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Elias comes just after I do, driving deep and exploding in me with a wash of heat that makes my belly flutter and my body go lax against his.

25

Elias

Floating aimlessly with Nora in my arms, I’m filled with a sense of soul-deep peace.

I’m still lodged deeply inside of her, and every so often I feel her spasm and grip around me in waves of pleasure that draw little moans and sighs from my siren. She’s tucked against my chest, still held firmly in my tentacles, and as the haze of lust recedes, I’m struck by how very right this feels.

She was magnificent.Wewere magnificent, together. I knew we would be, never doubted for a single moment that joining my body with hers could be anything less than a gods-blessed miracle, but nothing could have prepared me for the emotions that would follow.

Nora fills me up from the soul outwards. Her body, her mind, her sweet spirit.

She was always meant to be mine.

If I believed it before, it’s branded on me now. In my blood and bones, weaving itself into the fabric of everything I’ve ever been or will be.

When I finally ease out of her, she gasps a little at the feeling of release, and then her face goes crimson.

“What is it?” I ask, stroking a hand over her wet hair. “Are you sore?”

“No,” she says quickly. “I just… we didn’t talk about, uh, birth control or anything. Before we started. I mean, I’m already on the pill, so it should be fine, but… I just…”

She’s adorable when she’s tongue-tied, but I take mercy on her by squeezing her tight and taking her chin in my hand to tilt her face up toward mine.

“I can’t get you pregnant, Nora.”

Her face falls a little, and I’m not sure what to make of that, but I quickly elaborate.

“At least not right now. My kind, krakens, go into a heat of sorts when we’re ready to mate with our partners.”

“Oh.” Her brow furrows, clearly confused. “And what happens during this… heat?”

I chuckle. “What you might expect. A frenzy, of sorts, driven by the biological need to reproduce.”

At the wordfrenzy, she shivers a little against me. “And then you’d… get me pregnant?”

Yes, the kraken’s voice inside me croons.Yes, I would, my mate. I’d fill you so completely there would never be any doubt who you belong to.

“Not necessarily,” I say instead, beating back the unreasonable beast. “There are precautions we could take to make sure that doesn’t happen if it wasn’t something you wanted. There’s no pressure for you to ever take an egg from me.”

Her head snaps up. “Hold up. That’s going to need some more explanation. Anegg?”

Tightening my grip on her waist, I brush a tentacle over the swollen heat of her cunt and delight in the way she bucks her hips instinctively to meet my touch.

“When I’m in heat. I’ll create eggs I can pass to you. Sex during a heat, sex meant for breeding, is a bit… different. More intense. I’d secrete a chemical that would make it possible for you to accept an egg and carry it to term.”

Nora shivers again, though I don’t think it’s out of fear as her bright eyes meet mine. “So would it just be like… a replica of you? If it’s your egg?”

That she doesn’t immediately reject the idea, that she’s not disgusted and pushing herself away from me and getting the hell out of the pool, is all the encouragement I need to lean in and capture her lips for an adoring kiss. When I pull back, she keeps her arms around me, smiles up at me, and for a moment that beautiful, impossible future we might have stretches out in front of me.

“It would be a part of you, too, little siren. Don’t ask me to explain how the biology or magick of it works, but our child would get just as much from you as they would from me.”

I imagine a little kraken girl with my black hair and Nora’s incredible eyes, who might inherit my own youthful proclivity for mischief and make us both old and gray before our time. Or perhaps a little boy with soft brown hair and sea-blue eyes who’d be every bit as sensitive and thoughtful as my mate.

Nora remains silent for a minute, contemplating what I’ve told her, then reaches up to cup my cheek in her palm. “Is that something you’d want one day? Kids? A family?”

“I would.”