Chapter 2: Morning After
The grey light of morning seeped into the den, doing little to warm the stone.Tanner ached. A deep, bone-weary ache that lived in his hips, his lower back, and between his legs—a tender, throbbing reminder of the night. He lay curled on the furs, the ghost of Kael’s body still imprinted on his skin. He tried to shift, and a sharp twinge made him suck in a breath.
“Don’t move.”
Kael was already awake, a silhouette of coiled strength against the dim entrance.He moved with a predator’s silence, kneeling beside the furs. In the weak light, his golden eyes glowed with an unsettling tenderness. Tanner wanted to slap it off his face.Instead, he groaned.“Everything hurts. You’re a goddamn animal.”
“I am,” Kael agreed easily, as if Tanner had complimented him. His large hands, surprisingly gentle, slid beneath Tanner’s back and knees. “The spring will help.”
“I can walk.”
“You’ll sway like a newborn fawn and fall,” Kael stated, already lifting him.Tanner yelped, his arms instinctively looping around Kael’s neck. The movement sent a fresh wave of soreness through him. “See?”
“This is humiliating,” Tanner muttered into Kael’s shoulder, breathing in his scent—dark earth and night air.“It is care,” Kael corrected, his voice a soft rumble. He carried Tanner out of the den and into the cool, damp forest. The air was fresh, sharp with pine and the promise of rain. Birdsong filtered through the canopy, a cheerful soundtrack to Tanner’s profound misery.They reached the hot spring in a secluded rocky alcove. Steam rose in plumes from water the color of strong tea, swirling around mossy stones. The scent of minerals and wet rock filled the air. Kael waded in without hesitation, the heat making him sigh as he lowered Tanner into the water.The warmth was instantaneous and profound. It seeped into Tanner’s knotted muscles, a liquid embrace that drew a low moan from his throat before he could stop it.He sank up to his shoulders, leaning back against the smooth, submerged rock.
“Told you,” Kael said, a hint of smugness in his tone.
“Shut up and pass the soap,” Tanner grumbled, though his defiance lacked its usual heat. He was too busy melting.Kael didn’t pass the soap. He took it himself—a rough, herb-infused cake—and began to work it between his palms. His hands found Tanner’s shoulders first, kneading the tension with a firm, practiced pressure. Tanner’s head lolled forward.It felt too good to protest. Kael’s thumbs circled the knots along his spine, and Tanner bit his lip to keep from making another pathetic sound.
The washing was methodical, almost ritualistic. Kael’s touch moved over his arms, his chest, the lean plane of his stomach. But when his soapy hand slid lower, cupping the swell of Tanner’s belly, the motion changed.It was no longer about cleaning. It was a slow, reverent orbit around the curve, fingers tracing the tight, stretched skin.Tanner’s breath hitched. He stared at the steaming water, at Kael’s dark, powerful hands on his pale, changed body.“It’s bigger,” Kael murmured, more to himself than to Tanner. “Every day, I see it.”
“Yeah, well, that’s how pregnancy works,” Tanner said, his voice strained.“It’s not a damn surprise party.”
Kael ignored the sarcasm. His other hand drifted lower, through the thatch of hair, between Tanner’s legs. Tanner jerked.“Kael.”
“Hush.” The hand didn’t retreat. It explored with a terrible, gentle precision, slick with soap and warm water, sliding over tender flesh. A finger probed, just the tip, at his sore, loosened entrance. “I need to clean you here.Properly.”
It was a lie, and they both knew it. Tanner’s body knew it too, already softening, responding to that insistent touch despite the lingering ache. His cock, which had been limp and spent, began to thicken in the water. Shame flushed his cheeks, hotter than the spring.“You’re unbelievable,” Tanner whispered, closing his eyes.
Kael’s finger pressed inward, a slow, smooth invasion. Tanner gasped, his nails digging into the rock beneath him.The water and the stretch combined into a single, overwhelming sensation. Kael worked him open with that single digit, a mockery of cleansing, his other hand still splayed possessively over Tanner’s stomach.“So open for me,” Kael breathed against his ear, having shifted closer. “Still so soft inside.Warm.Like the spring itself.”
He added a second finger. Tanner cried out, the sound echoing off the rocks.It wasn’t pain, not exactly. It was a brutal, exquisite fullness that vibrated through every nerve. His hips tried to buck, but Kael held him firm.“Please,” Tanner begged again, the word becoming his mantra in this world.
This time, Kael obeyed.He withdrew his fingers.Tanner whimpered at the sudden emptiness. Before he could process the loss, Kael turned him, his movements fluid and sure. He bent Tanner forward over a smooth, water-worn stone at the spring’s edge, the warm pool lapping at their waists.Tanner’s rounded belly pressed against the cool, slick rock.
He felt the blunt, hot press of Kael’s cock, not at his entrance, but nudging, sliding through the cleft of his ass, coated in the water’s slickness. Kael’s hands gripped his hips, fingers pressing into the bone.
“This,” Kael growled, low and fierce.“This peace you fight.It’s here. In this.”
He pushed in.The penetration was slow, inexorable, a conquering of warm water and warm flesh. Tanner was open, his body pliant from the fingers and the heat, and Kael slid deep in one seamless, devastating stroke. Tanner’s mouth opened in a silent scream, his forehead pressed to the stone.Kael didn’t move. He stayed buried, panting, his body curved over Tanner’s back. “Mine,” he uttered, the word a vibration Tanner felt in his own core.Then he began to move. Not with the frantic pace of the night before, but with a deep, rolling rhythm that was somehow worse. It was a claiming in slow motion, each withdrawal a betrayal, each return a homecoming.The water swirled and sloshed around them with every thrust.
Tanner clutched the rock, his knuckles white. Pleasure built like a deep magma flow, unstoppable and heavy. Each push rubbed his sensitized nerves, stroked something deep and primal that made his toes curl against the sandy bottom. His cock, trapped between his belly and the stone, throbbed with a needy, ignored ache.
“Feel it,” Kael commanded, his voice ragged.“Feel how deep I am. How I fill the space our cub has made.”
He punctuated the word with a harder thrust that made Tanner see stars. The orgasm that took him was different from the night before—a slow, tidal wave that rose from his feet, up his trembling legs, and crashed through his center. He came with a choked sob, his release lost in the mineral water, his channel spasming around Kael’s relentless cock.Kael’s rhythm fractured. His grip became iron, his thrusts turning sharp and frantic. With a snarl that was pure panther, he jammed himself deep and held, pouring his heat into Tanner. The scalding pulse seemed to go on forever, another mark inside the first.
For long minutes, they stayed like that, joined, panting, the steam coiling around them. Finally, Kael softened and slipped out. He gathered Tanner against his chest, turning to lean back against the rock, cradling Tanner in the water.Tanner was boneless.Spent in every way. The heat of the spring soothed the new ache, wrapped around them like a blanket. He could feel the faint, fluttering kicks within his belly, more insistent now, as if stirred by the storm.
Kael nuzzled his damp hair. “You are clean.”
A weak, breathy laugh escaped Tanner.It was almost a hiccup. “Mission accomplished, I guess.”
Kael’s chest rumbled with a contented purr. One hand drifted back to Tanner’s stomach, resting there with simple, terrifying ownership. Tanner watched the steam rise towards the green canopy, feeling Kael’s steady heartbeat against his back. The conflict inside him was dulled, muffled by the water and the exhaustion and the relentless, terrible rightness of his body in the arms of his beast.
He was clean.He was claimed. He was, for now, too tired to fight it.