Page 12 of Flower of Seshana (Tales from the Darvel Exploratory Systems #1)

Chapter

Twelve

“ H ave the specimens all been properly stored?” Alexandra asked distractedly as she worked on the arduous task of organizing her books.

Thankfully there was a male within the nara who was practically ancient and who had taught all of his nestlings as well as the young generations of his line the art of book binding. Despite having a wizened appearance with scales faded nearly to white, he had a remarkable amount of stamina. He had also been happy to assist with providing her with a number of bound books that she was able to transfer her notes into. They now counted amongst her most treasured possessions—and for good reason. Her work needed to last, after all. Among those books were a number that Gamay had given her as well, with written information regarding the Zir and the plants of healing that Kethan had been patiently helping her translate into her own bound books. At some point she would need more space made for her books, but the freshly carved-out shelves in the main chamber served her needs perfectly for now.

Quillen hummed in agreement from behind her, his tail slithering along the back of her thigh flirtatiously. She couldn’t see him, but she smiled as she slid another book onto the shelf. She knew he did that for her benefit since she couldn’t see his gavo snapping in reply, even though she could often hear it if he did so vigorously enough. She wasn’t surprised that he had already finished with the task.

Of course it was taken care of. Not only had they been showering her with pleasure every night, but they had also been working hard around the nest. Ever since Alexandra had agreed to become their mate, they had been busy over the last week as they methodically prepared their nest with a startling intensity. All in order to officially welcome her into their family. She had told them many times that she didn’t need that—that their nest was perfect as is—but they had insisted. The nest was hers and they wanted everything properly prepared. And the gesture had been so sweet that she hadn’t had the heart to protest. She was also privately more than a little pleased that they wanted to.

She had been a little surprised, just how much they had decided to tackle… and with considerable enthusiasm. And among the many things that had demanded their time and attention, expanding their nest to include a workroom for her had taken priority as they had deemed to be among the most important. She couldn’t disagree either. Although she would never have demanded that they build her a workroom, especially when they had managed just fine in the main chamber of the nest, she was already in love with the room even without seeing the final touches that Kethan had shut himself in to work on over the last couple of days.

She didn’t need to see its finished look to know that it would be exactly what she needed and wanted. The fact that they had asked an elder female named Dyeri to make a special storage area within the room she had taken considerable pleasure in carving out with her powerful sonic blasts touched her heart. That gaping hole for the large closet space had struck Alexandra with awe when she got her first glimpse of it. It was more than enough space to safely store all of her specimen boxes that she’d painstakingly collected until the day came that she would be able to give all to her people—if it ever came. Quillen had never brought up the possibility that it wouldn’t, nor had Kethan, but she knew there was a strong possibility. And she couldn’t quite hide that acknowledgment sometimes when she looked upon her collection.

Having it stored safely out of sight would provide her with some necessary mental relief. “That’s great. Thank you for taking care of that.”

“Kethan also said to tell you that he is ready,” Quillen murmured.

She glanced up in surprise as she shelved the last book. “It’s time already?”

Quillen’s smile was her only answer, so she smoothed down the dress that Gamay helped her with and followed him back through the nest to her new workroom where her other mate was waiting. Her fingers nervously toyed with one of the flower-shaped embellishments sewn into the fabric. Technically the dress was the product of an entire team of Vahel who had worked on weaving and dying the cloth. They weren’t accustomed to making so much fabric as the females wore just enough to safely cover their breasts. Yet they had volunteered their help cheerfully, the chatter of the Vahel filling Alexandra’s evenings as they all worked together.

And each of them was likely waiting at their chosen site for the blessing ceremony, eager to bear witness to the departure of their first flight as mates. That part made her a little nervous.

“Is the flight part really necessary for the blessing ceremony?” she asked Quillen.

The male glanced back at her in surprise. “Of course. One is not officially mated among the Vahel until the female has entrusted herself to her mates in a mating flight.” He chuffed softly. “We have wings, hithana. We were made to fly.”

“Okay, but I do not,” she pointed out. “I’m not going to be able to perform this like your fingers since I can’t fly.”

Her mate gave her a sidelong look. “What makes you think the females fly? That would be too many wings getting in the way,” he observed cheerfully. “The male catches and holds his female, and he is the one flying as he penetrates her.”

“Catching?”

He waved that off. “It symbolically represents a time when males captured females and bred them in the skies as they returned to the Zir so that they were arriving to the nara with their females safely mated. There was no risk of a female being stolen by another male if she was already mated,” he added with a grin.

“I see.” That made a certain kind of sense. “So this reenactment is basically an official ‘carrying your mate home’ sort of thing.”

“Precisely,” Quillen answered. “You will just be saving us a lot of work since we do not have to chase you.”

She hummed quietly to herself. She assumed that meant that other males had to work for their females and her mates were just expecting her to pliantly wait until they carried her off. That didn’t seem entirely fair… and she admitted that ruffled her pride just a little.

“We are here,” Quillen announced. Alexandra wasn’t sure if that was for her benefit or Kethan’s but her mate turned toward her, lifting his tail so that the tip could flick gently along her cheek. “Close your eyes, hithana,” he gleefully instructed.

She lifted an eyebrow, amused by his antics, but closed her eyes, her hands held out so that he could safely guide her into the room. He didn’t take them but scooped her up instead, and her breath whooshed out in a yelp of alarm that terminated with a giggle as he hurried her inside and deposited in what she expected to be the center of the room.

There was a trace of stone dust and wood on the air, but it was a clean scent that spoke of newness, and she smiled as excitement welled inside of her. Although she had seen it after it had been freshly carved out from the stone and all rough angles, just being in the room—the room that was her official mating gift before the ceremony could begin—made it all very real to her.

“Open your eyes, hithana,” Kethan hissed.

Her eyes flew open the moment the words left his mouth, and she gasped in pleasure. Everywhere she looked she could see the same care to attention and detail that she had noticed throughout the rest of the nest. The walls were not merely smooth walls, but each one was lined painstakingly with shelves sculpted into them, and each shelf had delicate scrollwork carved into its edge so that the pattern seemed to run in lines of flowers around the room, interrupted only by the door and the storage area constructed in the far corner of the room for her specimen boxes. She made her way back to it, her hand grazing along tables and high-backed benches as she made her way between them.

It was… perfect. She couldn’t believe that they had worked so hard to make this special room for her. Not a bit of the work was hastily done—it all stood as a testament of their love to her. Even her specimen boxes were neatly stored away waiting for whatever may come in the future. And with plenty of space to spare. Emotion thickened in her throat. Although they had insisted that it was the males who provided the mating gift, she still felt bad that she had nothing to give them.

“I know what you are thinking,” Quillen hissed so vehemently that she glanced over her shoulder back at them. “Cease. You have already given us more than you understand.”

Kethan’s gavo snapped in agreement but his smile that he offered her was shy with uncertainty. “Quillen is right. This is our right to do this for you. There is only one thing we want—but only if you are willing,” he said. “Although the mating flight is tradition, I know that it frightens you. Because of that, I am content to just have the blessing ceremony.”

“But you want the mating flight,” she murmured, her heart clenching at the quivering snap of his gavo as if ashamed to admit it. Sweet, sweet male. Even after doing all of this, he was willing to sacrifice what he wanted most for her.

“He is content, so I will ask for myself.” Quillen sighed. “Hithana, will you fly with us?”

Alexandra turned toward her mates, her dress whirling around her legs with the quickness of her movement. She could not deny them something that was so clearly important to them. “The idea of being suspended between you guys in the air is completely terrifying, but… let’s do it.”

Kethan blinked blankly as if uncertain he heard correctly. “Does that mean yes?”

“It means yes,” Quillen affirmed as he hugged the other male with a happy trill.

Alexandra laughed as her males rushed to her and caught her up in their arms between them, lifting her up off her feet. She could do this. For them, she could do anything. And seeing their happiness was entirely worth the commitment.

She kept that thought nestled tightly within her heart as they darted out of the nest and into the air, Kethan’s wings folding at random intervals to send them tumbling joyously until she laughingly begged him to stop before she lost her last meal. Her mates had chuffed at that but had traded maneuvers for speed as they streaked across the sky. It took them little time to wing their way to their selected site. As expected, the Vahel had already gathered there, most of them reclining on rocky ledges or high in the trees. Quillen made a sound of distaste as they began their descent, still annoyed at surrendering one of his favorite collection spots to the nara, but he quieted at Kethan’s pointed look. They had unanimously agreed to this location because it had been the place where Kethan and Quillen had first made their intentions known—even if it had been unclear at the time—with nothing more than one of the simple red flowers that grew everywhere in that part of the woods.

Alexandra caught Quillen’s eye and smiled at him. “I love you,” she mouthed, and a pleased smile inched up at the corner of his mouth.

His eye closed in a wink and he broke eye contact as his chest expanded suddenly, and he shrieked as they dropped in a rapid glide through the air. Kethan’s voice joined his, the sounds rolling together, and they were greeted with a rising hum vibrating through the air from the nara below. She could almost imagine how it must have once been, a male returning with his captured mate and his triumphant shrieks as the nara greeted him and his female with the rise of their song. It rippled through the air, the sound so powerful and melodic that it was as if a primal song of life from Seshana itself had awakened.

Kethan’s wing folded and he abruptly shot down, giving her a close-up experience of falling as the ground rushed toward her at a dizzying speed. Her fingers dug into his arms, but she didn’t scream. She trusted him not to kill them. The flowers were in full bloom with twice as many blossoms welcoming them as they prepared to land.

But they didn’t. Kethan’s wings snapped open at the last minute to skim over the gathered Vahel before taking to the air again. She caught a brief glimpse of Gamay’s happy expression beaming up at them before the world dropped away once again. Alexandra gaped at the ground shrinking below her again and twisted back to stare at the male holding her.

“Are we not going to land?” she shouted over the air rushing by her ears.

Kethan chuffed. “No!”

“This is the blessing ceremony,” Quillen elaborated as he dropped beside them, his wings stretching wide as they beat the air.

Over and over they circled and dived toward the Vahel, the hum of song gradually growing louder and woven with joyous trills. She felt Kethan nuzzle her neck, and her belly grew heavy with desire as his breath fanned her ear.

“Are you ready?”

“We aren’t going to… in front of everyone, are we?” she whispered in mortification.

“No,” her mate replied. “We fly higher and farther than that. I just wanted to prepare you before I begin to rise.”

“Would have been nice if you had warned me before plummeting too,” she said with a smile. “All right, let’s do it!”

Kethan’s body began to tip skyward, his tail twining like a ribbon below them as he began to climb the heavens. The song from below grew louder, the trills breaking more frequently as the Vahel expressed their excitement. She could feel his cock pressing behind her back. Even though she couldn’t see it at their current angle, she knew that the dripping dark phallus had pushed out from the dip of flesh below his navel, the shaft tapering from the broad bulge at its base toward the tip where it flared out again with a small cluster of heads, each one twitching and dripping with precum.

She drew a shaky breath and parted her legs, grateful that she had chosen to wear a dress and had foregone underwear for this flight. Everything was easy access as her body prepared to receive him. He trilled softly in his excitement, the tip of his tail curling upward to drag the hem of her dress upward.

And then he stopped and chuffed softly as Quillen folded his wings and darted down, snatching her easily from Kethan’s arms as her other mate relinquished her. This time she couldn’t hold back her shriek, and the answering shrieks from the Vahel filled the air, only to be followed by her scream of pleasure as Quillen tipped his hips up and drove his cock into her in one hard thrust.

She was pinned there to him, speared on his shaft as his wings beat the air, every snap of them rocking his cock in and out of her until her sex wept and dripped around him. Up and up he flew, fucking her hard with every pump of his wings, sending tides of ecstasy over her as her cunt clenched, sending deeper shocks of pleasure through her until finally she broke and her pleasure burst so viciously that she could only wail as she was caught in its seemingly endless flow. Quillen moaned in her ear as her pussy clenched repeatedly around him throughout the rushing tide of her orgasm, the rhythmic pulse of its walls milking him hard.

She felt him tremble violently and expected his release to follow, but his wings suddenly folded to curl around her as he unexpectedly rolled. The world spun all around her, but enclosed as she was in his embrace, Alexandra wasn’t afraid. The thrill of it shot through her as they dropped, but it seemed that it was not without purpose because Quillen’s tail whipped around her and his other cock pressed against the opening of her sex, wedging its way in. It stretched her tightly so that each flex of his tail writhing around her caused both cocks to rub in the most intriguing way inside of her.

Quillen thrust and writhed, his cocks working in and out of her as they dropped. She could barely breathe as the wind rushed past but somehow that stirred her excitement even higher so that her sex clenched around him with renewed interest as she began to climb to another climax. This climb, however, was a rush of sensation as he held her to him and rutted her in freefall until she was screaming and he was shrieking as his cocks pulsed and spilled, ejaculating far harder than they ever had before as they filled her with streams of his hot cum, each blasting sending her spiraling through pleasure all over again.

She was still shaking with her climax when Kethan swooped up from below them and reclaimed her. For a moment she could breathe fully as she lay within his embrace, moaning as his primary cocked burrowed into her cunt with one long, slow thrust. Kethan hissed his pleasure as he finally filled her completely, and she smiled at the loving way he proceeded to rub his cheek and the ridges of his jaw all along her neck and head. She knew that it was an instinctual pheromone thing that was tied closely to the Vahels’ show of affection, but she also knew it was in his hearts and accepted his loving hold at face value. Tracing her hand over his chest, her love overfilled her heart, making her chest ache with its intensity and her eyes sting with tears of happiness as his wings stretched wide and began to snap as he lifted them once more into the sky.

Higher he lifted them, his cock rocking in and out of her. His pace was more measured than Quillen’s, lacking the other male’s frenzy. Instead, it built in a steady pulse that hammered through her, drawing her pleasure tighter and tighter, their moans mingling until her pinnacle was once again breached, and her body jerked and shook with the spasm that overcame her. Her entire body felt as if it were hot and fluttering, desperately gripping Kethan’s pumping cock as the wave of ecstasy swallowed her entirely.

“I love you, Kethan,” she whispered as they rolled in the sky, his coils wrapping around her to press his other cock in as they began to fall together into bliss.