I know about my competition. For my entire life, we’ve been trained side by side, all while knowing that only one of us can complete the last challenge. They are, and always have been, my rivals, and for as confident as I’d like to say that I’m stronger…I don’t know if I am.
So I must be more cunning and more ruthless than the other males. Knowing what I could lose is going to be the fuel I need to win.
“What happens if you—what if you don’t come back to me?” The look on Lena’s face kills me.
“I will.”
“But I need to know, what happens to me? I don’t want to be here without you.” She puts her hands on my face, cupping my cheeks.
Pain, from her eyes, in my heart, pain is all I can feel.
“Y-you,” I stutter, not wanting to think about the reality of a future without Lena. “You’ll be treasured. As a jewel you’ll be taken care of for your entire life. If you choose, in time, you can even mate another worthy male.” The last part hurts to say, but I will be honest with Lena, because that’s what she needs.
I will always give her what she needs.
The shaking starts in her shoulders until it takes over her whole body. My appendages wrap around her, trying to weather this storm of emotions my words have triggered.
I keep kissing her face, my tongue salty with the taste of her tears.
I’m taken aback when she clutches me, pressing her mouth to my lips, her tongue searching me for some kind of comfort.
Comfort is something I can give her.
I return her kiss, letting my hands run over the curves of her human form. We are different, but there’s something so beautiful in the softness of her body and the slickness of her hair where tentacles should be.
Mine, always mine.
“I will win for you, to ensure we’ll live a long and happy life together.” I mumble between the clashing of our mouths.
“Forever?” Her hands run lower along my body.
“Until we’re so old we can’t move, until we decide to return to the Great Mother in the same second—I never want to be parted from you, even in death.” The brother’s cup her ass, lifting her body until I let my kisses trail down her chest.
I push the tattered woven top to the side, taking the hardening bud at the apex of her breast between my lips.
When Lena moans loudly, I muzzle my hand over her mouth.
“Quiet,” I beg, “I need to comfort you. I need to give you this release. We can’t let the guard hear. I can’t leave you wanting.”
Some faction of my psyche, no matter how much I don’t want to admit it, knows this might be the last time we ever see each other.
“Won’t you get in trouble? I want you, but I don’t want to make this worse.” She says warily as my hand slips from her lips, glancing at the door.
I don’t answer her as my hands join my foretentacles at her ass. I carry her over to one of the chairs and set her down gently.
I promised the Chancellor that we hadn’t mated, and it’s true. I won’t give her my seed until after I’m found worthy—and only if she’ll accept it then.
I kneel at the altar of Lena, her arousal scent filling my nostrils and sending my blood to pump into the tips of every tentacle on my body.
For the first time since we met, I don’t have to worry if my venom is what’s making her crazy for me.
Lena burns for my touch right before my eyes, and every bit of her emotion is natural. She wants me, and I’ll perish if I wait any longer to taste her.
The sound of her moans cuts through my concentration and one brother drags his tip right through her wet slit—lifting her skirt. Without warning, the other foretentacle covers her mouth once more.
“Shhh…” I whisper before I trail my tongue up her thigh. Lena bucks but stays quiet—despite needing to bite into the flesh of my tentacle to do so.
I don’t even flinch because I will always give Lena what she needs, even if that’s a bite of me.
My mouth waters as I lift the woven skirt I wrapped her in before the elder’s arrival. Her scent intoxicates me, and I can almost feel my pupils dilating as I inhale.
“Lena, I want to use my mouth on your cunt, please let me.” The smell of her alone has my cock hard and weeping. As she gazes down at me, my voice is filled with longing as I beg. “I need this, I need to taste you.”
Lena pulls the brother from her lips, her voice quiet and as desperate sounding as I feel.
“Promise me you’ll come back to me,” she says as a chunky tear rolls down her cheek.
“I promise.” It can’t be a lie if you mean it with your whole heart, can it?
“I trust you, Kitaico.”
The words feel weighty in the room. This is her answer to my promise and my request.
“Your trust is my honor to hold.” I pull her slightly forward in her seat and whisper, “Will you open yourself to me?”
She pets a hand through my head tentacles before putting her hands on her knees and spreading them wide.
There must be no sight more enchanting, not even the promised afterlife by the Great Mother, than Lena on display before me.
