In the Arms of the King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  He was splitting her apart, she was sure of it. What felt like an eternity later, he lay within her to the hilt, and she felt him there, like solid fire lodged in her core. She could feel his pulse, every slight throb adding to her own ache and making her crave more despite the insanity.

  Eva’s teeth released her lip, and her breathing, though ragged, began to even out. Calidum held her tight beneath him, waiting. Tenderly, he kissed her earlobe. Then the side of her face, then her chin. He moved over her ever so slightly, eliciting a gasp from her as he lowered his head to her throat and placed a kiss there too.

  Eva knew what was coming. It was a dark blessing.

  She had only a moment or two, precious and fleeting, to catch her breath. If she’d wanted to, she could have told him then and there to stop. He was giving her this, this final respite. She could hear Calidum breathing, feel the heat of his breath at her neck, teasing the four pinpricks of pain already left there. She closed her eyes and let out a ragged sigh.

  And then Cal’s grip on her wrists tightened. It was the warning that came just before, the promise that she would be struggling, and that there was now no escape. She’d had her chance.

  He rose above her, regal and perfect, each muscle rippling like a sculptor’s dream, each movement so strong, so graceful, she was transfixed. He caught her gaze for a moment, heated and hungry, and then he bent again, and Eva cried out once more as his wondrous mouth closed over her right nipple.

  He sucked, his teeth pricking deliciously, as his cock pulled out of her inch by breathlessly slow inch, sending Eva spiraling toward some unknown and forbidden destination. When it seemed he’d been doing this forever, he stopped, and she had no time to brace herself, could not even think to do so – her mind was fevered, her thoughts lost in yearning. She never could have imagined such bliss.

  Calidum bit down on her tender bud, not quite breaking the skin. Delicious pain raced along her nerves throughout her body, fracturing Eva’s concentration, and as she ached for him to do it again, Calidum drove his hardness back into her with decisive fury, plunging every last hot, hard inch of himself into her tight core.

  Another scream ripped from Eva’s throat, and Cal released her wrist to cover her mouth with his hand, silencing the outcry even as he once more began to retreat. Eva sobbed into his hand, a sound of absolute defeat and absolute longing, for everything he did was exactly right – even this. His hand against her mouth felt comforting somehow. It would have been impossible to explain, and she didn’t care. She only knew that the man taking her was in control, and she couldn’t have been happier that it was him.

  Cal released her tortured breast and kissed his way to the other, blazing a trail of promise with each scorching touch of his lips. He pulled out of her below as he did this, and those stars were back in Eva’s vision. When he closed in on her nipple and pulled hard on the rose colored nub, she inhaled sharply, and he moved his hand, allowing her to do so. He grazed the tender flesh with his teeth, threatening the taut, hardening skin with penetration – and once more, just as Eva was losing sight of all her lover was doing to her, the Dragon King drove his rock hard bulk all the way into her.

  This time her cry was laced less with pain than mounting need. She ached where Calidum drove into her, but she ached worse when he began to pull back out once more. The blood that raced through her veins was like a second lover, adding to her need, meeting Calidum’s every move and pushing Eva inexorably closer to something unknown. Something that was hers alone.

  Mine.

  It was a thought planted in her mind, and one that brought Eva’s now free hand to Calidum’s hair. She ran her fingers through the thick black locks, suddenly only wanting to see his eyes.

  Cal released her breast from his ministrations and lifted his head, meeting her gaze. He was a movie star, a model, a man unlike any other, and right now he was a beautiful monster, hair darkened with sweat, his eyes burning, his teeth bared beautifully. There, in that moment, trapped in his ravenous gaze, held down by his driven body, tortured and pleasured by his every move, Evangeline understood what it meant to be claimed. To belong to someone like this.

  To be a queen.

  As if he’d read her mind, Calidum the Great Gray slowly smiled. His long, sharp fangs flashed in the dim light.

  They weren’t finished yet. Far from it.

  *****

  She was beginning to accept him, her body adjusting to accommodate his size, flooding her with the wetness of desire, bringing her to a near panicked writhing beneath him. Calidum’s entire world consisted of the feel of her – so tight, so fucking tight – he was losing his mind. She gripped him like nothing he’d ever imagined as he moved within her, withdrawing with careful slowness so that he could drive back into her.

  Mine.

  He hadn’t meant to think it, really, it was just there. She was his, and he was proving it.

  His teeth played at her nipple; he had never wanted to sink them into something so badly in all his long, long life. He used the pleasure he gave her as a diversion and prepared to thrust into her again. He almost shook with the need to do so.

  And then her hand was in his hair. He’d forgotten he’d freed one of them, releasing her wrist to cover her mouth.

  The touch of her fingers was like magic; it sent pixie-dust sensations through his skin, re-focusing his mind. He heard her thoughts. She wanted to see his eyes.

  Calidum released the nipple he so badly wanted to pierce and looked up, catching her gaze. There in the incredible beauty of those violet eyes, he saw his salvation. He saw this woman, this Legendary, this Nomad, this pillar of strength who had battled the Traitor over and over, who had become the most stunning dragon Calidum had ever beheld, and who could have rejected him, left him unforgiven as the outcast he’d been for thousands of years – and she was taking him in. She was surrendering to him. To him.

  She wanted him to claim her. She was becoming his queen.

  Mine, he thought again. And he smiled.

  It was not a kind smile. He’d waited long enough.

  With the full force of his fury, he shoved his hardness into her, eliciting another cry from her throat. But he let it sound out and used his hand on her body instead, sliding it across her taut, toned stomach to the curls between her legs. He parted them, pressing inward until he found the hard, telltale nub of her pleasure.

  She bucked beneath him, and he laughed. His other hand released her wrist as well, and moved to her hair, grasping it firmly at the back of her head. Gently, he tugged, forcing her to arch her neck. The dual bites Arach had left taunted him. They waited, no doubt sore, and small drops of Eva’s fevered blood had escaped them to trail across her pale flesh.

  He held her tight, knowing she would instinctively draw away. She wouldn’t be able to help it. He lowered his lips to her throat, closed his eyes, and inhaled. The scent of her blood tightened his grip on her, and his fingers at her core pressed harder. Eva moaned, bucking again, thrashing as if to get away. The pleasure was too intense; he could hear her scattered thoughts like shooting stars, burning themselves away as they crossed the night.

  He increased his pace inside her, pulling out faster now so that she had no time to adjust before he was plunging back in, stretching her to her limits. She continued to move beneath him, arching her back against him in a way that drove him mad. But she was fueled by the strength his blood gave her, and by her own growing desire, and he needed her stillness for what he was about to do.

  I’m going to have to tie her down, he thought distantly. But instead, he stayed lodged deep inside her, gently kissed the side of her throat, and pressed expertly on her clitoris. Within short seconds, Eva wrapped her arms around him, dug her nails into his back, and came around his cock.

  She screamed again, this time in pure pleasure. Below, she clenched and unclenched, her muscles innocently massaging his dick so that he was suddenly seeing spots, and his vision tunneled. He ground out a desperate sound, low and deep
, a growl that was more monster than man. And then, as she was wrapped tight in this cocoon of erotic bliss, Calidum carried out the rest of his plan.

  He maintained his hold on her hair and brought his other hand to the side of her face. He touched her tenderly, in a way she would barely notice through her haze of contentment. Gingerly, he tilted her head, again exposing the length of her throat. He eyed the bite marks menacingly. These were more personal, more meaningful than the one Arach had left on her wrist. They had to be dealt with another way.

  Calidum bared his teeth – and bit down.

  His fangs slid tightly into the twin wounds, stretching them as he had stretched her below, but this time there was no pleasure in it, and he knew that. Another man had attempted to claim her. Calidum was a dragon, and not just any dragon. He was as dragon as they came, and dragons possessed their mates completely. Entirely. In every way.

  They’d both known it would come to this, that Cal would make Arach’s marks his own. But the pain was the same, warning or not, and he’d been right that she would fight him.

  She screamed, and beat at him suddenly, torn from her initial pleasure by the cruelty of teeth. But Cal kept his grip firm and didn’t move a muscle, waiting for her to calm down beneath him. She carved up his back; he felt blood running and it almost made him smile. She was bruising him, tearing into him, but he remained steadfast in his task.

  This would be done.

  His hardness throbbed inside Eva’s beautiful body, insistent and aching, not at all abated by the fact that he now tasted her blood on his tongue. His teeth were in her throat, his cock in her warmth. She was his – his – in every single sense, and he yearned for nothing more than to show her exactly what that meant.

  But he waited.

  And before a full minute passed, Eva released a shaking sob and returned her hand to his hair, gripping it as tightly as he held her. Thank you… her mind whispered. She’d wanted him to do it, to erase Arach’s presence from her once and for all.

  Cal closed his eyes and sucked gently, pulling just the tiniest bit of her blood onto his tongue. It was like wine, heady and powerful, refueled with a Legendary’s magic by his own infusion. He could have kept drinking. He could have just stayed there and rammed himself into her again and again and taken them both over the edge of oblivion. But they both knew he wasn’t finished.

  His free hand found her breast and tweaked the nipple just hard enough to be nearly painful. She gasped, and he did it again as he pulled his dick out a few precious inches. She moaned when he took that hardened nipple between his fingers and twisted, pinching hard enough that she arched into his hand to ease the pain.

  As she did, he withdrew his fangs from the bite that was now his. Eyes still closed, he ran his tongue over his teeth and almost shuddered at the taste of her. As he slowly pressed his length back into her, he grasped her chin and turned her toward him for a kiss.

  The kiss was hard and deep; he was running out of will, nearly at the end of his rope with need, and all the while he moved within her – in and out. He pulled away slowly, tauntingly, and drove forward brutally, deeply. They settled into a rhythm, and he heard her heart race, caught the scent of renewed desire, and knew he was once more taking her to pleasure’s plummeting cliffs.

  The pain of his bite was all but forgotten when he again focused on her throat and the second bite mark. He was almost out of his mind himself at that point, driven near blind by the feel of her around him and beneath him. But he moved over the marks, bared his fangs, and did what had to be done, sinking them hard and fast into the holes already there.

  This time, there was no scream. She made a sound, and her body lurched beneath him, but the sound was different and laced with lust, a mixture of pain and rapture, of surrender and pleading, the sound of a woman on the very, very edge.

  Calidum smiled wickedly against her flesh and carefully drew her blood into his mouth, swallowing the precious liquid that made him drunk with power. He released her hair and let his hands slide down her body, circling her breasts before he squeezed them both gently and ran his thumbs over her nipples.

  Again he twisted. Again he pulled. Eva responded to every manipulation like a beautiful, precious puppet on his wickedly drawn strings, and as he quickened the pace, driving harder and faster into her tight core, he took another drink and swallowed.

  Mine, he thought again.

  You.

  Are.

  Mine.

  Eva exploded into her climax, her body going rigid, her breasts thrust forward, her head flying back as it rocked through her like an electric bomb.

  Calidum saw stars when that pulsing, ringing climax mercilessly wrenched from him his own orgasm. He pulled his teeth from Eva’s neck and rose above her, roaring into the night as he came into her with violent fury. Again and again, he released his seed deep within her, searing her with yet another part of him as he once and for all claimed his mate. In every possible way.

  Across the realms, dragons everywhere heard the bellowed cry, distant but strong, and knew what it was.

  The Dragon Realm now had a queen.

  The Time King,

  The Kings, Book Thirteen

  Will knew what she was seeing. He knew what she must have been thinking. In that crazy moment of blessed bliss, he felt if he’d wanted to he could have delved into her mind and read the thoughts like a vampire. Or something more than a vampire.

  Like a god.

  Her touch so warm, so gentle, was a salve on a soul he hadn’t even realized was wounded. It had laid open and bleeding for what felt like eons. But the moment she tenderly took him in her hands and gazed into his eyes, he began to heal. And he knew he was right.

  All he wanted in the multiverse was this woman right here. He would do anything for her. She made him complete. Whole. Even invincible.

  There in the heat of his empowered gaze, he knew she saw something frightening. He could feel it infiltrating his form, sinking into his muscle and bone, flowing through his blood. He heard something distant like the ticking of a million clocks, and he could have sworn they were ticking away inside him. And he didn’t care.

  Only Helena mattered.

  As he rose above her, opened his eyes, and captured her with ages of longing, he knew this was the telling moment, the deciding factor. This was zero hour.

  What would she do? Would she run from him? Would he let her?

  She said nothing as she stared up at him, wrapped in the literal magic of his emerald fire gaze. Her throat worked that beautiful swallow again, and her lips parted, her breath panting softly, her glittering claret-colored eyes making him feel equally intoxicated. She was lost to him, and he knew it. He could have laughed darkly, grinned in triumph, crowed in victory. If he’d had the patience. But he didn’t.

  So he straddled her narrow waist with a strong knee on either side of her and sat up in one swift motion, grabbing his shirt to yank it over his head. He wanted to feel her on his skin, needed to feel her. He tossed the shirt to the side and caught the hitch in her breathing as she stared up at him. He smiled, leaned over, and cupped his hand behind her neck, gently pulling her into a sitting position in front of him, his legs still straddling hers.

  “Raise your arms, Helena. I want these clothes off you.”

  She did as he said, raising her arms over her head as if in a dream. Will curled his fingers under the hem of her shirt, brushing them against her skin as he lifted it up along her ribcage, exposing her inch by delicious inch. His own breath caught now, his strong body flexed with tension. His broad chest felt strange as he exposed her to his hunger.

  When the shirt was over her head, he sent that flying as well, and then slowly, tenderly, ran his hands around her rib cage until he’d encircled her, and his fingers worked the clasp of her bra. He held her gaze as he deftly, easily unhooked it.

  She went still in his arms. She knew this was it. Her final barrier of defense was about to come crashing down.

  His h
ands spread at her back, moving the straps over her shoulders and down her arms until she was fully exposed to him, and he could have stared down at her forever. No matter how long that was.

  His teeth were bared now, his gaze on fire. He was aching all over, breaking out in a sweat, rock hard with need. “Now the jeans,” he said. It was not a request; he was simply telling her what was going to go next.

  Her breathing quickened, becoming a rapid-fire response to his assault on her senses. She hesitated, so Will moved in, wrapping his arm around her again to pull her against him.

  Her body on his, skin on skin, set him alight like a bonfire. He could almost hear the inferno catch and raise to the heavens, radiating enough heat for the universe. His fingers curled into her back; he had to fight not to leave a mark. She made a soft sound against him, but whether in pain or pleasure he could not know.

  He placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head to capture her eyes. They were glassed over, nearly unseeing, her brow furrowed with climbing frustration. Just how he wanted her. He bowed his head until his lips were against hers, then commanded, “Lay back, Helena.” He kissed her gently, just the slightest brush of his lips against the plump softness of hers. “And help me take them off.”

  Or I will rip them off.

  As if she’d heard the after-thought, her eyes widened. She placed her hands to his chest, and he inhaled shakily, hissing through clenched teeth. Her touch was bliss, warm and tentative and precious. And when she pushed against him to lay back, he almost didn’t let her. But that wouldn’t be fair, would it?

  So he leaned over, lowering her to his bed, and kissed her gently once more, lingering on the taste of her before he finally let her go to sit back up. He leaned back, reached behind his bent knees, and grasped the laces of her boots. Sweat glinted off the ripped contours of his chest as he did, and Helena broke eye contact, her gaze wandering. He almost laughed. But instead, he just absorbed the attention, his head – and other things – swelling.