He could touch.
She reached back, not turning, and tried to undo his belt. If she stood up straight, she could stroke him. Bring all that joy to the surface.
Wash away the fear, at least for this moment.
Water filled her mouth, but maybe she could let the joy carry her, too. Maybe each thrust would drown out her seer’s constant buzzing and would bring her healer into some kind of balance. Let her feel like a woman for a moment, instead of some oracle-like thing.
She hadn’t realized it, but she felt like marble. Her abilities constricted, a cocoon she had no way of freeing herself from and they held her still like a statue. But Ladon and Dragon cracked the shell. They made it possible for her to breathe.
And they were here, now, with her. Her glorious man pressed against her back as the wind buffeted them, blowing between her and the beast, and into the small gap between their bodies. She shivered, both cold and hot at the same time, skin freezing but her core burning.
She’d never wanted a man so much in her life. “Ladon.”
He chuckled, letting her fidget with his belt. “Touch me,” he growled, his voice still strong, still low, even sodden with rainwater.
She watched his reflection. The rain flattened his black t-shirt to his skin and showed every cut and every line of his solid body. Steam rose off his shoulders into the sheets of water. Ladon, muscles popping and heat blazing, could hold her up and take her with abandon, not fazed by the storm or her weight or anything else. And he was about to.
Because now, finally, she could give him a moment of peace.
Rain rolled off his short, short hair and down his cheeks. It splattered into his eyes but he stared at her reflection.
She worked his belt buckle with her hands behind her back. He watched, every inch of his body promising complete ecstasy.
“Faster.” He rubbed against her hand, his gaze dropping from her reflected face to her reflected breasts as she stood up straight. He tried to press her feet apart, to widen her legs, but her jeans constricted around the top of her thighs.
The rain flattened her panties against her flesh the same way it pressed his t-shirt against his skin.
Ladon’s mouth descended to the back of her neck. He pushed aside her hair and his lips danced over the delicate area behind her ear. “When this is done and we are alone I will take you into the cave’s baths and do this in the right kind of water.”
She moaned, and continued to work at his jeans. He pulled her back, constricting her arms, and her breasts thrust out.
A new groan rolled from his chest as she released his belt and fumbled with the button on his jeans. His fly parted, the zipper undoing on its own from the pressure of his hardness.
“Ah!” Ladon looked up at the sky, his chin out, his mouth open and catching the rain. He gripped her hips with one hand and yanked down her panties with the other.
She felt as if he rubbed a hot stone against her bare bottom when he leaned forward, pulling her back toward him. He pinched her nipples, hard, and her entire body quaked. A hand slipped between her thighs.
“Damn.” Ladon chewed on her earlobe. “Why weren’t you born two millennia ago? Why did you keep yourself from me all those centuries? You are exquisite.”
Rysa grinned, rubbing against his front—and his erection. Just the purr of his voice made her feel wanted and sexy. And to know he held her above his other wives made her feel wonderful. She shouldn’t. They were of their times, but knowing he thought her special was a gift better than any she’d ever received.
“You want me.” His mouth pushed aside the collar of her shirt and descended to her shoulder. “You’re putting out all those calling scents but I smell ‘desire’ for me more than anything else.”
She did. She wanted to kiss him and touch every inch of his skin. She wanted to taste him again, to make him squirm, to see his eyes light up with his love. She wanted to wake up next to him every single morning for the rest of her life and have him react to her exactly the way he was reacting right now.
“Ladon, please.” She needed to be between him and the beast, giving them pleasure. She curled her hands around her back, forcing them between their bodies, and stroked him up once, then down.
The rainwater made them both cold but her fingers heated. His eyes closed, his mouth opening again, and he quietly groaned.
She did it again, arching her bottom toward him, and pressed herself onto him.
He felt perfect, intense. He stretched her, filling her in a different way than before. They’d never done it in this position before. Never from behind.
A new “Ah!” pushed from his throat and he pounded into her, taking her completely, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips. His chest tightened with each thrust, clearly visible in Dragon’s reflection. And his eyes watched her face, piercing and full of need.
“You are mine.” The strength of his thrusts increased.
She didn’t argue. This time, she understood. He meant You are mine to love. You are mine to protect. Domination wasn’t his desire.
Mine wasn’t a state for Ladon. Mine was an action.
“You are mine, husband. Oh!” She loved, too. She protected just as much as he did.
She saw the grin dance over his reflection’s semi-drunken features. He let go of her hips and smoothed his hands up to her waist as he thrust again. “We will not lose you, wife.”
An image flooded her mind—her sleeping between Ladon, his hand on her hip, and Dragon, her hand on the beast’s front limb. His humans rested and Dragon rested as well, watching over them.
A strong sense of family pulsed from the beast.
She felt her mouth round, even buried in her own pleasure. Ladon’s words, the beast’s images, the sound of her man’s voice, the rain slicking between them pulled her from the here and now to what still might be, and strained her heart. It would shatter, if theirs even cracked a little. They’d all break into a million pieces.
Dragon pushed back slightly, rolling so his big head came around. He pulled both his humans toward his chest, cupping them both.
The beast needed to know, too.
Ladon pulled out, his perfect body lifting away from hers, and she waved her hands behind her back, frantic to have him back.
He flipped her around.
“Don’t! Ladon, my calling scents will—”
His mouth descended onto hers, his lips searching. One arm lifted her up, the other tightened around her shoulders, and he leaned her back against Dragon.
The world drowned in his kiss. His fingers curled into her hair. His mouth danced over hers. Ladon took away the rain and the cold and the Burners and the pain. He and Dragon promised everything with their touch.
They asked for everything in return.
It all flooded into her. These past seven days of not being able to touch and only being able to talk on the phone even though cells gave him a headache. She couldn’t be close enough to see his little movements or to feel his small reactions.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d lost.
“I miss you.” Rysa pulled him closer, though she knew she shouldn’t. They shouldn’t kiss. Being that close put both Ladon and Dragon in danger.
But he didn’t pull away. His breath hitched—he fought the frantic yanking of her calling scents—but he wasn’t going to give in. He pushed her jeans and her panties further down her legs. He couldn’t get them off, not over her shoes, but he moved them past her knees.
Ladon dropped his face to her shoulder as he slowly, carefully wrapped his hands around her hips and hoisted her up along Dragon’s side. He stepped over her jeans and between her legs. His hands shifted, both curling around her thighs, and he held her up, now trapped inside the loop of her lower limbs.
“We don’t want to be apart from you.” Ladon thrust into her again. Shifting his grip, he adjusted his position to fire the greatest pleasure through her body. “We can’t.”
She pressed her face against hi
s chest. His scent still made it through the rain, still filled her with happiness. His t-shirt rubbed her lips and she tasted the rainwater. She yanked up his shirt and rubbed against his skin. His heart pumped against her cheek and she felt its thunder. His beast shimmered and she saw the storm.
“All that has happened is strangling you.” Ladon moved against her, in her, with a gentleness opposite the raging storm around them. And opposite the dispassionate shield of his warrior response. “I can’t save you from it.”
How could he drown her worries with so much pleasure at the same time he revealed his own doubts? She wanted to weep. To just cry and cry and let her body shake and sniffle and yell and just react. But he thrust again, rubbing just right, and she trembled.
His thrusts increased in speed and depth, to give her all he had. “Let me give mine what mine needs. Let me make it better, even if it’s only for this one moment. Please, beloved.” He nuzzled into her neck as he thrust again. “Please.”
“Ladon.” She let it go. All that chased them—Fates, Shifters, her problems. She let it go and kissed him to tell him how she felt. So he’d know.
Ladon’s orgasm pounded through her, powered by a rumble as loud as the storm. It carried her orgasm with it, entwining with it, as he did now, with her body.
They’d been too far apart. They both needed to touch, to kiss. Ladon, to feel her skin; Rysa, to feel their connection. So she held on now, while she could, even though the rain made it hard to breathe. But she had Ladon and she had Dragon, if only for these few precious seconds.
The rain lessened, turning from sheets to huge drops again, but he didn’t let go. He held her against Dragon, still inside her.
“Rysa.” The rain pelted them but he covered her with his warm body. “We won’t let this take you. We can’t.”
“You won’t.” She wouldn’t let this break him, either. “You’re here. I’ll be okay.”
His breath hitched and he buried his face against her neck.
Rysa wove her fingers into his and kissed his knuckles. The safest place in the whole world was the space between the man and the beast. Not because they felt it their job to protect her, but because she anchored them against the cyclones ripping at all their lives. She stabilized Ladon and Dragon, and they stabilized her.
“The rain is letting up.” She kissed his forehead.
Ladon nodded. He carefully stepped out over her jeans and dropped her feet to the ground, but stayed as close as he could. They pulled up their rain-sodden clothes but Ladon didn’t back away. Neither did Dragon.
Worry worked his face into a wide-eyed mask, not her calling scents. “Just before your calling scents cycled up, you told me you were okay.”
Rysa zipped her jeans. “I did.” She’d believed it at the time, too. Though, if she was honest with herself, she’d believed it because she hadn’t wanted to face the alternative. Not after almost dying.
“It wasn’t true, was it?”
It seemed honesty was about to claim its place in their lives. “No.”
Ladon stepped back. His face scrunched up like someone had just punched him in the gut. “You’ve been keeping it to yourself, haven’t you, to not tax me?”
“Yes. You and Dragon. Derek, as well.” Behind her, Dragon backed away also.
I’m losing them again, she thought. She reached for Ladon, but stopped herself quickly. The rain wasn’t holding her calling scents at bay anymore.
She knew exactly what was swirling in Ladon’s mind—memories of Abigail, the wife he lost so many centuries ago. Memories of Charlotte, the loss of whom drove him to wander North America. Feelings of failing the original Draki Prime. Of failing his sister, when, two millennia ago, she lost her daughter.
Things these last few moments were supposed to ease for him.
He lived the same pattern again and again. Different circumstances. Different wars. But the mind of the invincible man in front of her stitched each moment together based on the same pattern of invincible blame.
How had he survived this long? How had AnnaBelinda, whose life held just as many points of blame as her brother’s? How had Derek?
How much did immortality cost?
She gulped, unable to stop the sobs from starting. Her arms wrapped around her chest, as they always did when she panicked, and she stepped forward and back, forward and back.
The white noise in her head screamed. The insignias around her neck and arms and thigh bit into her rain-slicked skin.
And at that moment, as she watched Ladon, Rysa wondered just how mortal she was.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Your brother’s dragon is sure it is his talon and not a fake?” Across the wobbly, plastic table in the warehouse’s tiny break room, Hadrian argued with Derek’s wife. “And you have already decided to run?”
Anna scowled. She did not speak. From the thoughts moving between her and Sister-Dragon, who waited just outside the breakroom door, speaking right now would probably do more harm than good.
She concentrated on the text backlit on Derek’s phone.
“We go now.” She handed back the device.
Derek tucked it into his pocket. The rain lashed the roof, and hearing each other in the warehouse proper was difficult. At least in here they did not need to shout. “I need to stay.”
His wife scowled again.
The Burners have come in because of the rain. Billy is near the loading dock. The other four slap at each other in the small room off the main building entrance. A wave of disgust followed Sister-Dragon’s comment to Anna.
“The Burners congregate. It is not safe here for you.” Anna zipped her jacket as she walked toward her beast. “Come.”
“Anna! Your brother may need my help.” Ladon was in no shape to deal with Burners by himself. “Someone needs to be close enough to Rysa to protect her. He cannot.”
“Trajan is trying to separate you! Can’t you see the truth? That text was from the Ulpi, not your Second.” Hadrian huffed and threw his hands into the air.
The pounding rain did not hide Sister-Dragon’s growl. Hadrian believes he is still Emperor. I wish to feed him to the Burners.
Derek worked hard not to respond to their internal conversation, but not cringing was difficult. Luckily, Anna and Hadrian were too wrapped up in their argument to notice.
Anna continued to ignore Hadrian.
Why is he doing this? A flash of the concept of mate moved between the woman and the beast, indicating the “he” she referred to was not Hadrian, but Derek.
Doubt that her brother would pay enough attention to stop the Burners from attacking Derek pulsed back from the beast.
Worry flashed across Anna’s face so fast Derek doubted he would have caught it without his enhanced senses.
He reached for her and wrapped his arms tight around her body, squeezing, he suspected, more than he should.
Squeezing enough to remind her that he could take on the Burners himself now. And that he already had.
“You wish to stand down? Why?” Hadrian slapped the table. “You are the Dracas! The best of my warriors!”
Anna pulled away but kept her gaze on Derek. “We are not your warriors, Hadrian. We were not while citizens of the Empire, and we most certainly are not now.”
“That is not what I meant, Dracas-Human.” Hadrian stepped away from the table.
Anna did not look at Hadrian. She kept her body square to her husband. A small nod indicated, perhaps, that she understood. “I will not tolerate you insinuating dominion over us or our brothers, or over my mate or my brother’s mate. You will not fare well if you do so again, Hadrian.”
The Emperor’s cheeks tightened and his mouth thinned to a line. All the decades Derek had dealt with this man referring to him as “boy” were once and for all laid to rest by the cold stare of his Progenitor wife.
“If you do not cooperate with my husband’s orders while I am away, I will feed you to the Burners.” Slowly, she faced the Emperor. “Unlike m
y brother, I have no qualms about using the old ways in this modern world.”
Hadrian ignored Derek, as he so often had in the past. “Yet you defy me.”
Anna’s punch came so fast Hadrian could not counter. He fell on his ass, and smacked hard against the concrete floor. All his breath left him in a rush and he gasped.
“We will return shortly.” She walked out of the break room, her dragon following.
Hadrian sat on the floor, resting his arms on his knees. “You know as well as I do that this is exactly what Trajan wants. The Ulpi will take the talisman again as soon as they sense the opportunity to do so.”
Hadrian was blind to the obvious. Derek knew better. “Praesagio is entwined with the world of the normals. They have a strong media presence. Their funding comes from the United States government. Provoking retaliation will cost them considerably more than a building or two.”
Derek pointed out the door, at the wide world beyond. “This is bigger than the Ulpi. Other families may be attempting to drag them into a fight they do not wish to be a part of any more than we do. Or you. Trajan’s show of goodwill was meant to stop more damage to their holdings.”
Hadrian’s jaw locked. “You are making a big mistake.”
Derek knew what the Emperor was thinking: Then why the destruction of my property? Why did they force me into seeking refuge with Burners?
Why Fates allowed what they allowed was one of the great mysteries. But Derek had heard their mantra many times: No one is as bound by fate as the Fates themselves. Let fate have its way.
“No, Emperor, we are not. We respond according to the information we have in the what-is. And we will change our responses in the next what-is, if needed.”
“I thought the same way, once.” Hadrian dropped his head between his knees. “I took a road the what-was screamed at me to not take. In that present, it seemed the only path.”
Derek squatted next to the other man, watching him carefully. Defeat washed off Hadrian in drumming waves, much the same way the rain pounded off the roof. This man had once been the Emperor of Rome, the supreme leader of the civilized world.
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