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She smiled up at him. “Better?”

“Don’t stop?” he asked almost sheepishly. He even scratched at the side of his beak, pretending to be bashful!

Gosh! He was like a sexual deviant with a cock that just didn’t. Seem. To empty.

Emerie rolled her eyes. “No more sex.” Instead, she laid back against the bedding and opened her arms out to him. “I would like to cuddle while I sleep. And you are going to promise me that you’ll actually let me this time.”

He let himself fall until he was above her on straightened arms, then licked across her lips. “I promise.”

Then he scooped her into his arms, and rolled to the ground until he was on his side. However, he gripped the back of her thigh to spread her, and not only slotted his knee between her legs, but sheathed his cock inside her pussy.

She gave a surprised, raspy moan at the easy glide and how quickly he fully mounted her.

“H-hey!” she shouted.

“You said no more sex,” he grumbled as he gripped her arse and turned slightly so the knee between her thighs had created a little pocket for the leg she was lying on to fit through. “But I would like to rest with us as one.”

With her head cushioned by his biceps, he switched hands, holding her arse and the crook of her thigh to keep her leg comfortably up. Then he wrapped his other arm around her so she was securely and warmly trapped within his embrace.

“I promised I would let you sleep,” he reminded her. “So nurse and cuddle me as you do.”

Emerie puffed her cheeks out as she pouted, then released them with a huff before tucking herself against his chest. It was a contrast of hardness from his exposed ribs, and plushness from the muscles around them.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she mumbled in mock annoyance.

She passed out as soon as her eyes closed, but her contentment radiated within her dreams.

Standing on the tips of her toes, Emerie was thankful Ingram lowered his raven skull so she could wrap her arms around his neck. She hugged him with all her might as she buried her face against him, taking in the roughness of his scales, the warmth and strength of him, and his wonderful scent of burnt sugar and hickory bark.

She fully took him in... for the last time.

“I don’t want to go.” Ingram grumbled his protest, as he had many times this morning. He wrapped his arm around her waist and dipped forward even more.

“Everyone needs food,” she murmured against him. “It’s better and safer for everyone if more of you go to hunt.”

“I still think bringing the Mavka who cannot control his hunger is a poor decision,” Orpheus stated as he hugged Reia in his arms, who was embracing him just as tightly as he was her. “But she is right. Travelling through the Veil will be safer with all three of us. The Demons are less likely to attack.”

“Will you be okay by yourself, Delora?” Magnar asked as he stroked the back of her dark-brown hair.

“I won’t be alone,” she laughed in response – although Emerie could hear the nervous tremble in her tone. “I’ll be with everyone else.” Magnar let out a disappointed huff, his head turning away, until she added, “But I will miss you.”

His long, fluffy fox tail wagged behind him at that.

“The quicker you leave, the quicker you can come back,” Faunus stated with his hand gripping the side of Mayumi’s waist. One of their children crawled sporadically between them. “Hopefully you return before night falls.”

Emerie finally let Ingram go, and she gave him a warm smile.

He cupped the side of her face and brushed the back of his glossy claw underneath one of her tearing eyes. “Why are you crying, little butterfly?”

“Because goodbyes are hard?” she laughed off, before gesturing to Reia, but more importantly, Delora. “See, even she’s crying.”

And thank fucking goodness for that, otherwise Emerie’s pain would look out of place. Reia’s expression was warm, lacking in tears, but Emerie had already discovered she had a strong personality. She tried to keep her more extreme emotions inside when she could.

That’s how she usually was, or rather, had been before she met Ingram. Who knew it would be a monster that would bring her out of her shell?

“Then don’t say goodbye? I can stay.”

Emerie groaned as she dipped her head back. He was really making this hard.