"I will allow you just a taste, my lord," I said, the words leaving my mouth so breathless it sounded like a whisper instead of a command.
He stalked down my body, his breath hot against my skin as he settled his upper body in between my legs, lifting my legs to drape them over his broad shoulders. I could feel the fur touching the back of my calves slip away, leaving behind warm bare skin as he shifted again, his body rippling as the fur melted away. It was a strange tickling sensation as if fingertips were trailing over my skin. I watched the top of his head as he moved down, seeing his horns glimmer in the dappled sunlight as they curved away from my body. The shade pattern of the leaves seemed to accent the strong musculature of his shoulders and back, painting an image of masculine strength that called to a primal part of me.
He was so beautiful.
For a moment I wondered what our children would look like.
That deep ache washed back over me, the driving force that caused me to climb the wall in the first place. I let out a small gasp as the emotion hit so hard and sudden, I felt it physically in my chest, powered by my attempt to ignore it, to push it down, to focus on the present moment and not let my choices from the past haunt me even as I attempted to undo them. I put my hand on my breastbone as if I could hold it in, closing my eyes as I winced against the feeling. I couldn't think about that right now. I couldn't focus on that.
I was so lost in my own head, it took me several moments to realize that Lorthian had stopped touching me.
I opened my eyes to see him kneeling next to me.
In the moments where I was trying to push away my pain and aggressively focus on the moment he had unhooked my legs from his shoulders, extracted himself from between them, and moved so he was kneeling next to my hips and looking down atme with an expression that was... curious? He didn't look angry or upset. He just looked like he was waiting to see what I would do.
"You didn't have to stop," I said.
He lifted one eyebrow at me and didn't say anything.
Of course, he had to stop. I had gone from writhing and moaning under his touch to being tense and still and closing my eyes and wincing. Any basically attentive person in that scenario would stop and check in with their partner to make sure that what was happening was still wanted, even if what they were doing was fully focused on giving rather than receiving or taking.
"I..." I felt tears prick in my eyes, little sharp stings of lubrication that would betray the fact that my sadness and gratitude were colliding to make a maelstrom of emotions. "I don't want..."
"What do you want?" Lorthian asked, his voice whispering through leaves of the trees around us.
I put my hands on the moss on either side of me and pushed myself up to sitting so I was facing him. The words burst free of me, tearing through the layers I had built up around them to protect myself from the consequences of choices I made thinking it was what I had to do to give her a better life.
"I want my baby," I cried out.
Chapter
Eight
LORTHION
She spoke the words with a gut-deep cry that sounded like a mother calling for her lost cubs.
"Where?" I asked.
"Home," Lillian sobbed, burying her face in her hands as her words tumbled free from her in a burst dam of pain. "I thought I would be able to go home. I thought I'd just go to the admissions interview and wait to see if I got in, and then I could make up my mind. I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to go back! I never would have agreed to come here if it meant I couldn't go back!"
She let out a deep, rough sob that echoed the sound of a heart that had been torn out by the world around her.
I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around her. She melted into my chest like she belonged there, and I pulled her into me, dragging her entire body into my lap as she buried her face against my chest and let out another heavy sob. I ran one of my hands down over her hair, petting her, and she dissolved, changing fully from the seductive presence of a woman seeking a mate to a person needing to let out the pain they had been holding in for too long.
I held her as long as she needed me to, the leaves around us rustling with my need to comfort her.
When she finally calmed and pulled back from me as she wiped away the tears that had carved rivers down her face, I let her go, making my arms loose but not removing them from around her, so she knew she could fully pull away and I wouldn't stop her.
"I'm sorry," she said as she turned her face away from me. "This can't be what you wanted. You're wanting a mate to help your forest grow, and I'm... I don't mean to be sad right now."
I didn't understand why she was apologizing to me for feeling and communicating suffering. Pain was a sign that something was wrong; it was a trigger from the body to inform the brain that it had to find a solution to the problem. When suffering was ignored and pushed aside, it only got worse. Now that she had communicated the full depth of her ache, I could help her solve it.
I lifted my hand to gently grasp her chin, a suggestion of a touch she followed to turn her face back to me. "Growth can't happen while pain cuts you down and holds you back. The source of the suffering must be removed."
Her entire body went still and tense. "Removed?"
I put one hand under her knees and the other around the small of her back before rising to my feet in one smooth motion, lifting her up in my arms as I stood. "Yes, we will remove the problem that cuts you back and limits you. You will grow lush and full in the absence of what held you back."
