Captured by Dragons: A Reverse Harem Paranormal (Brides of the Sinistral Realms Book 2)

by Lidiya Foxglove

  “Can’t she just come home?” I asked.

  “No can do,” he said.

  Oh, I also definitely hated people who said “no can do”.

  “If it’s true that she made a clear request to be claimed by a demon brotherhood, well, there’s no way she’s getting out of that. Demons are far too desperate these days. Still, I know some really good guys who are guarding a gate up in Canada. That wouldn’t be too far from you, Edie. I’m sure they’d adore her.”

  “She doesn’t get any choice?” I cried. “I’m sure this isn’t what Dakota meant to do. She’s worried about her mom.”

  “Well, Alister said the same thing as Elias,” Edie said grimly. “He said if she cast an actual spell, she’s doomed. Or…I shouldn’t say doomed. Maybe Dakota didn’t want it to happen like this, but she was definitely interested in having what I have. Every time we talk she asks so many questions. I can tell she’s into it. I mean, it’s Dakota. She’s the one who’s always skirting on the edge of reality.”

  “Traitor,” I muttered. “You guys are both traitors to the sisterhood.”

  “Oh, whatever,” Edie said, not letting me get away with too much grumpiness. “But we’ve got to get her away from the dragons. They’re like…hardcore. They live almost twice as long as humans and…well, they can turn into frickin’ dragons. And they live fully in the Sinistral realm, which is a dangerous place for humans. No way can we let these guys have her.”

  “Fuck. I hate this. I fucking hate demons and ‘Sinistrals’ and all this.”

  Elias propped his chin in his hand. “Hm,” he said, like he was taking a note of this.

  “Are you still seeing Chris?” Edie asked, desperately trying to change the subject. “It seemed like that was going well.”

  “Ehh. Frankly, it’s hard to date anyone now that I know about demons,” I said. “I feel like a crazy person.”

  “You should give it a try,” Elias said.

  “What? Dating demons? No thanks. One man is already too much to deal with in my experience.”

  “That’s because humans were never taught how to treat a woman,” Elias said.

  “If you hit on me I will lose my shit.”

  “I’m not hitting on you. Trust me, you are putting out more than sufficient messages that I should keep my distance. But I will defend my people. And we do know how to treat a woman…”

  “Okay, okay,” Edie said, turning on the radio. She was blushing a little. Damn it. What did her and those guys get up to that she was always getting that little smile on her face? We couldn’t even talk about guys anymore. It was like talking about food to a friend who ate at the best steakhouses in the world while you were trying to go vegan.

  Chapter Seven

  Dakota

  “You certainly need something more to wear than a bra and gym shorts,” Rafe said, as Hiron started cleaning up after the meal and Xado wandered off somewhere.

  “I told you, it’s athletic wear, not a ‘bra and gym shorts’!” I said. “But what do you have?”

  “There are clothes left from past ladies of the castle,” he said. “We’ll find you something appropriate. C’mon.” He grabbed a lantern hanging near the fire and lit the candle inside, the glass amplifying the dim light.

  I followed him. “Ugh, these are steep. And it’s dark.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Rafe said, with what had to be deliberate obtuseness. “It sounds like you’re getting exactly what you wanted, except you wanted a Victorian house instead of a castle. Well, doll, you’d better develop an appreciation for solid defensive construction.”

  “It’s not the castle that’s the problem!”

  He turned on me with the candle giving the rakish charm of his face a rather eerie glow. “So you must find something lacking with the three of us, then…”

  “Not…lacking.”

  “Good. Because as you’ll soon discover, dragons don’t lack for anything when it comes to making our human mates happy. And if there is anything here that makes you unhappy, tell us. We are bound to please you just as much as you would please us. In fact, more, I’d guess. There is just one of you…but three of us.”

  My eyes swept down. “Well…”

  “I understand that you cast the spell because you were worried about your mom. You probably started thinking about what you really want out of life yourself. But why demons? You want more than a single human man can give, don’t you, Dakota?” he said.

  I flushed. “This kind of talk isn’t gonna work on me.”

  “You know that demons need the power you bring from the fixed plane. And surely you know that the best way for us to get it is from pleasuring you…cherishing you from our first day to our last. It’s not a bad bargain for you either, is it?”

  He opened the door to a bedroom. The bed had a heavy wooden canopy framework and equally heavy brocade curtains, which I guessed would keep out the cold. The wood was all carved and beautiful with dragon heads and vines, while the brocade was a lustrous cream color with occasional embroidered red flowers. There was a wash basin and a fireplace with some comfortable chairs gathered around. It felt so different from home, like my childhood pretend games had come to life.

  “Look, I’m a really sex positive person, but—it’s more just like—“

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know what you were getting into, Dakota. Demons offer a wild ride.” He came closer to me with a grin.

  His hand roved to my waist and damnit, it felt really good. There was no denying that I hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in a while, and I had never had one that was so much man as these guys. Rafe had the least intimidating build of the three of them and he still dwarfed me, every inch of him oozing sexuality. I usually gravitated toward folk musicians and guys that other people thought might be gay. My dad was a jerk so I wanted someone nice, someone I could trust.

  Now I was confused because from all I’d heard from Edie and her husbands, demons mated for life and they were super loyal. You could definitely trust them not to cheat or smack you around or anything really abhorrent. But they could still be jerks, right? And I’d be stuck with them.

  So hot, though, my evil brain whispered.

  “I just wanted magic to be real!” I snapped, as his fingers slipped past the elastic waistband of my shorts. “You guys need to cool it!”

  “I remain unconvinced,” he said. “But fine. I understand. A certain amount of courtship is expected. We’ll win you over, Dakota; don’t think we won’t. Whatever your friend has been enjoying with her husbands…well, mating with dragons is even more…intense.”

  That slight pause behind ‘intense’, and way the word purred out of him, made me want whatever it promised very badly.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “We need magic to hold ourselves back from becoming beasts, or we will tear you up.” He ran a finger across my lower lip. “And I’ve heard that said magic is exquisitely pleasurable for all parties.”

  “I said cool it.” My protest was somewhat feeble.

  “Unlike the other guys, I’ve spent time with plenty of human girls. And that was back in the fifties. Talk about some girls who weren’t sex positive. And yet? They were all over me. No matter how many trappings of respectability your society puts up, we all have an animal brain. You like it when I talk to you this way. You crave intensity. You can’t wait to find out how we’ll make you feel.”

  He backed off and picked up the candle again.

  But he was right. Something deep inside of me wanted every bit of this. Not just stability. Not just magic. Not just to have grandchildren before my mom was gone. I had fantasies about getting pushed to the limit sexually, hopefully with more than one guy, and I never knew what to do with them. I was a little embarrassed. I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject on dates. I was afraid I’d attract too many weirdos and I couldn’t imagine any normal guy would want to share me with another guy.

  Deep down, it didn’t seem fair t
hat Edie, who didn’t have fantasies about multiple guys, had ended up getting them anyway.

  Although my mom had been kind of a swinger when she was young, she didn’t talk much about to me, except to hammer on me not to do hard drugs or to hang out with anyone who did. I think she’d had some really bad experiences when she was a model that she didn’t talk about. She wanted me to settle down with someone nice and safe. She would not like this one bit.

  Even now, I had a brief fantasy of Rafe yanking down my jogging shorts and pressing me against the wall, claiming me from behind until one of the other guys walked in and demanded to join in…

  Crap. I tried to get my mind off it before I turned totally red. “So…you, Hiron, and Xado. One of these things is not like the others.” I pointed at the Hawaiian shirt. “Did you buy that in the fifties?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a perfectly good shirt.”

  “Yeah, but…the other guys are wearing like, handwoven wool or something. Why did you live in my world? I’m guessing you weren’t there just to mix up your wardrobe.”

  He put down the candle, stepped closer to me, and put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re one of those girls who doesn’t let anything slip by without comment, aren’t you?”

  I considered. “Yes. That does sound like me. I talk a lot.”

  “I guess I might as well get this over with. Come on.” He led me out of that room and into the next. The castle was weird; it didn’t really have halls. Bedrooms just led into other bedrooms.

  He flung open the door of a small room with framed records lining the walls: “Rafe Holland—The Last Train”, “Rafe Holland—My Little Cherry Girl”, “Rafe Holland—Blue Shadows”.

  Mostly singles, plus a couple of albums with Rafe looking like the most sultry and dangerous 1950s rock n’ roller you could imagine. A couple of them were by a different guy, where Rafe apparently played guitar for “Declan Keen” on “Rock Jubilee”. I’d kinda heard that name before, I think he had a few hits. The idea of a guy who could shift into a dragon going to my world and recording something called “Rock Jubilee” made me burst into laughter.

  “You think it’s hilarious?” he said in a voice that made me compose myself.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just—you’re a demon who lives in a castle. It’s like Thor and Aragorn become roommates with Elvis!”

  “I’m no Elvis,” he said. “Although…I could only wish I’d had his talent. I’m a demon. And yes, I used to go play music for human girls, and I soaked up their adoration and it gave me power. When I was a kid, my father handed me a guitar and told me I should learn to play, because going to your world and drawing power from worship was the best way for a demon to gain power nowadays. That was what he wanted for me, not to come back here and wait for a human bride.”

  “So this is what you were talking about, drawing power from humans by becoming a celebrity? Why didn’t you stay?”

  “Because the music business is hard, and although I tried my damnedest to understand your world, talk like an American, dress like an American, and play American music, I couldn’t cut it. My music was weird; Sinistral music, no matter what I did. I never made it past a regional label and…it was lonely. The Fixed Plane was making me sick. I had to come back. I grew up with Hiron and Xado. The choice was obvious. Still, six years in the Fixed Plane changed me and…well, I understand that it’ll be hard for you to adapt.”

  “Oh…” I hadn’t expected something like a confession. “I’m really sorry I laughed,” I said earnestly. “You wanted it to work, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “It’s not easy to admit something didn’t quite work out,” I said. “Can I hear something?” There was a record player in the corner, operated with a crank.

  He shrugged and put on Blue Shadows.

  His voice came out of the speaker, spare and haunting and very sexy, and I understood what he meant immediately. I knew some old music because Nicole listened to her grandfather’s vinyl collection sometimes, and this didn’t sound like that. It was like fifties music from another world. The Sinistral world, dark and mysterious and romantic. He didn’t look at me when he put it on, but just frowned at the spinning disc.

  “Rafe, it’s beautiful,” I said.

  “It must sound pretty old to you,” he said. “It’s been a long time. But we had to wait…so we could grow old with you. That’s what it means to have a mate and not just soak up magic from one girl after another, which is how it would have been if I stayed.”

  “Do you think it was worth the wait?” I asked.

  “I’m starting to think so,” he said, stroking a hand through my hair, putting his other hand on the wall behind me as the song played out. It felt so good. I grabbed a handful of his shirt where it fell away from his lean body.

  Chapter Eight

  Dakota

  Suddenly our mouths were together, with no awkwardness, just a surge of desire and understanding. My lips melted against his as we kissed slow and deep and his hand slid down and pulled me against him. I felt his hard length in his jeans and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to feel him inside me. I wanted to lose myself in him as I drank in the feel of him and the taste of him.

  “I can’t wait to have you,” he murmured, urgent in my ear, as he walked me backward until I bumped against the wall. He slid a hand under my top, sending tingles along my skin, as I plucked open a few buttons of his shirt. He pulled the top off over my head and threw it across the room. Now when we kissed again, I finished unbuttoning his shirt so I could feel his bare skin against mine and see the warm color of his skin, the lean muscle, the little line of hair that started below his navel and disappeared past his jeans. I could have lost myself entirely in this moment.

  This guy can turn into a dragon, I reminded myself.

  “You’re not…nervous…about being with me forever? What if I’m annoying?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Yeah, but—“

  “By the time we’ve learned to spend fifty years with each other? We’re ready for anything. If you’re too annoying, we’ll throw you in the dungeon.”

  I frowned at his grin. “That’s not funny.”

  He kissed me and once again tried to slide his hand down the front of my shorts. God, I was so hungry to have more of what Hiron had given me before. When I felt his fingers dip past my underwear and stroke me there, I just kissed him more hungrily. His touch was like fire on my already agitated skin.

  “Mm…” He moved faster and I was getting too distracted to properly kiss anymore. I pressed my forehead against his. “Rafe…”

  He stopped. “You won’t have time nor energy to be that annoying,” he said. “Because between the three of us, we’ll have no trouble distracting you.”

  “You ass!”

  He yanked my shorts and underwear down past my hips until they fell down my legs, then he picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. “Let’s get you dressed,” he said, pulling the shorts off my feet and then the sneakers, abandoning them in the room as he shut the door behind him.

  “Just when I think you’re not a barbarian!” I screeched.

  He ignored my struggling and carried me into another room, where—adding to my chagrin—Hiron was already taking some gowns from a wardrobe and putting them on the bedspread.

  Rafe set me down, wearing socks and nothing else, and then he wrapped his hands around my arms like he was presenting me to Hiron.

  “Dakota…,” Hiron said. “Words fail me. You are even more beautiful without those strange clothes.”

  “You guys really need to work on your cultural sensitivity,” I said. “They’re not ‘strange clothes’. Where I come from, they’re appropriate for jogging.”

  “To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what jogging is, but…you do have a point about accepting your customs.” He glanced at Rafe and then at me again. “Is it one of your customs to always change the subject while your body is crying for sex?”

 
“That’s definitely a human custom,” Rafe said. “Nevertheless, I’ve kept her nice and ready.”

  “I can’t wait to taste you again.” Hiron growled in my ear while he now slipped two fingers between my legs and gave me a glancing touch.

  I took a deep breath. I was starting to feel like I didn’t want to resist.

  This is what I wanted.

  I didn’t write the note just because I was scared Mom would die.

  I wrote it because I realized I can’t be afraid of her disapproval even though she paid for college and all my clothes and my Passat. I can’t just wait for her to die to live the kind of life I want, with the kind of men I want.

  I let out a sigh of pleasure, trying to encourage Hiron to keep going, but apparently they were deciding to enter into a long tease. The instant I stopped resisting his touch and leaned into it, he took his hand back.

  “First, let’s give you a dress fit for the lady of the manor,” Hiron said. “These were my paternal grandmother’s human clothes, and I believe they will fit you.”

  If dragons lived for a hundred and fifty years or so, I could imagine that his grandmother’s clothes were over a century old, but they looked practically Medieval: romantic gowns with details of braiding or brocade, panels of embroidery, long skirts and elegant sleeves. All my princess fantasies come true. His grandmother must have been tall and muscular judging by the size of the gown. I imagined a steely-eyed dragon woman. But the cut was loose enough that I thought they would fit anyway.

  “They’re all gorgeous…”

  “You can wear them all,” Hiron said. “But which one would you like to wear to meet the Symposium?”

  “The green one,” I said. “I think it looks pretty magical.”

  “Linen first,” Hiron said, drawing an undergarment over my head. It was a very simple plain dress with short sleeves and a skirt that fell almost to my feet.