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pretty-batty · 1 month ago

Text

Good soup.

a taut thread tugged beneath the moonlight

masterlist

Inhuman/Extraterrestrial!Eddie Munson x Inexperienced!fem!Reader (NSFW)

Synopsis: When a traveling circus troupe comes to your small village, there's one particular "act" that catches your eye. A man, chained and masked, marked with unearthly symbols, thrown within a cage at the makeshift entrance. A sight to behold for those unaware of the unknown. Pulled in by a hypnotic draw that brings you to the front. As close as one can get, and something changes. When his dark eyes fall on you, the sensation is overwhelming. You need him. You have to help him. You will help him. And you'll come to learn about a world of impossibilities in the process.

Warnings: fantasy au w/magic; explicit nsfw content, inexperience, naivety, & slight purity culture, eddie's name is unknown & unsaid, mentions & allusions to some mistreatment (in captivity), big size difference (eddie is inhumanly tall/broad/large), descriptions of the reader's first time (in a memory), cum is an aphrodisiac, pheromones & a magic allure with an almost hypnotic effect, breeding kink (mating ritual), lust drunk, magic tattoos that act as tentacles, "tentacle" fucking, bondage, nipple stim, clit stim, fingering, reader has her first orgasm, rough (and feral) sex, unprotected sex, anal if you squint (...only a mention and with the "tentacle"), multiple orgasms, Eddie cums in the reader a lot (like a lot), slight overstimulation, pushing cum back in, lots of descriptions of cum (I'm sorry), squirting, and aftercare adjacent.

Word Count: 17.7k

A/N: We wanted more alien!eddie, so I started writing this. Something that was supposed to be small ended up becoming much more. Think of him more like half god & half alien here (and the slightly OOC bits that brings). Happy Kinktober :) Hope you like this little tale!

They'd come to town on a tour. Acts of the unimaginable, the impossible, the dangerous, and the mysterious. Night after night, performance after performance, crowds returned. They emptied their pockets to see the unique and daring. To see the human, inhuman, and the mix in between.

You were no better than them, emptying your purse each night to gain another ticket to the same spectacle. But it wasn't to watch the ringmaster play with the crowd or dancers walk a tightrope. Clowns rushed by, and animals that could do so many human tasks continued on. But you….

You were there for him.

Caged. Inhumane in the inhuman. Alien. God. The townspeople whispered back and forth about what he could be. Taller than any human you'd ever seen. Broad shoulders, dark-eyed, long wild hair that grew more untamed in the cold wind. A glare and a glint in those nearly black eyes that could make many jump, gasp, and giggle. Safe outside of the bars.

Safe as he sat caged. Mask locked on the lower half of his face. Cuffs chaining his arms back and above his head. Shirt stripped to show more skin than anyone in your sweet town saw regularly. To show the scars littered across his upper body. To show the ink etched into his skin. Symbols and creatures of unknown origin all around him. Vines that crawled up over his torso and ribs. Deep breaths made them move like the breeze caught them.

A magic exuded from him. The sight alone was worth the price. The belief he was not from the earth was another. But the magic. The air around him was always warm. Snow threatened to fall from the sky, yet approaching him made you sweat beneath your coat.

It turned sweet. Not from those provided at stalls all around you. No. This was inhuman. A sweet, fruity scent to the air, like boiled sugar and fresh honey. Like when the strawberry fields turn ripe and you stand within them with your eyes closed beneath the warm sun.

The air was thick, warm, and sweet. And it drew everyone in minute after minute. A finger beneath one’s chin, beckoning them toward his secluded cage. Those dark eyes watching without a smile to crinkle them. The mask as dark as the night sky without a moon to guide. A tilt of his head to look around those gathered, a collar around his neck with a chain leash to clink on the end.

He made no attempt at speaking. No attempt at moving. He just sat as all looked at him. Like a living attraction. Living art. Never lingering too long on any guest, no matter how they tried to get his attention. Never responded to waves or requests to see the magic promised on the sign out front. Not even so much of a twitch when someone questioned the rumored belief of his extraterrestrial origin.

He wore a mask, yet so many tried to get him to answer where he was actually from. What truths lay beyond. If he was a conman with the conmen already there.

He never responded. Never reacted.

Except.

The first time you bought a ticket, truthfully, you'd been confused by the crowd gathered. One purchase later, your pocket lighter and your hesitant steps along the dirt road were changed. Charged. Your feet moved toward the sweet scent faster. Until you were moving through the crowd, head lighter, body lighter, and there.

There he sat behind the bars. Stuck. Bare and vulnerable. Bored. Captured. Captive. Unresponsive to words. No matter what was said. No matter if small objects were thrown. Nothing moved him.

The thick, closely-spaced bars were cold beneath your hands as you reached up. The air swirled around you and pulled you so close that the platform on locked wheels that he sat upon pressed into you. Cold yet warm. Hard and cushioned by your thick coat.

He was trapped.

A frown took over as you blinked at him, looking over the otherworldly symbols and scars upon his body. At how godly his stature was. How the collar and the mask and the cuffs kept him subdued.

How did nobody notice the fury that burned like a torch in his chest?

Staring at the vine-like ink going over his ribs, something called to you. It was like a hum in the air, beckoning you forward. Closer to a closer you couldn’t get to when wood and bars remained in your way. A brush of heat licking at your neck. The…the sensation beneath your coat like fingers had brushed down your spine in a manner that had never been done before….

Your eyes moved. Along the curve of his body, past the silver necklace hanging beneath the collar. Up to….

His eyes were on you. Deep, dark—locked with a pitch-black glow. Right on you. Framed by his wild, dark hair. Captured in a narrowed look. A furrowed brow made a crease between them. A glint looked like a spiraling spark spinning in those dark irises.

The heat rose, and a hand around your heart held you still. Squeezed of pain had you gasping and then stuttering that brought a blushing heat along the surface of your skin. Goosebumps hidden beneath the thin long sleeves of your cotton dress. The hand pulled back and brushed over your collarbones. Over your throat.

His eyes glinted as the button on your coat lost its hold. The thread broke. The thick wood fell onto the platform as a whispered breath tickled your cheek.

What felt like the soft, warm press of a kiss followed.

A minute later, as the horn was blown inside a nearby massive tent, you were shooed away from the mystery captive. Waved on. And with every step backward, as the warmth dissipated, it felt like a single thin piece of string stayed. Tied to the bars. Tied to him. And it grew tauter and tauter with every stride you took.

It remained during the show. It remained after. It remained when you’d stumbled out further into the night, passing by friends eager to walk the path home with you. It remained a hypnotic pull as you knelt in front of your fireplace that evening, friends and family all around you, speaking of the show, of the next the following night, of the impossibility of the man being anything but a giftly tall man.

It remained as you slept in your small bedroom, lit by the small lantern beside your bed, dozens of blankets layered atop you to fight the cold. It remained when the world of dreams beckoned you in, and there he sat—chained, masked, and looking upon you with the bars of the cage between you. A loud call with his eyes. Hands running over your shoulders. Undoing the buttons on your jacket.

Save me said a soft voice. Rough around the edges. Murmured into the night that fell. Save me.

There was no rope to see, yet as you stood there, something coiled around you like a spring of rope. Invisible to the eye as it started at your legs and brought itself upward. Around your thighs, hips, waist, chest, and finding a resting wrap around your throat.

More parts of you touched than had been touched since you had snuck off into the woods with the blacksmith’s son a few years prior. But this…this was different. Nothing to be seen, yet it stayed. It wrapped around your arms and went down to your fingers. Coiled. Twisting. Pulling.

Save me….

Jerking awake the next morning, the remnants of that touch remained. Nowhere had been touched. The rope had gone nowhere beneath your clothing. Hardly touched bare skin. And yet…. Sections of your skin felt like the popping embers and wet wood of a desperate fire. Across your stomach. Along your thighs. The bottoms of your feet. The tips of your fingers. Your neck. Your chest.

Deep in your chest.

A reaction you had not seen nor felt since…since that night with the blacksmith’s son…. You wiped along your thighs and between your legs whilst your head spun. Where…? Had he…?

The next night came another ticket purchased. You had to see him. Had to know if you'd dream of him again. Had to test the theory and alleviate that sensation of that string within you being tugged closer and closer and closer with every step you took toward him.

There he’d been again. Chained again. Same position. Same everything. Same scanning of the interested crowd. Same…same lingering when he found you far back in the crowd. His eyes narrowed and his head tilted just a smidge.

You bit your lip and stayed, trying to fight how the warm air felt different against you. Again, your coat was too much. But the spaces where the rope had left you tingling…something was stronger. Like the fanning of a breath against it. Gently. Warm.

Come the end of the show, come your return home and found space beneath your blankets, you slept. You dreamt. He was in that cage again with his head tilted back, blood seeping down from fresh wounds on his sides, his arms, his wrists, his neck. Worn from the cuffs. Sneaking from the scars broken open.

Dark red—a thick, inhuman blood. It bled onto the breathing, glowing marks along his skin. And his eyes found yours and stayed as the voice called back to you. As the invisible rope coiled around your ankles beneath your dress.

Save.

A thick, hard swallow caught in your throat.

He cocked a brow and drew his eyes over you slowly.

The ringmaster keeps the keys in his tent. He finds company in the tightrope’s tent after every show.

Both brows raised and fell quickly.

I am so tired of wearing these chains. Save me.

The warm sunlight woke you with a gentle caress to your cheek. Where the rope had wrapped around your ankles, again, remained touched. And you stared out the frosted window, down at the road that led to the visiting circus, and felt that draw go stronger.

They were hurting him. It mattered not if you were imagining it all or if he was truly a man—an otherworldly man—of magic and extraterrestrial origins speaking to you. Drawing you in. They were harming him. Caging him. Muzzling him.

In good conscience, you could not return another night, could not watch as so many others did, and couldn’t not attempt to help. Nobody would think twice about a farmer’s daughter out on her own—you simply had to find the right moment for the lull, the pull, and then….

The ringmaster’s tent sat across the sea of those pitched beside wagons and cages and colorful booths. The sun brought warmth and bright rays that opened as the night closed. The visitors slept, hummed as they ate, visited the tailors and the inn and the tavern. The blacksmith slammed down his hammer and sharpened blades of sword jugglers and knife throwers.

In his cage, there he sat. Arms still up. Pale skin red around his wrists. Eyes dark and heavy. His hair a mess from the wind and skin untouched from the sun that fell across it. Guards stood near—did they fear someone like you might attempt something? Another might catch a look without paying? To steal attempts through the bars and make deals to reveal mysteries?

You hid behind the corner of the inn, peering carefully around the edge to see. To watch. The guards—taller of the visitors with a bat and a crowbar. A hearty scare tactic for the residents of a town that held so few violent folks. Few approached. Few passed by. Nightfall would be when they came. The pull that was normally there, the tug on the string in the center of your chest—it only seemed to affect you. Few turned the way of the camping visitors, yet none were lured in.

You had to get him out. Get him. Get him.

Your eyes fell back to that cage of iron and thick wood, and from there, even from there, you could feel him. The draw of his gaze, the flicker of darkness that filled the light. Dark hair covered most, the black mask made for an oblivion. Yet his eyes….

Get him. Get him. Get him.

The old wood beneath your fingers crumbled as you drew them down. A harsh scratch as a shuddering warmth passed over you. An ache. A tug. A beckon. Do it. You must. You had to. You would know failure if you didn’t. Defeat you did not wish to see.

Free him.

A flip within your stomach had your mind, your thoughts, the words you tried to capture tangling all into one. Your next breath came warm. A trickle of sweat skated down your back.

The ringmaster’s tent.

You’d wait until nightfall.

Coins fell. A ticket was exchanged. Gentle tugs brought your steps down along the dirt road and through the crowd. There he sat again. Same cage. Same elevated stage. Same chains and mask and cuffs and collar. Same lingering look in your direction as you approached. This time, it fell to you the second you arrived, and then, as something flickered behind those brown eyes like a falling star, he glanced away. Back up. As if you’d never arrived at all.

Did he no longer want your help? Had you failed him? Had you imagined it? A little tilt of your head while studying him once more…no. The draw remained. The heat burning beneath you, close to an unbearable level, close to tearing your clothes from yourself and bathing in the snow on the highest peak of the mountains beyond your town…. It remained.

You leaned your forehead against the bars and frowned at the divots in his wrists. The heavy chain on his collar. The lock that sat on the door. Rusted. Thick. Worn to the elements on its iron exterior and thick with coppery dust frozen stiff across the small hole for the key.

Save him.

He kicked one foot out as the other stayed up and bent. Lolled his head and breathed deeply behind the stifling mask.

Save him.

You watched the show but did not watch it. There and present with the rest. Seeing the new acts, watching as adrenaline pumped through those around you. A new kind found you. Brought you shifting in your seat with every passing second. The sweet aroma, the warm whispering breath against your neck, the slithering rope around your ankles. It stole attention away. Stole you away.

There was an alcove with the sea of wagons and tents together. So many claimed relief for their desires as the show came to a close. To drink. To bask in compliments, attention, sin. Lust. To the inn they went. To the tavern. To the homes of those unmarried and married alike.

Save him. You stepped into the shadows whilst your heart hammered away. It clamored about within you as it grew nearly too hot for your coat. But the chill remained so it remained. No fool would strip in such a cold breeze, no matter the warmth beneath.

You endured. You waited. Until the night grew quiet and empty. Until you could hear the wolves howling in the distance and the owls filling their silence. Laughter echoed far from the occupied building, tents, and wagons alike. And that’s what you moved. A tiptoe around on the worn dirt and dying grass. Soft crunches beneath your feet from dropped foods, from dead leaves, from the rocks that crumbled and fell from passing carts and carriages.

Save him. Save him. Save him.

The ringmaster's tent was in a cluster. Some empty, some not—so therein came softer and softer steps. Held breaths were the normal while looking for the entrance. A craned neck came next as you searched and searched for possible wandering eyes. An easy lie would be to state you were looking for someone after finding such ecstatic fun in their performances, though so few lies had ever slipped from your lips.

The largest only became of whether you had laid with Roderick. Off on business and an apprenticeship with his uncle two towns over since he had turned twenty-two, there was little fear of the lie being proven as such. A kept secret between the two of you. There were little lies to tell when nobody had even noticed you'd gone away into the back of the shop that evening.

Just as nobody would miss you now.

Peering inside the tent was a dangerous risk, yet the words were on an unrelenting repeat. Save him. Get him. Save him. Free him. In a voice far from your own and far from that you’d heard in your dreams. A whisper of many voices over your very own. As if it came from feet away and not within your head. Far and layered and each slithering whisper of it was a rise of goosebumps along your skin.

There was nobody inside the tent.

You slipped inside and began to search.

Time would've been taken were you certain the ringmaster wouldn't return for the evening. But with such an uncertainty, you traversed forward with a quickness that did not match in swiftness. Bottles were nearly knocked over. A safe was stumbled into. Pillows knocked from the settee and kicked by your feet. Books threatened to fall from their lopsided stacks as you passed by them quickly, and nervous pulls threatened to take doors off of cheaply made wardrobes.

Keys. Keys. Keys.

Your family would think you out with friends. Your friends would think you with family, sitting by the fire, discussing options for a long overdue betrothal. The farm came first—the farm took precedence, and thus, marriage was put off. Two hands were better than the time lost from your courtship. Years passed in the process. Winters got hard. Family got ill.

But all delays came to an end.

You lifted the lid of a trunk, ready to accept defeat, when silver caught your eye. A ring of keys sat atop pieces of parchment with smudged black ink. Income papers. Contracts signed. A small book with symbols on the front that matched those on the mystery man’s body. A sliver of a red gem sat in the center.

Take it. Your hands itched. You felt warm again.

You plucked up the keys and the book, tucking them into pockets you’d sewn in yourself within your coat, and slipped from the tent. The darkness took you into its isolation. Every step alone. Every step bringing you further into midnight and closer to the cage.

Behind it, panting, you stood. Two guards stood watch. One burping as the other threw back an amber bottle. A dark ruby, red liquid sloshed, and a parchment label went across the front with a hand-drawn cluster of off-purple grapes. A paint error. Your friend had been sent the wrong one, yet they couldn't afford to replace it just yet.

Mattered not. It was the only local wine, and thus, all would drink it regardless. Including the nonlocals.

Another burp. Another swig.

You inched closer as spoken, indistinguishable words were slurred.

It was also a strong wine.

Laughter echoed out, and you stepped closer, closer, closer….

“Hey, cunt, dial it back,” one shot over his shoulder. The other, a bat instead of a bottle, raised it to the bars. It clanged loudly beneath quick slams. “Show’s over. Quit it.”

They slammed the bat harder. The sound was an ugly thing, and you jolted at the sound. Anger flared like smoke above the two guards. Both. The other finished off the bottle and raised it up like the weapon it could become.

“We ain’t going to fall for it. You can try all you fuckin’ like, but we aren’t charmed by your little hypnotism.” They waved their fingers before forming an o with their mouth and….

Oh, lord.

They spat through the bars. Scoffed and laughed as they stepped back and away. A hand was thrown up while one cursed and another spun the bat. More laughter. More words not meant for your ears. More disgust.

To treat him with such contempt…was he not a living being, too?

Yet there he resided in chains and cuffs. A collar and muzzle. Untouched. Unable to move. An act to be fawned over. Money tossed to all except him.

Two women passed by, eyes going toward the captive stranger and then the guards. The man with the bat shook his head, but the other held up the wine whilst stepping closer. Laughter followed. The twirling of hair and batting of lashes were small movements.

Seemed they trusted all that held him in place with their backs turned and attention elsewhere.

You stepped closer. Hesitant. Carefully. The ground still crunched beneath your feet, and the keys were still a solid, jingling metal. A wrong move would set off the cards that built the flimsy house you stood within. One wrong move, and who knew the prosecution that awaited if they found you with the keys to their caged attraction.

Step by agonizing step, eyes moving from the guards, the women, the cage, you moved. Closer and closer and closer. Every step a pull on that taut string. Every step a rise in temperature. An added sweetness to the air.

Until there—the bars of the back were in front of you. The melded metals where the cuffs were kept, where the chains hung, where the bars pressed unforgivingly into his back. And…. And those marks you could truly see up close were a spectacle.

Still down below the platform, you could only reach up to his lower back. But the scars, the tattoos…they were a dull pull. A hypnotic appeared that felt much like a hand guiding yours to him. To the bars. To the bare skin you ought not to touch.

The muscles in his shoulders twitched and he tilted his head.

Did he know you were there?

Mattered not. You had to get around to the front to get within the cage, but the guards were still there. And with the rust upon it, it was wholly possible that to get the key in, to turn, you had to use considerable force.

So…you couldn’t go to the front.

You achingly pulled your eyes from his back, scouring the lot of him. Of the cage. There had to be locks on the cuffs, but where? The bars which sat between the two of you were close together, but not so close that you couldn’t fit your hand through them. The keys through them. If you could get him free in there, then possibly…?

You could distract the guards as he got out; it might work. But he was so big…. He could potentially get the key to the front lock. A risk, but what other options did you have?

Free him.

A tight swallow felt round in your throat. It was the only option you had, and he was positioned so perfectly that, so long as you made very little noise, you ought not to draw attention. You could possibly do it.

Possibly.

Okay. Free him. Free him. Free him.

One foot found a ledge to leverage yourself up, and the second it interacted with the wood, he shifted. A little jerking on that thread pulling you closer was beckoning you in. Come. Come, come, come. A gentle wind against your back was like the necessary momentum to get you up.

He knew you were there.

And if you had been so distracted and confused before to think as such, he certainly knew when you stood directly behind him. The bars and your clothing the only barrier between you and him, and yet the heat from him. As you gasped, the front of you knew the divots made by the bars against your body as he filled the spaces in between.

The heat that came from him was inhuman. It permeated your clothing and became a licking heat along your skin. Your spine.

He tilted his head back, and through the gaps of his falling hair, as he peered over his shoulder, your eyes met. The keys nearly fell from your hand as that darkness swallowed your thoughts. A touch crawling over your stomach like a severed hand trying to reach you. Over your stomach, ribs, chest, then a brush against your cheek.

Save him.

You raised the keys and looked at the guards, hardly able to take your eyes from his. He seemed to understand, though. And without speaking, as silently as you could, you reached up for the first cuff. The lock hung just in reach.

His chest moved faster as you searched for the correct key. The movements had to be slow, but at least the air was a little more breathable than it’d been moments before. A fog still threatened to cloud your brain, but your thoughts did not tangle.

Your hands brushed against his whilst your fingers grazed engraved images on the side of the cuff. For a brief moment, there was a sudden hypnotic sensation. A blankness that made your heart stutter and your hands tremble. The marks matched those right there on his wrist, arm, down onto his chest. But they were nothing you were familiar with.

Miraculously, the lock gave when you found the correct key. It clicked open, and the man visibly and audibly sighed. The sound was a low growl of sorts beneath that mask, deep and low within his chest. It made him vibrate, and it pushed through the bars and found you. A feral sound. Inhuman.

He slowly lowered his arm as you reached over for the second cuff.

The same key worked for that one.

Hands freed, he peered back at you, uncaring of the guards only a handful of feet away. Still engulfed with the flirting women, slightly out of sight yet still a danger. But the look he gave you wiped that fear away. A longing in those eyes that sank deep into the depths beyond him that went far into you; your breath was stolen. Your heart no longer knew rest. A flipping in your stomach had your mouth parting and your empty hand finding a grasp on the bars so tight that your knuckles ached.

He reached through and took the keys from you.

He reached through as those eyes began to crinkle with a hidden smile and glint with a power you could only imagine. His empty hand reached up and brushed his fingertips underneath your chin, and your knees buckled.

Him. Him. Him. Parting your mouth, you looked upon him like he was a god. His touch magnetic. Burning. Your coat was too heavy and your dress was too thick. Still, he smiled.

Within your stomach, you felt molten.

You stumbled off the platform with a quiet step.

Free him. Distract. Help.

Anything—everything else—was moot. You had to set him free.

And you were only able to move when his gaze left you. Melted and molten, you stumbled around to the side of the cage and looked for options. To flirt was pointless, you were hardly practiced in that area and it was hard to act alluring in such heavy clothes. To attack would lead to your pain and suffering. So, you had to lean elsewhere. Draw them away.

You had to—

“Hey, what the fuck?”

The bat was raised as the other turned. Too long.

The chain clanked loudly as he dropped the collar from his neck. His eyes glimmered as he stood so tall that his head nearly touched the ceiling. He swallowed the cage with himself, the men not backing down as one reached beneath the bottom of the wagon platform it sat upon, and out came a two-pronged device. Far more advanced than anything within your little town, and bolts of something were like captured bolts of lightning.

It made the man hesitate. Just enough.

He wrapped the chain around one fist and stood, weighing his options.

If they struck him with that, he would lose. That tension in his shoulders, the sliver of fear in his gut—you needn't know exactly what that weapon did; you just knew it would lead to his failure.

And you needed to free him.

“You. Hey!” The man with the bat suddenly looked your way. Oh. Panic became liquid in your veins as he raised it and stepped toward you. “You bitch, you did this. Damn it.”

He stepped toward you with the intention of striking, you knew. Pain would come. Danger was there. But you couldn’t simply run. To flee was to leave the stranger alone with the other. Danger waited there within degrees your mind couldn’t fully comprehend. So you sprinted, yes, just not away.

Do not let them touch you.

You ran out of reach, out of swing, out of one large stride from the guard in front of you, and therein came a slight whistle. Just a small one. One that brought wind by your cheek and suddenly wood splintered. As the other turned just a smidge late toward you, you slammed yourself into his side as hard as you could. Many sick cattle needed to be helped to their feet, many heavy bales of hay had to be rolled. You knew how to distribute your body weight.

And as a ringing filled the air, the bars of the cell vibrating as the armed man turned with his bat, a chain appeared around his neck. The ground came to your side with a hard and heavy slam, the guard you’d hit falling with you, a curse leaving his lips.

Disoriented, you caught the glinting chain going around the other’s neck. His pale skin turned purple and blue and his feet left the ground as he was raised, raised, raised up. Those feet kicked as he clawed at the metal, and the captive looked unphased and without effort as he hung the man.

Weapon.

“You dumb cunt—”

A hand reached for your coat and knowing once you were grasped, you would be stuck, you jerked on the buttons. The thin threads broke from the force just as he grabbed ahold. A miracle in the making. The fabric fell as you pushed to your feet, grabbing the dropped prod and gripping it tight, feet slipping on the dirt as you aimed for traction.

You gained it as your coat was thrown back. Started to sprint away as he chased you, his partner no longer squirming against the cage. Pressed frantically as the button he had, trying to get it to work, trying to have something to arm yourself with, for you did not wish to know the feeling of a blunt object against another person.

Yet nothing worked.

The dirt road became leaves and dead grass. The town and field became trees and bushes. The fresh mountain air grew closer as you were cursed once again, and you simply kept springing as fast as you could in your dress. The fabric tore at sharp branches and capturing thorns, yet still you continued. Further, harder. No matter how the thin air hurt your lungs. No matter how cold it began to get.

You sprinted until an unearthed root caught you.

And then all oxygen was gone from your lungs as you slammed into the earth.

The prod flew from your grasp, landing somewhere in the wilderness. A piece of luck that your dress held you safe from scrapes. It left you to roll onto your back while panting, fear shoving deep down into your stomach as the guard sprinted toward you, hate in his eyes. Disgust. Fury.

Death was waiting for you, you knew. But you’d surely saved him. How you’d hoped you’d saved him. No one should be caged. No one should be muzzled. No one would be treated like a spectacle and forced into submission.

You closed your eyes and waited. Limbs too weak to get up and move. To fight. To run.

He ran toward you with that impending hate, and you found acceptance in your fate.

Found—

A thud. A grunt. A wail of pain.

Your eyes cracked open while you huffed, and there the guard no longer stood. The moonlight crept through the waving leaves and branches to beckon the new arrival. The fury in a gaze dark and narrow. Wild hair caught the breeze as he walked toward the slumped man on the ground, barely breathing. Shaking. His pants soiled as he tried to get back.

“Fuck, please. We were just doing what he wanted. We were just….”

The captive no longer captive just tilted his head. The man was still on. The fury in his eyes remained. And he spared you one heart-stopping glance as he walked past you. The man on the ground blubbering. Trying to run. Trying to get up, but blood dripped from a wound on his head.

The stranger knelt, and the prod crackled with the press of the button.

The guard stayed silent in defeat as the stranger rose from the ground. He was silent all the way until the sparking end was plunged into his chest. It stayed until the man stopped clawing and screaming.

It stayed until he stopped breathing.

You held your very own breath as the stranger lifted the prod, the end smoking, and broke the metal device over his knee as if it were nothing. It fell to the ground in two pieces, sparking for a brief moment at the ends, and then it died down. Nothing. A broken torment left beside a corpse.

A hand pushed his hair back while he sighed in the mask.

And then he looked to you.

Please. You pushed back one attempt, heart thundering loud enough for the sky to hear. Dirt became holes as your feet moved, yet you did not. The twigs on the ground pressed into your palm and the leaves stuck to your dress. The cold battled the warmth in the air as he took a step toward you.

Out in the distance, behind him, there was yelling.

Without warning, he was there in front of you. Touching you. His hands came to yours, and he jerked you to your feet, moving them to your hips while you steadied yourself. The heat of him breached the material as if you were naked and…and your mind went blank for a moment before he took your arm in one hand and started to walk, not letting go.

Fleeing. Panic set in into a lulled numbness as he started to pull you from the noise. Flee, (Y/N). Flee with him. You’d set him free. The women there surely saw. They might’ve recognized you. They would come after you.

He started to move faster, and so did you.

Run.

So you ran.

Up into the mountains, deeper into the forest, farther into the cold you went. All without a second thought.

You moved until you could no longer do so, and you spotted a cave nearby that could house you. Moonlight came in through a hidden opening as the grass gave way to stone, and the two of you stilled, listening to the silence. Nobody chasing you that way. No animals coming to hunt. Just the two of you.

His hand freed your arm, and you collapsed onto the floor, huffing until your chest hurt and aching for water.

He didn’t even seem affected.

All he did was reach behind his head, holding up his hair, and with a twist of his hand, the thick lock on the back of the muzzle broke. As if it were a twig.

It, and the mask, fell to the floor with a loud thud.

You held yourself on your hands as you peered up at him. Free then. Fully free. Stubble beneath the mask, soft marks where it had been pressing into his skin for so, so long, a parting, full mouth as his eyes shut and he took a full breath. Head back, a small smile coming atop it, and he made that low growling noise again as he breathed.

"Thank you," he mused, lolling his head over, and those brown eyes glowed when they looked upon you. It was the same voice that'd spoken in your dreams. Not the layered one, but the other. The beckoning one. The very same that fell over you like a warm blanket. "Five years, and you're the fucking first brave enough to help me."

You nodded softly. The marks on his body…. Your eyes fell. They glowed. They moved. They…were hypnotic still. What were they doing? How was he doing that?

“Are you going to kill me?” you asked softly, a trembling in your voice making the words show the fear you attempted to hide.

You swallowed hard as he looked upon you still. One brow raised as he dropped his head forward.

"Why would I kill the person who set me free?" He walked toward you, and you flinched but did not move. His wrists were slowly losing the red tenderness as he knelt beside you, towering over you even then. The back of his fingers a warm, soft brush against your jaw. "I owe you an eternity of favors."

“That is quite a few,” you muttered.

You were unable to look away, unable to leave the brush his fingers did over you again. In fact, the draw, the pull—you leaned into it. Felt it pump into your heart with quickening strokes, and the end of the thread seemed to wrap around his fingers.

“They captured me when I was fatally wounded, chained and muzzled me like a fucking dog, and used me to draw in visitors to their show. Another freak added to their exploitative shit to trick person after person into emptying their pockets. I was in the cage for five years without reprieve. You, pretty human, spared me from that continuing.”

Five years without reprieve? Your brows furrowed. “How did you survive?”

“I am not human. I don’t need the same sustenance that you do. I thrive off of other forms of food.”

You gave him a worrying look, feeling your stomach flip. He still brushed his fingers along your cheek. Your jaw. The tips went down along the column of your throat until they returned and pressed beneath your chin.

“What are you?” you asked softly.

“Many, many fucking things, mortal.” His eyes were a warm, burning fire that fixed what your vanished coat couldn’t. Your breathing grew heavier. Your elbows and knees were weak. A heat crawled over your cheeks and settled down low in your stomach. “I am not from here. And the longer you are near me, the more you will begin to realize that.” His eyes fell half-lidded and before shutting. A quiet breath tickled your cheek. “Five years has been an eternity.”

He moved. In an instant, he was across the cave. Toward the entrance.

“Stay there. You require things that I do not for the night. Wait there. When I return, do not come near me for the rest of the time we are here, okay?” He strode toward the forest without breaking his sauntering stride.

“Wait,” you started. “But I….”

Had to get home. Had to return.

"You should wait until the troupe gives up and leaves. Otherwise, they will hunt you as they are hunting me. I owe you a fucking lot of favors, mortal. Let me start them now."

And just like that, you were left alone in the cave, curling into a ball while shivering, trying to gather your thoughts as they came and went. Yet they just continued to vanish. To tangle. The heat lingering from where he’d touched you. The flipping within your stomach lingering.

You were stuck hiding from dangerous traveling performers to save him, to save yourself, to save. To survive. Stuck with a stranger—an inhuman—stranger who did not pause before killing. And yet you felt safe. Utterly safe as you waited. Cold, shivering, and confused.

Yet where else were you to go? Where else would the spark of curiosity that began to burn get fed?

He was free. Yet the thread between you remained.

So you remained.

There was something else anchoring you in place in that cave. It was hard to decipher, but it was there. It weighed you in your spot and kept you shivering in the cold and lingering warmth like a warm blanket being heated by a fire. A promise just out of sight, just out of reach. Right there, leaving you to just…wait.

It remained as you did, it remained as he returned only a handful of minutes later. Sticks were gathered in his arms with other unrecognizable pieces of the forest. The flora bundled in rough pickings. Not all edible, and you were about to speak of such to him, but they weren't given to you. The sticks were dropped into a heap, and with a wave of his hand, before you could even comprehend his quick return, a flame burst in the center of the sticks.

Fire formed. A fire. A campfire became that of the twigs. Thick logs sat in their place and heat burst from the edges. You rushed beside it as he stepped back, watching your hands tremble while you reached to claim the heat.

Somehow, it felt inferior to that of which he exuded. But you remained silent on that subject, instead simply watching him gather the other pickings from the forest and laying them out around him.

Berries, leaves, twigs, fungi. His hair blew in a breeze that wasn’t there. The marks on his body glowed and twisted. A flick of his hand and in a blink, therein came a twirling spark. Growing sparks. Growing and twisting like the spirals the wind made of leaves when it grew too strong.

“That’s…impossible,” you muttered, staring in awe.

The sparks of white and red and black all came together. Some of the foraged goods vanished from the ground, and then came a thick material. Black as the night. Twice the size of you. Glimmering in the moonlight.

He bundled it in his hands and handed it to you.

A blanket. Warm. Fuzzy. An air about it that tingled your skin and sank deep into your gut as a warm fuzzy sensation. Swallowing hard and continuing to stare in that unending awe, you took it.

“Thank you,” you breathed.

It smelled like magic.

His mouth curled into a smile. "You'd be surprised at all the impossibilities that lay beyond here." Silver rings on his fingers glinted. They hid only momentarily as he pushed his hair back. "They tried to use me for that. To do that as part of their show. But in my refusal, they managed to find an intelligence that backfired on me. That's the first magic I've done in ages."

He smirked as he sat back. The defeated, numb, trapped fury he must've been harnessing for those last five years was there in his eyes still, but his body relaxed. He smiled when you wrapped yourself up in it.

“Magic?” you asked before shaking your head. He’d just done it—that’s what it was. To question what you’d just witnessed wasn’t going to change the impossibility of it as it had already been proven real. “What are you? Who are you? How….” You sighed. “I have so many questions.”

His grin remained.

His eyes glimmered and glowed as he drew them over you slowly.

“My name doesn’t translate to anything in any human language, and what I am is pretty fucking complicated. Best to just think of me as not human. Inhuman. Immortal." He dropped his head back against the wall of the cave, and a wry smile took over. "Well, mostly immortal. But I’ve yet to die, so….”

He shrugged. “Who are you?” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve lost track of all of the places I’d been carted off to. Yet you are the only one it’s worked on.” His hands twitched on his lap. He idly played with a stray thread on his pants. “I can beckon many interested as it’s a purposeful tactic built into my species, but you returned it with a vigor that broke past whatever had been stopping the others.”

You shrugged. With a lack of understanding of what any of that meant, you just had the truth to tell.

"You were caged in and a spectacle. I wanted to save you, and as that thought began, it sort of remained. And I felt this…." Your cheeks burned as you glanced away. He spoke of it. He’d just spoken of it being something he could do. Yet embarrassment clawed itself through you. “This interest in saving you, and so I followed it.”

He lolled his head to the side and studied you a little more carefully.

“Interest?” He stopped tugging on the thread. “Like a draw?”

You avoided eye contact. The cave felt unbearably warm then, yet you stayed wrapped in the blanket.

"Of sorts." You shrugged. "I didn't like how you were being used or treated, that's all. So, like I said, I followed it, and it led me to you. To here."

“Did you feel anything else?”

His voice was lower. A huskiness to it that made goosebumps rise. Gradually, you lifted your gaze to look at him again, and flames erupted over you. That glint in his eye was back. The way his tattoos glowed was magnetic. The bareness of his chest had been out of thought when distracted, but it was in full view there. Back in front. Bare and large and broad.

Your eyes fell from his and drew across his chest.

“No,” you lied quickly. “Nothing else.”

His chest expanded with a slow breath, and you realized how much you were staring. Heat remained on your cheeks as you looked toward the fire. To get lost staring in the flames required much less effort than simply looking upon him. This made your head throb as your heart thundered. Trembling hands held the blanket tighter, yet the heat made you ache to throw it off. To tear at your clothes and free yourself of the confines. To rip and tear until you were bare and cold and free.

“I’m going to rest outside of the cave,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet before you could realize what he’d said.

“What?” You whipped to face him, and he stopped as he stood. “I….” You could not find a reason not to accept such a chivalrous act. To allow you the safety of isolation. A strange man twice your size in a cave at night. All alone. And yet, your body felt a loss as he started to leave. An ache that ripped through you like a bolt of lightning and yanked on that sting harder and harder at the prospect of him leaving. "You don't have to."

His next breath was slow, and it seemed almost deliberate in an inexplicable way. The air in the cave grew thicker as he peered down at his rings and spun them. Fixed them. Cocked a brow as you both remained in silence.

“You don’t want me to go, do you?” he asked, glancing up at you while he still fixed his rings. Your heart jerked. Your grip on the blanket grew stronger. “What’s your name, mortal?”

“(Y/N),” you answered immediately.

You refused to answer his other question.

“My species has a special attribute to it. One that works for us, but is a huge difference for humans. It also seems to affect you mortals drastically. For us, it’s just like a spritz. A light call. For humans, it’s an all-consuming draw. Hypnotic to the interested. Maddening, at times.” He cleared his throat. “Though, that sentiment is returned. Just internally.” His jaw clenched, drawing your eyes to the stubble across it. “It has its purpose, though. Within our species, at least. When mortals are brought in, it becomes less about purpose and more about…pleasure.”

Your chest heaved. His eyes glowed. How your head began to spin in the thickening warm air. How your head spun with unending thoughts. How a clenching within your gut had you digging your teeth into your bottom lip for a mere moment.

“Speak plainly. Please.”

He cleared his throat again and took a sliver of a step back.

“Call it magic. Call it a piece of us. We release an innate draw that pulls in the interested—hence my position at the front of the troupe’s acts. The main purpose of the draw, however, is not for that. But, well, to mate.”

Your breath hitched and your eyes widened. Mate?

“I think my draw for help might’ve struck something a little deeper in you, (Y/N).” He inhaled slowly, his exhale soft and just as slow. “And if it’s in you, it’s in me. The closer you are to me, the more you are going to feel that draw. The more you feel it, the harder it’ll be to ignore.” He took another step back. “Our mating ritual isn’t the same as a mortal one. Not in stamina or intensity. So I am going to rest outside. Rest up.”

He took another step back, and there went the string again. Tighter. Tauter. You nearly fell on your hands as he turned. No other explanation. No other words. He sauntered away, tugging at the string endlessly. Until he plopped down just at the edge, twirling his fingers and giving away sparks and glimmering air.

Space that was an ache within your chest when the blanket smelled like him. When the air smelled like him. When your mind went blank except for him.

A draw for a mating ritual? Your mind was flooded in an instant. A flash of images. Of possibilities. Of him coming to you just as you had those years ago, feeling him against you, the stubble scraping your skin, the warm compression of his body holding you as you fell apart.

As he filled you.

(Y/N), no. Such thoughts were dangerous. Were your family and friends to discover what you’d already done before being wed, they would have your head for the scandal and disgrace.

And yet….

No.

You turned your back to him. You were tied together. Bound. Pulled together. And you had to fight that. Even if it was some magic, you weren’t going to lust after a being who’d just spoken so openly about being an extraterrestrial being trapped and captive for years. You weren’t going to lust after a stranger you knew so little about. You weren’t.

No matter how your body pined for him. For his.

Rolling onto your side, the sensations changed. It was…stronger than before. He was capable of doing unearthly things with the tips of his fingers and yet he hadn’t been able to escape captivity for so many years? Simple cuffs and chains did not seem to be so effective when he could do magic. He could conjure up fire with a flick of his wrist. Surely that would’ve proven helpful?

There’d been symbols on the cuffs. The collar.

Had they…? Was it possible they had subdued the magic as thick mitts protected skin from fire-hot pans and irons?

A shiver passed along your spine. Warm against the cold. Cold within the warm. You could feel him back there. Lingering. Alone after being so alone yet so crowded for so long. Isolated in a cage, never allowed to move, never allowed to stretch his legs. To feed. To live.

A hard swallow brought you a little closer to the fire.

What were you doing, (Y/N)?

Mourning the loss a stranger had endured was one thing. Attempting to save them was another. But you lay on the floor of a cave, wrapped in a blanket conjured out of thin air by magic, with a stranger. A man tall and broad and half naked. Whose eyes glowed like his markings along his skin. Wild hair. A wicked smile. A thumping draw inching you closer…closer…closer….

You had to return home. They would miss you. Your family would know. Your friends would know. A complication at the fair, a woman breaking the stranger out, then you do not return home for the evening?

You must.

You rolled back over and peered at the cave entrance. At him. Basking in the moonlight. Head back, eyes shut, bathing as if it were the summer sun.

He could be a god. A demigod. Some variation of one. He wasn’t from your world, and if he was a god, you ought to not leave and offend him, correct? He spoke of owing you eternal favors. He distanced himself from you for your comfort. To spare you the….

The effects of a draw lending itself to their mating ritual.

Your eyes grew heavy as you rolled back over. The fire crackled and kept you steadily warm. Beckoned you toward sleep with a wave of its hand. With a kiss to your forehead. With tightening tension on that thread between you.

What were the elements of said ritual?

Sleep was a whisper against your cheek. When a fraction of a dream came barreling toward you, it was of him. Your hands coming together. Watching how your fingers intertwined. The warm touch of his hand, the way it engulfed yours. The tangling of your fingers as you sat in front of each other. Body to body, hand to hand. Feeling the rough pad of his palm against the rough of yours.

Those eyes of his glowed black and sparked with the stars of the sky. A press of his hand forward brought yours to meet it, pushing until you were pulling each other in. Body to body. Chest to chest. His height difference standing tall over you. Swallowing you. Holding, hugging, captivating.

His free hand came to your chin and tipped it up. The cold ground of the cave pressed into your knees through your dress, the grip on his hand weakening as you were guided up to meet his gaze. A lost path righted as you blinked up at him.

Warm. Enchanted. Dripping with sin hidden by your dress.

More. Your body felt taut. Strung up and pulled from end to end as he brushed his knuckles along your jaw. Everything went still. Everything went warm. Fire licked at the base of your dress, catching it and burning it to ash around you. The flames never burned your skin.

Thoughts dwindled. An ache in your stomach clenched around itself, flipping and turning as you took ahold of his hair at the nape of his neck. Your dress fell as ash. A breeze carried it away. The cold air of the night blanketed your skin—bare and vulnerable. There for him to see. To touch. To watch as your breaths heaved. And with a little tilt of his head, he smiled.

One hand slid between your legs—knuckles brushing your thighs all the way up—his rings gone. And his fingers stroked—

The fire was low in front of you as your eyes suddenly opened. No explanation. No jolt. You were just…awake. There. Blinking as your clothes became a stifling sensation across your skin. The blanket was thrown about, sweat threatening to slick skin. The feel of his hand remained in yours and the touch of his fingers against your skin—all previously touched areas—was a low hum.

What had you conjured up?

You rose, head spinning. The cold of the cave felt good against your feverish skin. But it wasn’t satiating the ache that joined it. What’s….

Soft steps brought your gaze behind you. Seeing the version of him in your dreams must've altered something. Yes, surely. It must have. When you found him standing at the entrance, hand in his hair, dressed in his bottoms, there was a new feeling. At first, as water dripped from the ends of his hair and glistened his skin, it was a lust so depraved you wondered if you were still dreaming.

The way the droplets fell down along the divots of his body was a godly given gift. A torment. A mesmerizing sight you could not look from. The moon caught the droplets perfectly, caught the curves of his nose and lips, the angle of his jaw. The determined look on his face as he pushed his hair back.

How much skin was shown where his bottoms ought to have covered on his waist.

Then his eyes shifted. He found you. Watching. Staring. Kneeling, wrapping yourself in his blanket to hide what you hoped he couldn’t see. Even hidden beneath clothing, it was still part of you. Vulnerable and mind-breaking.

In a quick act to hide it, you searched through the heavy fog of what must’ve been sleep, and plucked out the first words you could think of.

“You’re wet.”

He cracked a lopsided smile that had your breath stolen. It seemed so human, but upon him, there was more. A sensation of something more. And to think they kept it hidden behind that mask for five years. Potentially a positive on their part. Be it one smile from him and eyes that beckoned, and there would’ve been countless others trying to save him so they could be on the other end of that smile.

"There's a creek up that way." He waved to his left. "Haven't really bathed in a while that wasn't them spraying me down with a hose or dumping a bucket of water on me. So I took a dip. Made sure the coast was clear, though. You think I'd leave you in any sort of danger like that?"

His lopsided smile remained. Your heart skipped a beat.

"Is it not too cold?" You slowly stood. Your breath could be seen, and as the night grew, it would only get colder. He was soaking wet. His pants were wet. He needed to dry off. He needed…. You peered down at your blanket, pulling it from your shoulders and holding it out. "You need to dry off."

He looked at you a long moment, adjusting the rings on his fingers whilst dragging those glowing eyes over you. A little flick. A little drag. A lingering on you in a way you couldn't decipher.

“You require that more than I do,” he said hesitantly, “but I will take a moment by the fire.”

One step. Then another. Water dripped from him as he approached the fire behind you. The closer he got, the stronger the ache within you became. It was like someone was feeding kindling to the fire within you. Fanning it every second while they whispered secrets you’d never hear.

You were taking deep breaths by the time he sat down across from you.

With a wave of his hand, the fire grew in size. Your shadows danced off the walls.

"You don't have to stay awake with you, you know." He leaned back on one hand, finding your gaze through the fire. Your hands twitched, and you slowly lowered the blanket. It was too much. Too hot.

“I know,” you muttered. “I can’t sleep.”

He cocked a brow. “Can’t or don’t want to?”

You didn’t answer. He tilted his head.

“I can make another fire, (Y/N). I can—”

You didn't want him to leave. It was going to ache if he did, and at the rate you were already collapsing, you were going to tear through your skin if you were apart from him. When he looked at you, it was like summer had found the cave. Like fingers were brushing across bare sections of skin and trying to get to you. To touch you. To feel you.

The inside of your thighs hummed. Beneath your breasts longed. Between your legs grew a dampness that worsened just when your eyes locked. And your lips ached to feel his.

“Tell me about the ritual,” you blurted.

He'd just started to sit up, and that brought him to a stop. Humiliation slammed into you with the force of a horse, and you jerked your eyes away before you could meet his for anything longer than a second. Horrifying words to ever leave your lips. Even worse was the truth in wanting to know. Even worse than that was wanting to ask in order to know and to get him to stay.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked, head lolling to the side. “Or is that a different part of you talking right now? I told you, we really should fucking stay far apart from each other.”

“You were quick to come here when you could make another fire,” you shot back, eyes lifting from the flames.

He cracked another small smile. “I did.”

You swallowed hard as he nodded his head.

"I want to know." You closed tight fists around your dress. "To know of anything from a world without humans is a gift so many never get to receive. Before this week, there had only been rumors of life beyond our world. Enlighten me, please."

He nodded once more, eyes down in the fire.

"Okay." He tapped his fingers on his thigh. "To avoid a long lesson about my people, I'll try and simplify it. Honestly, it's a ritual we have to reproduce. Magic heightens, lengthens, and fortifies the connection. We want to ensure as best as we can that the ritual is successful, and it isn't always about some magic cue or key. Just sort of comes down to staying together for as long as our bodies hold out. Those capable of bearing any successful rituals are bound down naked, drunk with a shared lust. And then we come together in the act. And we go. And go. And go." He lolled his head and drew his eyes up from the flames. "Until our stamina gives out, we've made a hell of a mess, and the partner being bred has taken enough to ensure something has taken. And then they remain like that, bound as to not disturb the magic elements of the ritual, until a flower blooms in the nearby ground.”

He tapped his fingers on his thigh. Watched you as the world grew too hot. Too stuffy. Too…sparking.

Your dress wrinkled beneath your harsh grasp.

"If a flower doesn't bloom in the length of one of our days, then the original partner returns to repeat the act again. And that repeats until a flower blooms."

Oh. The fire crackled as you looked upon each other in that flame-lit darkness. The thought of that…. Images you’d never even thought to imagine before those words were uttered…. Restrained? A continuation for that extensive time period? Minutes had taken place during the single time you’d taken it far enough to consider yourself a loss of a purity your town held so vital. Minutes of awkward pawing, sharp stones and twigs through a thin jacket put down for you. Stolen kisses escalating into an intensified ache for more, and you knew of acts you weren’t supposed to. So did he.

So minutes. As long as it took to get your dress up. His fingers touched for a short while until he couldn’t wait any longer, and then he was undoing his trousers. Asking over and over and over again if he could, if he please could. The minutes slowed as the act continued, a pinch of pain, then relief, then a new feeling. But just as that new feeling joined the jerky, desperate moves of his body, he was out of you, spilling into the grass. A curse on his lips, head hung.

Just minutes.

But days? For a ritual to take?

Your next breath shuddered as you looked back at the fire. You trembled a tad, aching to hide the truth that pummeled through you like a horse on the dirt roads. Yet, it felt as if failure was the only option.

So you avoided looking at him. Your mind spun through how one would restrain another in such a manner like that. What that would feel like. What he would feel like.

“What does the flower mean? Or, forgive me. What does it mean….” You frowned. It was getting considerably harder to find those words needed to speak.

"Means the ritual was taken and accepted and there's a higher chance of the ritual being a success." He lolled his head to the side and pursed his lips. "If a flower never takes after three days, then the ritual is halted and results are waited, then rinse and repeat. Typically, if a flower doesn't bloom on repeat attempts, then the partners aren't compatible at all."

Aren’t compatible? The ritual decided that?

You tilted your head. “Magic determines that?”

He shrugged. “Depends on what you believe in. Magic. Gods. Nothing.”

You nodded. So…he wasn’t considered a god, then? Or…could one still be a god while worshiping others? Your head spun as you closed your eyes, trying to pull the thoughts back in. Questions you wanted answers to, but speaking them wasn’t…they weren’t making it to your mouth. You tried. But every time you got them close, new words took their place.

He took their place. The feel of his hands against you. The questions of what acts were partaken in during the ritual. If….

You opened your eyes and found him looking at you with a loll of his head and a glimmer in his dark eyes. A heat in your chest grew, and the fabric of your dress was a taunt. It felt too rough against your skin. Against parts of you that dragged against it with every breath. Sensitive to the touch. Even just that touch. And down between your legs, as you knelt in front of the fire, you felt….

As wet as his hair.

“And what….what do you do to initiate this ritual?” You closed your eyes and shook your head. “How do you know to do it?”

He tapped his fingers on his leg, eyes glowing. The air was thicker still. Warmer. A light touch of fingertips against your collarbones.

“We can initiate it if we wish. Or we can wait for the biannual time when our two moons come together. It’s an involuntary ritual as our bodies are sort of…in tune with the moons." He waved a hand as he spoke. His rings glinted. "The sensations grow heightened and affect all that can be. Partners are found. A location is chosen. And then, over the course of the next handful of days, while those moons light the sky, we complete it. Sometimes with multiple partners."

You swallowed hard. A ritual so involuntary meant….

"What if one doesn't find a partner?" you murmured.

"They get accustomed to their hand, for the heightened sensation is a lot like a fucking drug that never leaves. Or they sit in aching agony, wishing to release themselves. To fill or be filled." He tapped his fingers a few more times before stopping. His voice grew a little quieter. A little rougher. "It's a different kind of hunger that tears you apart in ways I envy humans for never feeling."

Another hard swallow graced your throat. His eyes were so dark. So mesmerizing.

“You’ve felt it?” you asked. Your words were broken around the edges.

“Your earth may only have one moon, but mine still reacts to those on mine. Been alive long enough to know the cycle.” He breathed out slowly, pushing smoke from the fire your way. Or perhaps it’d been smoke leaving his mouth by itself. An unrelenting spread of warmth and throbbing started low in your stomach and only began to spread lower. “Five years in that cage showed me a fucking lot of ways I can be left untouched and tormented all the same.”

Five years. You blinked at him. You knew of such an ache only from that time in hidden secrets and from what you’d woken to the other morning. From what…what seemed to be taking hold of you within that cave. Five years, twice within those captive years, bound and muzzled, left alone, left untouched, to experience such an unrelenting sensation that tore itself way down to one’s bones. Such a cycle….

Right then, the image of him over you, weight atop you, hair tickling your shoulders, cheeks, and neck as he did as your first and only lover had…. Oh, how it appeared like a tormenting truth. His shadow dancing on the walls reached out for you with beckoning hands and fingers that tore at buttons and clothing. That came to touch where you began to feel such an intense new feeling. Gushing down between your thighs in a manner that’d never happened before.

If he did not touch you, you would combust.

“And when is the next cycle? Perhaps you might make it home in time so you do not have to endure another loss,” you croaked.

The sound of your voice was raw and low. The closest similar sound was when your breath had been taken or when you’d just recovered from being horribly ill and your voice still held that lingering rough edge to it.

He cocked a brow as he weighed his answer. His throat bobbed with a swallow that captivated your attention. Water still dripped down it. A part of you that felt like a feral beast yearned to lick it.

“Now.” His eyes found yours. “It’s now.”

The quiet in the cave became a silence littered with the crackling of the fire. Everything went still while your eyes locked upon each other, hands close to tearing through the skirt of your dress. It twisted between aching grips, and it pulled up as much as it could. The cold cave floor was a welcomed contrast against your shins and knees, but it wasn't enough.

Not was the baring skin on your knees anything but soothing.

It might not have meant a thing to him, but when his eyes fell to the sliver of bare skin made known in the firelight, the smidge of your knees now seen, it was blasphemy. A part of you nobody was supposed to see. Yet he saw.

You closed your eyes and slumped. Goodness. Your palm was rough against your eyes whilst you shuddered. Touch. Your dress became too tight as you squirmed in your place, trying to find a newly comfortable position to right yourself in. Taste. You drew your hand down while sighing, trying to grasp at composure that was out of reach. Cold water to cool feverish skin. A breath of fresh air to stop your lungs from burning and your head from spinning.

“What is happening to me?” you muttered, dragging your teeth over your bottom lip while finding his gaze between your fingers. “I feel too hot. I feel too…. I feel like I have never felt before. It is unbearable. Where was that creek? I need…I need to cool off.”

You left the blanket behind as you pushed yourself to your feet. His eyes remained on you as you turned, sauntering away from the fire with weakening steps. The thread within you grew taut again. Every step away from him felt like you were turning away from some part of yourself. Needed him. You needed him.

You ached for him.

One hand slapped against the wall as you stopped at the entrance of the cave. Keep going. Your knees buckled, and you slumped against the wall. An unyielding throbbing sensation began. First, in your stomach, where it turned like a spring. Then it dove lower where your legs tried to cross together. Within yourself, inside of you, muscles clenched. An ache overtook every inch of you, and the hunger for relief brought tears to your eyes.

Your thighs were wet and sticky, and your dress felt damp against you.

The cold wall of the cave was welcomed against your cheek.

“You need to keep going,” he whispered. Two hands found your waist as your knees continued to buckle. They held you tight and without strain. The full weight of you falling into such a warm touch…. He whispered in your ear as a key was turned within a lock somewhere within you, and your gasp was far from silent. “The further you are from me, the better you’ll feel.”

The skin on your lip nearly broke as your teeth drew over it hard. He was touching you. Your waist. Your back went to his front, and he was touching you. Oh, goodness. Your eyes fell half-lidded. You needed to be out of your dress. Needed to bathe in the coolest of waters. Needed him to touch you further. Beneath your dress. Inside of you.

"You tell me to go further, and yet you come to me now," you whined.

“You looked as if you were going to fall,” he murmured. “Should I have let you?”

His hands skated higher, and the broad spread of his fingers across your ribs was a torment you had never endured. Was that what he felt? Roderick had looked almost in pain when he had spilled into the grass, the process so quick. He’d touched himself and grunted in almost agony, the movement quick and desperate. To hold in such a release, what sort of pain was that?

When they were expected to go for hours? Days, even?

You fell back against him and closed your eyes. It was like you were made to fit in his arms. He still towered over you, still engulfed you like a weak mortal you were to him. And yet the warmth, the feel, the touch of him was tortuous heaven.

Your exhale trembled as you leaned there, basking in the growing agony that had your toes curling within your shoes.

“I cannot do it.” You shook your head, eyes finding the exit of the cave there. One step away. Yet you couldn’t move. “Do you not feel like this, too?”

His next breath was a growl of sorts low on the inhale. It vibrated against your back as he exhaled. His fingers dug into your ribs a little harder.

“I do. But I’ve had five years to practice enduring having to hold it. But even then, that….” He laughed dryly, the sound shaking as it filled the air. “I tried to get friction any way I could at the start. It’s a special kind of agony knowing I’m humping the air only to cum in my pants, knowing what I’m supposed to be doing and losing every drop of it because of those assholes.” He sighed something fierce, ripping it through the air. “The torture knowing I’m better off holding it while my body aches to complete the ritual…. Go to the creek. I need to handle this before I have to endure the shame of another incomplete ritual and a personal loss.”

The thought of him spilling just as Roderick had, the shame overcoming him, the…the suffering. Your own suffering included. Even just having to leave his grasp was going to rip you apart.

You were going to break. Your mind numb, empty of all except one thought. One need. You’d never known such a drive for one action. For a stranger.

You knew, so very distantly, of the shame you would suffer if anyone knew. Knew of the scandal. Of the disgrace. But it was possible…. The ritual was simple when worn down. Indescribable hungers, insertion, release, a drop in stamina, and a blooming flower. It was simple. And as you felt his fingers wrinkle your dress and cling to you as if he was marking you as his with his grip alone, you needed him within you. It was like an injection of adrenaline, potent and thick, guiding you back toward him through space that wasn’t there.

You needed him. Inside of you. Completing the ritual. Like you were made for that very purpose.

“Would it be considered a loss were you to complete it with a human?” you asked meekly.

The fabric of your dress tore with light sounds of shredding beneath his fingers. His fingers made holes down to your slip as he pulled you back flush against him.

“No. As long as I am spilling inside of you, there is no loss.” He nuzzled the top of your head, his chest heaving with quick, deep breaths. “Do you want me inside you, (Y/N)? Is that why you’re asking?”

His hands moved a smidgen lower, tracing the curve of your body down to your hips.

“Go to the creek. Once we start, we can’t stop. You won’t want to stop.” His grip remained tight. His fingers dug into your hips wonderfully. “We won’t be able to until a flower blooms or three nights pass. Can you handle that?”

You nodded without a second to think. A burning joined with an overpowering yearning for him. Inhumanly, you desired him. In ways your brain could not conjure up, but the rest of your body seemed to beg for.

“I will die if you do not touch me,” you breathed.

His breath joined yours in a shudder.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

Oh, goodness—

The ritual had a specific setup. One that brought you onto your back on the blanket he’d laid out for you. He promised you he’d return, he would be back within minutes. You merely needed to lay there and wait. But waited was agony. Your dress was too small around you. Your legs came together and writhed. The friction from your thighs was a new sensation that had your head spinning.

But he was true to his word. He returned. And in a circle around you, he placed what he’d gathered from the forest. That, his rings, and then, as he towered over you, his pants. Tugged off without warning.

You lay there watching as dark pants were dropped, and a section of him you were never supposed to even be thinking about was there. Erect. Large. Tattoos went around the entire shaft. Vines with special twists and turns that went up to a slit at the bulbous tip. His chest heaved as yours did, your eyes not leaving the appendage that looked just as Roderick’s had, just…twice the size.

Was it going to fit in you? Roderick’s had felt like it was stretching you and filling you to the brim already. This….

You clawed at the blanket, the thoughts remaining except the second he knelt, you lost them. It became an overwhelming sensation of need. You’d take him. He’d fit. And it would fix the burning heat clawing its way through you. It would. You’d scream if he didn’t give himself to you. You’d beg. You would plead.

You—

"Take off your dress unless you wish it to be in tatters beneath my fingers," he muttered, a lopsided grin joined with a serious, desperate look had you frantically unbuttoning the front and tugging at the shoulders.

You'd never been fully naked in front of someone before. And yet, as the embarrassment hit you, you couldn't stop. Couldn't slow down. The cold air hit you as you took your slip and dress off over your head at once and then shoved your underwear down your legs—sopping wet.

Bare.

He closed his eyes and dropped his head back.

“Fuck me.” A thick, white, glistening liquid dribbled from the end of his erection. It glimmered almost like the tonics sold in the apothecary. And you weren’t entirely sure why, but your body ached just at the sight of it. You needed it. “I’m gonna recite the spell for it, then…then you’ll be locked in restraints, and if you wanna stop, you gotta tell me. The second you do. I’ve never laid with a human before, so I don’t…. You gotta tell me.”

You nodded.

He accepted that.

And then words in a language you couldn’t place left his mouth. Spoken in a hushed tone, they fell around the cave and…and the marks—the tattoos—began to glow. They hummed like low voices and the moonlight in the cave grew. It fell around the entirety of the two of you as…. The tattoos moved.

No, they didn't just move like some magical illusion. They left him. Slithered down his arms and his legs. Down onto the ground. In the air. Some symbols left him and hung in the air, glowing bright and mesmerizingly. And those vines continued forward. Those vines…they….

They spun around your legs. Warm to the touch, soft, much like the touch of rope beneath some and the touch of fingers beneath others. It was indistinguishable which was which when so many came toward you. They spun around you all the way beyond your thighs, over your hips, waist, arms and chest. Up to your neck. Until nearly every inch of you was wrapped in dark, squirming ink.

You stared in awe down at them first, then at him. They stayed connected to him in some manner or form. Him. They were a part of him. Part of his magic. His species. And then….

As the spell continued, they continued. They moved.

Your arms were pulled back over your head and pinned in place, a stretch you couldn't fight and a locking mechanism you held no strength over. And then…then lower. Your legs were pulled. Back. They were pulled open and back, and your calves were pulled to the backs of your thighs. Open. You were locked into that position. Locked open. Bare.

Just as the ones over your chest began to coil. Thicker of the vines came around your breasts like the touch of warm fingers. Your mouth parted on a wait that you didn’t say, for the feeling was…. Your chest heaved as the thick ends closed around your stiff nipples, and they pinched. Pinched and then tugged in a slowly repeated motion. Tug. Tug. Pinch. Tug. Like fingers.

Nobody had ever touched…. Your head fell back, and your eyes went wide. Squirming yet unable to move beyond those little motions, you sighed into the cave. The sound bounced off the walls, and the tattoos seemed to react. They continued the movements just a little faster. Just a little stronger.

Never in your life had you ever felt something so good. Your body moved with them as much as you could manage, and they continued without any indication that they were going to stop.

He continued the spell as more tattoos moved over you.

Down to where your legs were spread. They felt like fingers again, and they were thicker than those on your chest. These were growing in size, ranging from your finger to one of his to three of his to…larger. Thicker.

His eyes were half-lidded as you both watched.

They parted you where your legs already were. Shame and humiliation hit as you glistened. You could…you could feel yourself dripping down lower. But it…it wasn’t just you. One of the hovering lines had a slit on the end, much like he did elsewhere. It leaked that same white substance. And that same white substance, as you were spread to take him, dripped where you were aching, wet, and glistening.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Your eyes widened. Your mind went blank. Nothing—absolutely nothing—mattered except releasing a sudden pressure in your lower abdomen. Where the drops fell, you wanted to scream for touch. Anything. To be filled. To be touched. To be stretched with the full size of him until you couldn’t fit anymore.

You panted as a little more was dropped onto you, and then one…one went lower. One gathered it on its tip, slithering between your folds and over where you burned, striking you in a place that felt like heaven incarnate and made your hips jolt up before going lower.

Wait.

He watched with burning eyes as the tiny, warm, living tattoo pressed into you just a smidge. No bigger than your finger, it started to pump. Just a sliver of pressure before it breached you with humiliating ease, and then gradual pumps. First, shallow, pulling out to gather more of the substance dripped onto you and then…then stuffing it into you. It was stuffing it into you, and as it filled you, as it touched your interior, you whined.

More. You needed more. Needed more than the small pumping thing inside of you. And then…. And another came up. Higher. Much higher. As your nipples were tweaked again and again and again, this one stayed down, but found a different spot higher up to touch. A place where you'd throbbed so many times but had never thought to touch. Thought it was just a byproduct of lust.

But then that thin line came across it, and the pressure alone was enough to make you clench. When it began to slither and squirm?

The sensation was overwhelming. Suddenly, a rush of pleasure hit you. Between your chest and down between your legs, as one pumped into you, as another rubbed itself in a spot you’d never known about—there was something wrong. Something horribly wrong. You squirmed and tugged on the hold that wasn’t breaking. It felt good, and it felt like…like something was coming.

He watched you with a cocked brow as the last of the words left his lips, and your back arched until it began to hurt. Wait. The word sputtered from your lips, broken on a feral moan. The pleasure was shooting toward a peak of sorts. It was tearing through you and making you clench and writhe. Your toes curled, and you lifted your hips as much as you could.

Something was wrong.

You screamed as a wall of pure, potent, unparalleled pleasure crashed into you like a gushing geyser. It ripped through you with an unrelenting spark, your eyes watering and your breath hitching. Panting, huffing, trying to gather yourself, you gushed around what continued to pump into you faster. Deeper. It…it felt larger. Another was inside of you, squirming. Another had slipped in and filled you to what already felt like the brim whilst you sobbed from the unending pleasure.

Your breath stalled your next word as the pleasure momentarily faded, the dip in the rapture before suddenly it felt like it hadn’t happened. No. Not that it hadn’t, but as if your body desired another as if it hadn’t just had one. Feeling the effects of the first whilst ready to have you screaming for another that second.

“What was that?” you sputtered, pressing your head back as your nipples were toyed with a little tighter. “Was that part of the ritual?”

He dropped one hand as the other pushed through his hair. Back went his shoulders, and the sound that left him as of another world. Animalistic and feral. He growled as those dark eyes found you. And he shook his head.

“You’ve never experienced that before?” he asked, panting

You shook your head whilst your cheeks burned.

“It’s a byproduct, let’s say, of the actions of the ritual.” He drew his eyes over you slowly and laughed softly. The sound was almost cruel as he shook his head again. “You going to have a fucking lot of those, (Y/N). I’m going to make sure of it. This?”

He drew his fingers over you as if he wasn’t touching a sensitive part of you, and you jolted hard. From the casual behavior, the touch where you were so sensitive it was agony, you nearly barked out a sound you’d never thought you’d make.

The white substance dripped from his finger.

“This is going to make sure you never stop having them. It’ll make every single one the best thing you’ve ever fucking felt.” He dropped his finger, taking up more as it dripped, and he brought it to your chest. As he tapped the tips of his coated fingers against the tips of your nipples, it made the tugging and pinching feel doubly intense. A kind of intensity that had you arching your back and nearly screaming as quicker tugs felt like vibrations against them. “Do you like how it feels?”

His fingers stayed, his chest heaving and mouth parted as his fingers—both hands—closed around your nipples, the tattoos still coiled around them. He rolled them between his thumb and forefingers, pulling gently before releasing and then repeating.

You were nodding even before he finished the first one.

Those that were between your legs started to move in a way that….

That—wow. Your eyes rolled back, and you sobbed.

Deeper, they filled you and slithered. Touched parts of you that never…you’d never…. Roderick had never…. Tears pricked as pleasure built, those two within you swirling, curling, coiling. Dragging and hitting spots you’d never had hit before, and you squirmed.

“Normally, this is only the start of the ritual just to prep. But you are…well.” He leaned over you in a way that when he lowered one hand, when you glanced down, you watched him bring his erection to you. Huge. He was huge. "Human." He pinched your nipples again, and those tangible things inside of you pumped deeper. Faster. A third slipped in with only a bit of a stretch, and you felt that sensation again. That peaking pleasure. “I want you to be able to take more than the tip. Don’t you?”

You were nodding frantically as your eyes shut. Don’t stop. You tried to say the words, but only incoherent sounds fell around you in the cave. He brushed his fingers over your cheeks while others pinched and tweaked your nipples. The sensation was back. The sensation wasn’t with mercy. You felt yourself clench around the three small things inside of you, and then there was this gushing sensation. From yourself and…and you felt where one slithered across you get coated. No longer were drips being stuffed into you, but your entire self glistened with it there. Thick and suddenly overwhelming, you screamed as the pleasuring peak stayed. A few seconds drawn out into more as you felt yourself release wet and hard around those within you.

He groaned and cupped your cheek, eyes down at where you were locked in place. A fourth entered you and you felt full. Your eyes were glassy and vision blurry as you watched them slither and squirm within you. Four stuffing you full, four small things slowly expanding inside of you until your mouth was parted and you were at your limit. They writhed within you and stroked every sensitive spot without reprieve. Where one touched and then writhed, another touched lower. Another higher. Another all around them.

That peak that had only started to fade was back again. Anew.

You held his gaze as he wiped away the tears, and you were close to begging him for what was already coming over you. You gushed again. Moaned again. Tugged on the restraints as pleasure overwhelmed. As those tattoos pulled out of you and dropped onto you wet and humiliatingly glistening.

Huffing like you'd spent the day sprinting around the town, you stared down at where he and the tattoos moved. His cheeks were red and there was a stiffness in his movements as he moved back. Pressure between your legs as more of that substance was dropped onto you. Another resurgence of lust crashing into you like you had never experienced the last handful of minutes. And the tip of his erection found you.

Those eyes glowed as that spurting tattoo curled around your thigh and sat between and beneath you. And him. A lower hole not a soul had seen nor had you ever planned on anyone seeing was brushed. Pressure came against it, and you jumped, yelping as the vines around your nipples tightened to the sharp pinch and had your nerves frying from stimulation.

His tip gradually pressed in—large, thick, and slightly larger than the four that had previously filled you—and you both hissed. Below, as you took him bit by gradual bit, stretching around him to a limit you hadn’t thought you’d handle, the tattoo thing writhed against you, spritzing the substance there, yet not entering. And it felt weird. It felt wrong. It felt wrongly good.

“Fuck,” he whined, what almost looked like pain morphing across his features the further he pushed in. “Fuck, I haven’t…in five years. You feel fucking amazing.” He paused, leaning over you with his hands beside you. His hair tickled your cheeks as he angled himself close to you. As close as such a massive man could get. “Fuck the ritual, I would’ve done this without it. You are fucking….”

He shook his head and sat back. Both hands grabbed your hips, lifting you and gradually guiding you back as he pushed forward. Your mouth fell open and a whine slipped as he pushed in further. As far as he could. Imperfectly fitting together with your differences. Yet you could feel him. He came against you, hips flush against your bottom. The thing that'd been below—leaving that hole wet with the dripping substance and a throbbing that made you clench and unclench there—came higher, and more was spurt over you. Where he was slotted deep inside of you. Deep enough that even just the shift of his weight around on his knees had your eyes rolling back.

You could feel his lopsided smile as you squirmed, moaning involuntarily just from those little movements alone.

"It's never this snug of a fit with others of our species," he breathed, voice raw. His hips started to pull back, the friction pure heaven, before pushing forward slowly. You shrieked a sort of choked moan from that alone. And without pause, he repeated it. Again and again until his hips were moving smoothly, and the drag of him inside you, filled to the brim, as those tangible tattoos tweaked and slithered and touched all the sensitive parts of you…. "Oh, don't hold it. Don't. Show me how much you like this. Please. Fuck. Fuck.”

Another peak. Stronger. In an indescribable way. Different than those before, and his hips started to snap forward harder. Faster. A sudden shift in rhythm broke you, and you watched as he rutted into you for only a few beautiful seconds. The sight in line with the feel…. You reached another peak. You gushed. Wet. Spraying around your thighs as he hung his head, and the pleasure rippling through you that brought tears to your eyes, that clenching around him, had him moaning like a feral beast.

He grunted, digging his fingers in a little harder on your hips, and suddenly, there was a new feeling. His hips didn't stop, he didn’t stop, but something left him inside of you—much like something had left Roderick as he spilled into the grass—except this…. It had the same effects of what the tattoo was dripping onto you.

It was a warm, spurting sensation inside of you. Spilling within you and adding to that full feeling. That stretched feeling. It made the already vulgar sounds echo wetter as he continued to thrust into you, jaw clenched, brows pinched. Curses in a language you knew fell from his lips first, and those said in the very same tone but in what you assumed to be his mother tongue came next.

It dripped out of you as he stopped, fully slotted inside of you, panting.

Your toes curled as you finally came down from that release of your own. Was that it? Your lashes fluttered and your body ached for more. A hunger born and screaming to be satiated. Was that is or…?

He gave you a small look and a cocked brow. You squirmed over him and drew your teeth over your lip. One lingering look, and he had a killer smile.

He moaned as he started moving his hips again.

You went until stamina gave over. A special stamina. From the magic within the ritual. For yourself and for him.

Your eyes clamped shut as your back arched. Every sensitive spot on and in you felt stimulation with a fierce vigor, his thrusts rougher and hungrier. And there. Again. Your body tensed as you writhed in unending pleasure. He released again. More dripped out of you.

One small pause, one locking gaze, then he continued. Again.

Then again.

Thrusting into you, filling you to the brim, hitting every sensitive spot as your nipples were tweaked, and that sensitive spot between your legs was played with by one of those tangible tattoos. You hit your peak. He hit his. Sometimes, he hit his twice without meaning, grunting as bruises were going to be left from his grip on your hips, and with every release, more spilled.

More reminded that those on his world were meant to take it. To last as long as he did. Yet you felt so stuffed, so worn, yet desperate for more with every release. You sobbed as you released again. It felt so good, and you never wanted it to stop. You knew it would. In the back of your head, you knew you couldn't last forever.

Your eyelids grew heavy as he stopped as deep as he could get within you; a rush of pleasure fell over you as you reached that peak one last time, pushing out some of what he'd put in you, but most he'd released had already found itself on the cave floor.

"I'm sorry," you sputtered. He was wasting what he hadn't wanted to. And you…you were worn. A limit reached. "I can't…and you…so much didn't…."

You pressed your head back as he pulled himself out, leaving you feeling suddenly horribly empty and a tad sore. The tattoos—most of the tattoos—pulled back. Those binding you in place remained as he reached down between your legs. That empty feeling wasn’t long as his fingers pushed into you. Large and gentle, you could feel him doing what the first tattoo had been. Stuffing.

"It's okay." He positioned himself over you, brushing his mouth against your jaw. Your cheek. "Don't cry, (Y/N). Don't apologize." He nudged the side of your face with his nose, and you moved with him. His fingers continued to move, pushing more and more into you, the base of his hand rubbing where you were so sensitive and swollen, making you clench around his fingers. "Look."

Your head lolled to the side. Your vision was bleary, but you could see it. A few blinks, and in the firelight, there was a break in the cave. Cracks gave way to a bright green stem. Large enough to stand tall, but a bud remained at the end. Unbloomed.

“But it didn’t bloom,” you muttered, chest heaving and eyes fluttering as his mouth grazed your jaw. “What does that mean?”

“Means the right people were picked, but we’re not done yet.” He reached up, fingers stuffing just a little more inside of you before stopping. He used his knuckles to turn you to face him, finding his gaze burning yet soft at the same time. His mouth came lower, came to yours in just a soft, ghosting of a touch. “Rest while we wait. Recover. It may bloom in the meantime.”

“And if it doesn’t?” you sputtered.

"We go again until we can't, and then we see if the bud blossoms or wilts." His teeth nipped at your bottom lip, bringing a sigh from you as your eyes shut. He tasted like fresh honey. "But you're going to have to stay like this for the time being. Hold what you can in for me?"

You nodded without needing to think. He grinned against your lips and came down lower. A little harder.

A true kiss, your lips parting and giving you a lingering, burning, tender kiss.

"Thank you for saving me," he murmured against your lips, the full feel of his bare body against you as he kissed you had your head spinning before you could even compose yourself. "I owed you for that, and now I owe you for this, (Y/N). I'm in your debt fucking twice over."

You nodded dreamily.

He grinned.

“Rest.” He nuzzled your nose with his. “I’m going to get you some water.”

And just like that, with a drape of your dress over you, as you clenched your muscles to do as he’d asked, he gave you a small glance back and a smile. A tender smile. A searing smile. One that had your heart thundering and your head spinning.

Listening to his steps from the cave get softer, your head lolled over to look at the unearthly plant poking through the cave's floor. Green and bright and…the bud on the end twitched. One of multiple sections fell open, bringing a blooming array of colors. Purples and pinks and sparks of gold falling to the floor.

As you stared at the flower, your thoughts came back to you.

A blooming flower meant the ritual was successful.

As the tangible tattoos held you still, as you clenched your body to hold onto what tried to drip out, as a heat blossomed between your legs and your body began to ache what had just paused…you realized what that meant. All that it could mean.

Your eyes shut as your body clenched empty and aching. You knew what lay in waiting, and yet your mind snagged on what came with the words compatible. What did that mean for you? What did that mean for…for all of this?

You ached between your legs, mind already starting to fog with the desire for more. With the hope that the flower would bloom. To take more. To hold more. To feel him inside of you again. Every bit of him. Every second of that rapturous relief that had the floor between your legs glistening in the moonlight.

The tattoos shifted, and two came up to your chest. You squirmed beneath your dress as they gently wrapped around your nipples, rolling them, tweaking them, tugging and pinching. And your eyes rolled back as you smiled.

Let the flower wait to bloom.

Let the future hold uncertainty.

You'd broken an inhuman god of a man out of his captivity, and he was indebted to you. Wanted you as you wanted him. Held magic in his veins you could never even dream of.

There you lay naked, eager, hungry for him to return. To take him again. To take whatever he gave you. Every drop of it.

Let that future remain uncertain, for you knew deep in your bones it wasn't going to be the same future laid in store for you a few hours ago. The air felt like magic. You felt like magic.

And with every ounce of your person, you ached for him to be back inside of you.

Your back arched as those tattoos played with you. And you whined into the empty cave while trying to do what he asked while you felt yourself grow wetter with every passing second.

Please, wait to bloom.

You wanted to do all of that again.

And when he returned with a handful of berries and a conjured cup full of water, you lolled your head over to see the flower in the same state. One section open. One section catching his eye as he knelt beside you, drawing the dress back and cocking a brow as he watched you writhe. As you begged with your eyes and whined with your lips.

"A few more minutes," he mused, bringing the rim of the cup to your lips. A few needed sips brought fresh, freezing water down your throat. He wiped away that which spilled down the corners of your mouth as he looked between your legs and grinned. His hand cupped where you nearly screamed for him to reenter. "Shhhh." He pressed a finger into you, stuffing again. Curling and finding those sensitive spots, but still stuffing. "We'll give this position a little bit longer to sit, then we'll go again."

Position?

Your question was answered minutes later as you were moved and bound chest to the ground, the blanket bunched as a pillow, arms behind your back, bottom up as high as it would go. His thumbs parted you before those tattoos slithered back over you. Into you.

One poked higher at the hole it had been teasing earlier. He brought his erection back to you considerably faster this time. And as he pushed into you slowly and eagerly, as you drooled on the blanket and moaned into it, as you reached those fantastic peaks again, and again, and again, every rough thrust making you sob in an overwhelming pleasure, you got to watch.

You felt the tattoo at that higher hole coat it in that substance before wiggling its way in. Felt every drop wasted as it dribbled down your thighs and dripped onto the floor. Screamed as pleasure hit you again and again and again. As he stuffed you so full, you could barely take it.

You watched.

Another section of the flower fell.

“Huh,” he mused, stuffing what he could back into you, the tangible tattoo still inside of you higher. In the hole that clenched hard around it and stretched around its small size. He cupped you to hold it all in as he followed your gaze to the flower. “That’s new.”

New for him, but you knew.

It was telling you to keep going. No matter that the hours were ticking by. No matter what might come when daylight hits. If you wanted a fully blooming flower, you ought to continue.

And with a small, desperate smile, as you laughed softly, basking in the sensations pummeling through you, you nuzzled the blanket.

"You said so yourself; I ought not to return too quickly," you mused.

You didn’t need to glance back to see his smile.

“Indebted,” he mused as he continued to cup you. Hold you. He stroked your lower back with gentle circles. “Fucking indebted, (Y/N).”

And you closed your eyes to rest.

The flower looked as if it had three more sections to drop.

You needed your rest for that.

Who knew a visiting circus could bring such sin and fun right to you?

#good soup #x reader #fem!reader #monster!eddie

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