Page 37 of Mated to the Monster God
“You feel like home,” she breathes.
I don’t say it. Because home is too small a word. She’s everything I never knew I needed.
She tries to sit, lean up against me. I catch her, hold her close.
“Stay,” she whispers.
I answer with a kiss that smells like crushed petals and longing.
We disentangle but remain close. I stretch a hand through the cold morning air and pluck a wild blossom from a fallen vine. I slide it into her hair behind her ear.
“You’re beautiful,” I say, voice soft as dawn.
She laughs, raw and tender. “Thanks.”
“Esme,” I say, voice rough with wonder, “I remember fragments of others. But with you... I feel whole.”
Her breath stutters. “That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Because it’s possible?” I whisper.
“I’m scared I’ll screw it up,” she admits. “Lose myself.”
My thumb traces her jawline. “You won’t. I won’t let you exist in fear.”
She smiles, arms slipping around my neck. We stand, bodies pressed together, breath intermingling with mist.
I kiss her again—patient, meaningful, not consuming this time. We move slowly, falling apart just enough to find each other again. Somewhere deep, my fragmentary past hushes under her presence.
I taste her. Everything in me hushes.
I anchor her to myself with a whisper. “You’re mine.”
She doesn’t respond beyond leaning closer.
When the first birds call, the world flushes bright with possibility.
I guide her back toward the edge of camp—toward survival, toward tomorrow, together.
But right now?
Right now, I just breathe her in.
Our world shrinks to breath and pulse and skin that clings like water pouring off a stone. The air is thick with the scent of earth, sweat, wildflowers crushed between us, and something warmer—our bodies fusing like two halves finally aligned. I touch her gently, reverently, tracing heat and tension until she softens beneath my hands.
“Esme…” her voice is urgent and molten, breath catching like a spark.
She’s already beneath me, limbs tangled, fingers gripping leather and scales. Every nerve in my body tightens. My claws press into the soil, gouging shallow trenches, half to anchor myself, half to hold back something fierce. This tenderness is volcanic, burning sweetness into my bones while also scorching with need.
Our lovemaking is every contradiction that matters, every paradox that fills empty spaces. Slow enough to memorize each curve, fast enough to scramble the edges between us until I can taste her want on my tongue—salty, raw, vivid.
My hands travel with intent, mapping starlight across her scars, finding the places that arch with elation, that tense with fear, that beckon with unspoken invitation. I do not take. I honor every inch of her.
She arches into me, gasping my name as I move—that single word echoing in the night, a covenant. My ribs ache with how much I need to be worthy of that cry.
“Sagax…” she breathes again, meaty syllables weighed in want.
I pause, forehead pressed to hers, sweat cooling between us. “Tell me.”
