A faint sigh, almost imperceptible, escaped him. He seemed to assess her genuine confusion, a flicker of understanding—or perhaps a rare moment of deference—crossing his rugged features. Without a word, he crouched on one knee, lowering her gently until her feet almost brushed the forest floor, though he still held her securely, letting her sit on his thigh.
Then, with a practiced motion, he tugged on the animal skin around his waist, its coarse, primal scent suddenly enveloping her. He wrapped it around her neck, the material rough against her skin, a sudden, oddly protective gesture that was also undeniably possessive.
Rami stiffened, her gaze instinctively flicking up to meet his briefly before darting away, her cheeks burning with a blush that painted her entire face. A new, more profound shock registered in her mind as her eyes, despite her desperate attempt to avoid his gaze, inevitably drifted downwards. She found herself staring, dumbfounded, at the undeniable sight of the man's member.
"T-two!?" the thought screamed silently in her mind, a frantic, almost comical realization that was fleeting but profoundly unsettling.
The casual exposure of his anatomy, though likely natural in his world, made her suddenly feel acutely conscious of her own exposed vulnerability, of her bareness against the vastness of this untamed realm.
The warmth of the coarse material against her neck, meant to cover, felt instead like a stark contrast to the overwhelming sense of exposure that now settled deep within her. She became acutely aware of her own smallness, her fragile humanity, within this powerful, alien landscape.
Then, without warning, the powerful anchor that was Yves began to shift. A low groan rumbled deep in his chest, not of pain, but of profound, elemental change. Rami felt his muscles, so recently a source of raw power and bewildering comfort, begin to ripple and contort under her hands in impossible ways. His skin, which had felt like rough hide, seemed to darken, the pigments deepening to an impossible, lustrous black.
A soft, scraping sound, like obsidian against stone, emanated from him as scales, sharp and overlapping, began to emerge and spread rapidly across his skin, starting from his shoulders and flowing downwards. His human features elongated, his jaw jutting out, his nose flattening, and his eyes, which had held such possessive intensity, now narrowed and glowed with a predatory, serpentine gold.
His limbs thickened, merging, his powerful legs fusing into a massive, coiled form, his human hands retracting to become the blunt, powerful head of a beast.