Page 46 of Feral Keep

His cock hardens against his leg. I watch it happen—the flush darkening his scales, the way his breathing deepens. But it’s not the usual arousal. This is something else. Something satisfied. Something that looks at my hair and sees proof.

Proof that I’m healing. Proof that his seed is doing what it’s supposed to do. Proof that something in me is refusing to stay broken.

“Growing,” he says, and there’s possession in it, but also—pride. The kind of pride that comes from building something. From making something better.

It’s not what I expected.

The camps drilled a lesson into me about what males do with a girl’s growing—measure it, ration it, use it as leverage. This isn’t that. My chest goes strange and full and I don’t have anywhere to put the feeling, so it just sits there, taking up room.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t stop touching it. His other hand comes up, and he gathers more sections, running his talons through them with careful reverence. When he hits a tangle, he doesn’t just rip through it. He works the talons around the knot, patient, finding the loose end and working it free. His focus is absolute. This male who kills without thinking, who fucks like he’s trying to remake me—he’s learning my hair. Learning the path of each coil. Learning where the new growth starts and the camp-damage ends.

Each time he finds one of the healthy coils, he rumbles that approval sound again.

He drops his hand and walks to the sleeping furs, gestures for me to follow. I do. The command is soft but absolute, and I’m not sure when I stopped questioning that—when following his gestures became natural instead of choosing. He sits heavily on the furs, his frame taking up most of the space, and nods at the space between his thighs.

I settle there, my back against his chest. His arms come around me, wrapping me in the warmth of him, and one hand rises to my head. He plays with my hair like I was just doing. Combs through the sections with his talons, careful, reverent somehow. Finding the border where the old growth meets the new. Finding the tangles the braids left behind and working through them with patience that shouldn’t exist in something this large, this feral.

His breathing is deep and slow. Each inhale brings the scent of me—my skin, my hair, my cunt—directly into his system. His cock swells where it presses against my back, and he makes a small sound that might be contentment.

“Yours,” he says into the top of my head. “Growing.”

The warmth in his voice is strange—satisfaction, even as his cock hardens against my back. An ownership that means he’s pleased because I’m healing, because my body is doing impossible things and he gets to witness it.

His talons find a section of the new growth and lift it, examining it again like he’s checking on something precious. Like my hair is a project. Like I’m a project.

Wanting is dangerous. That’s camp-law, older than my own name. Want a bigger ration and you get watched. Want a kindness and you get it taken away in front of you so you learn better. But my shoulders have gone loose against his chest, and somewhere under my ribs a small, traitorous thing is unfolding, easy as that, with no punishment coming to slap it back down.

And the terrifying part is that I’m starting to like being his project.

The feeding thing has been escalating for days, and I only just realized what I’m doing.

It happens during the evening feed. He’s got something wrapped in soft leaves—some kind of bird, I think, the meat dark and seasoned with whatever grows around here. Smoke and something sharp and herbal cling to the leaves when he peels them back, and the smell alone makes my mouth flood before I’ve even seen the meat. He tears pieces off with his teeth and offers them to me, watching with that intensity he brings to everything. It’s efficient. It’s how he makes sure I eat enough. It’s also, I’ve slowly understood, deeply erotic for him.

The first time he did it, I took the food directly from his claws, careful not to touch his skin. But that’s not how it’s evolved.

Now, when hunger hits me—when my ribs remind me they’re still learning how to hold weight—I reach for him.

I don’t think about it first. My body just does it. My hand finds his wrist, gentle but clear, pulling his talons and the food and the warmth of him nearer to my mouth. I’m reaching. I’m choosing to lean in. I’m asking with my body instead of words.

The understanding comes half a second after the doing, and it stops my breath. In the camps you never reached for food. You waited for it to be handed down the line, and you took what landed in your bowl and were grateful it landed at all. Reaching got your hand slapped away, your name called out as an example. My fingers are already wrapped around his wrist before the old fear even finishes arriving, and it arrives anyway, cold down my spine, a half-beat too late to stop me.

He stills when I do it.

I don’t look up, but his awareness sharpens, his breathing catching slightly. His tail lashes once, hard, and then goes very still. Very controlled. Like he’s holding himself in place by force of will.

“Good,” he says, so soft I almost miss it.

The next piece of food is closer to his skin. I have to lean in harder to reach it, and when I do, my mouth brushes against his palm. His claws flex. A sound comes from his chest—not quite a purr, something deeper. More primal. He holds the next piece even closer, testing. Seeing if I’ll lean in again.

I do.

Each time, his breathing gets rougher. His cock hardens against my back, and he shifts slightly, trying not to seem like he’s trying. Failing. By the time the food is gone, he’s fully hard, pressing against my spine, the wet heat of his tip spreading against my skin.

But he doesn’t push for more than this. Doesn’t move his hand down to my cunt or suggest we take this to the furs. He just holds me, lets me finish eating, and the intimacy of it is sharper than any fuck. Wind moves through the canopy, carrying the smell of wet bark and sap from somewhere outside.

I’m learning that with him, reaching is its own kind of giving in—one I choose instead of one that’s forced from me.