Chapter 5: The Morning After
The first thing Megumi felt was the cold.
It seeped up from the stone floor through the thin futon, a grounding contrast to the furnace-like heat radiating from the massive body behind her. One of Sukuna’s lower arms was slung heavily over her waist, his palm splayed flat against the mark on her abdomen. It pulsed a slow, warm counter-rhythm to the chill. Her body was a map of aches—deep, satisfying pulls in her muscles, a tender fullness between her legs, the ghost of a stretch that made her shift experimentally.
The movement woke him. She felt the change in his breathing, the subtle coiling of the immense power lying so casually against her back.
“Already awake?” His voice was a sleep-roughened vibration against her spine.The arm over her waist tightened, pulling her flush against him. The hard, twin lengths pressed against the curve of her backside, already half-awake themselves. “Insatiable thing.”
She wasn’t.Her mind felt scraped raw, hazy. But her body… the emptiness from where he’d withdrawn last night was a tangible thing, a hollow space that ached to be filled. The mark throbbed, not with pain, but with a low, insistent need.She hated it.She leaned into the pressure of his hand.
“I’m cold,” she said, and her voice wasn’t defiance.It was just a fact.
He chuckled. A quiet rustle, and then heat engulfed her as his other set of arms came around, pulling a heavy, unfamiliar pelt over them both. It smelled of musk and wild, open skies. “Better?”
She gave a slight nod, her hair catching on the rough skin of his chest.The casualness of the gesture was more disorienting than the violence. He’d slaughtered an entire temple, eaten men whole, and now he was tucking her in.
His hand slid from her belly, tracing down through the patch of coarse hair until his fingers found her folds, slick and hot despite the chamber’s cold. She jolted, a small gasp escaping her.“And this?” he murmured, his lips against the crown of her head. “Is this the cold too?”
She couldn’t answer. Her hips twitched back against him, a traitorous, involuntary little spasm.The mark flared warmly, approving.
“Thought not.” He shifted then, rolling her onto her stomach with an effortless motion.The pelt fell away. Cool air hit her skin, raising goosebumps. Then his weight was over her, not crushing, but present.Immovable. One hand gathered her hair, pulling it aside to expose the nape of her neck. He leaned down, and she felt the warm, startlingly soft press of his lips there, just before the sharp scrape of a fang.
A full-body shiver wracked her.His lower hands hooked under her hips, lifting her onto her knees. The position was submissive, vulnerable.She should have felt shame. All she felt was a dizzying anticipation, the hollow inside her screaming to be ruined again. The broad head of one cock nudged against her, already weeping. She was so ready it slid in with a single, smooth, excruciatingly slow push.A broken sound, part relief, part overwhelm, choked out of her. Her fingers clawed at the futon fabric.“Good,” he rumbled, his voice thick. He seated himself fully, then stilled, letting her adjust.It was a cruelty, this pause. The fullness was everything, yet it wasn’t enough. She needed friction, needed the brutal drive that would scatter her thoughts.She pushed back weakly against him.He laughed, a dark, pleased sound. “Greedy.” He pulled out almost all the way, the drag agonizing, then slammed back in.The world fractured.She cried out, the sound muffled by the futon. He set a relentless, deep rhythm, each thrust nailing that spot inside her that turned her bones to liquid.The other length rubbed roughly against her clit with every movement, a devastating secondary assault. The chamber filled with the sounds of wet skin slapping, his guttural grunts, her own ragged sobs of pleasure.
“Who do you belong to?” His voice was a whip-crack in the dimness.She couldn’t speak.He angled her hips higher, driving deeper. A shout was torn from her lungs.
“Say it.”
“Sukuna!” It was a scream, a surrender, a truth.The sound of his name seemed to ignite him. His pace became punishing, a final, furious ascent.The coil in her belly snapped. Her vision whited out as she came, spasming around him in violent waves. He followed with a roar, his release flooding her, hot and endless.He collapsed over her, his weight a crushing comfort. They stayed like that for long minutes, joined, breathing in ragged unison. When he finally pulled out, the sense of loss was immediate, acute.A pearly trickle, mixed with his release, stained her inner thigh.
He rolled onto his back beside her, one arm thrown over his eyes. The morning light through the cracks was stronger now, painting stripes across the bloody sigils on the walls. She lay on her side, facing him, spent. The deep ache was returning, but a different one—a soreness that felt earned.The mark was quiet, sated for the moment.
She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.The mouths on his stomach and hands were dormant, peaceful. In this light, with the dust motes dancing around his pink hair, he looked almost… ordinary.Not human. Never that.But a creature that could be still.
His other set of eyes opened, the lower pair, and looked at her. “You’re staring.”
“You’re there to stare at.”
A smirk touched his lips. “Cheeky.” He reached out and wiped a streak of sweat from her temple with a thumb.The gesture was so oddly gentle it made her chest hurt. “The mark is settling.The worst of the hunger will fade. The rest…” He shrugged, a mountain moving. “You’ll get used to it.”
“To wanting this?” The question was out before she could guard it.
“To wanting me,” he corrected, his crimson gaze holding hers. “There’s a difference.” He sat up, the moment of quiet intimacy shattered by his movement.“Get up. You need to eat.”
“Eat what?” she asked, pushing herself up on trembling arms. “The… the temple stores are probably—”
“I’ll hunt,” he said simply, rising to his full, terrifying height. He stretched, the muscles in his back and four arms rippling like a predatory cat’s.“You will stay. The mark will let me know if you wander too far.Don’t.”
It wasn’t a request. He walked to the chamber’s crumbling archway, then paused, glancing back at her. Naked, covered in the evidence of him, shivering in the cold dawn light. Something shifted in his expression.Almost like concern.It was gone in a blink.
“Rest,” he commanded, and then he was gone, a shadow melting into the deeper dark of the temple halls.
Silence descended, heavier than his presence. Megumi slowly pulled the pelt around her shoulders, his scent enveloping her.She traced the lines of the mark on her belly. It was cool now, inert.You’ll get used to wanting me.The hollow feeling was gone, temporarily filled. But as she sat alone in the blood-stained chamber, she knew with a cold, clear certainty that he was wrong.She was already used to it. The terrifying part was how little that seemed to matter anymore.