Feral Ice: Paranormal Fantasy (Ice Dragons Book 1)

by Ann Gimpel

  I wrenched away from his embrace but remained so close the heat from him seared me. “But I need all the facts,” I protested. “Every detail. How can I make such a momentous decision without knowing?”

  “The only fact you require is that you will no longer be human if our call for a dragon to bond with you meets with success. No going back, Erin. It’s either a full commitment—or none at all.”

  “But that’s not fair. You’re asking me to embrace something I know nothing about.” I cringed. I sounded like a whiny, spoiled child.

  He took a step back. Where before his face had been open, raw with emotions, now it was carefully smoothed over. I couldn’t read anything at all.

  “You know more than you think,” he said. “Your home is under attack. The serpents are strong enough to overpower any weapon mankind has at its disposal. We require magic to combat the serpents. You could help. Or you can throw your life away.”

  The smooth veneer cracked, and he cupped the side of my face with his hand. “I care about you, Erin, but I can’t let that intrude. Not now. You must want magic, want to be a dragon shifter regardless of how I feel about you. Feelings you might harbor toward me are also irrelevant.”

  I started to insist I felt nothing for him, but it was a lie. If he was as proficient at reading me as he claimed, I’d be better served keeping my mouth shut. Besides, he was correct. Any decision I came to had to be between me and magic.

  Between me and the unknown and marshaling my fear enough to move forward.

  What the hell was I so frightened of?

  Why was I letting it hornswoggle me? I’d always been a master at managing my fear and my anger and my outrage. Pushing them to places they wouldn’t get in the way. What was different now?

  “The difference,” he cut in smoothly, proving he was indeed living inside my head, “is you must suspend your inherent disbelief in the existence of magic. If you can’t move past it, there will be no way for you to become a magical being.”

  It made sense. And I was being a ninny. Wasting everyone’s time when time was of the essence. Even now, I envisioned the sea-serpents digging in somewhere above us and leeching power from Earth to sustain their magic, build it up, and make it strong enough to wreak havoc.

  We had a tiny slice of time while they were vulnerable as humans. If we waited too long, they’d be immortal in both forms—just like the dragons.

  Faced with hard evidence, how could I maintain my residual suspicion magic wasn’t real?

  I placed a hand over the one he still had curved around my jaw. “All right. I will do whatever it takes to become like you.” My inner voice, the one that had lodged a protest before, was silent.

  I felt something like an electric shock travel from my feet to my head. It might have come from me, but I suspected Konstantin was assessing my words. Checking to see if they represented my true intent, or if I still harbored enough doubts to sabotage our efforts.

  The tingling changed from insistent to pleasant. He murmured, “Not perfect, but it might be enough,” just before he crushed his mouth on mine.

  The kiss stunned me enough I didn’t turn my head right away. He tasted sweet and smoky, and his touch ignited me as if I’d been a pile of dry tinder just waiting for him to toss a match atop the heap.

  I wanted to mine for information, to know what magic he’d weave to find a dragon for me, but my desire to never let go of him surpassed everything. I opened my mouth to him and wrapped my arms around his back, reveling in the muscles beneath my fingers.

  His cock, the appendage I’d been surreptitiously ogling since the moment I laid eyes on him, rose in a column and pressed into my belly. Desire spilled through me in a hot tide, thick and sweet as melted honey. For one of the first times in my life, I ceded control, trusting the man in my arms wouldn’t lead us astray.

  Had he been human, I’d never have come to that conclusion. Perhaps I was destined for magic after all. I sparred with his tongue, and my nipples sent sparks to my belly. I’d just reached between us, intent on wrapping a hand around his cock, when he pulled his mouth away.

  “You’re amazing, but we have spells to cast.”

  So lost in wanting him, I wasn’t monitoring what came out of my mouth, and I said, “Even if this doesn’t work, I still want to make love.”

  Konstantin shook his head. “No negative thoughts. None at all. This will work, and we will mate as dragons.” Steam puffed from his mouth, bathing me in mist.

  It reminded me how real this was and sobered me up fast. Easy to get sidetracked by sex—it was familiar. The ground we’d tread next was as alien as anything I’d ever encountered, but I’d chosen it.

  Like all my choices, once I made a commitment, I’d see it through.

  “Good woman.” His smile melted my heart—and a few other places as well. Not that they needed more melting.

  Konstantin dropped his hands onto my shoulders and began to chant. The room dissolved around us; we floated in a sea of grayish mist. His words surrounded me, kept me from falling into the endless void below. I reached for him, grabbed his waist, and hung on.

  After a while, the words that had been so much gibberish, made sense. It wasn’t English, far from it, but I understood he was requesting aid from Y Ddraigh Goch to find me a dragon of my own.

  Chapter 13

  Konstantin wasn’t certain why he’d kissed Erin, but he hadn’t been able to resist. Maybe it was the dragon pushing him. Or maybe it was the allure of having her so close. Once she capitulated, decided to give magic a chance, he’d been charmed by her courage.

  After an initial hesitation, she dissolved into his arms, kissing him back as if he were her only hedge against drowning in an unfamiliar sea. Her nipples had formed stiff peaks where they pressed against his chest, and his cock shot to attention, hard and full and ready. The scent of her arousal was like nectar, stoking his hunger. A cinnamon-vanilla mix with musky undernotes.

  He’d kissed her for longer than he should have because he couldn’t make himself stop. She had the most amazing lips, firm, full, and sensual, and she gave as good as she got. Teasing his tongue with hers and exchanging biting and sucking kisses for softer, deeper ones.

  She pressed a hand between their bodies, her intent crystal clear, but once she touched him, he’d truly be lost. He broke away from the kiss and told her, “You’re amazing, but we have spells to cast.”

  Regarding him from eyes that had darkened to midnight, she murmured, “Even if this doesn’t work, I still want to make love.”

  He smiled and shook his head, steam billowing from his mouth. “No negative thoughts. None at all. This will work, and we will mate as dragons.”

  His cock, perilously close to losing control, shuddered at the thought of aerial lovemaking. To forestall anything that would get in the way of casting the magic to begin Erin’s transformation, he dropped his hands onto her shoulders and began to chant.

  He led them to a place between worlds, one that would make it easy to transition to the most promising location for Erin’s first shift. Presuming his entreaties to his god were fruitful, Y Ddraigh Goch would point the way to where that might be.

  She held onto him, fluid in his arms. He let himself hope. She hadn’t told him no when he’d announced they’d mate as dragons, but she might be so overwhelmed by everything it hadn’t registered. She wanted him, but there was so much she didn’t know. Dragon matings were forever. She had to know that before they made love in either form.

  He was free to have sex with humans, but sex with another dragon shifter was permanent. It would bond them together forever. He’d been cowardly not to tell her, but he wasn’t certain his spell would work. If it didn’t, and she remained human, they could engage in all the sex they wanted.

  If the world was a different place.

  The urgency of dealing with the sea-serpents changed everything. If Erin couldn’t transform herself, he’d have little choice but to return her to the human world, memories
nicely erased so she wouldn’t live out the rest of her life yearning after the dragon that got away. Human minds were fragile, and chasing after the bond that had eluded her would consume her mind. Perhaps not right away, but it would chip away at her sanity until nothing was left.

  But bedding her as a human wasn’t his desire. He longed for her with a singlemindedness that had eluded him through the long years of his existence. He didn’t just want her to warm his bed. He wanted her by his side, sharing his life. For that, she had to be like him.

  And, of course, she had to return his desire for a lifelong mate. She lusted after him, but whether it extended beyond the heat coursing through her remained to be seen. He was adept at reading minds, but intuiting intent required different skills. Ones more subtle than what he’d employed.

  He continued chanting. Concern pricked him because of how long this was taking. If Y Ddraigh Goch approved of creating new dragon shifters from humans, he would have answered by now. That he hadn’t meant he had to be considering the wisdom of such a move.

  One thing Konstantin hadn’t done was tell his god about the serpents. He’d assumed Y Ddraigh Goch already knew, but perhaps he didn’t. Switching away from his spell, he laid out the threat facing Earth. Not that the god would give a speckled dragon’s foot about the third planet from the sun in this solar system, but he would care about the serpents escaping from their enforced isolation.

  If Konstantin remembered anything about him, he’d not only care. He’d be furious, and his rage would drive action. Message delivered, he returned to his spell, the one that should end with a dragon for Erin.

  She glanced at him, questions in her eyes, but this wasn’t a time for conversation or explanations. “All is well,” he told her and hoped to hell it was true.

  Were Katya and Johan doing the same thing? Was that at the root of Y Ddraigh Goch’s reluctance? Concern that once he kicked this particular gate open, it would mean hundreds of new dragon shifters?

  Time passed in the space between worlds, but it was meaningless since it held no link to real time anywhere else. Sooner or later, the god would answer him. Perhaps not with words. If Konstantin slid back to his lair beneath the polar ice cap, he’d understand well enough.

  Would he try again? Maybe. It was important enough to argue the point.

  Within him, his dragon grew restive. It wasn’t patient, but then no dragon was. An edgy lot, they far preferred action to waiting around. He tightened his control over it.

  And waited.

  Finally, after hours or maybe days, the air developed a different feel. Erin had been drowsing, eyes shut, leaning against him as they floated in the ether between worlds. The change was understated at first, but it gathered momentum fast.

  Erin’s eyes flew open. “What’s happening?”

  He gripped her shoulders. “I’m not certain, but we will have an outcome soon.”

  “Yes, but which one?”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

  He focused his attention inward hoping for clues from his dragon, but the beast had retreated after he rejected its bid for freedom. Air pounded against him in waves, not unlike the sea. Dragon scents of smoke and sunbaked clay surrounded them.

  He kept up his chant. He’d done it this long despite a throat long past the point of pain. A few bugles would clear things up, but they weren’t part of his casting. The air sheltering them peeled back in layers not unlike a theater curtain, revealing an oblong gateway that glittered with silver and gold tones.

  “Hold tight to me,” he instructed and lifted Erin into his arms before jumping through the portal.

  Something was about to happen, and it wasn’t them being swept back to his starting point. If refusal was Y Ddraigh Goch’s intent, the god wouldn’t have bothered with such an elaborate gateway.

  The cushy spot between worlds yielded to a black, airless void. He tucked Erin’s head into his shoulder and murmured, “Don’t panic. This part never lasts long.”

  Confident words, but even his superior lung capacity, courtesy of his dragon, was stretched thin by the time air molecules reappeared. He panted, sucking them in. The blackness shattered around him, replaced by a surreal landscape. He was used to eerie worlds, ones inhabited by prehistoric creatures no one had laid eyes on in millennia, but this place held a macabre beauty that stole his attention.

  Erin writhed in his arms. “Put me down. What the hell is this place?”

  He set her on her feet, and she turned in a full circle. Fascinated, he did the same. A violet sky was streaked with silver. Twin somethings, maybe moons, cast so much light they might have been suns after all. Trees grew all around them. Huge, ancient trees with gnarled silver bark and limbs like an arcane ballet of twisting arms and legs.

  Silver and orange leaves hung from the branches and rustled, although the air was perfectly still. Space between the trees allowed him to see for a long way. Rolling land extended on all sides, butting up against less-gentle foothills perhaps a kilometer distant. The dirt beneath his feet held a coppery cast, and it was chilly.

  “What is this place?” Erin repeated.

  “A borderworld, yet one I’ve never been to.” The sound of rushing water beckoned. He could swear it hadn’t been there a few moments before, but he said, “Come on.”

  Sure enough, a few zigs and zags between trees brought them to a creek burbling out of an enormous rock. Bending, he cupped his hands and drank. The water laved his abraded throat, raw from hours of chanting.

  Erin crouched beside him. “How do you know it’s safe?” she demanded.

  He turned toward her, water dripping down his chin. “I’m immortal.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah. I’d forgotten that part, mostly because it seems impossible.”

  “Why?” He drank more, slaking his thirst.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Are you thirsty?”

  “Yeah, but not enough to take a chance on an unknown water source.”

  He slid up the bank and sat on a large flat rock, patting the place next to him. “I believe we are here because Y Ddraigh Goch has looked favorably on my request to transform you.” He hesitated, hunting for words.

  “Whatever it is, just say it. You’ve got that make it agreeable look again.”

  “Maybe because there’s no way I can describe the process. You want to understand what will happen next, and I don’t know. Not exactly. I was born to my dual nature, so I have no direct experience with what will happen to you.”

  “You can speculate,” she pressed.

  “I could, but it might be very far off base.” Steam puffed from his mouth as his dragon attempted to soothe her.

  She batted it aside. Her forehead furrowed into worried lines, but she looked determined, shoulders straight, chin tilted upward.

  He ached to help her, to ease whatever would come next, but this was a path she’d have to follow on her own.

  “Earlier, your chanting…” she began, and then shook her head and tried again. “I couldn’t understand what you were saying at first, but after a while, the words made sense. Almost as if they’d turned into English, except they hadn’t.”

  Surprise jostled him. Her transformation had already begun, but not in a way he could have predicted. If he’d known, his faith would have been stronger, and he wouldn’t have worried quite so much.

  “It might be good news,” he murmured.

  “So you know what it means?” she asked.

  “Maybe.” In case he was wrong, he didn’t want to raise false hope. “It could signify that your dragon has already begun the process of joining with you. Dragons speak all languages. If it melded its consciousness with yours, my mantra would have become understandable.”

  Erin turned her hands palms up. “I don’t feel any different.”

  He inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. Should he ask his dragon to encourage the other one waiting in the wings to bond with Erin? Was there even such a dragon hanging about?
<
br />   He wished he knew more.

  Perhaps because he’d been thinking about his beast, it raced to the fore, pressing for a shift with unusual insistence given there was nothing to kill nearby. Fire shot from his mouth, followed by ash and smoke.

  The summons was so urgent, he told Erin, “I’m going to shift. My dragon is wise. It must know something, and it’s demanding its form be primary.”

  “What should I do?”

  With the last of his human mouth, he said, “Remove your clothes so they don’t end up in shreds.”

  His dragon bugled laughter; Konstantin had to admit it was funny for him to tell a woman he desperately desired to get naked when lovemaking wasn’t imminent.

  The dragon formed quickly. Wings. Talons. Forelegs. Hind legs. Scales. Through it all, he watched as Erin peeled away layers of clothing. Her body was stunning with rounded breasts tipped by pink nipples. They stood in peaks but probably from fear and cold, rather than lust. Her shoulders were broad and well-formed, her stomach flat between flared hips. She was facing him, so he couldn’t see her ass, but he visualized it as high and full. A triangle of golden curls sat between her long legs. His dragon cock hardened, curving next to his scaled belly.

  He told his beast to stand down. Erin still didn’t know any of the rules surrounding dragon-shifter matings. Hell, she wasn’t a dragon shifter. Not yet, anyway. She’d folded her arms beneath her breasts and rocked from foot to foot. He’d bet anything she had to be cold. This borderworld, lush and elegant as it was, didn’t hold much warmth.

  Konstantin settled near enough for some of the heat radiating from his hide to help.

  “Tell her to welcome me!” blasted into his mind.

  Erin huddled against his scaled front, oblivious to the dragon’s words, which meant she hadn’t heard it. He lumbered back a pace or two and bent to draw in the dirt with a talon.