Chapter 4 | Hazel

Chapter 4

Hazel

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I dropped the fabric I'd tied into a makeshift bag for my food on the ground as I stared at the way his scales twinkled in the light of the room, darkening in coloring as they tapered towards the top of his pants. My eyes lingered on the bulge between his legs and my shoulder loh throbbed as my core tightened and bloomed with heat I hadn't felt since the moons of Estreldez warmed my skin. I shook my head in denial at what I was experiencing, because this was what my mother only talked about briefly when she spoke of my father.

"One day you'll meet a male that sends tingles through your back loh, and warms you like only the moons can. This is the start of mating, and I pray that when you feel this, you will not be forced to give it up for anything," she had warned me.

It was a warning, because I had never met my father, and I had spied on the clan often enough to know many never knew who their father was, and our clan did not allow the mothers to keep their spawn. If you were to look after younglings, you were to take the profession of caretaker where all spawn went, to create a sense of duty and shared responsibility among the clan.

I'd often watched the males and wonder which one abandoned my mother. Which one abandoned me.

The stranger said his name, and I repeated it as my loh on my feet burned where I had cut them out in trade for survival. I figured they were less needed than the ones that absorbed more radiation from the moons, but as my whole body reacted to this handsome male, I realized everything was connected, and needing him hurt so much I believed my wounds would reopen and bleed once more.

He hissed and flung his hand out to show me supplies he had gathered before he rushed towards the door. As he passed me, I reached for him, missing by only an inch before I crumbled. I moaned in pain as my feet ached, and he stopped. The door closed just as swiftly as it had opened. His eyes shifted, and a film covered them as he pinpointed exactly where my loh were missing and crouched down to stare at me with dark vibrating orbs.

"Who did this to you?" he asked with a deep rumble.

I whimpered, unable to admit that this was my own doing.

"Forgive me," he whispered as he lifted his robes over his head and gathered me to his bare chest. His scales were surprisingly cool to the touch, but in a soothing, soft way that had me melting into his hold. I was not a small female, and he lifted me with little effort before placing me on the bed.

My hand rubbed along his chest, and I moaned a protest as he withdrew from me.

"I will tend to your wounds," he explained, and I sunk deeper into the cushions of luxury I had forgotten existed while huddled in the streets against a radiation pack.

I watched as he lifted my ankle and rubbed his fingers along my skin, then... licked my wound. I kicked at him before I could comprehend what was happening. It was a pathetic attempt at shoving him away. My muscles felt like gelatin, and my kick wasn't anything more than a small nudge to him that he easily ignored while he continued to massage my feet.

"What are you doing?" I mumbled, my words slurred. I knew my body was attracted to him and wished to make him my mate, but the way his teeth gleamed as he licked my ankle made me doubt his intentions. Was he going to eat me? My mind said maybe, but my loh tingled more as he touched me, and the moan that was working its way through my throat had nothing to do with pain. Shivers traveled between my thighs, and I felt the seam of my mating loh split as a wetness gathered there.

No, no, no, I repeated. I clearly remember him saying that our species weren't compatible, and he had no interest in me that way. I flushed with embarrassment.

"I'm taking your pain away before I clean your wounds and help you heal."

He was right. My pain was completely gone, replaced with a growing need that made me squirm.

"Are you in pain?" he asked, and I bit my lip at the way his eyes were dark and penetrating. He looked like he would tear someone apart if that would make me feel any better, and he was staring at the one responsible. Me. I had sold my loh. I had caused that pain.

But with him, it was gone.

I shook my head.

My tongue loosened its grip on my secrets, "So you aren't going to eat me?" I asked with a breathiness as my ass slid forward, my foot still in his grip as it gently pressed against his chest, and my lower knee opened, revealing myself to him. An estreld's mating loh only opened when we were ready to mate. It didn't confirm that we were compatible beyond pleasuring each other, but my mother was right about one thing. When the feeling comes, you don't want to let it go.

Would he touch me? He was kind and gentle, and I wanted him to, but I knew this might not be anything more than my body yearning for a bit of kindness after so long of being denied. Would he deny me this?

It seemed likely, just another loss in the mountain of trials.

The scales on his head flared and a mist covered us that made my skin heat as he trailed his tongue up the side of my foot.

His hands were still holding my leg, and I gasped as the sensitive loh at my center pulsed at the smallest of his touches on the side of my leg.

"Tell me what you need," he cooed with a forked tongue licking over his lip.

I needed to feel something, anything and everything that I've been denied for so long, even before I was taken from my home.

Mewling, I wiggled my hips against what I now realized was his tail as it parted my mating loh with careful precision. His eyes were black with what I hoped was a similar need building within him, as his tail grew slick, the more I rubbed against the ridges of his scales. The tip of him pressed in, making me gasp as the girth stretched me as he pushed deeper.

Gripping his tail with my hand, I stared at him as he watched, waiting to see what I would do. My core throbbed around him, and his movement stilled as I held him within me. Quick breaths rasped from my lips as I searched his expression for any signs that I affected him as much as he affected me. His scales fluttered along the ridges of his temple, down his head, matching my heaving chest as I gently squeezed his tail and slowly pulled him out to the tip and then thrust him back in with a moan.

He hissed as his eyes darkened with what I hoped was need, but he did not take control, allowing me to do what I wished with him. A smirk played on his lips as I moved him with deliberate strokes within me until my thighs clenched at the sensation of something fluttering within me. The scales along his tail and around my hand expanded, moving like many little touches, filling and stimulating. My hand had stopped working him within me, and his tail nudged within my grasp, begging me to finish what I started.

My loh jewels glowed, warming in agreement, and I ground my hips up in time with his tail as his fingers trailed along my leg in soothing caresses. His three large fingers reached my hold on his tail, covering my fingers as he helped me thrust in and out in a delicious rhythm.

"That's it. Take what you want," he encouraged. Like setting off the collapse of a star—his deep voice shattered my world as I clamped around his tail and screamed.

A glow erupted in the room from my loh, and I squeezed my fist around his tail so tight I thought I might sever it from the source. My lips throbbed as I ebbed from the flow of pleasure, and he eased his tail from my needy flesh. With a twisted grin, he flicked one last teasing touch to my sensitive mating loh, eliciting a mewl from my throat.

He brought his tail up to his mouth and ran his forked tongue along the length, tasting my pleasure before he groaned with restraint. "What have you done to me, Treasure?"

The reality of what I had just done made me flush with renewed heat. What must he think of me? I was too embarrassed to speak, but then he simply rubbed my legs, and I groaned at how lovely it felt. He took a cloth from beside us and dipped it in the basin of water with his tail, then began slowly washing me with tender strokes.

Salve was placed on my damaged loh at my feet, and as he adjusted his hold on me to have my head in his lap, he used his claws to remove the knots from my matted hair and brushed through the uneven strands as he cleaned.

He continued to stroke my head, and by the time he finished an ache built in my chest that tore me apart. My lower lip trembled, and moisture dripped down my cheeks as my heart clenched over and over at the tender care he applied to my broken soul.