Chapter 10

Serval

Her fire was doing something to him. Something he did not expect.

Serval fucking wanted her.

Sophie's face had been red, her eyes flashing, her hackles up. She was fierce in anger, passionate and unapologetic and absolutely beautiful. The way she jabbed her finger at him, while not painful, was pointed. She was not happy with him, and she was not afraid to let him know.

It had been a tremendous effort not to grab her and kiss her again as she yelled at him. He wanted to sting her until that rage melted into desire. Until she was all soft against him again.

He didn't. Only because he wasn't sure that their relationship was there yet. He calmed her down first, explained himself, before giving himself leave to snatch her.

His second kiss was as good as the first. Maybe better, because he had an idea of what he was supposed to be doing this time and he could go right to it.

His little human would-be mate had spice in her kiss this time. Either because she was still angry at him a bit, or because she wasn't trying to teach him how to kiss this time so she could be free to enjoy herself, but he felt her blunt little teeth on his lips, and he loved it. He couldn't return the gesture, not with his pointed teeth, but he could grab her by the hair, yanking her head back, so he could thrust his tongue into her mouth and devour her until she was shaking and breathless.

If their first kiss was an intimate hug, this was an intimate battle. One that he fought eagerly as she threaded her fingers into his olules – when had she even yanked them free from their ribbon? He didn't know, he didn't care, because the sensation of her fingers twining through them was going to make him drop to his knees and see where else he could put his mouth.

Sophie broke their kiss first, gasping for air with her inefficient, little human lungs. He didn't stop. He yanked her up, kissing back along her cheek, up to her ear. His olules desperately waving, searching for their partners to twist with in vain.

Sophie made a whimpering sound. One of his olules was there on the verge of her lips. Stinging along the sensitive flesh. She opened her mouth, her tongue emerging. The appendage acted purely on instinct, thrusting past her lips.

She let out a cry even as she closed them, sucking on the olule. The stinging was there on her lips, her tongue, her mouth. His olule undulating within her mouth as her sucking drew it deeper inside while the rest of his olules caressed her face and his tongue swirled within the cute, rounded shell of her ear.

She shivered, moaning. The vibration of it traveled up the olule in her mouth. Burning up the sensitive tentacle, straight to his head, racing down through his spine, burning in his loins.

No…

Wait…

That wasn't the vibration of her moan…

It was…

She was…

Serval yanked his mouth free of her, pulling back. His olules followed. All except the one she kept in her mouth, sucking it, twirling her tongue along it like she had when she kissed him. Kissing his olule like it was his mouth, his cock.

Her beautiful, bright, stormy eyes opened on him, and she sucked again.

Something cracked in his chest. Like lightning striking the surface of the calm ocean, shattering the stillness and heating the air with burning ozone and electricity. The effects were catastrophic, the calm a distant memory, as the reverberation of the strike echoed through him.

His olules all reached for her. Hungry and desperate. His cock throbbed and ached, pressing against the seal of his pants, ovules threatening to rip through the fabric in a desperate desire to reach her. To fuck her. To claim and breed and adore her.

Sophie. His mate. His lov'alel.

She broke the seal of her lips with a pop, letting the olule she captured slide free. It was the one that directly framed his face, her saliva glistening on the tip, showing just how far it had reached towards the back of her throat. Her lips were plump, bright red. She reached for them with a shaking hand – no doubt they were tingling fiercely from the repeated, prolonged sting.

"Serval," she whispered.

"My mate," he breathed, taking her face in both hands. "My sweet mate…. You…"

She blinked at him, not understanding immediately. It took a long moment for realization to dawn in her lust fogged eyes. They widened.

"Really?" She breathed. "That was…?"

He nodded, resting his forehead down on hers. "Can you feel it? The difference?"

She shook her head. "I don't… I don't think so."

"I can." He kissed the tip of her nose. Wanting to adore her. Wanting to devour her. He wanted to defile and love her all at once. It was incredible. The rush of emotion he had for this little creature that was suddenly the center of his universe.

To be triggered by your mate was to have your soul merge with theirs. It was to know, with absolute certainty, that the one who triggered you was your mate. Someone to devote yourself to, who would devote themselves to you in turn.

This wasn't love. That would come in time. This was something far more basic and primal. And with it came the rush of desire and possessive and the deep, instinctive urge to fuck and breed his female, to plug her channel, to flood her womb with his seed, to keep her there as it swam inside her until he knew his rie grew in her belly.

It was all so sudden and strange, and only knowing she wasn't ready for the ferocity of his possession and desire kept him from tackling her to the ground right there. Or dragging her into his pool room to claim her in the water, as was proper.

The sudden itch, the urge, to return to Wav'aii struck him like a blow.

His mate didn't have wii. That was dangerous. She couldn't be healthy if she didn't have wii. And even knowing that, as a human, it wasn't a requirement for her as it was for him, didn't make him feel any better.

His mate needed her wii. He needed to bring her home.