“Sometimes.” He smirked. “They are women.”
My scowl filled my face, and I realized I didn’t like the idea of Kemir doing things like that with anyone but me. A crazy thought, because I’d just met him and I intended to leave him as soon as I figured out how to return to the top of the planet. “Good one. But you know what I mean.”
“Some of my ancestors might’ve tasted a few, select princesses, but I’m sure they spit them out. Royal arrogance can be bitter on the palate, you know.”
My ponytail swung when I tilted my head. “How about sheep? You eat many of those?”
His features twisted. “The wool sticks between your teeth. It’s greasy and hard to get out.”
“Yuck.” I swallowed the surge of brine in the back of my throat. “How about insects? Mealworms?” A friend’s bearded dragon ate those.
“Not into bugs.” He walked around me, heading toward the river, and I followed, cautiously. “They squirm as they go down.”
“Ew,” I said, keeping my distance from the water—and my eyes trained on every movement around us. Who knew what would jump out next? “What do you eat, then?”
Yanking a plant from the soil, he held it up. “Many of these.”
I stroked my finger down the length, and his own length twitched. At least I wasn’t the only one who responded to our close proximity.
“What does it taste like?” My eyes darted below his waist, and I half-smiled. God, I was such a tease. My tongue darted out to lick my lower lip, and his eyes followed the movement. Sparks flicked through me, setting my insides on fire.
He groaned. “You, my mate, are utterly distracting.” His hand slid along my back, and he pinched my ass. “I believe you’ll enjoy the taste once it hits your tongue.”
“You don’t say.” Stooping down, I pulled a root from the soil and held it up, grinning. “Oh, lookie. A really big one. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this large.”
After taking it from me with his lips quirked up on one side—which told me he appreciated the game I was playing—he yanked off the roots’ green tops and then stooped down to wash them in the water.
I trailed my fingers through his thick hair. “You said something about other things getting…larger?”
With a growl, he dropped the roots and tackled me, twisting so his body took the brunt of our fall. Flipping me onto my back, he rose above me, devilment shining in his gorgeous eyes.
“Stop me now,” he said. “Or we’re about to experience more of that boinking you were speaking of a short time ago.”
Aw, fuck. My body was overheating already. How could I stop him now? “I…”
He nipped at my neck, before lifting his face. “Yes?”
Fire was growing inside me, and I had a feeling my dragon knew how to fan my flames. I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Just shut up and do it to me.”
His fingertips tickled down my sides and underneath his shirt. I told myself I hadn’t looked for undies in his bag because I assumed he wouldn’t have any that fit.
But I was lying to myself. I also liked the idea of giving him easy access.
He left my mouth, his lips trailing along my jaw to my neck, where he bit again. No man had ever nibbled on my skin before, but I liked it.
I arched my hips up as his fingers slid inside me, probing, tweaking.
“Fuck,” he said. “You’re wet again.”
My grin couldn’t be denied. “Just getting ready to accommodate whatever might be getting larger.” Something firm was vibrating against my thigh already. “I want you deep this time. And I want it faster.”
“I’m here to serve your needs.” He growled as he pinched my clit and rolled it.
My eyes slid back in my head, and I mewed.
When he lifted himself up and off me, my eyelids popped open. I whimpered. “Where are you—”
With another growl, he rolled me onto my belly and hiked up my hips. He leaned over me and bit down hard on the tender skin on my nape while his fingers plunged inside me.
When he flicked my clit, I bucked and pushed back toward him, straining to take in more. “Kemir!”
“You want this?” he asked as his engorged length prodded against my pussy. He pushed forward, and his vibrating tip settled against my clit. “And this?”
Heat burst inside me. I was a volcano, about to erupt. “Yes!”
“And this?” He slipped his cock partway inside, then stopped.
“Kemir.” His name grated out of me, my voice gone harsh and guttural. A fever was consuming me, and if he didn’t do something about it, I was going to scream.
“Tanya?”
“If you don’t put that thing inside me this instant, I’m going to show you what teasing feels like.”
He chuckled. “Promise?”
“Now!”
Grabbing onto my hips, he anchored his teeth on my neck again, and drove himself deep.
Vibrations tickled up my spine.
He pulled out and plunged back into me again.
And, shit, when he remained still, he…expanded, filling me to the point of explosion.
Stretching, pushing, rubbing, and prodding. All at the same time.
I came in a flash, screaming.
Shouting my name, Kemir shuddered as he shoved himself deeper and deeper, all the way to my core. He groaned and hotness flooded.
Spent, I collapsed on the ground, and he lowered himself down on top of me. His weight felt awesome. Protective.
This man was magic.
I knew right then that I’d never get enough of him.
#
Eventually, we rose and washed ourselves in the shallow water, Kemir keeping an eye on anything that might be moving underneath the surface.
He picked his roots up off the ground and took them to his improvised firepit. Of course, he couldn’t stop from teasing me as he passed. “So, sweetness, I thought you weren’t interested in large objects?”
Cocky bastard.
I loved it, of course.
Never thought I’d feel this way, but affection for Kemir was growing inside me, despite my reservations.
I needed to bring this conversation back down to the ground, though, or we’d be doing it again in seconds.
My belly growled, telling me I was starving. That I’d need sustenance before we contemplated round three.
Because…I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep resisting him. Resisting us.
“You said Jenny’s with your brother,” I said, following him up the shore. “Where are they?”
“By now, they must’ve reached our city. They’ll be settling in together at my brother’s palace.”
“Together?”
“They’re mated.”
Like Kemir said about us? Whoa.
I frowned, because there was that mention of living in a palace again. But he was a wild creature, even if he did shift into a man. “How many dragons and palaces are we talking about here?”
“About three-hundred dragons live in our city, but most live in simple lairs. My brothers and I reside in our inherited palaces.”
Intrigued, I crossed over to stand beside him, while he used a sharp rock to slice the tips off the roots.
“Our ancestors moved from the surface ages ago, to save our species from being hunted into extinction. After traveling for months, they found their way deep beneath the ground and, in a lush valley, they built lairs.”
“Lairs, huh. Down here?” I squinted around, because his idea of a palace could be completely different than mine, and I needed to face that fact. “Is that where you’re taking me? To your palace lair?” I tried not to cringe, because I wasn’t a snob. Heck, I lived in a studio apartment with so many roaches, I should probably charge rent. But what if his palace was actually a cave? With a dirt floor, stone walls, and an open entrance where bugs and other scary things could come and go as they pleased? While I was warming up to the idea of all this mating business—having set the marriage idea aside for the
moment—I wasn’t sure I was ready to play cavewoman.
“I believe you’ll like it,” he said.
And that was neutral. Liking was a matter of opinion. I guessed I’d just have to wait and see what he considered a palace.
“I still can’t believe this has happened,” I said with awe in my voice. “All those fairytales I heard as a kid are true. Dragons raged across the Earth, scorching fields of hay and snatching up unsuspecting peasants.”
“Never to eat them,” he said with a wolfish grin. After spearing the roots with sharp sticks, he set them on a rock, then stood. “I need to shift to light the fire.”
I waved my hand. “Go for it.” I was almost getting used to him turning into a dragon.
A quick flash, and he was a beast, snapping back into a man right after breathing flames onto the wood.
His flame-shooter was rather handy, actually.
Grimacing, he twisted his shoulders and neck, as if they were sore from changing back that quickly. But he shrugged it off and stooped down to prop his sticks-on-roots over the fire.
Poor guy. All this shifting from dragon to man and back again must be hard on his bones. Let alone our romp on the shore.
I should give him a massage. That was a mate-like thing to do. Not that I was agreeing to this mate-business, but still.
Strolling around behind him, I placed my hands on his skin.
Scales! How had I missed them? I bent forward to examine them further. Slightly lifted above his skin, they felt like flexible stones beneath my palms. I traced them from where they rippled across his upper back in hints of green and teal, flowing around to his chest. His neck and jawline were also scaled, though the ridges were softer, as if dragon-men needed more flexibility in those areas. I slid my fingertips along them, and he tipped his head back and groaned.
Hmm. Were dragon scales an erogenous zone? I’d have to explore this idea at length.
I’d dropped down to my knees and was leaning forward, prepared to test his scales with my tongue, when I heard something rustling behind me.
I frowned and straightened.
Scrapes and clatters told me someone—something—was approaching fast.
Whatever it was grabbed me, and I screamed.
Chapter Six
Kemir
Before I could shift, a flock of morkets scurried over to me, their talons clacking together, their leather wings flapping. They arched their necks and darted me, sending drugged shots into my back, my shoulders, my neck. Venom sunk into my veins and took effect instantly.
Releasing a cut-off groan, I dropped onto my side.
Tanya shrieked as they dragged her backward.
I’d failed my mate. When I should’ve been protecting her, I’d been distracted, allowing a predator to trap us.
Trap me.
While I was well aware of their intentions toward me, it was unclear what they’d do with Tanya.
If I could change into my dragon form, I’d stomp them flat. Rip them apart. But the drugs made me useless.
While Tanya screamed and struggled to reach me, they pinned her arms at her sides.
Four of them descended on me, webs clutched tight in their claws. They tossed the finely-woven mesh over me, and it molded itself to my shape, pinning me in place.
I lay there, helpless, as they took cord they excreted from their lungs and bound my arms behind me and my legs together. In seconds, I was trussed up tight, unable to move a pinky, even if the drugs wore off, which they eventually would, but not fast enough.
Worst of all, I was unable to reach Tanya.
“Let him go,” Tanya yelled, breaking free of the two morkets who held her. She rushed over and dropped down beside me. “Kemir, are you okay?”
I couldn’t even grunt.
Her eyes grew big. “Tell me what to do.” Tears filled her eyes, and she picked at the knots binding my hands, but she wouldn’t be able to loosen them. Morket cords were stronger than wire. “You’re so still.” She must’ve seen one of the darts protruding from my skin, because she yanked it out and flung it toward the closest morket, who squawked and fluttered his tail feathers.
“Can’t. Move.” I pushed out the words with considerable effort. “Paralyzed.” I wanted to tell her they’d keep me this way for the rest of my now-very-shortened lifespan, but I didn’t want to frighten her.
“These…” After a quick glance toward the flock of morkets who watched her sullenly, she cringed. “I don’t know what they are, though they look like giant chickens with pink beaks and legs, but they need to release you.”
Vague memories of my grandfather telling me tales about farm livestock reminded me that chickens were tiny creatures that clucked around in a farmhouse yard. He said it took fifty of them to make a decent snack.
My grandfather had not been a vegetarian.
Focusing intently, I was able to pry open my mouth again. I shot out one command. “Go.”
She blinked down at me. “Go? Where?”
“Run.” If only I could shift into my dragon, swoop her up, and flee. But the drugs not only prevented movement, they prevented shifting.
A scowl filled her pretty face. “I’m not going anywhere, so get that idea out of your head right now.”
How could I ever have thought I’d dominate this woman? She had more spunk than both of us combined. But she needed to think of her own safety, not mine.
Standing, Tanya whirled to face the morkets, who had found a stick much like the one Tanya had been secured to by the sarlons.
Holding the stick tight in their claws, they marched my way.
“You’re not touching him,” she growled out. Lifting her fists, she widened her stance. “Just try me, assholes. I know self-defense.”
The morkets shoved her aside with their leathery wings, clicking and fussing. I didn’t understand their language, but it was clear they saw Tanya as nothing more than a fly to be swatted onto the ground.
Tanya stumbled, but maintained her feet. She looked around feverishly, before grabbing a branch from the fire, one end aflame. With an evil grin, she stabbed it at the morkets, who were busy lowering the long stick onto the ground beside me. “Get away from him, or I’ll burn you!”
Ignoring her, the morkets secured my arms and legs to the stick, making their bindings tight.
Darting toward one of them, Tanya poked the flaming branch into the creature’s side.
The morket batted at the branch, not even looking her way.
If I’d been able to force the words out, I would’ve told her fire wouldn’t work. Their dark brown, leathery-feathered hides protected them from all sources of heat, including dragon fire.
There didn’t seem to be any way to take down a morket.
If the rumors I’d heard were true, they’d bring me to their nest community and keep me drugged until I died from starvation and lack of movement. After that, they’d feed my corpse to their young.
What would they do with Tanya?
Since she didn’t smell like dragon, I doubted they’d see her as a resource for their young, but would they hurt her in a different manner?
“Go. Downriver,” I told her hoarsely. Eventually, the river led to my valley. She’d be safe there.
Her gaze flicked in that direction before returning to me. “No.”
“My brother, Drek. Jenny,” I said as the morkets lifted me up off the ground. “They’ll help.”
“While I’d love to rouse the cavalry, there isn’t time for that.” Rushing one of the morkets holding my stick, she tried to shove the bird, but she made no bigger impact than a speck of sand trying to make ripples on a large body of water. No matter how hard you threw the bit of sand, you couldn’t make a plop.
She grabbed a rock and, lifting it with two hands, brought it down hard on a morket’s back as it trudged past her. As I’d expect, the beast glanced at her as if she was a toddler pestering a disinterested elder. Tightening its clawed-grip on my stick, it moved forward, leaving Tanya sta
ring at it wide-eyed.
“These are Terminator chickens,” she whispered. “But just like terminators, they have their weakness. I just need to find it.”
Not morkets. You couldn’t beat them, burn them, stone them, or even poison them to death.
As far as my people had been able to tell, they were impervious to any assault.
The only thing keeping them from overrunning us—capturing and drugging us all—was the fact that there were so few of their race. Each mating pair only produced one youngling during their two-thousand-year lifespan. And the infant was not mature enough to leave the nest for at least three-hundred years. The protective parents remained close to their nests and didn’t seek us out except on rare occasions. Most of the time, they seemed to prefer eating ridders.
“I’m coming with you,” Tanya yelled as the morket flock carried me away. “I’m going to figure this out. I’ll rescue you, because…” Her sob rang out. “Because we’re meant to be together.”
Figures my mate would agree to my wooing when I could no longer celebrate with her.
Her footsteps pattered behind us as the morkets took me down the beach and around a bend. After trudging for miles, they entered a cave leading to a long string of tunnels that wove further underground. I’d explored this area when I was a fledgling, with my friends. We hadn’t dared approach the morket nests, however.
Everyone knew what happened to a dragon they caught, and while rotting wasn’t pretty, being pecked to death by a morket teenager was damn ugly.
“Hang in there, Kemir,” Tanya called out.
The solid thump of her steps should be reassuring, but her keeping up with us only filled me with dread.
If she pestered them too much, they’d seek a permanent solution. I’d have to keep that from happening. Somehow.
For Tanya’s sake, it was too bad the morkets couldn’t fly.
Chapter Seven
Tanya
If these…These giant leather ostriches thought they were going to steal Kemir away from me before I’d completely decided if I wanted him for myself or not, they had another thought coming.
HUNTED BY A DRAGON: Fated Dragon Series (Book 2 of 3) (DRAGON MATED) Page 4
