Page 28 of Sheltered in the Storm (The Fortusian Mates # 1)

CHAPTER 27

CALLA

More than a week after N’Mora’s attack, Vos and I returned to our inlet.

I’d wanted to go sooner, but Vos insisted we wait until I’d recovered enough to protect myself in case something attacked us. Nothing did, however. Nothing even came near us as we made the journey to the shore. No snakes, no kaory, no…nothing. Even the carrion birds in the trees made themselves scarce.

During one of our rest breaks, I sat on Vos’s lap, pressed my lips to his ear, and murmured, “Where are all the predators?”

“I think I scared them away, my Calla.” He kissed my temple and smiled to show all his sharp teeth. “I roared very loudly when I found you gone.”

I recalled the bellow I’d heard just before he crashed through the bunkhouse door. To my surprise, far from eliciting fear or sadness, the memory caused a gush of wetness between my legs.

Vos’s nostrils flared and he inhaled deeply, his eyes glowing softly with desire.

“My scary monster,” I said, kissing him lightly. “ I love you.”

“I love you, my Calla.” He rested his forehead against mine and pressed a peeled, sweet vinefruit into my hand. “Eat.”

He gave me food as if I hadn’t fed myself all my life until I came to Iosa. I sighed and accepted the fruit, and let him kiss me before I took a bite.

The walk took much longer than usual because I needed three rest breaks and couldn’t walk quickly. Vos would have happily carried me, but I needed to make the journey on my own two feet. He seemed to understand that.

Vos had stayed busy caring for me and our home during my recovery, so he hadn’t been back to the inlet since my kidnapping. When we arrived on the grassy bank, everything was just as he’d left it to track me.

At the sight of the scattered shells stained with my dried blood, my hand flew to the back of my neck.

“What is wrong?” Vos asked from behind me. His tentacles wrapped around me and drew me close.

“I just remembered,” I said softly. “Not very clearly, but now I remember I was sitting here looking at the shells, and waiting for you to come back so we could go to the grotto, and something stung me in the back of my neck. Then everything went dark.”

“It was a dart, I am sure.” He kissed my hair and exhaled against my shoulder. “My Calla…”

I knew from his tone what troubled him. I squeezed his hand where it rested on my hip. “You have to forgive yourself, Vos. You have to. The attack on me was not your fault. I didn’t see or hear them sneaking up on me, and if anything it was my job to watch my back. I let myself get complacent. What happened was N’Mora’s doing. Actually, arguably, it was the fault of whoever tossed that bomb into the Bordian embassy and killed N’Vors. It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong.”

Judging by the tension in his body and tentacles, he didn’t believe me any more this time than the last seven or eight times I’d made this argument. And I supposed seeing my blood on the shells didn’t help. He would blame himself for what happened for a long, long time. Possibly forever. And maybe I would have too if our positions had been reversed, but I didn’t want him to carry that burden. We had burdens enough.

So I did the only reasonable thing I could.

“All right, Vos. If you really want me to forgive you, carry me into the water, take me to the grotto, and give me the three best orgasms of my life before you fill me with your knot.” A tall order, since the moment we were in the grotto his need for me made him start to knot almost immediately, but I had to make it at least somewhat of a challenge.

Just as I’d hoped, his tension melted away, and his chest shook with silent laughter.

“While we are bargaining, what else would you ask of me?” he asked finally, still chuckling.

“The prettiest purple and red shells in the inlet for me,” I replied with a smile. “And two full sacks of big, fat sea enni for Poe.”

Vos’s arms tightened around me. “You demand a high price, my love, but very well. I agree to all your terms but one.”

I frowned. “Which one do you not like?”

He turned me in his embrace and smiled down at me, his eyes glowing. “Three orgasms are not enough. And I do not want to wait to hear you scream for me until we reach the grotto.”

Oh, gods above. My knees nearly buckled.

I reached for the collar of my flight suit, but he brushed my hand aside and unfastened it. “Allow me, my love,” he murmured as he opened the top of the suit and slipped it down over my shoulders to my waist, baring my breasts. “I do not want to rush.”

I thought he would continue removing the suit, but he left it around my waist and cupped my breasts in his hands. With the pads of his thumbs and his gaze locked on mine, he stroked my nipples until they formed hard, sensitive points, and then he lowered his head to suck my right nipple into his mouth.

I clung to him, one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his hard cock through the soft material of his pants, as he sucked and nibbled at each of my breasts in turn. But when I started to slip my hand into his pants to stroke him, he stopped me.

“No, my love,” he murmured. “Not yet.”

I let out a sound that was almost a whimper.

He helped me remove my boots, and then he slid my suit down over my hips and legs and off. I felt self-conscious being fully naked while he still wore all his clothes, and I was pretty sure he knew that.

He kissed me gently. “Do not move,” he said, his lips against mine.

And then his hand slipped between my thighs. I quivered.

“Do you feel yourself dripping for me, my Calla?” he asked, his fingertips brushing lightly over my slit, gathering up my slickness. “Tell me how you feel.”

“I feel wet,” I said, and mewled as his thumb ghosted over my clit. My pussy gushed and clenched on its own emptiness. “I’m ready for you.”

“Yes, you are.” He raised his hand so I could see my wetness glistening on his fingers. Two of his tentacles slipped between my legs to coil around my thighs, tugging gently. “Open your legs a little more, my Calla.”

I obeyed. His hand returned to my aching pussy, his fingertips gliding along my slit again. “So wet,” he murmured. “I have barely touched you. Do you want me to touch you, my love?”

“Yes, please, Vos. Please.”

He slipped one finger inside me, sliding it in and out. “Like this?”

I arched my hips toward him. “Yes. ”

He rubbed my clit with his thumb. “And this?”

“Y-yes.” I began to tremble. “I can’t stay standing.”

“Yes, you can.” He added a second finger, pumping them in and out of me, and moved closer. “Put your arm around my neck.”

I did, and hung onto him desperately.

He put his mouth against my ear. “Did you know that when you come, you taste like honey to me?”

“No,” I gasped. Oh, gods. A coil of heat and tension grew low in my belly.

“The sweetest honey.” His teeth nipped my earlobe. “I have never tasted anything sweeter. Do you know what else I love about your orgasms?”

I shook my head, my chest heaving and my nails digging into the back of his neck.

“I love the way your cunt feels when it squeezes my fingers or my cock.” He curled his fingers inside me and brushed them lightly over my G-spot. I cried out. “I love how perfectly you take me, how perfectly you come.”

Another gentle brush. My knees gave out, but his tentacles and my arm around his neck kept me upright.

“I confess that as much as I enjoy seeing you make yourself come on my hand and my cock,” he murmured, “what I love most is when you ask me to make you come.”

There was no way he loved that more than I did, though. “Make me come,” I pleaded. “I want you to make me come.”

His teeth on my shoulder for pain and his fingers on my clit and G-spot for pleasure, he gave me what I wanted.

“Then come, my Calla,” he rasped.

The orgasm rolled through me in a wave. I wailed and collapsed against him, trembling and shaking, but he held me up with his arm and tentacles. His fingers stroked me until I came undone again with a weak cry.

My Vos laid me gently and lovingly on the grass. Two of his tentacles spread my legs and held them open, and he raised my hips to bring my quivering, dripping pussy to his mouth.

He licked me slowly from my asshole all the way up my slit, his tongue delving everywhere, drinking in my slickness, before he closed his lips on my clit. I grabbed his hair and thrust my hips against his face, almost sobbing in my desperation for another sweet release.

He licked his lips, his eyes glowing. “My mate,” he said, and slipped his fingers into my pussy. “Do you have more honey for me?”

“Yes.” My head fell back and my back arched as he fucked me with his fingers.

Two gentle tentacles roamed my body, tasting me and leaving little red marks everywhere they sucked.

“Give me every drop, my Calla,” Vos murmured, his lips on my slit. “Every drop.”

He tongued me as his thumb rubbed my clit, and I came on his face with a ragged cry, my fingers twisted in his hair.

We had never made love on the shore of the inlet. Too many dangers lurked around. But Vos had scared them off with all his beautiful, terrifying monstrousness, and now the bank was ours.

This was about much more than that, though. We were staking a claim on our special, sacred place, taking it back from the ghosts of the attack that had nearly ripped everything away from both of us. And maybe that was what Vos needed to start to let go of his guilt—to replace the memory of walking out of his beloved sea to find me gone with the sounds of me crying out his name.

When my Vos was satisfied with the number of orgasms he’d wrung from me, he discarded his clothing and finally, finally carried me into the ocean—but not before I threw all the bloody shells as hard and far as I could into the water without caring where they ended up. I couldn’t fling them all that far, given my body felt weak and nearly boneless with pleasure, but I did the best I could.

I also couldn’t get as deep of a breath as usual for a long underwater swim, so Vos brought me to our grotto in three shorter dives before swimming through the moss curtain on his back with me lying on his chest listening to his hearts beating. He loved taking me to the purple depths, but I could tell he didn’t dislike this way of reaching our special place. If his rock-hard cock hadn’t clued me in, the pleasant rumbling in his chest and the way his eyes shone would have.

As much pleasure as he’d already given me, my pussy ached for him—most especially for his knot. He swirled his tentacles in the water, keeping us afloat, as I stroked the frills and ridges of his cock languidly with one hand, my other arm around his neck while he pressed his lips into my hair.

It stunned me that for all the comfort and security it had given me in the beginning, how little I cared about the science of being Vos’s true mate anymore.

Everything about our coupling was wondrous and magical to me now, from how his blood and cum healed my physical injuries to his sweet cooing that soothed my heart and body. And in the sea, when his cock transformed before my eyes, swelling with bumps that increased both our pleasure, all thoughts of science washed away like a receding tide and left me with only awe and peace in my heart.

“What makes you smile, my love?” Vos asked softly.

What could I say? Him? What my life had become? Our growing garden? Poe’s happy trills? This grotto? The way I felt so safe and treasured in his arms? I chuckled to myself. His cock?

“Everything,” I said, and kissed his chest. “I don’t know how you’ve been so patient.”

He nipped my ear with his teeth. “An assassin never forgets his training, my Calla. Patience is a requirement of the trade. But if I may be honest, my patience wears thin.”

“Mine too.”

The words had scarcely left my mouth when he rolled us over into the water, turning me so my back was to him.

He wrapped me in his arms, his tentacles swirling around us. “My Calla,” he said, one hand slipping between my thighs to stroke my clit as his cock head pressed into my aching pussy. “Take my cock, my love.”

I closed my eyes and arched my back as he thrust, gasping and moaning as each bump slipped inside me. He echoed my groans, his body quivering, until I took in his knot and he was sealed fully inside me. It fit easily for now, but soon it would swell.

He cupped my breast in his hand and stroked my clit with the other, slipped from me one bump at a time, and then thrust again. “Vos,” I gasped, trembling in his arms. “Yes. Oh, gods.”

He pumped in and out of me slowly, his ridges and bumps stroking over my G-spot and his swelling knot bumping me until the sheer pleasure and thrill of knowing he was about to give me his knot pushed me over the edge.

I came undone with a wail, shuddering hard in his arms as his fingers plied my clit to draw out my pleasure.

“My mate,” he murmured. And then he cooed.

Another, much softer orgasm swept through me unexpectedly. My pussy relaxed for him in the way I only did when we were in the water together. I let out a sound that was half groan, half sob.

His cock thrust into me, wrenching cries from me with every bump, and then his knot slipped inside me with that blissful sensation of pure completion I’d never known until the day we’d first knotted together.

Vos didn’t stop rubbing my clit even as his knot swelled inside me, sealing us together. His body spasmed and his arm tightened around my chest, his gills fluttering against my back.

With groans and spasms that shook us both, he spurted inside me, filling me completely one hot pulse at a time.

“Calla,” he breathed, his lips against my ear. “I love you.”

His twitching cock gave me another soft orgasm. I did sob that time, safe and treasured in his embrace. “I love you, my Vos,” I rasped.

He was mine , this beautiful, monstrous man. He belonged to me—body, heart, and soul. Everything that made him Vos was mine. And everything of me was his. I had given him everything, and received the world in return.

I was his Calla and he was my Vos, and that was all that mattered to me.