Page 21 of Monstrous Heat
She had no fucking idea what she did to me. What I wanted to do to her.
Sitting there. Watching her come. Smelling her rising heat. Tasting her cream on the air. She hungered for me. Needed me. It was pure agony to sit here and deny her, though I must worry about her health as well as her desire. But now that I was touching her, I couldn’t focus on anything but her delectable scent.
“You should eat more,” I growled out, fighting the urge to throw the crock of human food aside and bury my face in the honeyed heat of her body.
She made a pained sound that cut through some of the haze clouding my brain. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
I did a quick scan, evaluating my grip on her head. Not too tight. I didn’t press her beneath me, crushing an organ or impeding her breathing. I hadn’t even thought about penetrating her yet. But she did feel pain. I shifted around so I could sit on the mattress and pull her into my lap. I cupped her face in my palms and blinked, shifting my eyes to infrared. Her temperature was slightly elevated, but that could be the environment. Or the fact that she’d just climaxed.
I blinked again, shifting my vision to look deeper into her tissues.
“Your eyes,” she breathed out. “What are you doing?”
“You hurt. I’m scanning your body to determine the cause.” I lifted her up higher, letting her dangle in my grip so I could scan her chest cavity. “Are you ill? Did the food not agree with you?”
She squirmed in my grip. “Put me down. I’m fine.”
Ignoring her protests, I gave her a toss and caught her ass in my other hand, shifting her to lie horizontally in front of me so I could slowly roll her over for a deeper scan of her organs.
“Kroktl!” She jerked in my grip, her cheeks red. “Please.”
Immediately, I ceased the examination, though concern still niggled through me. “Are you sure? It’s a risk but I can contact Snryx if you need medical aid.”
“I’m sure. I can tell you what it was. It’s just… embarrassing. Who’s Snryx?”
“He’s the medic of my squad. There’s no embarrassment between mates. If you have a need, I will meet it. Even if that means bringing another dynos into your vicinity.”
Her eyes widened. “You mentioned your squad before, but I assumed they were dead or… gone back, I guess. They’re still here? Where? How many?”
I gripped her chin and narrowed my eyes. “First, explain the pain.”
“Uh, sure. It’s dumb, really. Certain foods…” Her cheeks remained red but she straightened her shoulders and took on an analytical tone. “Certain foods generate harmless gas in my stomach, which can cause pain. It’s not serious.”
“What foods?”
“There were beans in the stew. They’re very good and healthy to eat—but they can make my stomach hurt temporarily.”
I frowned. Feeding my human mate was going to be more difficult than I thought. Too bad I couldn’t just kill something for her. “How can they be good and healthy to eat if they cause you pain? What else should you avoid?”
“The only thing I’m allergic to is shellfish. I should have an epi-pen in my bag.”
I made a mental note, though I had no idea what shellfish were or what an epi-pen was. If I dared access Lohr on the grid, our squad biologist could help me identify her allergens with a thought. “Then you should have the bag close at all times?”
She nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, unless I lose it again. Tell me about your squad.”
With my naked, luscious mate sitting in my lap, the last thing I wanted to talk about were the other males in my squad, but I’d made a promise. “There are five dyni per squad. Each soldier has a different specialty designation, enhanced by both training and breeding for centuries. In your language, I’d be called a Tri-R, valued for my speed, agility, and cunning.”
“Tri-R? What does that stand for? Is it the kind of creature you are or something else?”
“Red Raptor Rex. I’m usually the point, the furthest out in the field from the rest of the squad. I’m a tracker and striker. In and out before anyone even knows I’m there.”
Her eyes lit up. “Raptor! Of course. The creature did look like a cross between a T-Rex and velociraptor. And the medic? What’s his designation?”
“SPR, Special Rex, though his breed is also spiny, so the SP works for that too.”
“Sp…spiny? Like a… Spinosaurus?”
My head tipped slightly. “If they have a fan of spines that run down their backs, sure.”
