by Amanda Milo
Parents dote lovingly on their offspring until the dragonling comes of age to care for himself. Then his parents kick him (and his siblings, if he has any) out of the nest—literally shove him off a cliff—and send him soaring through the air to figure life out from then on alone.
Kalos has several siblings who have hatched out over the solars, and his drakon (his sire) and his drakaina (his dam) are more involved than most dragon parents. That is to say they didn’t punt Kalos out of the nest.
It was his brothers who did that to him.
Kalos was a late-hatch egg, and his older brothers took great delight in teaching him and their younger siblings how to fly.
Young dragons are usually schooled by nestmasters: Elder dragons who sort of herd all the young ones together and beat all the necessary learning into their heads by sheer repetition and persistence. Sums, fire writing, that sort of thing.
I’m glad I wasn’t born a dragon.
Kalos is very curious about the bond I have with my sisters. He doesn’t share anything like it with his brothers, although he supposes that other dragons might feel differently about their siblings.
The more he shares about his youth, the more protective of him I feel. Learning about Kalos, and having him want to learn everything about me in return changes me.
And the way he treats me! The tugs I feel in my chest when he kisses all the parts of my body so tenderly are foreign and strange. He doesn’t want to simply use me like all the men of the past; he wants to lovingly treasure me until my body can’t live without his.
I’m afraid he’s captured me in a way I never could have imagined.
Even when we’re setting out to do something as simple as gathering our food, he uses every opportunity he can to interlace our fingers, connecting us with our hands if we can’t be fitted together in other ways—and it seems like such a small thing. It’s not. He’s doing something to my heart.
He’s growing on it, like a barnacle.
I’ve got him on his back, and I’m pleasuring him with my mouth as he feasts between my legs. Taking a man in my mouth has always been a means to an end for me—I want a man hard? This is the quickest way to get him there. But with Kalos, I love pleasing him this way. He pets my sides and squeezes my flanks and growls his contentment, even though it sounds less like contentedness and more like he’s being tortured, and he says the nicest things about every one of my features.
Having him manhandle me to sit me over his own face was a surprise though. A pleasant, pleasant surprise. It’s so good it’s distracting. Every time he sets in with his licking and sucking, it throws off my concentration so that all I’m able to do is mindlessly pump his shaft with my hands, barely able to keep my lips around him.
The soft flares of whatever stands erect from the head of his cock tickle the roof of my mouth like they’re encouraging me to pay them attention.
I try to oblige. They’ve certainly been wonderful to me. I’ve never felt anything like them before, not their extra strokes when they’re between my legs with each of his cock’s thrusts, not the way they curl over and pummel a special spot of nerves inside me. Whatever these things are, they’ve made it their job to bring me pleasure, and I’d like to return the favor.
I curl my tongue over them, flattening them, and suck.
Kalos sits bolt upright.
This makes me pop off of him as I tumble into his lap.
He scrambles to have my mouth back on him. “Basilisk’s balls—sorry! Please, Adella, whatever you just did…”
He’s staring down at me like I work magic.
Snickering, I fit my mouth over the head of his cock again and tongue his adornments.
Kalos snarls and gathers my hair, trying to see my face. When we make eye contact, he can’t help the excited buck of his hips.
It shoves his cock down my throat.
“Ffff—fuck the Great Wyvern!” he shouts, trying unsuccessfully to squelch his exclamations by biting his lip. Then he gently takes me by the chin and draws me off of him, petting my cheek, “My lovely mate, I’m sorry. Do the… please suck my cock feathers again, I beg you.”
Cock feathers? “Is that what you call them?” I ask around them as they wriggle against my tongue.
The vibration of my words is too much for them though—or too much for Kalos. His face screws up, and he can’t even give me a warning before he bursts in my mouth.
His cum spews out of my lips and down my front, dripping over my breasts and chest and arms.
But like every time with Kalos, his cock’s culmination is no end to the game. He’s harder, and he needs me—the fire in his eyes as he stares down at me in wonder tells me that I’m about to be flipped over and fucked until I sing his name.
I swallow the cum that managed to stay in my mouth, swallowing right around his cock as it rests on my tongue, and then I smile up at him.
Two heartbeats later and my cheek is against the cave floor, and Kalos’s cock is pounding between my legs hard enough to make the stalactites tremble.
I sing for him for the rest of the night. For many, many nights. The blood moon’s waning comes almost as a shock, because being sexually ravished and wholly at a dragon’s mercy during his mating fury is exactly as delicious as you’d imagine. I never want it to end.
But when the heat is gone, he doesn’t turn cold or disinterested. And my heart trusts him enough to make me do the most asinine thing.
I develop feelings for him.
CHAPTER 10
KALOS
Light had barely begun to touch the mouth of the latest cave we’ve called home by the time I finished waking Adella up with my head between her legs.
Then I’d lain over her lower half, my arms folded, enjoying the view of her sated body sprawled under me, every one of her muscles gone slack.
She’d smiled at me, saying, “You look so proud of yourself right now.”
I’d kissed her belly, making her silky-soft flesh here jump under my lip’s touch. “I am proud of myself. I’ve pleased the woman I love.”
Adella’s eyes had filled with shimmer. That was when she blurted out, “Kalos, I love you too.”
Then she’d looked like she’d stepped on an Elder’s tail. Her eyes had rounded, her mouth fell open. “No…” she’d breathed to herself, like she couldn’t believe what she just uttered.
But she said it.
She meant it.
I sit up in a rush. And when she tries to crab-walk to get out from under me, I land on her, trapping her, catching her by the wrists and throwing her arms above her head.
She opens her legs to (and she doesn’t have to work hard at this, krevk’d) encourage my cock to become more interested in being welcomed inside her body rather than discussing this development that I’ve prayed for. That she’s fought so damned hard against.
But I refuse to be distracted.
(My cock notches at her opening and my vision goes supernova—but I lick her collarbone and nip her until I have enough control not to thrust inside of her.)
“Adella,” I start.
“I didn’t mean it!” she shouts, her eyes looking everywhere but at my face.
“Why are you afraid that you’ve admitted this?” I ask, truly perplexed—and if I’m being honest, I’m also trying not to feel like she’s jamming a sword between my fourth and fifth ribs every time she tries to deny her feelings for me and distance herself.
Adella must see the pain of her rejection coloring my face though, because she winces, her eyes squeezing shut. “It’s not you, Kalos. It’s…” She bites her lip and shakes her head vehemently. “If a mermaid falls in love, she follows the man anywhere.” She frowns, glossy eyes meeting mine, looking nearly as stricken as that first day when I told her that I was her mate.
I suppose it is almost exactly the same, because I think she’s realizing that she’s also truly mine.
“I’ll never see my sisters again,” she whispers brokenly. “I’ll never race the sea with
them like before. Even if I could, it’ll never be the same again. I’ll always want to be with you instead.”
Releasing one of her wrists, I bring my fingers down to trace the sides of her face, teasing her hair from where it sticks to the dampened corners of her eyes, her cheek. “Then it’s really only fair. Because if I had my wings back right now, I would never fly away from you. Fly with you, but never away, Adella. You’re mine, and I don’t care if you’re not ready yet to hear this—but I’m proud that you’ve claimed me as yours.”
My words seem to stun her. “I can’t believe I’ve claimed a dragon.”
I move in to nuzzle her lips. “And yet you have,” I say against them smugly. My hand wraps possessively over the swollen, honey-dripping mess that she’s let me make between her legs. Again. “Thoroughly.”
She pinches me in the side. “You don’t have to smirk that little smirk when you announce it!”
“I didn’t.” There wasn’t anything ‘little’ about it. There is nothing little about me. I knock her knees apart, intent on proving it as many times as she’d like.
“You did too! I can feel it against my—”
I steal a kiss.
“Lips,” she finishes, trying not to smile. “And—”
I kiss her again. Instead of giving her a chance to speak, I say right against her mouth, “Let’s go back to your cove.”
Adella goes still under me. She even stops trying to hitch her thighs higher over my back so that my cock takes more of her cunt. “What did you say?” she breathes.
I move my kisses down her throat, my aim for the muscle pounding like a wild thing just below her breastbone. “If you were a dragon, I’d say that it’s time to join our families. We’re committed to each other. And mate-territoriality is for early love. We’re an established pair. It’s safe now.”
“Committed,” she repeats, like the meaning of the word means caged, not dedicated loyalty between loving mates.
But my mate is not a dragon, I know now to remind myself. We’ve had many days together, many discussions. She isn’t instantly going to think as a female dragon would, or come to any of the conclusions that I would think natural.
But she’s still a female.
She’s still my female.
And she has finally declared that she loves me.
I kiss over her heart, my eyes falling shut when her fingers card through my hair, her nails gliding up my scalp, even if her movements are a little jerky, belying her uncertainty over the depth of her feelings for me, her fear. But at my groan, she relaxes. She scritches me with purpose, and—scorched and lemon-zested sheep! I love it when she does this.
I bite her breast, making her shriek in surprise, and shove inside of her, taking her up on the invitation she thought she was secretly going to distract me with.
But this time, when she’s near to coming, I stop.
I even—much to my agony as well as hers—force myself to pull out of her.
“What are you doing?” she cries in frustration, her fingernails attempting to shred my shoulder muscles.
I wait until I have her eyes, then I say, “You’re mine. I’m yours. I want to hear you say it without panicking this time.”
Mulishly, she shakes her head in refusal.
I grin down at her, and with slow teases of my hips, I find my way inside her again, pumping until her mouth falls open, thrusting into her slowly. “My Adella, my love. I didn’t think there was anything I wanted more than to make you come.”
I pull out.
Adella sucks in a deep breath, her eyes showing all her caginess. “Kalos. Don’t do this.”
I slide down her body, my shoulders forcing her thighs to stay spread, my arm locking over her hips, pinning her in place for me. “All you need to do is tell me how you feel. That’s what I want more than anything. Then you get to come.”
Her eyes are narrow slits. “Right now, I don’t think you really want to hear how I feel about you.”
I kiss her mons, then nuzzle it with my nose, making her breath whoosh out of her in anticipation. I roll my eyes up to hers. “Just remember. Three words and I’ll make you come so hard you won’t remember your name.”
“You are horrible. How about those three words?” she asks tightly.
Grinning, I tease my tongue at the beginning of her cleft. “Sorry.” I lap her, making her thighs shiver. “You’ll need to try again. Those aren’t the three words I’m waiting to hear.”
My tongue has been training for the length of a lunar cycle, and I know exactly how to please my female.
By now, I’ve built the oral strength to last all night, and we do. Of course, it helps that I take little breaks at all the most inconvenient moments.
“You scaly bastard!” Adella screams at one point when I’ve worked her up until I have to pin her wrists to stop her from ripping out her own hair.
Wyvern knows she’s already tried to rip out mine.
Kissing her twitching thigh, I murmur, “No, my love, I’m sorry—those still aren’t the right three words.” I clutch her wrists in one hand and move for the spot between her legs that is looking like it’s just about licked sore.
My lips are teasing her puffy, swollen hood, pulling it, my ears tuned to her furious curses when she finally cries, “All right! You win—Kalos, I love you.” She tries to kick me, but her legs are too weak for her to give me any kind of power when her foot lands on the meat of my shoulder. “I love you, you prick! Now please, for the love of the sea, let me come!”
I surge up her body and take her mouth, tasting the sweetness here as my tangy saliva from mauling her body mingles between us, making her even more wild. “My cock, my fingers, or my mouth?” I murmur to her, shoving my forearm under her, dragging her against me.
Her fists grip my hair; my sore scalp protests, but my body loves it, craves her roughness. Adella loves me. “You,” she growls, “owe me all of those things until I come so hard I don’t remember your name.”
I laugh softly against her lips, my eyes shining into her rainbow-marked ones. “Love, let’s be honest. When I make you come, you’ll be screaming my name.”
Technically, we’re both wrong. She sings it. And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
CHAPTER 11
ADELLA
Dragons are sneaky. Especially the dragon I happen to love. Still, I hold his hand and I march with my head high, walking a faded footpath that takes us right to the water’s edge at the cove. It took us days to reach, but not nearly as many as I expected it would. Seems my constant nudging and edging of Kalos in this general direction got us farther than I ever thought. And he let me have my way because all he wants is to see me happy, just as long as I’m happy with him.
Screams fill the air when my sisters see me.
“Your tail!” Sirena cries. Her bright poppy-hued hair and marigold scales sparkle as brilliantly as ever.
“Look at those freakish legs!” Katiana laments. She’s rose and amethyst and beauty.
“My stars, I think your legs make your ass look even bigger,” Ianthe comments.
I sputter. “Oh, you’ll pay for that.”
“Did you piss off a dark elf?” Pearl cries. “How did this happen?”
I blow her a kiss. “You are the only sister I love. Thank you for caring.”
Nerissa, my raven-haired, raven-scaled sister, splashes them with water. “Hey, now—this is cause for a celebration.”
Everyone’s shocked gaze flies to her.
She gestures to me. “Remember when Adella had the prettiest fins?” She smiles, her eyes shimmering. “Not anymore. Now the rest of us have a chance to lay a man first!”
Playful agreements ring out, mostly to cover their pity as they glance back at my tail-less self.
I appreciate their teasing, their making light of my change, and I welcome it with open arms. “Ugh! You sea witches,” I shout at them, laughing.
And I don’t know how they could have missed him,
but all at once, everyone’s attention swings to the man holding my hand. The dragon who stands proudly at my side, in human form.
“And who have you brought with you?” Nixie asks breathily.
“Never mind—who needs to know his name?” Patrice licks her lips.
“And look at his eyes,” Ianthe purrs. “That’s no regular man,” she says, tossing back her mahogany tresses that gleam so prettily.
My hackles raise at all of them.
“Sea cows’ tits—look at his dick!” Patrice cries. Her nephrite-colored eyes fly to me. “Can my tail tangle with him first?” Her hand reaches behind her to the clasp of her seashells.
It sets off the rest of them taking off their tops to better show off their assets.
Kalos nearly freezes into a stone statue beside me.
With a siren’s screech of fury, I lunge out of Kalos’s grasp and fling myself into the water, intending to permanently tie their seashells to their bodies, probably with lengths of their own hair. Hair I’m going to shear off even if I have to chew through it.
Instead, the slap of the seawater as I dive in makes me gasp. Everything below my belly button tingles—and most alarmingly, my ankles snap together and fuse. It isn’t a pleasant sensation, and I’m scared until my oh-so-missed tail-scales erupt over my lower half. Their shine and flash of color is blinding and welcome.
“Adella!” Kalos shouts, dropping into the water and making splashes big enough to better fit his real form. “Where are you hurt?”
I realize I’m floating, motionless. I tread water with my hands as my tail finishes forming under the water. I beam up at the man who’s rushed to crouch over me. “I’m all right! Kalos,” I breathe in wonder. “I’m turning back into a mermaid.”
Kalos’s face falls, and he stares around us, at the glorious seawater we’re wading in, like it’s poison. His eyes, when they meet mine again, are dead serious. “If you didn’t look so happy, my mate, I’d—”
My sisters shriek, “You’re MATED?!”
“—To that hunk?”
“—We’re still sharing him, though, right?”
“No! There’s no sharing!” I holler. “Kalos belongs to me!” I’m snarling the words, but the declaration brings a massive grin to Kalos’s face. He drops deeper into the water beside me, and his arms come around my middle and squeeze me for dear life, making us both sink until I flex my tail.
