Page 31

Epilogue

Roland

“You’re sure about this?”

“Oh my gosh, for the last time, yes. Yes. It’s been three weeks. I’m not waiting anymore. Plus, we’ve done it once like this already.”

“But I didn’t know then ... and wasn’t ... paying attention ... and things have happened since. I think there’s, like ... it’s gotten bigger,” I huff finally, gesturing down at my pants like an imbecile.

My threat seems to have the opposite effect. Her eyes get big and drop to my crotch. She swallows audibly. Giddily. “Really?”

“That’s not supposed to be an incentive. I could hurt you ...”

“And if you hurt me, we’ll stop ...” The way she’s squirming in her leggings isn’t helping. It isn’t helping at all.

Since I reverted, I’ve noticed strange things about myself. Not strange because they’re new; they’re not. I remember them from my life on Tratharine, but I’m using them in entirely different ways now that I’ve reached full maturity and now that I’m here on Earth with the woman I traveled the cosmos to find.

For example, my enhanced sense of smell. My Tratharine leaders would have expected me to use this power to hunt down prominent humans and crush them ... but I’d rather use it to breathe in the smell of her there . She smells fucking incredible. She squirms even more, standing behind the couch looking at me with too much hope and desire to let down either.

I give her a slow nod. “Come here.”

She sucks in a breath, but her eyes sparkle damn near more brightly than mine. She twists her hands together and takes short steps until she’s standing in front of me in front of the couch. Her hair is a billowy cloud around her face, so many different shades of brown. I learned recently that she dyes it to look like that, and I find the whole damn thing fascinating.

“You’re really pretty,” I whisper as I cup her face. I’ve gotten better at using my hands over these past three weeks. Three weeks of utter fucking chaos after my new makeover.

The SDD and the COE and even the VNA have all demanded interviews and tests—all of which I’ve declined. I don’t need anyone knowing who doesn’t need to know that it wasn’t an accident, or an inevitability, but meeting Nessa that changed my life. Don’t need that heat falling onto her shoulders.

Emily happily kept her data to herself, and Mr. Singkham exchanged his silence for a vow from Emily that she wouldn’t inject him with a cocktail of infections at his next physical. The weapon remains in our possession too. Everyone thought it was a spare helicopter part that Nessa was keeping for sentimental value. No one knew that she could light it on fire with her touch, or that I could either. I could lift it after she unlocked it.

Nessa asked me plenty of questions about it and about my childhood. I shared all the answers with her that I could ... except for the fact that my childhood actually spanned three times as many Earth years on Tratharine as it would have here, subject to this planet’s gravity. But I wasn’t about to tell Nessa that, in Earth years, I’m actually not twenty-nine but over forty. We have enough to work through as is. Including ... how I am physically going to make this work.

Nessa starts to move past me toward the couch, but I stop her, hooking two fingers into the collar of her shirt. “You want to keep this, or should I tear it?”

Her pupils dilate and the smell intensifies, all perfection and salt and sweet, sweet rain. “I’ll take it off.”

“Good girl.”

“Everything?” she whimpers as soon as she’s pulled her T-shirt off over her head. It’s a T-shirt with my monstrous face on it that’s being sold at ridiculous prices by the COE merch shop and that Nessa thinks is hilarious. I’d much prefer it shredded on the floor. Or incinerated.

“Anything you wanna keep. Stop,” I tell her when she’s naked in front of me and turning toward the couch. Her skin is so damn smooth. I don’t know how she got so smooth. Little scars, stretch marks, a little jiggle in her ass and below her belly button. Full tits. All of it so damn ... smooth.

“What?” she says, sounding as vulnerable as she looks, so small now below me.

“Just admiring the angle.”

“What angle?”

My gaze devours her. “All of them.”

She bites her bottom lip, and blood flowers in her skin. Her brown cheeks glitter.

My voice cracks. “Turn to face me. Unbuckle my belt.” The design team has been having a goddamn field day trying to come up with an entirely new uniform—not to mention new clothes—to fit me. These pants I hate less than some of their other ideas, as they are a simple black pant that leaves room for my cock and doesn’t hug too tightly around my thighs and ass and has a slit up the back ankle to make space for the fact that my legs are now shaped like some unholy mix of a devil’s and a werewolf’s. Vanessa doesn’t seem to mind. She’s actually taking this so easily, I worry a little that there’s something deranged about her, but I damn sure am not gonna suggest she fix it. She’s mine. And she’s perfect.

“Fuck,” I hiss. Vanessa’s fingers graze the space between my hip bones as she undoes the button and pulls the zipper down, my cock bulging at the seam.

“Do you want them off?” she asks, completely naked, vulnerable everywhere. For me. Only me.

“Yes,” I growl. “Go slow.”

So slowly I could cry, she drags my pants down my legs. I lift one foot and then the other and let her take them down past my talons until she’s sitting on the edge of the couch right in front of my cock. She licks her lips, and I nearly abandon all restraint and shove my rising erection into the back of her throat until she gags. Nearly.

Half-choked, I grunt, “Kneel on the couch for me.” My hand covering my cock, I exhale deeply. “Want you to see what you’re working with, baby.”

“Okay,” she says, but I can barely hear her, her voice is so strained.

I hesitate to show her. Had myself checked over a dozen times by Dr. Larsen just to make sure everything would be okay. She gave her stamp of approval for Vanessa and I to engage in ... activities, but it’s a lot.

“Do you trust me?” she whispers.

I blink down at her, surprised by the question. “Of course.”

“Then don’t hide from me.” Her hand strokes up my naked hip, palm fitting above the bulging muscle in my thigh. I’m too fucking bulky, too goddamn big for her human shape.

“Don’t know what I did to deserve you. I love you. Remember that when you see it.” I drop my hands.

Her pupils are fully blown as she watches my cock bob toward her face. For a moment, there’s only silence between us, which I take as a win. At least she doesn’t scream.

My cock, which once had brown skin covering a veiny shaft, is now the girth of a goddamn Coke bottle, as long as her forearm and dark red. Veins zigzag down my erection, leading to a purple head that flares at the base before sharpening to a curved tip. And if all that weren’t terrifying enough, in the past three weeks since my reversion has settled, I’ve developed strange bumps all along the underside of my dick, smooth to the touch ... and hard until I come and they ... elongate .

“What are ...” She swallows, her voice breaking as she drags a single finger up the ridges on the underside of my cock.

I stroke my claws back through her hair, wanting to pull her forward but wanting her to find her own way more. “They don’t hurt. The width will ... take some work if you really want me to try ... but it’s what happens after I come that I’m worried about.”

“You’ve been jacking off?”

She sounds almost hurt. I scrape my claws along her scalp and watch as her eyelids flutter blissfully. “For medical reasons. You’ve been jacking off, too, if you haven’t forgotten.”

“Only because you wanted to watch me.”

I grin, showing her a mouth studded in fangs that she doesn’t cower from even a little. “I did. I do. Why don’t you lie back and ...”

“No. I want this.” She licks her lips and strokes my length again with her full fist before I can stop her. Shit, that’s a lie. I don’t try to stop her at all. My head rolls on my neck, and I just fucking enjoy the slow ministrations of her fingertips across my erection, over the weird-as-shit head, back down the even weirder bumps below.

And then that rumbling picks up in my chest, like a mythological dragon’s purr, and her scent grows stronger, and she slams her knees together, and she whimpers around the head of my cock as she feeds it into her mouth, sucking the tip.

“I want you so damn bad, Nessa.” I grab her by the hair and pull her back so that her lips are only just grazing the curved head of my cock. Her eyes flutter, and I wait for her to look up at me. “But you have to know.” My chest is heaving. “When I come, the beads on the bottom will expand and fill you all the way up.”

She chokes, topples onto her hip on the couch, and looks up at me with wide eyes. “Like a knot ?” she blurts.

“I don’t know what that is.”

Her blush could singe even me as she looks away and stutters, “I just ... It’s something ... I read it in a romance ... book ... once. I just ... I’m okay with it.” She’s squeaking again, her back buried between the pillows, her knees up by her chest but awkwardly splayed. She tries to pull them back together, but I reach forward and hold her legs apart. I inhale deep and hold it, the scent of her absolutely fucking mesmerizing. Standing above her, I lower to my knees on the couch between her parted legs and leave my dick bobbing between us. My claws trail lightly down the outsides of her thighs.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she squeaks so high, it’s not even a word, but I’ll take it.

Chuckling, I wrap my dark pink hand around her thin, brown neck. I press up, forming a necklace that covers her throat. I come down on her hard after that, my lips to hers. I nip at first, slow and then faster, encouraged by the sounds she makes. Her back is flush to the couch seats. Her knees are cocked at ninety-degree angles, shoved up by her armpits. She’s so damn flexible. I can bend her into any shape I want.

“Breathe, baby.”

She gasps, but she’s struggling. I drag my hand from her neck to her chest. “Breathe.”

She smiles as she starts to get her breath under control and then starts to laugh. “I should be embarrassed ...”

I shake my head. “What did I tell you about that?”

“I know. I just was going to say ... I’m not.”

“That’s my girl.” I kiss the tip of her nose.

“I’m just not used to this, Rollo.”

“Getting fucked by a guy who looks like the devil who’s about to fill you with his cum? Because, baby, I hate to break it to you, I know that too.”

“Oh my God, yes. But it’s not ... not just that ...” Her breathing’s picked up again, and I have to shush her twice before she can continue. When she does, I plant two small kisses on her lips, pleased that her injuries have fully healed and have only left behind the smallest scars.

“Then what is it?” I exhale against her lips.

“I’m just so in love with you.”

My voice hitches. I can’t wait. I place my massive erection at her entrance and push forward. I need no additional lubrication. She’s a mess already, and the head of my cock slides into her easily. The rest, though, takes work.

We rock against each other for the better part of twenty minutes, groping and pawing at each other. Kissing until my jaw aches and panting until she runs out of breath and we have to stop once, and then again for a longer period.

“I’ve told you before, and I’ll say it again. You’re gonna be the death of me, Nessa,” I breathe against her ear as my cock finally slides home inside of her body. Hip to hip, pubic bone to pubic bone.

Her eyes are fluttering; she’s shaking all the way through. I hold her legs against me, trying to support their weight. She’s simultaneously boneless and crazed. Her nails are scoring my back, heels kicking against my ass every time I thrust into her farther. Her fingers comb through my hair, finding my horns and holding on to them at the roots like if she doesn’t, she’ll fly away.

“Not if I die first.”

“You’re never going to die,” I growl, anger causing the tips of my horns to blaze bright with flame. She releases their base on a giggle. I smile in return, watching the light from my horns as it turns the fan of her hair from medium brown to reddish hues. “I’d light the world ablaze first.”

“Don’t ... do ... that. Just fuck me.”

“I can do that.” I can definitely do that.

My hips pick up speed, and I start to make the swing of my thrusts a little longer. “Oh my God!” she screams, and without warning, her hand reaches above her head to stabilize herself on the arm of the couch, and she comes all over me.

The slick of her cunt feels so good, it’s almost unbearable. “Oh fuck ...”

She’s writhing under me, shouting something about the angle of the ridges or the bumps inside of her and the width of my cock and how she fucking loves the way I feel inside her. And how much she loves me.

“I’m not gonna make it. I’m gonna ...” I come like a goddamn amateur.

“I can feel ... the bumps ...” Her lips are parted in a drunken smile. There’s a faint sheen of sweat covering every inch of her.

I make it my destiny in this moment to lick her body clean, starting with her jaw, her neck, her collar bones. On a feral growl, I pull back and try to slip out of her, but she winces.

“It’s the knots ... They’re swelling. Just stay,” she whispers, her chest shaking as she edges toward the crest of another orgasm, even though I’ve stayed as still as I can, just like she asked.

“You done research on this shit or something?” I bark into her throat, sounding every bit the demon that I feel, ravaging a virgin sacrifice on the altar.

“Or something,” she exhales.

“It hurt?”

“There’s pressure, but it feels amazing. I think if you touch ... my clit ... I might ...”

I don’t hesitate but pull up as much as I can to squeeze my fingers between us. I manage to get my thumb pressed lightly to her swollen, sensitive skin and flick it gently without cutting her. I watch her head toss and turn while my cock continues emptying into her. Last time I tested this, it took three minutes for my body to fully finish coming. But inside her, where my cock is at home, I could live here for hours. As long as she’ll let me.

“Oh Rollo, fuck!” The squeeze of her cunt around my slowly softening erection is too much. I feel my balls clench up against my body and my thighs get rock hard as my cock paints her insides in a surprising rush.

“This is incredible,” she whispers, her eyes half-mast.

“This is insane that you’re okay with all this.” Panting, I very carefully squeeze my giant ass on the tiny couch in front of her without separating our bodies. My muscles sag and I wait to be able to pull my cock out of her fully.

I’ve nearly got her smothered into the pillows, and she doesn’t seem to mind. Not just that—she seems pleased to be here with me. And that pleasure is worth fighting for against anything. I kiss her softly.

“You’re my hero,” I whisper.

She smiles. “And you’re my key. I feel like I was strong before I met you, but you unlocked the cage and threw the lid wide open. I might have made you you,” she says, glancing up at my horns, “but you also made me me.”

“I fucking love you.”

“I love you too, Wyvern, though I’m pretty sure we’ll need a rebrand to go with your new look. A new uniform that matches pink too.”

I huff. “I’m not pink. I’m red.”

“You are definitely pink. As pink as cotton candy.”

I grin into her lips and kiss her again with every feeling I have for her bottled in my chest and launched like a rocket into the abyss. “Fine. I’m pink. And you can call me whatever you like.”

She cups my jaw, strokes her fingers up my cheeks, over my forehead to my horns. She grips them hard and yanks my head down to hers savagely in a way that’s all brand-new for her and that I fucking adore. When she pulls back, my hips buck, finally ready to slip free of her heat and perhaps—most definitely—begin again, but first ...

I reach under the couch for a box that feels way too small in my massive fingers.

We both moan in unison, and she says on a fluttering breath, “You can call me whatever you like.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” I press the box against her chest, waiting for her fingers to curl around it. “Because I’d like to call you wife .”

She blinks at me, startled, and then looks at the box, disoriented. I open it for her, showing her the pink sapphire within, and she shrieks, “You did not!”

“We’re twenty-two dates in, baby.”

“No, we are not!” She swats me on the arm, but she takes the box from me regardless, removes the ring, slides it onto her finger, tosses the box over her shoulder, and then kisses me ferociously.

“Close enough,” I laugh between kisses. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes. It’s a yes. It’s an absolutely fucking yes.” Her eyes are damp. I kiss the space between them. She grabs my horns, maneuvers my mouth to meet hers, and kisses me so, so sweetly.

“I love you,” she says.

I come unhinged.

“Good,” I snarl into her neck, and to the whisper of each other’s desperate breaths, we begin anew.