InsaneJournal

“Mmm, my sanctuary,” growled Aegis as he burrowed under the covers next to Lucia.  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek, smiling as she finally stirred.  “You’re getting lazy, lovely.”

“I have reason,” she grumbled back with a smile as she turned her head to kiss him.  “Or have you forgotten?”

“Forgotten?” he inquired.  “Oh no, I have not.”  He shifted onto his side and threw the blankets back from them, grinning widely at the sight of her swollen belly.  Moving her shirt up, he cupped the smooth expanse of flesh with his hand and purred, “How could I forget our baby?”

“By forgetting this ungodly huge woman its in?” asked Lucia.

Aegis shook his head, leaning towards her in a conspiratory way.  “I love the sight of you like this, though,” he purred.  “I’d have you right now if I could.”

“You can,” she replied, winding his arms around his neck.  At his shocked look, she continued, “I have seen a woman about this.  You can ravage me all you want in safety, love, so long as you’re careful.”

“That’s just it,” he growled.  “I don’t want to be careful, lovely.  I want to ravage your plump, sexy body.”

“Then you’ll just have to wait.”

Aegis grumpily flopped back onto his pillow at that but came back upright a moment later, tugging at the buttons of her shirt.  “Don’t wanna,” he growled as he reached for her swollen breasts.

Lucia laughed then reached out for his shirt, practically ripping it off of him before she started clawing at his pants.  He grinned and pulled away to rid himself of them then pulled the covers back over them as he crouched over her.  Gently he kissed her belly and murmured, “Be quiet, baby, Daddy is about to make Mommy scream.”

She grinned as she shifted herself and purred, “Daddy had better or Mommy will be very angry.”

“Oh I will make you scream, lovely.”

He made good on his word, leaving Lucia in a state of content sleepiness as he made to leave again since it was only his lunch break from work.  Kissing her and her stomach on the way out, he murmured a promise of a repeat performance on his return if she wanted.  At her growl, he laughed and closed the door of their apartment behind him.

Lucia cuddled down into the blankets…then came snarling awake some time later when a foreign hand touched her stomach.  She opened her eyes and found Kendin towering above her, his expression as furious as she had ever seen it.

“You and him?” he growled.  “And gotten a pup?  How…pleasant.”

“Fuck off, Kendin,” she spat.  “Just because I found happiness doesn’t…”

“You have never left me find happiness!” he roared.  His hand shifted then to beastial and he growled, “I should rip you open and take it.”

“Because you’re a damn bastard who treats anything you fuck like nothing!” she snarled, feeling fear for her baby and anger rise up.  The beast was awake in her now and was as protective as she was, already urging her to shift and run.  But she had not dared shift of late for fear of what it might do to the baby.

Kendin snarled, his fingers flexing, and she felt the prick of his claws.  Her own extended as she spat, “You touch me, Kendin, and Aegis will hunt you to the ends of the earth.  He will find you and kill you.”

“I’d like to see the whelp try.”

A roaring mass of fur came in through the window then, sweeping Kendin away from Lucia and entirely across the room.  The dark monster rose up on its hind legs above him and turned its head briefly towards her before snarling back around.  As Kendin’s elegantly suited form was replaced with his own beastial one, Lucia carefully got out of bed.  She inched away from them as they circled each other and unconsciously shifted, clawed hands clasped over her belly, fully intent on simply protecting her child.

The two males surged towards each other then, the darker furred Aegis far taller and more muscled than the lighter and wirier Kendin.  Blood spattered across the walls of their apartment and she howled out in rage as it called to her beast, urging her out into the fight.  But maternal instincts won out and she stayed where she was crouched, watching them intently.

Claw and tooth were their weapons with thick fur and skin for armor as they circled.  Kendin, the older and wilier, appeared to be winning and turned away arrogantly towards Lucia.  She roared in fury and Aegis surged back to his feet, hurling his superior weight and muscle onto the other monster.  They went down in a flurry of fur and blood…and only one rose back up as fangs found a throat and refused to let go.

Lucia released the beast, sending it back, and moved forward as human to hold up Aegis as he staggered away from Kendin’s corpse.  He clasped her swollen belly and snarled animally, his eyes still entirely beastial.  “Mine,” he growled as he wrapped his bloodied arms around her.  “My mate, my pup, my love.”

“Yours,” she confirmed, touching his face gently.  Then she glared at the corpse and hissed, “Thought he could take my happiness as I had taken his.  His happiness?  He knew no such thing.”  She frowned after that and asked, “How did you know?”

“I know you,” replied Aegis, finally losing the last vestiges of the beast.  “I…I felt your fear and the baby’s somehow.  And I knew it had to be him.  He can’t have you!”

“And he won’t,” said Lucia.  “Not me, not you, and not anyone else ever again, love.”

“No, no, he won’t.”  He preened a little at his kill then asked, “Now what?”

She shrugged and replied, “We get rid of the body.  And we move on.”

“Just like that?”

“I’m not going to mourn him or regret his death.  I will rejoice and I will finally live my life without fearing him coming to screw it up.  He did so once before.”

Aegis smiled and said, “We have our sanctuary for truth then.”

“Yes,” confirmed Lucia, wrapping her arm around his waist.  Her other hand rested on her belly as she finished, “We have our sanctuary.”