LUC

Jessie was still shaking, but he was silent — he didn't wail.

When we reached the nest and I let him go, the first thing he did was help me get the mental clamp around my leg off. I wasn't sure if it hurt more or less without it, but my foot felt numb by the time I had tied the third piece of fabric around it. Jessie inspected my shoulder wound with his fingers, making a gulping noise before hurrying over to his pile of things.

He picked up a rubber slab and the stylus, and I watched as his hands moved quickly as he drew. When he raised the slab to show me, I immediately recognized the thing — the location. It was the first nest I had taken him to.

"Cliff," he said in his language, and I repeated it. He said it again, and again, nestling himself against me until I got the hint. I wrapped my hands around him, holding him close as I took us out of the nest, flying into the now cool evening. When we reached the cliff nest, Jessie made a run for his things again, aggressively throwing things out of duffel bags until he found a metal blue box with a red shape on the front. He sighed, taking a deep breath as he opened it, taking out the weird tools and liquids. I walked over to him, crouching next to him. After a while, he looked at me with an implement in his hand. He reached out with shaky fingers, placing his fingers softly against the edges of the wound. I made an anxious chur when he moved the odd metal device close to my wound with his other hand.

He looked up at me, forcing a smile on his face. He said something I didn't understand, but my name was part of the sentence, and he said it in the softest tone. I trusted him, so I calmed down, the feathers on my shoulders and my neck relaxing against my skin. He pushed the metal into my wound, turning and plucking until it took hold of something I didn't know was even in me. He pulled the little black metal out of me, saying soft words in his language as he petted my arm.

He then pressed a stinging liquid to my arm with a cloth, then ran a threaded needle through my skin to suture it — that I was familiar with and would have done myself, but it was nice to see him do it for me. Take care of me.

They almost took you from me. I thought to myself as I watched him work. I had gone to make sure another Helli wasn't tracking us, but had somehow missed the humans. The trap had been painful, but fighting against one human hadn't been a big deal. I had rushed over to look for Jessie, and he hadn't been where I had left him.

I—

Losing my mind would be the best way to describe what had happened. They had pulled those projectile weapons on him. I knew what they did — I'd seen them before. It was fire. It was loud, and it killed animals in an instant.

When Jessie sewed up my wound, he bandaged my arm with white fabric, and it was only then, he focused on his arm. It wasn't a bad injury, but it bled a lot. We went back to the mangrove tree nest, and just before bed, Jessie had taken the map I'd gotten from one of the female traders at the cliff market.

He opened it up, drawing a circle around the most marked landmark before muttering. "No. Here. Never."

I listened to him, nodding my head. I suppose "never" meant "never go here". I assumed that was where the humans from today were from. He was afraid for me — worried out of his mind, and I could see it in his shaking.

"Never..." I repeated, assuring him. "Luc. Never."

He said something, then choked a bit on his words. He furiously rubbed at his eyes, and I realized it was leaking water again like last time. My heart ached. He was sad.

He managed to put himself together before pointing to another location on the map. "Soon," he mumbled, and I nodded, knowing he wanted me to take him there, but I wasn't sure what for.

What if this was his way of saying he wanted to leave me? That everything he was going through was too much? A distressed sound left me.

"A while," he said, when he noticed my tension. "Jessie. Here. A while," he said, still pointing at the location.

I relaxed a little, nodding. 'A while' was for some time. It wasn't forever. He wouldn't leave me forever. Jessie smiled softly. He looked exhausted — so worn out.

I leaned into him, fanning his face with my breath. He made that strange human sound that was often accompanied by a smile as his brown eyes focused my my lips, they dilated a bit. My chest swelled, recognizing that look of want, I leaned forward, pressing my mouth to his, and soon his tongue was in my mouth — gliding, sucking, thrusting.

I moaned into the kiss, pushing him down until his back was against the nest's floor. He moved to pull down his pants and then remove the shirt he had on. I groaned when my lips briefly parted so that the fabric could get out of the way. He laughed a little, reaching up to cup my face before pulling me down again.

We kissed long and hard until my lips felt bruised and I couldn't breathe. I let go of his mouth, kissing down his chest and stomach, and engulfing the head of his sex into my mouth when my bottom lip bumped against it. He gasped shaking under my mouth as I sucked and licked, using my hand to stroke him like he'd shown me how to all those nights ago. The pains of my injuries were dulled by the pleasure and want that flowed through my body. I felt my sex grow taut against my stomach with every groan and sigh that escaped Jessie's mouth.

I let my free hand palm his bum, raising him off the nest's floor a bit. He took the hint, spreading his legs and raising his knees. I drew my hand up, palming the sacs under his sex before diving lower. I paused, looking at him for any sign of protest.

He usually...

I didn't know if it was a human thing, but he seemed particular about that orifice. There was a lot of stopping and deciding — things that were fine one day weren't fine on others. Right now, I wanted to kiss it, lick it, suck on it. I wanted to put my fingers in him — put myself in him.

Jessie didn't tense up, so I continued, teasing the little hole with the base of my finger as I continued to suck on him. My hand drifted to my erection, stroking and collecting the slick fluid in my hand before rubbing it against his hole. I rubbed around in, pressing a slicked finger into him. He gasped, letting out a sound that was a mix of a cry and a choke. I took my mouth away from his sex and his hand quickly replaced mine, rubbing himself as he looked a me.

"Luc..." My name was low on his lips.

"Jessie..." I called back, thrusting my finger in and out of him as I watched his trash under me. My erection throbbed, begging me to do something. I took my finger away, moving to hover over him. He looked at me with confused eyes, watching me angle my hips against his pelvic bone. For a moment, he seemed like he was debating the situation before he visibly relaxed and spread his legs.

I used my hand to position myself better, pressing against him. He winced and I stopped.

He smiled. "O-okay..." he mumbled, running a hand down my chest. "Okay..."

I kept pressing in, feeling myself get swallowed in the heat of his body from the inside. He was so tight. I groaned, purring so loud it was probably audible outside the nest. Jessie was saying now — many I didn't understand — many that didn't even seem like words at all, but I understood my name, and it got such a reaction out of me that it was addictive.

I moved inside him, dragging myself in and out and grunting every single time his tight heat engulfed me. His sex was glistening with sticky liquid, and the motion of my moving myself inside him made it bounce periodically.

I lowered my face to his own, licking his neck, his chin, his jaw. I sucked on his lips, licking them before plunging my tongue into his mouth. He sucked it — deep and hard, and now I was in him in more ways than one. I shuddered, feeling my erection pulse as I ejaculated into him. It was long and drawn out, and when I finally pulled myself out of him, some of it leaked. I wiped it up with a finger, pushing it back into him as we continued to kiss. The instinct to seed eggs that weren't there was still strong inside me.

I broke the kiss, dropping my head low and shifting so that I could take his sex in my mouth. I sucked, long and hard, pressing against his stomach as his erection pulsed, pushing hot liquid into my mouth.

"Luc..." he moaned, as I swallowed load after load, drowning in the taste of him and the smell of his pheromones. It was something so alien, so addicting... When his sex had nothing more to give me, I stopped sucking, looking over at Jessie whose eyes were glassed with satisfaction.

I curled up to him, running my fingers through his soft, dark hair as I licked his hairline, pushing the stray hairs away from his forehead. He seemed amused and made that strange human sound. I chuffed, licking his earlobe. Compared to the numb, shaking mess from moments before, he appeared surprisingly calm now. I was glad I could relieve his stress.

He'd been through a lot... my mate.

I closed my eyes, refusing to reprimand myself for thinking of him that way. After today... I knew I could kill for him... die for him, and I knew he cared for me — enough to stitch up my wounds and look at me like that — like his world would end if I was no longer in it.

He was mine.

And I was his.