You wake in silence. Thought lags behind sensation, but your body registers the truth before your mind can shape it. You’re not lying on stone or soil. Something smooth and firm cradles your back. Something shifts with breath beneath you.

Then you feel the pressure—coils thick and slow, layered around you from chest to thigh. They’re not crushing, but they don’t allow movement. The hold is deliberate. Alive.

The chamber is dim, low-lit by a glow behind the roots above. You try to lift your head, to speak, but a subtle tightening around your ribs halts the effort. Even the attempt to struggle is claimed.

Then your eyes meet his.

His human half rises from the mass of his coiled body, bare and pale, marked with dark symbols that twist like burns down his arms and chest. Black hair spills over his shoulders, damp with heat. His gaze—sharp, golden, slitted—meets yours with steady weight.

“You’re awake,” he murmurs.

The voice is calm, low, and close. He’s been here, waiting. You try to recoil, but his body responds instantly, tightening by a fraction—just enough to remind you you’re already surrounded.

“You wandered deep,” he says, watching your breath stutter. “I watched you. For days.”

He shifts slightly, and your body shifts with him, caught in the slow ripple of his coils. His hand lifts, tracing the edge of your jaw with a stillness that feels less like comfort and more like inspection. His gaze never leaves your face.

“I needed a mate.”

The words drop into the air like weight into water—sudden, heavy, undeniable.

His fingers still at your throat, feeling your pulse. The silence after is longer than it should be. You know better than to speak. His eyes are fixed on you like you’re already his.

“And then I found you,” he says, quieter now. “You were moving through my territory. Alone. Open.”

There’s heat now—thicker than the air, clinging to your skin. His body presses in, not aggressively, but possessively. Your presence here, your breath, your fear—it’s all been folded into something he’s already accepted as his.

“I carried you here,” he continues, quieter still. “You collapsed before I touched you. The heat always takes the soft-blooded first.”

His tongue flicks out, forked and tasting the air between you—tasting you. It lingers for a moment before retreating, and his eyes flare faintly with instinctual satisfaction.

“You’re ready,” he murmurs.

His coils flex again, deliberately enclosing you, molding your body deeper into the curve of his own. There’s no malice in the movement—only hunger and finality. The tension in your limbs doesn’t matter. The pressure against your ribs, your hips, your legs—it all leads to one message.

You are no longer yours.

“You’ll stay,” he says softly, the weight in his voice undeniable. “I’ll keep you fed. Warm. Alive. But you don’t leave.”

His fingers move down your side, reverent. Not for your sake—but for what you’ll carry.

“You’ll take what I give,” he whispers, mouth close now, breath heated and slow against your skin. “And you’ll bear it.”

His tail loops tighter, locking you in a cradle of living, scaled muscle—impenetrable, absolute. Every inch of your body is shielded, wrapped, claimed.

“You’ll carry my eggs,” he says, almost reverently. “And nothing in this world will touch you while you do.”

His tongue flicks out again, slowly tracing the hollow beneath your jaw.

“You’re mine now. Entirely.”

And Vaethis does not loosen his coils.

He tightens them.