“It will take more than an aquium to kill me,” I reply. “Much more.”
Her eyes search my face for a moment, and then they dip away. I feel, for once in my life, like I have been seen.
She has seen me. The real me.
“You are wet,” I point out, still struggling with the strange feeling in my crotch and of being stripped to the bone by a look. “You said you would not get wet.”
“I changed my mind,” she replies. “My prerogative.”
“And you said you would not change your clothes?”
“One goes with the other, Deus.”
I am completely confused. My head hurts, my pouch aches. None of this makes sense.
“So, what do you need me to do?” she asks.
“About what?”
“You, shedding your skin,” she says with a sigh. “Unless this was all a ruse to get me in here with you.”
“I did not expect you to get in with me.” I look at her. “All I need is someone to ease the skin off my back. I can do it but…” I hold up my hand and extend my claws. “Sometimes I make a mess of it.”
My little ember purses her lips. “Turn around.”
I stare at her.
“If you don’t turn around, how am I supposed to work on your back?” she says. “I’m hardly going to attempt to kill you or anything, am I?”
“I do not know. I know little about humans,” I growl, but I do turn my back to her.
“Apparently you can’t be killed anyway, so it would be pointless.”
“I agree.”
Yet somehow, somewhere deep inside me, probably my pouch, I’d like her to try. Just as I’d like her to run.
Her hands are on my shoulders. I don’t quite know what to do with myself, and it’s all I can manage not to release a groan which would wrack my entire body. The feel of her skin against my scales is like nothing I’ve experienced.
“Just…rub…” I force the words out through fangs too large for my mouth. “Diagonally. It will loosen my scales.”
I’m not sure how I’m managing to speak at all, with her at my back, the heat from her little body seeping into me. Then she does as I ask. She has no claws to speak of, but her fingertips are dextrous, and very soon I feel the old scales lifting from the new ones.
This time I can’t help myself. This time I do groan in pleasure.
“So…good.”
My worn skin eases away from my new scales. I pull at those on my front which, now soaked in the mineral rich aquium water, also start to come away at the same time. I’m not sure a shed has ever been this satisfying as it peels away in strips, slowly filling the water around me. I might make some more noises, I’m not sure given how good it feels to be out of my old skin and revealing my new one.
I go lower down my abdomen, pulling away the remnants as they slide easily from my legs. My pouch is bulging, and as Iswipe a hand over it, I feel the head of my cock poking out. The touch causes it to emerge further.
“You can stop now,” I say, my voice rough. “I have shed.”
“Then I suggest you have your wash,” the little ember says, her hands disappearing and causing my cock to shrink back to where it should be. As I turn, she clambers out of the aquium and wraps herself in a cloth. “I’ll be…having a shower.” Her face has two red spots on her cheeks, and she doesn’t meet my eyes.
As she leaves, a waft of scent hits me. My vision dims, my blood pounding in my veins. I want to call her name, to emerge from the water like a space worm from a nebula. To take her, to hold her, to have her in my arms in my aquium. To pleasure her like she pleasured me.
But I cannot call her name.
