Page 15

Twelve

R uby didn’t know how long she had been in this void.

It was still evening. The same one, if she wasn’t mistaken. But she had lost track of how many times she slept.

She was also losing track of how many times he had been inside her.

They were still nowhere near his knot. She had only managed to fit half his cock, and only because of several sessions where he stayed inside… after.

He could get deeper the second time. Sometimes he got deeper on the third. By the fourth, Ruby was usually too sore to take any more.

Except for his tongue. They quickly figured out that they both thoroughly enjoyed it when he licked his spend out of her afterward.

But before that, there were the in-between times. When he was soft inside her, waiting to get hard again. Those were some of Ruby’s favorite times, lying with him and asking him about his void.

“We do not all have our own voids,” he told her as they lay in his nest together after their first round. “Only the eldest.”

“Like you,” Ruby said drowsily. It was a strange sensation; she was stretched so thoroughly, her hole pulsing around him. But she was also exhausted from their extended session, her eyelids fluttering even as she ached for more.

“Like me,” Slate said quietly. He ran a hand down her back. He had been touching her more after their first time in his nest. A hand on her back to guide her somewhere, or stroking her hair behind her ears.

It was lovely. It made Ruby feel like he wanted her even when she wasn’t training to take his cock.

She toyed with a feather poking out of the nest by her hip. “What are the younger Skullstalkers like?”

“I have not met many,” Slate admitted. “But the younglings I have met are foolhardy. Vicious, if not outright feral. Many of them stalk the mortal realm for easy prey. They delight in the hunt.”

That sounded more like the Skullstalkers Ruby had learned about as a child. She shivered, imagining appearing in Slate’s void to find a creature just as monstrous as she had expected.

Slate’s stomach gurgled under her cheek.

Ruby laughed, shocked. “Is all this talk of hunting making you hungry?”

Slate didn’t reply. When she lifted her head, he was staring up at the trees. The shadows around his mask flickered anxiously.

Ruby sat up, careful not to dislodge his slowly hardening cock inside her. “Slate?”

“I do not hunger often,” Slate said finally. “Not truly.”

“Is that a problem?” Ruby asked faintly, her mind racing with possibilities. “Are you… afraid of losing control?”

Slate made a noise deep in his throat, half-chirp, half snort. A surprised laugh, she realized.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he assured her. “The urge is simply… disconcerting. I am not used to it.”

He sat up, adjusting her against his lap. Ruby let him move her and thought back to him admitting that he didn’t want many things, so wanting her was new for him. If a basic urge like hunger felt strange, lust must really be odd for him.

Not to mention any other wants. Ruby wasn’t assuming anything, but he seemed to enjoy their time together. Even if most of it involved stretching her around his cock.

“Do you…” Ruby trailed off in a moan as he gripped her thighs, holding her up above the generous amount of half-hard cock she still couldn’t fit. “Slate. You eat humans, right?”

“I did,” Slate said and paused. “I do.”

He was thickening inside her. Ruby groaned, digging her fingers into his arms. She had been gentle at first before remembering that he was a literal monster and could easily take some mortal squeezing him.

She clenched around him, feeling him twitch in response.

“Would you really have eaten me?” she asked breathily. “If I didn’t bind you?”

“Yes.” His hands tightened under her thighs, pulling her another aching inch onto his hardening cock. “I still long for it. I would hold myself back, even with the binding, but I am?—”

He cut off with a growl, nuzzling into her throat. “I am glad you bound me. At times, it is difficult not to devour you whole.”

He lifted her completely, suspending her in the air above the nest. She let her head fall against his smooth, pale chest, glad for the cool skin against her overheated forehead.

Ruby moaned. He had just told her he struggled not to eat her; it should have terrified her. Instead, she was strangely touched. She truly believed him when he said he would continue holding himself back without the binding. He would do that for her.

“I’m glad too,” she gasped as he started to move inside her. “I… I would have never— oh .”

The words flew out of her head as he fucked softly into her, his cock fully hard and stretching her to her limit. Wet sounds filled the forest. Come dripped down his cock, slicking the way.

“You are taking more of me,” Slate said, hips working gently. “Soon you will be able to fit all of me. And then my knot.”

Ruby whined and looked down at where their bodies joined. There was still so much of him to take. His knot sat thick and hard at his base, making her mouth water every time.

“I want it,” she whispered. “Slate, I want it so much. I wish I could take it now. Wish I could’ve taken it that first day when you bent me over that ward. Wish?—”

He pulled out to the tip of his cockhead and then pushed inside again. One long, deliciously thick slide that stopped when he was only halfway in, and Ruby cut off in a desperate moan.

It was a half-truth. She did wish she had been able to take him that first day.

But she was also deeply glad she couldn’t.

If she had, she would never have gotten this: slow, careful rocking as he forced himself deeper.

She would have never learned what it felt like to be filled and fucked and filled again, would have never known what it felt like to have a shadow dress vanish under his touch.

Never known what his nest felt like, delicious furs rubbing against her open mouth.

Never known what he looked like when he wanted to shove deeper but was forcing himself not to.

She would have never kissed him.

Slate grunted, holding her still while he fucked her. “I am close.”

“Do it,” she begged.

He crushed her to his chest and came. She felt him pulse inside her, slicking her stuffed channel. Wave after wave until it dripped out over his cock, then down his balls and onto the nest. The long, hot spurt of it was nearly enough to make her follow him over.

But all too soon, it was done. He panted hard, his tongue lolling out to lick an absentminded stripe up her cheek.

He often did that when she was dripping sweat, but now it made her remember how hungry he was.

She shivered around his softening cock, imagining him chasing her through the dark forest and pinning her down, those big fangs closing over her neck.

At times, it is difficult not to devour you whole, he had said.

Some part of her wanted him to.

“I’ve made a mess of you,” Slate rumbled against her hair. “Let me clean that up.”

Ruby groaned as he slipped out of her. A torrent of come gushed out with it, soaking the furs below.

He pushed her onto her back. Ruby went gladly, reveling in the softness. The furs were thicker than their first time here, she was sure of it now. It made her stomach squirm pleasantly, thinking he could have done it for her comfort. Then again, maybe it was just time to add more furs.

He held her legs apart and slid his long tongue up her thighs, collecting the pearly trails that had dripped over her legs.

“Hungry beast,” she breathed.

He growled against her thigh. His fangs pressed into her skin, and for a heart-stopping moment, Ruby wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

Then his fangs retreated, and his tongue returned. It slid straight into her dripping hole, and any heated worries about getting eaten were replaced with the pure rapture of getting eaten , his long, thick tongue licking his spend out of her.

Ruby squirmed. Not for the first time, she wished he would let her sleep here. No matter where they “practiced,” she would wake up alone in her castle bed. Just once, she wanted to wake up to his soft rumbling, the feeling of fur on her face and cool arms wrapped around her.

This will have to be enough, she told herself. Then his tongue curled inside her, and Ruby thought of nothing but pleasure.

Several hours later—or thereabouts, it was hard to tell when the evening light remained unchanged—Ruby sat at the castle entrance, watching the tree line.

The dog spirit rested its head in her lap, breathing deeply. She didn’t think spirits could sleep, but this one made a damn good impression of it.

Every once in a while, it would lift its head and look at her curiously.

“Not yet,” she told it.

The dog dropped its head back into her lap.

Ruby stroked the dog, her eyes returning to the trees.

Slate said he would be back soon. At least, she thought he said that. She had been falling asleep when he said it, rocked in his giant arms as he carried her back to the palace.

She adjusted her old dress over her knees.

It had been draped over a chair when she woke up, thanks to a particularly embarrassing morning where she woke up after a night of preparing only to realize he wasn’t around to magic her shadow dress back on.

She had wandered naked around the castle for hours until she finally found the anointing room where he stroked blue liquid onto her naked body.

Her dress and cloak had been just where she left them.

It had been a good opportunity to map out the castle. She just wished she didn’t have to be naked and shivering for it.

He had been apologetic when he finally showed up.

It hadn’t occurred to him that she couldn’t magic her own clothes on.

Ruby had tried to be mad at him, but this was a creature who barely needed to eat or drink and could transport her miles away with a touch.

Of course, he would forget simple things like wearing clothes.

A large shape loped out of the trees.