuming again.

I didn’t need to remember the heat, the starburn. I was still in it. When Skalla passed the cloth over my breasts, making my nipples harden, the fever peaked once more inside me. Instantly, I spread my legs and moaned again, a wordless plea, and I grabbed his arm and pulled him roughly towards me. Before now, I would have been horrified to act so wanton, to need someone else that much.

But there was no self-consciousness, no humiliation now. I didn’t know if it was because of whatever surging starburn hormones were currently at work within me, or if it was simply because this was Skalla. My Skalla. I knew he would take care of me with such confidence that I didn’t even need to ask.

And I was right.

With a heated stare, he abandoned his rag to the basin and then rose over me, towering and beautiful. Desire flared, then turned devastating, like I would die if he didn’t fuck me. He could see it, and no doubt felt the same. His cocks were already jutting and hot, and I whimpered with need at the sight of his knot.