Hours had bled into one another.

Roxy lay flat on her back, her chest heaving as she stared up at the ceiling. She was completely exhausted. Her skin was flushed a deep, feverish pink, coated in a fine sheen of sweat and heavily marked with the faint, dark bruises from Syris’s busy tongue.

The hot, humid air was thick with the intoxicating, musky scent of arousal and vanilla.

Beside her, Syris lay with his face buried deep into the pillows next to her head. His chest rose and fell in a slow, heavy rhythm. The dark emerald coils of his lower half were loosely draped over her legs, caging her in.

But that was not the most important thing to Roxy.

Her mouth was incredibly dry. Her throat felt like it was coated in sandpaper from screaming his name, and a hollow, aching rumble echoed in her stomach. She had expended a staggering amount of energy keeping up with the starving predator, and she desperately needed hydration.

"Syris," Roxy whispered, her voice a raspy, completely wrecked croak.

The Snake King didn’t answer with words, but a low, rumbling vibration of acknowledgment vibrated through the mattress.

Roxy placed her hand gently against the thick, muscular coil draped over her thighs. "I need to get up for just a minute, Sy. I need to bring us some food and water. We are going to completely dehydrate in this heat."

She slowly, carefully began to slide out from underneath the heavy weight of his tail. She managed to swing her legs over the edge of the mattress, her toes brushing against the cool stone floorboards.

She reached out, her fingers blindly searching the dark for the discarded silk robe she had worn into the room.

But she didn’t even make it three inches.

Before Roxy could even grasp the fabric of her robe, a massive, thick coil of dark emerald scales whipped out. It wrapped securely around her narrow waist and with a single, effortless yank, Roxy was completely lifted off the edge of the mattress and dragged forcefully backward into the center of the ruined silks.

"Ah!" Roxy yelped in surprise as her back hit the mattress.

Instantly, the serpent completely caged her. Syris’s massive coils wrapped around her legs, her waist, and her shoulders, effectively trapping her in a cocoon. He hoisted his upper body over hers, his long dark green hair falling like a silken curtain around their faces, completely trapping her in the shadows.

His vibrant, green eyes were fully dilated, completely swallowed by the dark, feral hunger of his newly awakened core.

"Syris, please, I’m so thirsty—" Roxy started to protest, her hands resting flat against his blazing chest.

"No," Syris hissed softly, his voice a rich, dark vibration that sent a sudden, electric jolt straight to her lower belly.

He leaned down, his sharp, elegant jaw brushing against her cheek. He pressed his lips directly to her ear, his hot breath ghosting over her skin.

"You are not leaving this bed," Syris murmured, his tone dripping with an ancient, possessive desperation. "I do not want human food. I do not want water. I just need to feed on you."

The sheer, raw intensity of the confession completely short-circuited Roxy’s rational mind. The thirst in her throat was instantly vaporized by a massive, overwhelming surge of wet, heavy arousal pooling between her thighs.

Syris didn’t give her a single second to argue. He captured her lips in a deep, punishing kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth to swallow her breathless gasp. He drank from her as if she were a literal oasis in a barren desert. His hands, cool and elegant, tangled into her dark curls, anchoring her face to his as his lower half shifted with terrifying, fluid purpose.

His dual anatomy, still fully extruded and blistering with heat, pressed heavily against her slick entrance.

"Syris," Roxy whimpered into his mouth, her hips instinctively arching upward to meet his friction.

"Give it to me, Roxann," Syris growled, breaking the kiss to trail open-mouthed, bruising kisses down her throat. "Let me drown in you."

Whenever he talks this way, Roxy has no choice but to let go.

Because what woman can survive rejecting a handsome and hot man such as her husbands?

With a smooth, impossibly deep thrust, he buried his entire length inside her once more.

Roxy groaned, her fingernails digging violently into the thick muscles of his back. The absolute fullness of the serpent completely consumed her senses.

Any lingering thought of the Manor replaced entirely by the blinding ecstasy of the Swamp King’s claim.

The nightmare that had plagued his hibernation, the terrifying, void-like fear that the Demon King had stolen her while he slept, fueled a frantic, desperate passion. He needed to be as deep inside her as physically possible. He pounded into her with a relentless, brutal rhythm, his coils tightening around her body to ensure she couldn’t move a single inch away from him.

They continued to have sex through the darkest hours of the night. It was a chaotic, beautiful cycle of feral aggression and devastatingly sweet, tender worship. He would take her to the absolute brink of sanity, forcing her to scream her release into the dark, only to hold her gently, his cool hands tracing her flushed skin while he whispered ancient, beautiful praises.

Like a damn seductress.

By the time the sun finally breached the horizon, casting a faint, sliver of gray light through the tightly drawn, warded curtains of the chamber, Roxy was completely, utterly ruined.

It was the next day.

Roxy lay on her stomach, her face half-buried in the plush pillows. She couldn’t feel her legs. Her transmigrated core was absolutely vibrating with raw, saturated magic. Syris was currently sprawled on his back beside her, his massive coils finally relaxed, his chest heaving as he hovered in the hazy space between sleep and total satiation.

Roxy forced her heavy, incredibly swollen eyelids open. She looked at the faint light bleeding through the curtains.

Her maternal clock, entirely separate from her Warlord-induced exhaustion, began to violently tick. Fedor. She had been locked in this room for nearly eighteen hours. Torian and Kaelen had the bottles, yes, but her breasts were beginning to ache with a heavy, uncomfortable pressure, and the sheer biological need to see her baby was pulling at her soul.

Summoning every single ounce of willpower she possessed, Roxy slowly, agonizingly pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her muscles screamed in protest, but she gritted her teeth and managed to slip one leg out from under the heavy drape of Syris’s tail.

She just needed to crack the door. She just needed to slip out, check the nursery, and relieve the pressure.

But the absolute second her weight shifted off the mattress, the dormant, terrifying predator beside her instantly woke.

A massive, warm hand shot out and clamped firmly around her wrist.

Roxy froze. She looked over her shoulder.

Syris wasn’t looking at her with the feral, commanding hunger of an Alpha. The terrifying King of the Swamps looked completely, utterly shattered. His vibrant green eyes were wide, filled with a deep, vulnerable panic that completely stripped away his elegant facade. He looked exactly like a man who was waking up from a nightmare and was terrified the dream was slipping away.

"Roxann?" Syris whispered, his voice cracking slightly.

"I’m just getting up for a minute, Syris," Roxy promised softly, trying to gently pry his fingers from her wrist. "I need to leave the bed. I have to go check on Fedor. I haven’t seen him since yesterday, and I need to feed him."

Syris forcefully pulled her wrist, dragging her backward until she collapsed onto his broad chest. He wrapped both of his arms tightly around her, burying his face directly into the crook of her neck. He held her with a desperate, clingy strength that rivaled Torian’s worst separation anxiety.

"No," Syris whined, his rich, deep voice dropping into an impossibly sweet, agonizingly needy vibration against her skin. He rubbed his cheek against her collarbone, his tail curling possessively around her legs to lock her in place. "Don’t go. Stay with me, Roxann~"