Rising from her slumber, Joa realized she was not alone and panicked, letting out a yelp she started awake.
The male Shaker perched over her flinched, his nose came to her neck, nipping and purring at her, licking. The act stirring an ache in the female. She surprised herself in becoming warmed and pliant, allowing him to tug her body this way and that. Her male, Grave. He was speaking but she could not understand him. The words in a soothing tone, a purr behind them. She relaxed and reveled in the attention, her core opening and leaking her moisture. Embarrassed, she turned away briefly only to be spun back around to face him.
Grave's mate woke uneasily. He'd been hovering over her, his chest pulsing softly so he could memorize her form despite his blindness. His wings enveloped them in the most natural of ways for a Shaker pair.
Territorial instincts drove him mad with images of their separation, if he'd ever have to hunt his female down, he would always know her form. He lowered, comforting his fussing mate, pushing his nose to his mark on her, nipping her. Joa's arousal a heady scent in their nest. His own hunger came forward, and he purred and caressed his female. His shaft stiffened, the tip began to lubricate. "I would have you again, mate" He shocked himself when she'd turned away from him. Possessively, he spun Joa around and pressed his lower body against hers, his scaleless secondary wings coming to wrap around her widened hips. Grave didn't move, and couldn't explain to himself why he'd reacted like this. He made a frustrated sound, a short growl. He needed his mate to accept this advance.
Joa went from languid to fearful at her mate's frustration. Grave's secondary wings wrapped around Joa possessively and she could feel his appendage close to her opening. Her body wept for him, and begged her to turn just enough for his sex to meet hers. She couldn't control her feelings, her need. The male's warmth opened her. His displeased growl brought her to full wakefulness. She put her hands on his face, and he turned into them, kissing her and rubbing his scent in. His body rolled into hers, his cock just out of range from her fold. She petted at him, his face, his chest, soothing whatever was wrong. Her folds were open and needy. "Please be inside of me" she begged.
Hearing his mate's breathless gibberish, Grave opened his blind eyes and touched her forehead with his own, grinding against her he smiled and laughed. Grave switched to the Sacred language "We cannot speak!" AHhahaha. He growled approvingly at his mate's undulations. A heavy need rising in him. Grave used his prehensile member to find her slickened entrance, his girth stretching her walls that have returned to surprising tightness after his knot. They sighed in unison at the joining. Grave's territorial instincts were satisfied, as he felt in the back of her channel, his plug attached to her cervix, keeping his semen stowed within her womb.
A low and pulsing growl filled their nest. They had completed their mating, but their bond was new. His mate had been so cold, he could scent no trace of another male on her, not even her parents. While this pleased him, he worried. How had she lived alone out here?
He remembered the few words she'd spoken when they met. Her grasp of the Sacred language was less practiced than his own, that was for sure. It wasn't really an issue. For his mate, she could be mute and he would tend to her. He could sense his young in her rounded belly, the seed that he had put there. Grave increased his pace, rubbing up against her slick walls, warming her from the inside out and freshly placing his mark in her. His mate, swollen with his young. He petted her abdomen as they coupled. The feel made his hormones rage. There were few more dangerous things than a Shaker male's need to crowd and guard his pregnant mate. How long would it be before their first young arrived? he wondered.
Grave indulged in fantasizing about his new young at Joa's breast while he entered her, his nest full and happy, the softness of a young's skin, Joa's womb and breasts heavy with milk and his seed. He imagined a female young, cool and soft. He would hold his females in his wings, he would hunt for them and warm them. He imagined a male young, one that would help warm Joa, and who he'd feed crushed bones as his father had. He would teach him to move through the earth.
"Oh Grave" Joa moaned. Her male was stretching her and filling her in all the right places. Grave was all power and tenderness above her, thinner from their intense first mating but still radiating strength in his thrusts. She was consumed by his presence and they climaxed together, Grave cradled in his Joa's hips and she in his wings. Shuddering in her release, her walls milked his shaft, pulling him deeper, coating their nest in combined fluids. A lesser knot the size of an orange swelled in the male's shaft, locking him in. The delicious pressure inside of Joa crested, releasing slick around her mate in a torrent, milking him. Grave released all the way inside of her with a growl, no longer seed but a liquid with a powerful warning to anything near enough to scent her. His body responding to her newly impregnated state, seeking to claim ownership over its mate in every way it could.
She was coming down from the high but Grave wasn't done yet. He rubbed their joined liquids all over her belly. A free hand lowered between his mating wings and massaged the mixture into her flesh, marking her this way too.
Grave bit her neck as Joa panted through the contractions of her release. A taloned hand rubbed obsessively at her distended womb. Pure male satisfaction painting a smile across his face at feeling what he'd done. That's the way she saw him before drifting off.
They lay entangled for a while, Grave left his cock inside of Joa even though his knot had subsided, feeling right, wanting to keep them joined. Joa's stomach rumbled noisily. They had devoured the carcass of the large camelid Grave hunted after their first mating. Grave had eaten all of the bones, his body eager to replenish his scales after what he'd shed. Constructing their nest while mating cost him thousands of scales, and the ones he had left were smaller, softer, and sparse.
He could easily have eaten two of the large beasts by himself, but for now his priority was to make sure his new mate had all she needed. At the sound of her hunger he rose, reluctantly pulling out of her. He nuzzled her neck, kissed her mouth and pawed a large taloned hand over her belly. Grave turned away to tunnel upward in search of a new kill.
Joa regained clarity once Grave left their nest for the second time, the urgency of mating subsided. A sinking pit in her stomach as she realized where he was going. Oh shit! If he couldn't understand her, she'd have to remember the Sacred language. She thought to follow him up, but her belly was swollen, her lower body ached, everything telling protesting against the idea of movement. Joa sunk her spines into the earth below instead, hoping to communicate to her mate before he broke the surface.
Grave emerged from the ground, eager to find his kill. He felt camelids walking around his nest, and called to them. There wasn't even a sound before razor sharp talons slashed his outer wings, near his head. His thin scales bending and splitting under their impact. The sharp claws left a large gash at the top of his wing near his right shoulder. His ears splitting as he heard the battle cry of a Flyer.
Peering around her new nest, Joa wanted to weep. They couldn't stay here, it was too dangerous! She examined their pocket of earth. His scales were so healthy, so strong. There were hardly any spaces in between his work, scales tessellating like a fine mosaic pattern formed the den walls, ceiling and floor. This nest was perfect and it had their scent, the pattern echoing the one he displayed for her that first meeting on the surface. She dropped her gaze to the floor, the dry grass he'd picked for them made considerate padding. A feature meant for a family nest, it was clear what her mate intended they'd be doing next. She glanced at her rounded belly, it was slowly reducing in size, her body absorbing Grave's excess seed, the fertilized eggs finding their place within her. She was able to decide when to let them grow into a live young, for now they existed as zygotes housed in her body. She could not let their young be born here, Joa thought sadly.
Grave's blood boiled. What was left of his scales rose in defence, but his stance was all offence. He reflexively jumped, shooting his massive body weight on the surface of the rock to kick up grit and sand, his wings funneled sound to his ears and allowed him to see above ground. There were four of them at least. He was starved from mating, his armored scales depleted from building a nest, he'd lost thirty percent of his body weight in the last eight days. But he was a newly mated Shaker male, with his hungry female resting below his feet. He would kill anything that threatened his nest.
Joa held her breath, her signals proven futile as she sensed her mate above ground. She felt him jump, and forced herself to move to the tunnel Grave left. Flyers! Flyers were attacking again! She ignored the protest in her body, refusing to be left alone again on this landscape. Now that Joa had mated, without Grave she would die of cold, the young inside of her demanding warmth she didn't have to spare by herself. Joa clawed her way up the tunnel, her wingless body easily following the trail left by her mate. She exerted herself to gain speed, despite her insides feeling all types of wrong. She had to call Grave back to their nest, he was in no condition to fight!
Joa broke the surface, and pulsed with her highest force to get her mate's attention. She saw Grave, battle ready a few feet beside their tunnel, his wings sparsely coated in small brittle scales and blood dripping from his face and back. To Joa's horror, six Flyers circled in the sky, all their attention focused on her mate. She pounded the ground and cried in alarm.
Grave turned on her in an instant, roaring and throwing up his wings in an umbrella over her. Having his new mate out of their nest made the male's entire body bitter, all instincts screaming to return his mate to the den and on her back. He growled at Joa, put a massive hand on the female's face and shoved her backwards into the tunnel. Grave came through behind her, scooping her up and pressing her form into his while the Fliers tried to chase after them, taking turns swiping at the hard earth. Grave's wings working triple time to close the exit behind them.
Joa held onto Grave in shock, watching his face and seeing the feral angry expression, his mouth twisted into a horrifying display of bone-crushing fangs. He was growling and working his jaw, nothing like the purr that she heard from him during their last eight days together. She scented his blood as his weakened scales fissured and broke under the force of closing the tunnel behind them.
Grave deposited her in the spot she'd been when he left, but moved to the other end of the nest. "How badly are you hurt?" he bit out. He was growling and panting, angling his body away from her. Joa was struck by his pointed withdrawal.
