The human’s eyes snapped open, and she leapt to her feet. One of her arms were raised in an instant, those slender fingers curled around a fist-sized rock. She swung it toward him but halted her arm abruptly—well before she would’ve struck him—when she met his gaze. Her eyes were rounded, and the bright reflections from the cave mouth gleaming in them made her irises look darker than ever in contrast.
Lowering her arm, she frowned, brow creasing as she trailed her gaze down his body. Her eyes lingered on his cock before she shifted her attention to the ox. Those delicate brows shot back up in surprise. “You hunted?”
Falthyris forced himself to ignore the way her eyes had raked over him—he’d very nearly felt her gaze like a sensual, physical touch—and glanced at the carcass. “Of course I hunted, human. These creatures are not in the habit of wandering into dragons’ lairs and dropping dead in offering.”
The female tilted her head, regarding him silently for a few moments. She glanced at the ox again uncertainly.
“I have not eaten in a long while,” Falthyris said slowly, “so I obtained food. Against my better judgment, I brought it here to share with you.”
“But you are male,” she said flatly.
“Yes, as evidenced by the protrusion between my legs. Quite observant of you.”
She scowled and looked at the rock in her hand as though she were considering using it. With a disgusted sigh, she tossed the rock aside and met his gaze again. “The males in our tribe do not hunt. It is the duty of the huntresses—my duty—to provide. It is not safe for males to venture beyond the safety of our village.”
“Because your males are weak, like the rest of your people.” But Falthyris could not deny the confidence in her stance or the strength and pride in her voice, just as he could not deny the fact that they deepened that ache low in his belly. And he felt just a hint of pride, too—his female was a huntress.
She notched her chin up. “My people are not weak, dragon. We are not insects.”
“No, you are not. The comparison is insulting to the insects.”
The female clenched her fists at her sides and stepped closer. “And you are nothing but an arrogant, spoiled lizard.”
Her robe parted, fully revealing her strange but alluring chest mounds and their bronze circles. Her reply should have infuriated him, but it was difficult to be angry while the Red Heat was pressing in on him and his cock was throbbing, twitching, and straining toward her.
He stared at those mounds, watching their peaks harden. There was no need to extend his tongue to pick up the perfume of her arousal on the air. Falthyris forced his hands to remain at his sides, balling them into trembling fists and clenching his jaw.
“Do you want me, dragon?” she asked, her voice husky, seductive, taunting. She shrugged off the robe, letting it slide down her body to pool at her feet, baring herself to him completely. Raising a hand, she trailed a finger between her chest mounds and down belly toward her slit, brushing it over the small, dark patch of short fur at her pelvis before spreading her sex for his lustful eyes. The female’s petals glistened with her essence.
Falthyris hissed. His hand darted to his loins to clutch his shaft even as his hips bucked toward her involuntarily. A thin string of seed spurted from his tip. “You toy with forces you cannot comprehend, mortal.”
“And you cannot resist me, can you?” she asked, letting her hand fall from her sex. “Even if you think me beneath you, you need me.”
“I do not merely think you beneath me,” he growled, taking hold of her bag’s strap and tugging it off over his head. He tossed the bag onto the floor at her feet. “And all I need at the moment is food.”
He turned away from her, pretending that the Heat wasn’t coursing through his body, that there was no force urging him toward her, that he was not equally frustrated and aroused. He crouched over the ox and plunged his claws into it, tearing off a chunk of meat.
In his natural form, he’d have devoured the entire ox in a few bites, but that wasn’t exactly possible in this body. He wasn’t sure how humans fit much of anything in their mouths with jaws that were so limited in motion and function.
As he was about to lift the meat to his lips, his back tingled—he could feel her glaring at him. He would not allow her to spoil his first meal in so long.
But it was not her glare or the sharp words they’d exchanged that kept him from eating as moments crept by. Instinct demanded something unexpected, and the demand seemed so right that he could not ignore it.
It demanded he feed his mate first.
Grunting, he tore off another chunk of meat with his free hand, twisted, and held it out to her. “Eat before I change my mind, human.”
His female’s nose wrinkled, and she drew back. “No.”
Falthyris’s brows fell, and a growl rose from his chest, pushed out by the sudden firestorm in his gut. He did not hold back his fury, though some part of him must’ve known how futile it would prove.
“How dare you refuse the food I have provided, you ungrateful wretch?” Dropping the chunks of meat, he sprang to his feet and closed the distance between himself and the human in a single stride.
The human stood her ground, shoulders squared, but her eyes flared infinitesimally.
Falthyris’s wings spread of their own accord, his bloody fingers curled as though he were about to shred flesh with his talons, and his heartfire blazed bright. “I have brought you a meal that could feed twenty of your puny kind. What have you done, mighty huntress?”
She glared up at him unflinchingly. “I caught a dragon.”
10
Elliya wasn’t surprised at the molten fury in his eyes—she’d known her words were the wrong ones to say as soon as they had left her mouth. She shouldn’t have taunted him, shouldn’t have pushed him, but she couldn’t hold her tongue, couldn’t help herself. She refused to keep silent while he belittled her and her people.
Had those stories of protective, dedicated, loving dragons she’d heard as a child been exaggerations based on mere slivers of truth? Yes, a female could claim a dragon with a touch. But everything else had been wrong.
If she brought this dragon home to her people, all she’d be doing was providing them another whiny, entitled male who thought himself the ruler of the world—but one who was capable of slaughtering their entire tribe if he chose to do so.
He could not harm her. She knew in her soul that such protection would not extend to her people.
The dragon roared. He grabbed her arm, whipped her around to face the wall, and flattened a hand on her back to shove her forward. She barely managed to raise her palms before she was pressed against the cool rock. Rough stone dug into her hands and cheek, but she did not have long to focus on that discomfort. The dragon tugged her hips back, forced her legs wide with one of his feet, and rammed his slick cock into her sex.
Elliya let out a choked cry at his abrupt entry. His cock stretched her, producing a pleasure-pain burn that flared when he bucked his hips and shoved deeper inside her.
Heat radiated from him—the heat of the fire in his chest, the heat of the comet, the heat of his fury. He set a blistering pace, viciously pumping his hips.
Whether he was driven by rage or his need for release, Elliya neither knew nor cared. The dragon was dominating her mind as thoroughly as he was her body—his scent was the only one she could smell, his body all she could feel, his snarls and ragged breaths all she could hear. He tightened his hold on her hips, and she felt the bite of every one of his claws as they pricked her flesh.
Breathy gasps escaped her, each following one of his thrusts, as ripples of pleasure spread outward from her core. The discomfort she’d felt in the beginning was gone. In this position, he touched new places inside her and pushed far deeper than before. She felt every ridge along his shaft, every little scale, stroking her inner walls. The sensation made her wetter and needier, made the pressure in her core build to mind-shattering levels.
Despite
that overwhelming buildup, Elliya lingered on the edge of release. She was maddeningly close, so close that tingles coursed over her skin, her sex quivered, and her thighs trembled, growing weaker and weaker by the moment. It seemed as though the slightest nudge would send her over, would plunge her into pleasure that would consume her utterly, but release would not come.
Elliya whimpered and curled her fingers against the cave wall. Her body rocked with every thrust of the dragon’s cock. Slick ran down her thighs, and the mingled scents of sex and his spicy, smoky aroma filled her nose.
Finally, she dropped a hand and moved it between her legs, finding her pleasure nub. She circled it, strummed it, crying out as her pleasure heightened and her knees buckled.
The dragon growled and looped an arm around her middle, taking her weight onto it and lifting her to a new angle. His other hand remained on her hip, guiding her forward and slamming her backward against him repeatedly, maintaining that savage rhythm.
He leaned over her, his scales warm and solid against her back, and ran his nose through her hair. The dragon inhaled deeply, and his chest rumbled. He added new force to his thrusts as he snarled, “You are mine.”
It was all she needed to send her over.
Elliya fractured as rapture surged through her. A scream tore from her throat. The devastating wave of pleasure was almost too painful to endure, eclipsing her thoughts. Her body tensed, spasming, and her sex contracted, gripping her dragon’s cock, seeking to draw in impossibly more of him.
The dragon went rigid, his rhythm finally faltering. His shaft swelled inside her, and he roared, blasting his seed into her and producing a flare of delicious heat. It filled her womb and dripped down her thighs.
He shuddered and jerked his hips again, forcing his cock as deep inside her as he could, pumping more seed into her. Her sex squeezed harder still, milking him for every drop.
Panting, her dragon turned his face to nuzzle the side of her neck, skimming his nose and lips up and down and from her shoulder to her ear. He growled, and his shaft twitched again. Elliya felt another stream of hot seed bloom inside her. She moaned and pushed her backside against him, wanting—needing—more.
He shifted the arm around her middle to flatten his palm on her belly. His hand slid up until it covered one of her breasts. Her breath hitched as one of his claws scraped her nipple, sending a jolt straight to her core. The dragon paused for a moment before circling the tight bud with his finger. Elliya hummed contently, arching into his touch.
An appreciative rumble rolled through his chest. He kneaded her flesh, his hand strong, rough, and delightfully warm. His tongue flicked out, brushing along her jaw to the tender place beneath her ear before he lifted his head away. Keeping his hand over her breast possessively, he ran his tongue down her spine, pausing at her mid-back to lap at her skin with slow, deliberate strokes. Her sex clenched around his cock again. He grinded against her, sending another ripple of pleasure through her.
This was different than their previous mating. This was…tender. Almost loving.
Elliya opened her eyes, turning her head to look at her dragon over her shoulder. Her lips twitched into a smile. “Are you calm now, dragon?”
His bright blue eyes shifted to meet hers, their pupils dilated. Half his face was shrouded in shadow, the other half lit by the morning sunlight spilling into the cave, his scales golden and gleaming.
He bared his pointed teeth and growled, but his voice was surprisingly low and small when he said, “Yes.”
His reply was so begrudging that Elliya chuckled, her body shaking gently with the sound.
The dragon’s eyes shut as a shudder coursed through him. His hands tightened on her hip and breast just a little more, and his claws pricked her skin teasingly. He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a groan, somewhere between pleasure and discomfort, and raised his torso so he was standing straight, sliding his hand away from her breast to settle it back at her hip.
The fire in his chest was roiling and intense, casting its glow upon her and making him look more like some sort of spirit than a physical being in the tunnel’s uneven light.
“You have no right to make me feel this way, female,” he said.
“What do I make you feel?”
Besides hatred.
“Hunger,” he replied, his deep voice reverberating in the tunnel.
Oh.
Elliya turned back toward the wall, smile fading, unable to ignore the pang of disappointment in her heart. “That is no fault of mine. It is the Heat.”
“It is entirely your fault.” He shifted his hips forward, pressing into her a little more firmly, making her gasp, and slid a hand to her back. He smoothed his palm up along her spine and then dragged it back down, grazing his claws over her skin in a way that made her shiver. “You have taken pleasure in our mating, have you not?”
“If I say that I have, do you intend to punish me for it?”
“No punishment I might enact upon you would leave me unscathed. I want only your truth.”
“Then yes.”
Another satisfied rumble rolled in his chest. His hand moved again, around her side to her belly, and he trailed it up between the valley of her breasts to curl around her throat. He forced her upright, pressing her back against his hot, hard chest, and leaned his head down to settle his chin atop her hair. Elliya barely contained a moan as his cock shifted inside her.
“You have your dragon now,” he said as he covered her sex with his other hand, applying sweet pressure to her most sensitive flesh. “Are you satisfied, human?”
“Elliya.”
“I do not understand that word.”
Her pulse raced beneath his palm—not in fear, but in desire. “My name. It is Elliya.”
The dragon stilled. The heat radiating from him intensified. His forefinger bent, the tip of its claw trailing lightly along her jawline. “Elliya.”
His cock swelled slightly as he spoke her name—though speaking was not quite what he’d done. From his lips, her name was a chant, a prayer, an ancient spell, thrumming with power that made her bond with him strengthen impossibly further and sear itself upon her soul.
That power reverberated in her core, stealing her breath and making her knees weak, thrusting her to the edge of another climax. Hearing him say her name…it was an acknowledgement she’d not realized she had craved. It was yet another taste of how things could’ve been between them, a taste of what those ancestral legends had described.
He released a slow breath, his hold on her throat tightening infinitesimally. “You are mine, Elliya. Mine to mate as I please. Mine to breed as I please. That is what you have won for yourself.”
Elliya swallowed, and her breath quickened. She should have been furious at his words, at their implication—that she was but a possession to be used at his whim—yet lust burned in her veins. She wanted nothing more than for him to move his hips, than to feel the slide of his ridged shaft inside her. She wanted his ferocity. She wanted his passion.
His body tensed, and for a few moments, she was sure he would give in to her unspoken desire, was sure he would succumb to their mutual yearning. But when he did finally move his hips, it was to slowly withdraw from her sex—and he did not push back in. His hand fell away from her throat, the other away from her pelvis, and the sudden absence of his heat against her back left her cold.
The dragon’s seed spilled from Elliya, running down her inner thighs. She turned, watching him stalk back toward the ox. His tail swayed with his steps, granting her glimpses of his taut ass, and his wings stretched slightly before drawing tight against his back. His movements were noticeably smoother than they’d been the night before, accenting the grace and power of his body.
He snapped his head back, flipping strands of his long, pale hair out of his face before crouching beside the dead animal and tearing into it with his claws.
Elliya stepped away from the wall but did not approach him. Not yet. “I was not spurning your
food.”
He paused his work to glance at her over his shoulder, but he said nothing.
“You told me to eat, and I refused because the meat is raw, not because you offered it,” Elliya continued. “Humans do not usually eat raw meat, not like other beasts…or dragons. It can make us ill. Sometimes even kill us.”
His brows lowered over those intense eyes. “Is there anything that does not kill your kind?”
Elliya crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “We might appear weak to you, but we are far stronger than you think.”
He looked her over from head to toe and back again, gaze moving at the unhurried pace of a creature that had lived for longer than she could fathom. Despite what they had just done, despite him having pulled away from her, there was undisguised heat in his eyes—and Elliya’s body responded to it.
“If the matter was so simple, why did you not say so?” he asked when their gazes met again.
Elliya cocked an eyebrow. “Because you lost your temper.”
He released a frustrated huff and turned his head toward the sandstone ox, cutting another chunk from its side. “And if one of your slothful males rejected the food you hunted for him, how would you react, little huntress?”
She rolled her eyes. “Dragon, I told you I did not reject your food. I rejected your command.”
“And I fail to see how that is any better.” The dragon stood up and turned to face her. The orange glow in his chest flared as he lifted the meat in his hand. Holding her gaze, he rounded his lips and blew out a stream of fire that engulfed the meat and his entire hand.
Even from several paces away, Elliya felt the intense heat, and the flames were bright enough that she had to momentarily shield her eyes. She’d known he could breathe fire, but that knowledge did not make the sight any less incredible. Build, kindling, and maintaining a fire had been amongst the earliest skills she’d learned in her childhood. Even in the desert heat, fire was life, often as much a necessity as water.
How much easier might things have been for Elliya and her people if they could summon fire at will?
To Tame a Dragon (Venys Needs Men) Page 8
