Page 50 of Brine and Bone
There.
Her baby squirmed.
Strong. Pressing against the skin and muscle. A tiny body rolling with a vigor that made her gasp, eyes going wide and rimmed in white.
Alive in a way it hadn't been before.
In an instant, the lightning dimmed. Fading. Replaced by the hesitant glow of wonder as she felt the difference. Marveling at the speck of light and potential inside her. Awake and thriving, as if it had been nourished, fed what it had been lacking.
"The child." Nyxarion's voice rumbled through her, low and rough. His thrusts resumed—slow, languid strokes that served no purpose but the primal need to fill her. Instinct demanding he breed what was his, even when her body could take no more.
His knot swelled inside her, but could not force her full. Blocked. Her womb already sealed tight.
Denied the full claim he craved, his seed to leaked from her in lewd ribbons. Thick and opalescent, drifting away on the current. Each lazy roll of his hips pushed more from her, only to pump fresh heat inside.
"N-Nyxx…" A soft sound escaped her throat. Voice given to her state, oversensitive. Fucked raw.
But the question demanded an answer.
Humbled by the wonder blooming beneath her ribs, Kore pressed her palm flat against her belly. Feeling the child shift. Stronger now than it had ever been.
"Stronger," she breathed, awed. Her temper forgotten in the face of such a joy. "Awake, and… vibrant."
One arm banding tight around her waist, the other abandoned her thigh to find an anchor at the base of her skull. And his pace slowed further still—diminished to an instinctive rocking. Prolonging the pleasure. Keeping her full and marked.
A quiet stretched between them, then. Broken only by the quietschlickof water dragged through gills. Hearts beating together as they breathed and simply… existed.
Coming down.
The tempest of heat and need had receded, a low tide that exposed what lay hidden beneath the surface.
It was… peace.
Until it wasn't.
Until the quiet drew clarity.
Thalos.
The baby.
That quagmire of unanswered things, neither were brave enough to voice.
Throat growing tight, Kore swallowed and pressed her face into the heat of the leviathan who'd ruined her. Claimed her. Over and over again. "Nyx," she whispered, voice hoarse. "Will… will I need his venom? More of it? For the baby?"
For a moment, the question was suspended between them. Hanging heavy and ominous in the poisoned tide.
Tension filled Nyxarion's every breath.
She couldn't look at him. "Does… does this mean"—her voice cracked—"Will he take my baby? Does this mean it's… it'shis?"Fingers curled, knuckles white, her biolume pulsed with a sickly, ominous shade of yellow.
Nyxarion stilled.
Motionless for the space of three breaths.
And then, with a low growl that rumbled between her ribs, he buried himself to the top of his knot. As far as he might go. A conquering both primal and dangerous.
Lips tracing the shell of her ear, his head dipped. Breath teasing the current against her cheek, when he said, "Never," in a voice meant for commanding armies. "The Deep will go to war against Caelith Mare," he vowed, hips pressing forward,grinding deep against the mouth of her womb, "before I allow him to take our child. Beforeanyonetouches what you have claimed."
