Page 23 of Sheltered in the Storm (The Fortusian Mates # 1)

CHAPTER 22

VOS

In the purple depths of the sea, my hearts and body sang.

My mate. My love. My world, in my arms, in the deep with me.

My joy made me feel buoyant, even as our bodies skimmed the sand along the ocean floor. I could not take her to the deepest places, as her body was not made to withstand the pressures there, but this…this was bliss.

My Calla’s eyelids were closed. Human eyes experienced discomfort in very salty water, so I could not see her beautiful green eyes and she could not see our surroundings as my tentacles propelled us through the water, but her expression was rapturous nonetheless. I would happily buy her eye protection for swimming underwater at my first opportunity.

Mindful of her need for air, I used my tentacles to bring us slowly to the water’s surface well before her fingers tightened on my arm. We surfaced near the shore, in an area well-hidden by long, low-hanging tree branches draped with red curtains of moss that concealed us. I did not want my Calla to be seen by anyone who might pass by, especially raider ships leaving or approaching their base.

Calla surprised me by wrapping her legs around my waist and kissing me deeply the moment she got a breath. I held her to my chest while my tentacles swirled, keeping us steady and afloat with our heads and shoulders above the water.

“This is even more wonderful than I’d imagined,” she said, her head against my shoulder. Her long red hair floated around her like a fiery cape. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“The privilege is mine, my mate.” I kissed her hair. “You are not afraid? You are not from the sea like me.”

“The shore is right there if we need to get out,” she reminded me. “The shallows are far less scary than open water. You said the big predators don’t come this close to shore. And any small predators—well, they’re more likely to be afraid of you .”

“It is not so shallow here.” I gestured past our feet at the inky purple darkness. “But yes, nothing large comes this close to shore. At least, I have never seen it.”

“Good.” She adjusted her position, settling in more comfortably and securely with her thighs on my hips and ankles crossed behind my back, and put her head back on my chest. “So we have the place to ourselves.”

At the sensation of her legs squeezing my waist and her bare cunt against my lower abdomen, my cock stirred and began to harden. “Calla…”

“Hmm?” She let out a contented sigh. “I do want to swim more, but this is so nice. Can we just float for a while?”

Gods, even now she had no idea how much I craved her, body and soul. “Of course.”

And I had fully intended to float peacefully for as long as she wanted, but as my senses filled with the scent of her body mixed with those of my ocean home, I suddenly felt displaced, as if transported back to the night I had first caught her scent on her fighter, mixed with the smells of rain and the sea—to the moment I knew fate, or the gods, or chance, had brought my true mate and I together.

And just as before, as those scents filled me, my mind blanked, and my world dwindled until all I knew was her. But this time, something changed.

Blood rushed to my cock so swiftly that a shiver rolled through my body, followed by a strange tightening sensation that traveled from my balls to the base of my cock. Not the same feeling as when I was about to come, but similar. My arousal became a sharper, more needful, more demanding urge. I shivered again, much more powerfully, from my toes to the tips of my tentacles.

Calla raised her head, her brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

My mate. My everything.

“My Calla,” I said, my voice rough and teeth bared. I felt monstrous, on the edge of madness, nearly wild with desperation. “I need you.”

Despite my growing haze of desire, I worried my Calla might shy away from my teeth and sudden fierceness, but she did not.

“I need you too,” she said.

She moved a little to the side and rubbed herself against my hip, her slickness evident even under the water. The sensory cells in my skin drank in the taste and smell of her. My body went almost as rigid as my cock. My tentacles stilled, and we started to slip under the water before they began swirling again.

Smiling, her eyes half-lidded with her own arousal, Calla held my gaze as her hand wrapped around my cock, stroking its length. “You’re so hard for me already, my Vos.” Her fingers explored the ridges and fringes, and I quaked at every sensation. “Do you want my pussy to squeeze your cock?”

At her words, my cock twitched in her hand and my balls drew up. As much as I had previously enjoyed demanding that she tell me explicitly what she wanted of me, I found myself nearly shuddering with need as she commanded me the same way. For this pleasure, I would let her rule me to her heart’s content.

“Yes,” I rasped. “I want your sweet pussy, my love.”

“You’re so slick.” She raised her hand from the water to show me the gleaming, glowing lubrication and precum on her fingers before she licked them one by one, her eyes locked on mine. “Delicious,” she said.

I could have come right then, but I held myself back—if only barely.

“Are you sure you want my pussy?” She reached for me again, stroking my cock harder, faster, her nails skimming my tender flesh in an exquisite combination of pleasure and pain. “Tell me what else you want, my Vos.”

Gods above, I wanted all of her, all at once. I wanted my mouth on her cunt to drink her juices when she came. I wanted my cock in her mouth, in her cunt, in her ass. I wanted my tentacles on her body to taste every part of her as she screamed my name.

But most of all, I wanted my cock inside her as she came, and to give her every drop of my cum as we floated in my ocean home.

I held her close with one arm as my trembling hand found her pussy, already so slick and quivering and needy that she impatiently impaled herself onto my fingers. My head fell back at the sensation and taste of her honeyed heat.

“Yes,” she groaned, her hand sliding up and down my cock as she fucked my fingers. “Oh, gods, yes. Make me come, Vos. Make me come.”

In a near-haze of desire, I used three of my tentacles to keep us afloat so the fourth could travel over her beautiful body, sucking on her nipples and clit in turns and making her shake and moan. I covered her mouth with mine to drink in her cries.

“Beautiful Calla,” I murmured against her lips.

Her body tensed as her release neared. When her pussy began to flutter around my fingers, the tip of my roaming tentacle nudged and sucked at her asshole. With a wail, my Calla came, trembling and clinging to me, her warm juices flooding my hand.

“Yes,” I rasped. “Come for me, my mate.”

My skin drank her in as greedily as her cunt ground against my fingers, seeking pleasure from my touch. My cock felt ten times more sensitive than ever before, and the straining sensation at its base increased.

She ran her hand through my hair and pulled, and the pain made my cock throb. “I want to be fucked, Vos.”

What could I do but obey? I grabbed her hips and drove my cock into her delicious, slick heat.

“Oh, gods,” she gasped, her arms around my neck. “Oh, oh, yes .”

Each time her cunt took my cock to the hilt, the straining sensation at its base became pleasure so intense that I could not breathe. And now I felt the frills and ridges on my cock swelling, forming wide, thick bumps that throbbed and sent pulses of pleasure through my body every time they entered or pulled out of my mate.

“Vos,” my Calla gasped, her eyes wide and nails digging into my back. “Vos…what…oh, gods.” She came hard, her cunt squeezing and fluttering around my cock as she wailed.

My body was changing shape, but I did not fear these changes. They were for my pleasure and that of my mate, and nothing about that could be bad or wrong.

As her orgasm continued, I lost myself in the pleasure of my Calla’s slickness and heat, the sensations that rolled through my body, my own release building? —

—and then Calla cried out, her arms tightening around my neck. That note of pain and the way she clung to me cut through my haze of pleasure like a blade.

I froze, my chest heaving. “I hurt you?”

Trembling, she lay her head on my shoulder. “Something’s changed,” she said breathlessly.

She did not deny that I had hurt her, which meant I had. My stomach filled with guilt and dread. “Calla, I am sorry.”

“No, no, I’m okay. But…can you feel this?” Biting her lip, she moved gently up and down on my cock, sliding over the bumps that had formed. Then, slowly, carefully, she took in a much larger bump near the base, moaning and whimpering with every centimeter. Intense pleasure turned my vision gray around the edges. When I was fully inside her, she stilled and held onto me, shaking.

Thinking clearly had become difficult, but I realized my cock had swollen at its base, to the point that it had become difficult and even painful for her to take me.

Moments ago, I believed my body’s changes were for her pleasure and mine. But how could I fuck my mate if I caused her pain she did not want? Had my body betrayed us both?

When I started to withdraw, though, she held me still. “Don’t,” she murmured, trembling against me, her face pressed to my chest. “I want to take you, my Vos. I want your knot. Please don’t stop.”

My…knot?

I did not have a knot. I had never had one. Even with Calla, whose arrival had changed my physiology and life so much, I had never felt even an inkling of a knot. I knew what one was, of course, and what its purposes were, but I did not know my genetic engineering had included one.

But then again, my creators had supposedly removed my need or ability to find a true mate, and yet here she was. Perhaps those who made me knew far less than I had credited them for. The proof was plain to see.

Now, in my ocean home, making love to my Calla had caused another physiological change—one that promised an even deeper connection to my mate. But hurting her was not acceptable to me. Why would my body change in a way that caused my mate harm? I would sooner die.

Utterly lost, I rested my forehead against hers. “What should I do?”

My Calla looked into my eyes and laced her fingers tenderly through mine. “I’m your Calla, and you’re my Vos. You know how to take my pain away.”

Understanding, warm and reassuring, rolled through me, taking away my worry and hurt. I did know. I had known from the moment I first held her in my arms.

“Let me feel this with you,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “Take me, Vos.”

I kissed her forehead, wrapped my free arm around her, and cooed.

She relaxed into my embrace with a sigh that almost sounded like a sob, but I saw no grief on her face…only desire and trust.

With my tentacle around her waist to steady her, I withdrew my cock and then slid back inside her, much more gently than before. My knot fit her far easier now, and she did not wince.

Still, I did not move again until she lay her head on my chest. “Yes,” she whispered. “Like that.”

For all the frenzy and pleasure of my earlier thrusting, that was not what I wanted now that I understood what we were sharing. My desire built again, much more gradually, with every slow slide of my cock in and out of her.

A new kind of pleasure coursed through me—pure and powerful, rolling through my body in waves. My knot swelled slowly, but my mate took it perfectly. Each time it entered her and then withdrew, we trembled together.

“I am not hurting you?” I murmured, tipping her chin up so I could see her face. “Tell me if I am.”

“No.” Her shimmering gaze met mine. “Not at all.”

My body was made for hers. All other wonders of the universe paled in comparison to this.

My release built with every thrust, but I could not come until I gave my Calla another release of her own. I needed to hear her cry out and feel her flutter around my cock again. Only then could I find my completion.

Gently, I turned her away from me, wrapped one arm around her waist, and thrust inside her from behind as my fingers found her swollen clit.

She gasped, her head falling back. “Yes. More. More , Vos. Harder now.”

My cock head rubbed against her G-spot as my hand ministered to her clit. Her cries became more desperate, the pitch rising in a way I knew so well.

“My beautiful Calla,” I said, my voice guttural. “Come for me.”

She came undone with a desperate, warbling cry, her body going rigid and then boneless in my arms, her release a flood of honey. I held her tightly against my chest and thrust fully into her sweet heat. Every time she squeezed around my cock, I growled, the sound ripped from somewhere inside me that was purely monstrous.

As I slid my knot inside her once again to seat myself fully within her, my ears filled with a rushing sound that drowned out all else. My balls tightened, and my knot swelled, locking me inside my mate in a new sensation that grayed my vision completely.

Nothing in my life had ever felt so good as this.

With a helpless, plummeting sensation like hurtling over a cliff, the wave of pure pleasure broke. I came hard, my body convulsing and hips jerking, my tentacles swirling in the water.

“Fill me, Vos,” Calla said, the back of her head against my chest, her chest heaving and her nails digging into my thighs in a way I would feel in my dreams. “Fill me completely.”

With my throbbing cock and knot buried inside her, I emptied myself into my mate in spurts that wracked my body one hot pulse at a time, until I had nothing left. I had never come like this, not even with my Calla.

I felt both hollow and full to bursting, utterly spent and more alive than ever before, torn apart and yet completely whole, buried to the hilt inside my mate and unable to withdraw from her, my cum filling her completely, as she had asked me to do.

“Calla,” I murmured, my lips on her hair. “My Calla?”

“I’m all right.” She released her grip on my thighs and held on to my arms with shaking hands. When she took a breath, the sound was ragged. “Gods, Vos. That was…I’ve never…I’ve never taken anyone’s knot before. I never wanted to.”

It was a selfish thought, and I would never have thought less of her nor held it against her if the situation had been different, but I was glad we had shared the wonder of this first time together. This new way to join our bodies was ours alone.

“You do not regret it?” I asked, because the silence had stretched out.

“No.” Her voice was quiet, though, so even without seeing her face, I knew something weighed on her mind. “Do you?” she asked.

“Not in the least, as long as you do not.” I rested my chin on her head. “Tell me what you are thinking.”

She did not speak for a while. When she did, her voice was small. “Choices.”

I let out a soft coo, and she sighed and settled in against me. “Which choices, my mate?” I asked .

“All the choices I made that led me here to you, and all the choices I didn’t get to make that brought me here too.”

“I understand.” I pressed my lips to her hair. “I think of these things as well. How could we not, when we have each known such darkness and now find ourselves in the light?”

“Yes, exactly.” She took a shaky breath. “Sometimes I think you can read my mind.”

“I cannot,” I assured her. “At least, not yet.”

She chuckled softly, and the snarl of worry in my belly eased. “With everything else that’s happened since we met, I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me…but do please say something if you start picking up my thoughts. I’d like to know what you’re overhearing.”

I did not know whether such a thing was possible, but that was an easy promise to make. “Of course. Your thoughts, like everything else about you, is yours to share or not.”

“You say that like it’s a universal truth.” Now her voice had a caustic edge. “But that would be news to a lot of people I’ve known.”

“It is a universal truth, whether or not some people believe it.” I kissed her hair. “We each have choices. What to ask for, what to give, and what to accept. Your body is your own. I am privileged to touch you, hold you, treasure you, even fill you, but only when you ask. All choices remain yours.”

“I know.” She squeezed my arm. “I wouldn’t still be here if that weren’t the case, and I won’t be if it ever changes.”

She did not mean it as a threat, and I did not take it as such, but the thought of her leaving made my tentacles quiver in distress.

“I don’t ask for much, my Vos, but I must have that,” she added quietly. “If I don’t own myself, what do I have?”

Her hurts ran so deep. I would give anything, shred anything, suffer anything, to ease that pain.

“I too know what it is like to be owned,” I said. “My service to the Guard was not the same as what you experienced, but close enough to understand why your autonomy means so much. I told you from the moment you decided to stay that I will not cage you, and that is the truth. No cages of any kind, ever.”

She made a little sound that might have been stifled sob.

Another coo rose in my chest, but before it could pass my lips, she said, “Thank you.” She laced her fingers through mine. “Being your Calla makes me happy because I choose to be your Calla, and that’s the truth too. No, not just happy,” she added, and I sensed her frown. “More than that. Content.” A pause. “Whole.”

My hearts soared. “I feel the same.”

I was startled when, little by little, my knot began to ease. The sensation was strange. Perhaps I would become used to it in time, but at the moment, I found it…unsettling.

I was not alone in my disquiet, apparently. When my cock moved slightly, as if to slip from her, Calla made a little sound.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes.” She gripped my arms. “Hold me, please, Vos. Just…don’t let go.”

As if I ever would.

I held her tightly, my tentacles swirling gently around us to keep us afloat, as my knot eased. We could not stay like this—I knew that—but I did not want to move. And my Calla seemed almost afraid. Her fingernails bit into my arms, but not in the way she had used them while I came. Now they seemed to be a kind of anchor. But what did she fear? Pain? Separation? Or something else that she could not bring herself to reveal?

Only moments remained of this first knotted coupling. I cooed and held her tightly as her body relaxed against me. When my cock slipped gently from her, a rush of my glowing cum followed, swirling away into the sea.

She sighed and turned to curl up in my arms, her head against my chest and eyes closed. Why she closed them, and what I might have seen in them that she might have wished to hide from me, I did not know.

“That is enough time in the ocean today, my mate,” I said softly, brushing wet hair back from her face and kissing her brow. “We will come back another day.”