If the clouds of heaven and the flames of hell could exist in the same space, at the same time, this was it. And if Kyzar was not careful, Chrys would die, and it would be only hell that burned around him for the rest of his life.

Never in a million years had Kyzar imagined that this was how his first sex would take place. Him in the shape of a monster, with a woman he had not known for long but had grown extremely attached to all the same, under a curse that held him back at every step, every move. It was excruciating.

Chrys was beautiful, soft and exquisite in the confines of his prison-like embrace. Laying underneath him, fragile, vulnerable, her body tense with what was most likely pain, she looked at him with the most innocent of expressions, as if he was the answer to all of her questions. Had he not lost his ability to speak, he would have informed very matter-of-factly, albeit self-consciously, that he, too, had no experience in the bedroom.

Sweet, lovely Chrys, and she was all his. 

They had spent a mind-blowing sixteen hours just to get to this point, because he kept hesitating. Fear in itself was a scary thing. Kyzar had been afraid he would end up killing Chrys. Afraid that her agreement to help him was a mistake that only he would live to regret. Afraid that if he penetrated her too early on, without a plan, that he would be forcing her into copulation for as long as it took her to figure out the conditions to his curse. 

But when she gazed at him with her soft blue eyes and enclosed his waist with her delicate ankles, when she whispered reticently, breathily, the words “please take me”, time screeched to an abrupt halt. His head steamed, muscles clenched, throat closed, and for what felt like minutes but was probably only a couple of seconds, he remained speechless, astounded into a daze so deep he forgot how to breathe. 

Kyzar had one chance, and only one. Everything that followed would be entirely contingent on his ability to wordlessly express himself and hers to read him despite the odds. As they were now, Chrys would never be able to understand that there was no turning back from this no matter how hard he tried to explain with his grunts and roars. But those words that she spoke gave him a small glimmer of hope. If she could invite him to claim her chastity, perhaps she could also ask him to finish inside of her.

  The moment he entered her, his heart stilled. This was it – they had crossed the point of no return. It was either they broke the curse, or she died. 

Deep, dark purple. That was the colour of fear. Of evil and of curses. 

Kyzar gnashed his teeth. He was fully buried inside of Chrys, at her invitation, one that he would remember fondly for as long as he lived, and he was already about to explode. Just thinking back on her sweet, timid voice, feeling her hot skin against his, and he was on the edge of losing it all.

It was too much. She was so, so tight, squeezing him in gentle pulses. No pleasure could ever, ever come close to this.

Elliot and his idiot ways. 

Avis and his annoyingly handsome face. 

That stupid soldier clinging to my Chrys. 

That vile witch, this damned curse. 

The purple seals on Chrys, damn the caster.

His members calmed down. He breathed a huge sigh of relief. He had successfully put off ejaculation, for now. Beautiful, wide-eyed Chrys, confused, stared at him. They had passed many hours together, naked, and he still wondered to high heavens how this young lady, who was once so terrified of him she whacked him with a book, could cast her gaze upon him with such a welcoming expression, how she was able to yield her body to him, how she could look at him and not be disgusted by his touch. 

She looked at him like he mattered.

Though he could not ejaculate unless she asked for it, Kyzar wanted her to feel good. It was an impossible task. How was he supposed to stimulate her, when every tiny move he made was enough to flush pleasure through his bloodstream? His heart had always been strong, but engaging in relations with his lovely lady under the circumstances dealt by that witch might just prove to be his downfall. He swallowed hard. Chrys was still staring at him, hands to her chest, doe-like shyness and wonder permeating her every feature. 

He was no mind reader, but on the rare occasion that Chrys let her guard down, such as now, she was an open book with all her thoughts spilling out onto her face. Questions were flying around her head in a shroud of puzzlement. 

Why isn’t he moving?

Is this what consummation is?

Will the curse be broken if he finishes inside of me? 

But why isn’t he trying to finish?

He was chuckling, but what came out was beastly grunts that reminded him of the wild boars that sometimes crossed his path in the forest. Yet, sweet, lovely Chrys did not put her walls back up. Instead, she appeared surprised, and not in a bad sense. As if she recognised his behaviour as one born of happiness, that while she could not place the reason for his sudden burst of emotion, she was happy that he was happy. He could not help but attempt to kiss her again. 

But, of course, kissing was impossible when he had no lips to kiss her with. Instead, it was more accurate to say he attacked her with his tongue. A sloppily executed invasion of her mouth with the thick, red, alien weapon that never quite fit in his own, and one that his equally inexperienced victim stood no chance against. She surrendered herself to him without a fight, letting him do with her as he pleased.

It took them two days.

Two whole, torturous, pleasure-drenched days.

In those two days, his member never once left the wet heat of her insides. Whenever they took a break, out of fatigue or because they had to eat, he would pull out of her just a bit so that only the tip of him was enveloped in her delightful warmth, and he would keep their positions locked in place with a firm arm around her so that any movement she made, purposeful or accidental, would not result in their bodies disengaging. 

After the first twenty-four hours of mating, half the time, Chrys was confused and delirious, wet-eyed and exhausted. There had been multiple opportunities for Kyzar to climax, but he could not. His partner was too out of it for the most part, and drained of her usual wit, he had no choice but to hold back at every last moment. Her body was molten milk pudding beneath him; if he tried to lift her, he could imagine her seeping through his fingers and pooling around his knees. She needed a break.

Sleep, my love. It’s been three days since I barricaded you in here with me.

For the first time in over forty-eight hours, Chrys closed her eyes for longer than a minute, and her breathing tapered off as all the tension exited her. With his member buried halfway inside so that she could rest easier, he adjusted her so that not a single limb of hers dangled off him. She could stand to gain a little more meat on her bones, but he was glad to see that she was no longer the wisps of straw that once rooted in her bedroom.

While she slept, Kyzar’s mind drifted off. He thought of her magic, the white light that she emanated and shone on him. It was a colour that matched her hair and the purity of her blue eyes.

Pale blue eyes, the colour of snowflakes catching the first brush of dawn.

He had seen them before.

But where?

Despite ransacking his mind, Chrys was still an enigma to him, who she was, how she came to his castle, why she chose to stay, and why she allowed him to touch her. But all of those things dwindled into irrelevance when he thought about all the things he did know about her. She bore a fondness for animals, small and large, despite her initial unaccustomedness with them. She who flinched at the slightest movement in her direction had come to enjoy milk pudding in his company. For an excruciating period of time, she had avoided him like the plague, but at the end of it, she had clung to him with all her might and eventually mustered the nerve to take the first of many steps towards him, to verbalise her selfless endeavour to help him.

Past her aloof demeanour and mild temperament, there was an infinitely gentle soul who would indiscriminately offer her hand to a person in need, regardless of their exterior. After all, here she was, lying in his arms after consecutive sleepless nights of curse-breaking monster-human sex.

Two months. It had been nearly two months since she arrived in Huvestria, one month since her existence took root in his heart. He had yet to learn of her background, but he was determined to make her his wife. They had come this far, and failing was not an option. For her to live, and for him to return to his human form, they had to break the curse. The first thing he would do was kiss her.

Throb.

Kyzar looked down. Chrys was awake, and she was squeezing around his sex hard. His breath caught in his throat as he wrapped his arms firmly around her waist and deepened his infiltration of her. Any remnant of sleep fled her eyes in a singular stroke. Her fingers dug into his collarbones as her throat shook out a soft whimper.

Cupping her bottom tightly, he flipped her over so that she laid on her back. Her legs naturally spread to accommodate his pelvis as he grinded against her. The air was electrified with the sloppy sounds of their bodies meeting, delighting. The closer they came, the more urgent he became, and when he could take it no more, he stopped, as he had done for each and every time they teetered dangerously close to the edge.

Chrys stared at him while he struggled to regain his bearings. Her eyebrows hard, pressed together ever so slightly in obvious puzzlement, laced with an almost unnoticeable tint of discontent, she did the one thing that he would have enjoyed patently under any other circumstance, but could extinguish her life if he did not have an iron grip on his cock. She raised her hips to meet his.

No, stop it. Chrys, stop.

He was begging, growling, in pain. He doubted he could hold out for much longer; if Chrys’s body did not break first, it would be his mind that did. He wanted to tear off his skin, rip out his heart, it was too much. He was going mad. 

“What do I need to do?” 

Her pleading voice quaked, not in fear, but with the very same agony that shackled him to their ceaseless mating. Chrys looked at him with heartrendingly miserable eyes, because she too knew that he could not answer her.

Once again, he managed to put off climax. A deep sigh of relief, mixed with exhaustion and frustration, deflated his lungs. Listless and spent, his soul floating in limbo above their heads, hindered only by the ceiling, he began to trace the bulge in Chrys’s belly with his finger.

I didn’t realise I was ever this big. But you’re just too small. It’s still hard to believe you managed to take me in. But look at this. I can see the shape of me on your stomach. I’m so tired, Chrys. You must be even more tired. What have I done?

He spread his hand across her abdomen, his palm spanning her waist from one side to the other effortlessly. His fingers caressed her soft, creamy skin, and it prickled in response to his touch. 

How lovely, that you still react to me so keenly. I’m bushed, Chrys. I’m so sorry for putting you through this. I can’t let you die. I can’t pull out of you until you ask me to finish inside of you. How do I tell you this?

To his surprise, Chrys wrapped her hand around his thumb and held tight, stopping him mid-stroke and clasping him close to her belly. Her eyebrows were furrowed, her lips pursed inwards and trembling. Uncertainty. She looked like she had something to say, but like before when she was too shy to tell him she wanted to help him, the words were not coming easy for her. He aligned the flat of his forehead with hers, a gesture he hoped came across as gentle encouragement and reassurance.

Grunt? Take your time, Chrys. I’m here, and I’ll always be here for you. Grunt.

A watery smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and he felt a tug at his heart. She looked at him like she understood him. Like she could accept the hand he so desperately reached out to her with.

“Please…give me your seed.”