On Wings: A Reverse Harem Dragon Shifter Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 2)

by Katelyn Beckett

  "I tire of hiding myself," he answered, his reptilian mouth more than capable of forming human words. "It is far easier to cook like this and I risk no burns."

  "You risk getting caught," I told him as I sat in one of the many patio chairs before him. "And I would hate to try one of my own flight brothers at the Meet."

  He lifted his head toward me and I rested a hand on his brow. Grey spotted throughout his scales, making him the color of a stormy sky up close. I stroked his forehead and snout until Vadriq and Iyadre joined us. The night darkened overhead, threatening a shower or two when the clouds got closer. For a little while, all I heard was the crackle of fat dripping from the lamb and the pop of the burning wood beneath it.

  I withdrew from Nariti and sighed. "I am willing to listen to the ideas that you have, my wingmates. The girl is a witch, perfectly capable of hatching those eggs should she wish to do so. I am uncertain of her motivations."

  "They all enjoy money. Why not simply offer her a fee?" Vadriq asked. He pulled out a knife and sliced a piece of meat from the lamb's ribcage. It dripped broth into the pit, droplets skittering across the surface of the fire to melt into it a second later.

  Iyadre settled down beside me. "Because you don't just walk up to some low-level human worker and throw a briefcase full of money at them."

  "We used to."

  I waved that away, impatient. "Three hundred years ago. Things have changed. You work at a mechanic shop. You don't understand."

  "It's why I work at a mechanic shop. Fixing things? Easy. Dealing with all the red tape the rest of you do?" Vadriq shook his head. "Break into the place and steal them. Hire those corvid shifters to do it. The crows and the ravens are made for that kind of work."

  No matter how much I loved him, it was if he was of a one-track mind. He had spent the past five hundred years preferring to work with his hands rather than attempting to migrate into an ever-changing society. The humans he spent his time with were a different sort than those Nariti, Iyadre, and I were constantly in contact with.

  Sometimes, I wondered if he was too far from my world. We had little enough to discuss on dark nights and I worried that he was drawing back from me. Yet he was passionate enough when mating that I doubted it. The constant upheaval was a tedious thing, one that I would have done without.

  "You are oversimplifying the problem. The corvids would do no better than the feline shifters or we, ourselves. If Hudson were willing to do more, it would be a wonderful thing," I said.

  Vadriq frowned. "You spring his mate at the Meet a year or so back and he's not willing to play ball?"

  I shifted in my seat. "Perhaps I spoke roughly to him."

  "Eskal put his foot in his mouth," Nariti said. "Hudson told me you called Sadie something rude but he wouldn't repeat it."

  I snorted. "I wouldn't say it was rude. True, perhaps. A truth he dislikes does not make it any less true and I am not about to lie for him to make him feel better about his life."

  "Eskal was rude to the Fontaines about their mate and, well, I'm sure you know how it went over," Nariti continued.

  I scowled at him, but Iyadre spoke up before I could open my mouth. "Little surprise there. Sadie was a dark spot on his judgment record. Anyone would be irritable about that situation."

  "Never once did I say I was irritable about the new omega bitch," I said. "If we may concentrate on our own problems rather than those of the wolves?"

  Silence fell again. Nariti removed the lamb from the spit, his draconic paws more than capable of dealing with the heat from the fire pit. He placed it on a serving platter and, as the others dug in, I considered it. The witch, Olivia, was little more than a lamb waiting to be brought to slaughter by her overseers. They would be done with her one day. It was how companies operated; they allowed individuals to grow close to them only for the chance to throw them away when the individual was no longer useful.

  Perhaps I could grease those rails somewhat, set the act in motion. If I interfered with her job, she would need the money we could offer. Yes, it was close to blackmail, but I wasn't above such a thing if it meant the safety of my much younger, egg-bound siblings.

  They were the only hope our flight had left.

  Nix that; she was the only hope our flight had left, and I had to think of some manner in which to tempt her. Causing her employment to flux would be one thing, forcing her to accept our assistance would be another. I ran my claw-tipped fingers over the armrest of my vinyl chair and smirked as a lightbulb sparked to life inside of my mind.

  With the problem resolved, so far as I was concerned, I got up and joined the rest of my wingmates in the feast, shifting as I went. It ruined my clothing, but what of it? I had a dozen other ensembles, and the one I had been wearing was an old and less fashionable type than it should have been.

  Besides that, I knew I would catch Vadriq's attention when I shifted back.

  The day had been long, hard, and uncomfortable. I deserved someone warm, soft, and sweet.

  Together, we four dragons devoured the sheep. There were no bones, no innards left when we finished. The dragon is a carnivore by nature, and we have no reason to fight what we are. It was a sensible meal for us and would leave us full when we shifted back to our human bodies. Yet, as a breath of cold air washed over us and killed the flickering embers, the night called to me.

  I leapt into the darkness, wings slashing through it to keep me aloft. Up and up I climbed, neck stretched toward the clouds above. A quick circling of the neighborhood was in poor taste, especially after I had cautioned Nariti, but I was a black as the space around me and even the most well-sighted human would have trouble spotting me.

  Nariti, on the other hand, was a giant blue boulder lying on a green lawn next to an open, flaming pit. Astronauts could have seen him from the moon.

  The humans were more or less asleep in their hovels, the remnants of their dinners marinating in their trash cans. I glided over streets, thankful for the incoming storm, and followed a car as it made its way through the haunted streets. My predatory instincts demanded I swoop upon it, rip the hood off like tinfoil, and destroy the residents within it.

  And that was the problem with trying to be human. We weren't. No person looked at others and knew the taste of their flesh. Though I had never eaten one, I had certainly torn one to ribbons when he came for my mother in the old days.

  I had no regret of that incident. We had warned him away and he had decided that he wished to slay the dragons on the edge of the village. He had been the one to sign his death warrant, not me.

  Eyes. Eyes, I felt eyes on me. My head whipped down and I spun, trying to find them. There, at the bed and breakfast a few miles up the road from me. The eyes stared at me; her mouth open in shock. I descended, claws out and ready to make the kill. No one could survive, could see me and know what I was. Visitors disappeared now and then, largely due to hunting trips that went poorly.

  No one would think to blame the real estate investor.

  I was halfway to her when I saw the blonde hair, recognized her face, and shot back into the sky once more.

  Olivia's team was staying at the hotel across town. What was she doing so close to my den?

  I hurried back to my den, the house, and landed in the yard. Without hesitation, I shifted back and strode inside. It did not matter that I was naked or that I smelled like terror. The human had seen me. The human, the only one in the area who probably knew what a dragon was, had seen me and I had done everything I shouldn't have.

  "Eskal?"

  Vadriq's hands rested on my shoulders. I spun, angry with myself. I had mistakenly sold the werewolves land that held our eggs in its soil. I had assumed the girl knew of her powers; still did, yet her reaction said more than anything that it was likely she didn't. I had, sure of myself, taken flight in a residential area to blow off a bit of steam at the end of the night. I wanted to break something.

  And the only thing within reach was him.

  I grabbed his h
air and yanked him tight against my body. What had I told him? I kissed first; and so I did, my tongue swirling to meet his. He stiffened, surprised, then melted against me as I drew his hips to mine. The table was a convenient thing. When I broke from him, I let go of his hair and shoved him over it.

  The door from the patio opened. I snarled at it and it closed again. Whether it had been Iyadre or Nariti was of no concern of mine. They knew what my growl meant when it was only I and Vadriq in the house. It was one of the few times I wanted privacy, if only because I was going to make him scream.

  Nariti was not a neat cook. I snatched up the bottle of olive oil and trickled it down Vadriq's body, ending at his ass. He quivered beneath me, biting the tablecloth and bunching it beneath his fingers. I put the witch from my mind and bore down on my mate, instead. I was a dragon, a fearsome predator that took what he wanted.

  And no one, witch or wingmate, was going to stop me.

  Without bothering to give him the courtesy of a fingering, I lubed him quickly and plunged into Vadriq. He gasped, bucked back against me, and trembled. The thick, meaty clap of thigh to thigh sounded throughout the kitchen as I broke him in, a growl caught deep in the back of my throat.

  I wanted to tear his hair out at the root, to slash him with my claws, sink my teeth into his soft, dark flesh, but my violence wasn't due to him. I would not punish him for her-

  No, no, no. I shook her from my mind again and concentrated on Vadriq, lowering my head to run my tongue along his spine. I ignored the fact that I had lost control so deeply that it was forked rather than the pointed, single digit that humans typically had.

  One of his hands reached desperately beneath the table and I slapped it away, replacing it with my own. Vadriq was as hard as a rock, frantic after only a dozen thrusts. I soothed the rage coating my mind and stroked him, my lips touching the side of his neck, the nape of it, his shoulder.

  Vadriq had been with me for too long to treat him so viciously over something he had not done. My fist, tightening around his cock, sped along the length in time with my fucking. The curled ridge along his cock thickened, bulging as the veins did in a human's. Were he mating a female, he would have remained locked within her until he softened.

  Yet, he had only me. We all had only each other. I panted against him, not quite a moan, and wrapped my fingers in the hollow between each curve as I worked him over. His head shook as he clung to the tablecloth, fighting what had to be, what I would bring about for what he had given me.

  I was close. Too close to consider anything other than my baser instincts. To breed. To fuck. To rut against him until he came. I bit the blood from my cheek as his cock pulsed to life in my palm. Three hard, savage bucks back against me and the first shot sprang from him, soaking into the cloth overhang.

  He moaned, loud and long. Not quite the scream I'd hoped for, but enough. As his orgasm blinded him, I hilted myself in deep. We locked together as he milked me dry, my forehead resting on his back as I swallowed down every sound threatening to escape me.

  We remained there for a moment or two as I emptied him, leaving us shattered on the kitchen table. It was far from the first time I had caught him in that room and I had little doubt it would be the last. I drew my hand from him only to discover a thin coating of pearlescent cum across my palm.

  "Vadriq," I murmured, laying it in front of him. "What did you do?"

  Drunk on his climax, he took a moment before he realized what I wanted. He snatched my arm up and drew it closer before drawing one of the fingers into his mouth, slurping his own essence down.

  And as I watched, as he cleaned me, I felt myself stiffening once again. I slapped his ass as punishment, but he only wiggled back against me and mmmed through the digit he swirled his tongue around.

  I had everything I could ever want in the dragon man below me.

  So why did my mind drift back to the witch with the blonde hair and how much I wanted to see that little, open mouth on its knees before me?

  Chapter 6

  Olivia

  The rain pattered through the window sill, but I didn't mind. A rainy day meant I had time to do a few errands, maybe check out the ice cream shop I'd noticed when I'd made my way home the other day.

  Besides, after the big jerk-off dragon, I deserved a treat. It'd been a long dig, we'd found something incredible, and I needed time to plan out how I was going to convince my cohorts that the opals were dinosaur eggs when they found out they were biological, not mineral.

  I told my mother good morning, dressed in a sensible pair of khakis and a tank top, grabbed an umbrella, and made my way down the sidewalk. A quick stop at the corner store later and I had a 3-ring binder, a notebook that matched it, and a pack of pens. After all; what better place to sit down and figure out my current situation than with a sundae in front of me that was the size of my head?

  I'd expected more people walking despite the rain. Every time I left the work site, everyone was hiding inside. The summer had been an exhaustive scorcher and the rain had cooled down the great outdoors to a more fall-ish vibe. But I shrugged it off. If they wanted to hide inside for three or four more months, that was up to them.

  Personally, I woke up feeling like I'd been locked in a cage every single morning. I loved my work, so that wasn't the problem. But I was an outdoorsy kind of person, despite the heat, and if they'd needed a guard to camp out on the site, I probably would have volunteered to do that. Unfortunately, the Fontaines had purchased a 24-hour security team.

  Oh well. More out of their pocket, but less in mine. I wandered into the ice cream shop and hid myself in a corner booth. The entire place was abandoned, but I assumed others would be in long before I was finished.

  "What can we do for you, sweetheart?" asked a waitress who had fallen straight out of an all-night diner.

  I glanced through the menu. "The kitchen sink sundae? Please?"

  "What, you?" she stared, nearly dropping her pen.

  I only looked up at her and smiled. I knew I was a lean little thing, more likely to look as if I ate like a bird. But I'd won bets at buffets when people had assumed that I couldn't polish off two plates. Heck, it'd been how Nicole and I had become friends.

  She shook her head, muttering about people who wasted food, and went back to prepare my lactose-laden nightmare. I slipped a Lactaid tablet out of my purse, swallowed it, and silently hoped that it would take care of any stomach discomfort I was about to encounter. Not that it mattered if it didn't; the city was surprisingly cozy on this side of it and I could always duck into any of the little businesses and beg their assistance.

  I pulled out the notebook and got to work. First problem? I hesitated to write "dragons" on the paper. Anyone who happened across it would think I'd lost my mind, and that could certainly impact my long-term advancement potential. I tapped the pen against the pad for a moment, then shrugged. If anyone asked, I could always tell them it was for a fantasy novel or a table-top adventure game. Right?

  Right. I scrawled across the notebook. The dragons were following me, and I was pretty certain there was more than one. I knew Eskal must be one of them, but he'd had two other men with him who hadn't reacted well to the eggs, either. It made sense that they were dragons, or maybe some kind of relatives to dragons.

  I wished I hadn't left my mother's spell books back at home. It was all nonsense, of course, but there were little rituals that kept you safe or prevented the supernatural from spying on you. As it was, I felt naked. How long had it been since I'd cared about cracking a corner of a mirror in my room to keep supernatural spookiness from creeping in on me? When had I last cast salt across my doorway to keep anyone without pure intentions from entering?

  "Ridiculous. He just had on some weird contacts and you're freaking out about it," I muttered to myself.

  The sundae came, delivered in a 10-quart mixing bowl. I stared at it and slowly lowered my pen, having to sit up a little straighter to see all the way to the bottom of it.

  Th
e waitress cleared her throat. "It's all yours. And it's twenny-three bucks if you don't finish it in two hours. Good luck."

  Good luck. Piffle. What I needed was cold, hard logic. What I needed was to wake up and throw some cold water on my face.

  What I needed was a giant pile of cold milk processed with enough sugar to ruin my pancreas in one sitting. I grabbed my spoon and dug right in. The door chimed, but I was busy.

  "Dragons, are we?"

  I smacked spoon and all over the notebook, fighting to close it. Eskal loomed over at me with not one, but three other men at his back this time. They surrounded the booth, none of them giving me a way to get out. This was the sort of stuff that showed up on those Lifetime movies right before everything went to hell. "You're more of an annoyance than anything."

  For once, he wasn't wearing sunglasses. And his eyes looked perfectly human, for all they were the color of lava. Some small part of me relaxed; I was just going crazy. That was fine. There was medication out there for that. But I couldn't get rid of dragons with a little pill that put me back on the right track.