Chapter 216: Again *

Echidna pulled him down before he could answer.

"Again," she said. Not a demand this time. A promise. "And this time, I learn."

Silas let her roll him onto his back.

She loomed over him, horns catching the lantern light, hair a black waterfall around her shoulders, scales gleaming where the furs had dried them. Her flush had faded to a slow burn. Her eyes were molten gold.

She was looking at him the way she’d looked at kissing, at the spring, at every new thing in this strange warm world she’d stumbled into. Like a puzzle. Like prey. Like treasure.

"Show me your body," she said.

"You’re looking at it."

"Show me what makes you sound like that." Her claw traced down his chest, slow, careful. "The sound you made. When I..." She stopped. The blush climbed her throat again.

"When you clenched around me?"

Her tail lashed the furs. "I will strike you."

"You won’t."

She wouldn’t. Her tail curled around his ankle instead, possessive and warm, and she bent over him, her hair falling in a curtain, sealing them into their own small world again.

Her mouth found his chest.

She kissed him the way she’d learned to kiss: devouring. Her tongue traced his collarbone, the dip of his sternum, the ridge of muscle over his ribs. She was cataloging him, memorizing the geography of him with her lips.

"Here," she murmured, pressing her mouth to the hollow of his throat. "You taste like the spring. Like salt and stone and..." She licked him, slow, experimental. "Warmth."

"You sound like you’re enjoying yourself."

"I am discovering," she corrected. "Enjoyment is a side effect."

Her mouth wandered lower.

Her tongue circled his nipple, and he hissed, a sound she caught with obvious delight. She did it again. Slower. Then her teeth grazed the sensitive peak, and his hips came off the furs.

"That," she said, smug. "That was the sound."

"You’re a fast learner."

"I am the Mother of Monsters. I have had practice at everything except this." Her lips brushed his stomach. "I intend to catch up."

She kissed lower.

Her claws traced the jut of his hip, the line of hair below his navel, and she paused there, studying the shape of him, thick and hard and already slick at the tip, raised like a question she didn’t yet know how to answer.

"This is the part that was inside me."

"It is."

"It is... huge." She touched it with one claw, feather-light, and watched it jump. Her eyes widened. "It moves."

"Usually does."

Her fingers wrapped around him, testing the weight and the heat. Her thumb dragged across the head, spreading the bead of moisture, and Silas’s breath snagged.

"Tell me," she said. "What does this feel like? From your side?"

"Like you’re deciding whether to keep me."

Her lips curved. "I have already decided."

She lowered her mouth to him.

It was terrible. It was perfect.

She kissed the head the way she’d kissed his mouth the first time, flat and motionless, watching him with those molten eyes. Then she learned. By the second kiss she’d found the seam. By the third, the taste. By the fourth, she had her lips around him, and the sound she made, a low, curious hum, vibrated through his whole body.

"Echidna~..."

She pulled off just enough to speak, her lips slick, her eyes bright with discovery.

"You fit in my mouth. Like kissing, but..." She took him deeper, her throat working around the newness of him. "More."

She learned him the way she learned everything, by devouring it whole.

Her tongue traced the underside on every stroke. Her claws cupped his balls, testing their weight. Her tail curled around his thigh, anchoring her while she worked, and with every new sound he made, she chased it, repeating whatever motion had caused it, building a map of him in her own burning skin.

He tangled his fingers in her hair. Not to guide. To hold on.

"Close," he managed. "Echidna, I’m..."

She pulled off. He made a sound that was half groan, half plea.

"No," she said, breathless, chin glistening. "Not like that. Not the first time you come in my mouth."

"First time?"

"I intend for there to be many." Her claws closed around him, stroking slowly and deliberately. "But tonight I want to feel you inside me when you break."

She straddled him.

The sight of her, the Mother of Monsters, hair wild, breasts heaving, flush spread from her chest to the base of her horns, settling onto him like she’d been carved for his lap. Her tail coiled around his waist. Her hands pressed flat to his chest.

"Show me how to ride you," she commanded.

"Like you command everything else. Take what you want."

Her eyes blazed. She reached down, aligned him, and sank.

The sound she made filled the room, a groan that was half pain, half wonder. She was tight again, slick from his first claim, and her walls gripped him like they’d been waiting for the shape of him.

"Silas~..."

"I’m here. Take your time."

"I do not take time. I take everything." But her hips moved slowly, experimental, learning the angle, the depth, the way his jaw tightened when she rolled a certain way. "There. Did you feel..."

"Yes."

"Good. Then I learn it."

She learned him.

Every roll of her hips was a lesson. Every angle a discovery. She watched his face like it held the answers to questions she hadn’t known she carried, and she chased his pleasure the way she’d chased her own, relentlessly and hungrily without shame.

His hands found her hips, and she slapped them away.

"Mine," she said. "I do this myself."

"Stubborn."

"Arrogant," she agreed, and rolled her hips so sharply his head fell back.

The furs tore under her claws. The bed groaned. Her cries came faster, her rhythm breaking apart, and still she rode him, determined to wring every drop of understanding from this new, impossible feeling.

"Again," she gasped. "I am close... I want~..."

"Then take it."

She took it.

Her head fell back. Her horns caught the lantern light. Her cry rolled off the stone as she shattered around him, and he followed, buried deep, spilling into her with a groan that was half surrender, half prayer.

She collapsed onto him.

Her scales were warm where they pressed against his chest. Her hair fell across his face like a curtain. Her heart, the heart of a creature older than the oceans, hammered against his ribs.

"Again," she breathed. Then, softer, almost shy: "...After I rest."

He laughed, and the laugh shook her, and she made a sound he’d never heard from her: a small, surprised laugh of her own.

"Stay," she said. Not a command. A request. "Stay warm. Stay mine."

"I’m not going anywhere."

Her claws gentled. Her tail loosened. Her breath evened against his chest.

The door stayed latched. No knock came. The others had given them the night — a quiet respect the Mother of Monsters didn’t know how to name and would never admit she’d felt.

Beyond the stone, the tournament thundered on without them.

Echidna slept.

For the first time in an age, the Mother of Monsters slept warm.