He twitched his wings uncomfortably. Zerik wished he knew the words that females liked. Some males were gifted with expressive tongues to ply females with sweet sentiments, but Zerik never had that gift. He tended toward blunt appreciation, which few females admired. Lia had laughed the first time he’d attempted to approach her. He’d been blessed that she was actually delighted by his forthright manner.
He didn’t know how much Eliza would appreciate it. He knew very little about humans and their culture. He had been surprised—although also highly amused—at how easily Melanie had succumbed to the effect of the nevarot when her mother had a tolerance to it not unlike a Tagess native.
Eliza was unlike anything he’d ever expected to encounter, and he was as lost as a youth with his first female.
Zerik swallowed nervously. “It seemed an appropriate gift,” he muttered.
Her grin widened and her eyes sparkled up at him. She stood there before him, looking up at him expectantly. He could not pull his gaze away from her. He was entranced with the delicate human. His wings ruffled out, impatient with himself. Suddenly, Eliza sighed and reached a hand around his neck, pulling him down.
Zerik’s eyes widened at the feel of her lips against his, the caress of her mouth wonderfully gentle. Tagith didn’t typically kiss, although he had seen Dareth and Melanie kiss many times and his olo had explained the pleasures of the human kissing.
Dareth’s descriptive abilities were lacking, as far as Zerik was concerned.
The press of her lips sent fire through his blood of the likes of which not even nevarot could duplicate. When her tongue brushed against his bottom lip, he gasped with pleasure. The soft, sweet taste of her tongue flooded his mouth as it dipped in and caressed his own.
With a growl, he pressed her firmly against him. Everything around them fell away as if nothing existed but the two of them, burning together. It didn’t take him long to begin to mimic her movements and then with an excited grumble he took over, eliciting a gasp of desire from her. His nostrils flared, taking the sweet sharp musk of her body.
“Amazing,” he whispered against her mouth.
He was suddenly dragged into awareness when a young male bumped into him and apologized profusely. Zerik shook his head and frowned. This was not the place to indulge in the flesh of his female.
Yes, that sounded right. His female.
He felt it deep in his bones with a focused certainty. He had felt a connection to her ever since he touched her and pulled her away from the grip of her abusive mate. That male was unworthy of her. Zerik would care for her and protect her.
He watched her face become animated when youths set off firesparks, lighting up the darkening sky in bursts of colored sparks from their carefully planned pyrotechnics. Eliza clapped her hands and laughed. Her eyes shone as she looked at the flare across the skies with absolute unreserved joy.
Unable to resist any longer, he trailed a claw gently down the side of her face. She stilled and then slowly turned back toward him, leaning into his touch. She lost all attention for the firespark displays. Instead, she looked at him with the same captivated pleasure. He felt the fire burning in his heart extend through his body as he drew her into his arms.
As he pulled her snuggly against him, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Shall we?” She nodded mutely, her eyes softening with a hesitant invitation that he would be a fool to ignore.
His arms tightened around her, and Tagiths moved away from them as he spread his wings wide. He lowered into a slight crouch to give him enough propulsion to leap up into the sky. Beating his wings, he drew into the heavens, moving away from the crowds in the dimly lit darkness below them.
***
Eliza shivered in ecstasy as she curled her legs around his hips, keeping their bodies flush against each other so that she could continue to ride the bulge of his cock beneath his loose pants. Her skin felt terribly hot, and Zerik felt positively feverish with the intensity of the heat rolling off his body.
“I want you, Eliza,” he groaned into her hair. “I do not want to waste any more years alone, dwelling in unhappiness over what could have been. I want you to be mine.”
Eliza groaned, her body shuddering with pleasure, but no less so than the spark within her heart that answered his gruff plea. Gods, she wanted that too. She had wasted so many years being scared of change. She didn’t want to go back to the space station with regret because she was too scared to embrace something good in her life.
“Yes, Zerik, I want that too,” she whispered.
At first, she wasn’t sure if he’d heard her, but then he groaned deeply, grinding his hips into her as his wings brightened. The tips began to spark with flame.
“Beautiful Eliza, please accept my fire so that we can be joined together in the way of my kind. So that we can burn together.” His words were so light, she barely heard him, but she understood the need carrying through his voice. She felt the answering flame spark within her own soul. She should have been afraid of what he asked, but instead, everything within her yearned for it.
Wordlessly, she pressed her lips against his, conveying with the eager plunge of her tongue into his mouth her acquiescence. To her delight, Zerik took the hint and began to devour her, stoking her internal fire brighter and hotter. Her lashes lifted for a moment to see the flames licking the tips of his feathers, sparking off his wings.
With each beat of his wings, he ground hard against her, and with every beat the flames ignited brighter. Eliza threw her head back and gasped out as an orgasm rolled through her, surrendering to Zerik’s fire.
With a growl, Zerik caught her lips again and heat burst all around them as they plummeted through the sky like a falling star. Eliza felt her quim shudder with rolling coils of ecstasy as white light burst behind her eyes, the stoked flames he had drawn from the core of her being rising to merge with his inferno.
Together, they combusted. Eliza felt their clothing fall away into ash.
Without material between them, she felt the stiff and bumpy length of his cock against the folds of her flesh. Zerik growled as he angled himself properly at her opening, and jerking his hips and impaling her as he spread his wings wide once more. Eliza screamed in pleasure as the sudden movement of his wings rocked him deep within her, and she felt the fire between them form into unbreakable bands linking their beings together.
As if the mating fire of the Tagith mated both their bodies and their souls.
His claws bit gently into her hip and shoulder, and his arms tightened into solid bands around her. His breath gusted around her, punctuated with a deep and ceaseless growl. Each growl vibrated through her body, sending pleasure straight to her core as felt yet another orgasm building. His cock mercilessly battered the deepest parts of her with every deep rock into her depths, a slightly pointy knob of flesh at the tip of his cock stroking just the right spot.
Her legs tightened around him as her orgasm screamed through her body. Zerik jerked and wrapped her within his wings, and they fell together, pulsating with their shared release as they fell from the heavens. His heavy release ran down the back of her thighs when he, cock still buried deep within her, jolted deep inside when he stretched out his wings to rise once again high into the skies. Eliza careened straight away into another climax.
Chapter 9
Eliza opened her eyes the next morning, secure in the warm grip of Zerik. The male was curled so tightly around her that he was just shy of being on top of her. It was as though he couldn’t stand the thought of allowing an inch of space between their bodies. She stretched up and pressed a butterfly kiss on his jaw. Aside from the twitch of his feather-tufted ear, he did not stir from his deep sleep.
She groaned as she slipped out from beneath his heavy arm. It took a bit of wiggling, but she finally sat on the edge of the bed feeling marvelously refreshed. Who knew that mating with Zerik would have such an effect on her? Despite the awkwardness of arriving back to his home stark naked with nothing but hi
s wings to shield her nudity, she had never felt so at peace and happy.
Thankfully, Dareth and Mel had been blissfully unaware in the confines of their own room, which saved everyone from an uncomfortable encounter. Although Dareth and Mel had made it pretty obvious that they were hoping their parents would get together, Eliza had no doubt that they wouldn’t want to actually see the aftermath.
Eliza suppressed a chuckle, hastily donning some clothes she pulled from her bag. Zerik had dragged it into his room late the night before after a couple more rounds of lovemaking. It had been a long time since she had been with a man who had that much stamina.
As a rule, she’d slept with Charles as little as possible as the years passed. The rare occasion when she yielded to her loneliness and his demands upon her had been nothing less than a sexual drive by. Every time, he climbed on her the exact same way only to finish within minutes and then rolled over onto the rapidly widening girth of his belly to fall sleep. With him, she’d felt utterly undesirable.
Zerik was different. There was really no comparison, since he was nothing like her quick shot of an ex-husband, or even other men she had been with as a young woman.
Zerik wasn’t shy to show her how much he adored and desired her. He gave completely and freely of himself, and he was the most adventurous male she could remember ever being with. She’d been certain that she would wake up sore in places that hadn’t been exercised in years—and new places she never knew existed. It shocked her to discover just how great she felt.
She pulled back the gauzy curtain and soaked in the morning. The sun was shining beautifully. After the sun-spark flowers were harvested, Mel and Dareth would be having their mating ceremony within a floral bower that he presumably been up early in the morning putting together with help of locals who weren’t part of the harvest team.
“Eliza,” a deep, inviting voice crooned behind her. A shiver raced over her skin and she turned to face Zerik. His brow was furrowed with concern, but his eyes burned with a light she hadn’t seen before.
“Why are you up, my heart?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She smiled up at him and leaned into his chest.
“No reason, Zerik. My body decided it was time to get up, I suppose,” she chuckled. “Even on vacation, I can’t get into the habit of sleeping in, it seems.”
Zerik’s lovely eyes crinkled deeply at the corners. “I had thought that I tired you out well enough last night, but perhaps I was mistaken.”
Eliza hummed deep in her throat. “Are you making a suggestion?”
He pressed kisses along the length of her neck and over her shoulder. “I might have an idea,” he growled against her skin.
Eliza pulled back and looked up at him, hoping that he could see all the love she held for him in her eyes. “What is your idea?”
“Well,” he said as he leaned forward to nip her shoulder, drawing a gasp from her, “I am thinking that while the children are helping on their rotation with the sun-spark harvest, we should return to our bed and greet our morning properly.”
“Mmm, I do agree. That does sound like a magnificent idea,” she purred.
Zerik lightly flapped his wings as he drew her back to their bed, his feathers brushing her sensitive skin, inflaming her further. He wrapped his wings around her to haul her up into his embrace, his feathers hot against her back and ass. He lifted her up, high enough to spear her on his thick phallus.
Oh, how she loved his cock. It was thick and tapered to nearly a point with a hard, pointed nob of flesh at the tip, and it had bumps all along the length of that made a distinct pattern from the root to the tip, each designed to rub the soft flesh of her inner walls. Meanwhile, the bumps along his groin surrounding his phallus rubbed deliciously against her clit and netherlips with every stroke.
Zerik let himself fall back onto the bed, thrusting deep within her on contact. They groaned in unison. His wings gave her limited room for mobility as he thrust upward with his hips, allowing her to do little more than rock and quiver from the dual sensation of his body beneath her and his wings around her.
Her dark hair, liberally sprinkled with silver strands, coiled on his chest between them, teasing her nipples. Zerik was obviously affected too, by the way he hissed out between his teeth. Flames licked between their skin from the slick friction between them. Her pussy felt like it was on fire, pleasure coiling through her with every deep stroke. It was as if her cunt and his cock were flint and steel striking together rapturously. Every thrust threatening to combust within her.
Zerik snarled low his throat and his wings flapped out around them as he swung her beneath him. Pinning her to the bed, he pounded deep into her with long, hard strokes. Eliza felt herself spiraling out of control, surrendering to the flames of desire engulfing her. She let out a scream as the spark within her rose to crescendo into a rushing wildfire, burning bright and out of control as she orgasmed, and taking Zerik with her as he roared his pleasure to the gods above.
Eliza panted, her skin slick with sweat, and his bright cum smeared down her legs as she looked up at him with a glazed happy expression.
“Again?” she asked, gulping deep breaths of air, her thighs slicking with rekindled desire.
Zerik breathed deeply of her essence and gave her a predatory smile.
“Oh yes,” he murmured, snaking down her body to thrust his tongue deep within the soft folds of her cunt, licking deeply of their shared fluids.
***
Zerik inhaled deeply, smiling as he surveyed the beautifully decorated bower. Dareth had outdone himself. Several native flowers entwined the poles, holding up thick folds of gauzy fabrics, including large bunches of sun-spark flowers, freshly harvested at the central beam.
His eyes drifted over to his mate and he could not keep his smile from growing as he looked at her. Eliza’s silver sparked dark hair was coiled elegantly at the back of her head, tiny curls escaping as she leaned forward to talk quietly with their ala. Melanie giggled into her hand, her eyes glinting with a now familiar mischief.
Yes, he had been well aware of the plotting of their offspring. When Melanie had blatantly encouraged him to invite Eliza to the Sun-Spark Festival, it had initially caught him off-guard, but as he later confided to his mate in the privacy of their bed that night, he’d known instantly that there was nothing he wanted more once the idea sparked within his mind. It took little time, enjoying her enjoying the festival for that flame to turn into an inferno of affection, love, and desire.
Their olo and ala could smirk all they liked, thinking that they had fooled their parents into joining. Neither he nor Eliza would make the effort to “burst their bubble,” as Eliza said.
A well-groomed Dareth stood at his side, his chest and wings puffed out with a golden glow of pride and undampened happiness.
To his surprise, even Gaveth, his brow furrowed in a surly manner, had opted to join them for the mating ceremony. He was without female company, so Zerik imagined that was another female rotated out of his son’s life in quick order. To his relief, Gaveth held his tongue and was appropriately polite to everyone—including the human women—in attendance, even if he did look like an ill-tempered child the entire time.
An elder female came forward beneath the bower, her hands outstretched. She was a long-time priestess of Avanahal, the goddess of love, mating bonds, and the newly born young. She had overseen many matings for their family over the years. Zerik imagined she pushed one hundred and ten revolutions, but she insisted she would never get too old for this duty, even if she had to make use of a mobility device someday.
Her faded yellow eyes gleamed with joy as she gestured Zerik to approach with Dareth at her right, and Eliza to approach with Melanie at her left. Her lips curved into a kindly smile as she spoke first to Melanie and Eliza.
“The land,” she said in a soft weathered voice, “provides the gifts of life. We sow the seeds, watching them flower and bloom. We nurture generations and grow them
within us as females. We are the source of life that allows all to prosper and continue forward. You are the stability and source of life within your home.”
She turned and gestured to Dareth. “Yet for crops to grow in reliable fruiting fields, for herds to drop healthy young from careful husbandry, protected from predators, we need to nurture and protect. You are the source of protection and sustenance for your nest. Between the two of you, your rookery will continue and grow strong. It will not want, nor will it fall to hardship, when you both join together.”
She gripped Melanie’s hand with her aged one. Eliza shifted her grip higher onto Melanie’s arm, and with her other took hold of Dareth’s hand. Zerik, likewise, shifted his hand up higher, maintaining the link between his line to his olo.
“We are reminded,” she said as she drew the couple’s hands together, entwining them with a rope of braided sun-spark flowers, “that together we are one. When we join, we become one, but we also bring our rookeries together to be as one. You mate not just with each other, but with the line of all who came before. Their ancestors become your ancestors, and those of the fledglings you produce together.”
Melanie and Dareth exchanged a small knowing smile at that.
The priestess, after one final look at the braid, poured nevarot into a small cup and tilted the rim at Melanie’s lips to sip from it. She then performed the same gesture for Dareth.
“Among the Tagith, fire is life. The nevarot is a symbol of the height of the fires the gods have provided for us from the beginning. These fires join us in our true being as mate. So it is that by the sun-spark flower you are joined, and by imbibing the nevarot of the sun-spark, you are joined as you will join together in the flesh.”
Dareth winked at his mate, and Zerik resisted the urge to smack him on the head. It was hardly the fault of the priestess that his son had done everything wing-backward.
“May your hearts be one and your rookery eternal. May the gods bless your joining and Avanahal make your bonds everlasting.”
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