Chapter 6: The First Stirrings
Evan stared at the cavern entrance long after Silas's footsteps had faded, the cold emptiness where his friend’s warmth had been now a hollow in the air. Derek’s hand was still on his neck, thumb stroking the fresh, stinging bite.
“He’ll tell them everything,” Evan said, his voice flat.
“Good.” Derek’s reply was a low vibration against his back. “Let them fear what they do not understand. It will make them slower. Dumber.”
A sudden, sharp pain lanced through Evan’s lower abdomen, so intense it stole his breath. It was not the pleasant soreness of recent use, but a deep, internal clenching, a twisting knot that made him gasp and fold inward. He clutched at his stomach, his fingers pressing against a firmness that hadn’t been there before.
Derek’s hand slid down, pushing Evan’s own aside. He splayed his long, cool fingers over the taut, slight swell of Evan’s belly. A low, approving sound rumbled in his chest. “There it is.”
“What?” Evan panted, fear spiking through the pain. “What’s happening?”
“Your body is finally accepting my seed, little nest.” Derek’s voice was thick with a dark pride. He pressed down gently, and Evan felt a strange, fluttering shift beneath the muscle, a quickening that was utterly foreign. “Feel them moving inside you already? My children are hungry. They’re rooting, settling in. Making room.”
The cramps intensified, a series of rolling contractions that had nothing to do with labor and everything to do with brutal, magical biology. Evan whimpered, his knees buckling. Derek caught him easily, turning him in his arms so Evan’s back was against the cool obsidian altar. The god’s eyes glowed in the dim light, fixed on Evan’s face as his hand remained firmly on that hardening stomach.
“It hurts,” Evan gritted out.
“It’s supposed to,” Derek murmured, not unkindly, but with the detached certainty of a force of nature. “You think a snake’s clutch settles gently? They’re claiming their space. Anchoring to your life force. You’re their world now.” He leaned down, his lips brushing Evan’s sweat-damp temple. “And I am yours.”
The possessiveness in his tone should have been a cage. Instead, amidst the pain, Evan felt a thread of terrifying solidarity. Us against them. The nest against the wolves.
Derek’s other hand slid between Evan’s thighs, fingers finding the slick, tender mess he’d left there. Evan flinched, oversensitive, but Derek shushed him, a hissing sound. “They need to be fed, Evan. The cycle doesn’t stop. My essence sustains them, feeds their growth. Your pain tells me they’re alive. Your pleasure will tell them they’re welcome.”
His fingers pressed inside, scissoring open the stretched, well-used passage. Evan cried out, a ragged sound that echoed. The internal pressure from the cramping and the intrusion from Derek’s fingers overlapped, a dizzying push-pull of sensation.
“Please,” Evan gasped, not knowing what he was asking for.
“I know what you need,” Derek stated. He withdrew his fingers and positioned himself, the broad, dual heads of his cocks nudging insistently at Evan’s entrance. They were already slick, already leaking. “You need to be full. You need to remember what you are.”
He didn’t wait for consent. He thrust in, not with the brutal, claiming force of before, but with a slow, inexorable pressure that was somehow worse. Evan could feel every millimeter of the stretch, the burn, the way his body was forced to accommodate all over again around the tender, changing landscape within. He choked, his nails scraping against the altar.
Derek bottomed out and held still, buried to the hilt, letting Evan feel the impossible fullness. He watched Evan’s face, his own expression a mask of intense focus. “Breathe through it, nest. Give in to it. This is your purpose now. To take me. To hold my children.”
He began to move, a deep, rocking motion that set a new rhythm against the sporadic cramps. It was a fuck, raw and unadorned, but it held a dreadful intimacy. Each withdrawal was an agony of emptiness. Each thrust was a relief, a confirmation. Evan’s traitorous body began to respond, heat coiling beneath the pain, his own cock stiffening against his belly.
“That’s it,” Derek growled, his pace increasing. The wet slap of skin filled the cavern. “Your body knows. It wants this. It needs my cock splitting you open, pumping my come deep where it belongs. Feeding what’s growing inside you.”
The vulgarity, the sheer filthy truth of it, broke something in Evan. A sob ripped from his throat, mingling with a moan as Derek nailed a spot inside him that sent lightning up his spine. He came suddenly, shockingly, with Derek’s cocks still pistoning into him, his release striping his own stomach and Derek’s.
The orgasm seemed to amplify the internal fluttering. He felt a distinct, squirming pressure low in his gut. “Derek…!”
The god’s rhythm faltered, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second in raw, primal satisfaction. “They felt that,” he breathed, his thrusts becoming harder, faster, chasing his own peak. “They know their host is thriving. Fuck, Evan… take it. Take all of it.”
He surged forward, locking Evan against the altar, and slammed home. Evan felt the hot, pulsing flood as Derek emptied himself inside, a torrent that seemed to go on and on, filling every crevice, seeding the already fertile ground. The cramps pulsed in time with it, a vicious, symbiotic rhythm.
When Derek finally stilled, slumped over him, they were both panting, covered in sweat and spend. Derek’s hand never left Evan’s belly, now noticeably rounded and firm beneath his palm.
Slowly, Derek pulled out. The sound was obscene. Evan felt the immediate, warm trickle down his thighs.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant drip of water. The pain subsided into a dull, heavy ache, a constant reminder.
“They’ll come at dawn,” Derek said softly, his lips against Evan’s shoulder. “Silas’s report will force their hand. They’ll see it as a corruption to be purged.”
Evan stared at the cavern ceiling, feeling the strange, restless movement within him, feeling the seed of the god cooling on his skin. He thought of Silas’s shattered face. He thought of the wolf-god’s cold betrayal in a life that now felt like a dream.
“Let them come,” Evan whispered, echoing Derek’s earlier words. His hand came up to rest over Derek’s, both of them pressed against the swell that held the future. His green eyes, once bright with fear, were now dark and settled as a deep forest pool. “I want them to see.”