by Lili Zander
A white-haired wolf with no-nonsense eyes enters the room and overhears that last comment. She’s Pack Helferich’s healer, Felisberta Haas. “Nonsense,” she scolds Mateo. “I’ve never heard a stupider idea in my life, young man.”
I snicker at that because Mateo is at least two hundred and fifty years older than her.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she continues. “Yes, I know your magic is back, but there still might be repercussions. You need to take it easy. Bed rest for the next three days at least. Understood?”
Bastian bites back his grin. “I’ll make sure of it, Frau Haas,” he assures her. “Do you have the blade? I want it tested for poison.”
My blood runs cold. Rhys sees my expression. “It’s just a precaution,” he reassures me. “We all know that Valentini can’t hold his liquor.”
“Fuck off, Griffith,” Mateo retorts.
The healer frowns at their banter. The door has barely closed behind her when Mateo tries to push himself from the bed. I jump forward and push him back down. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Oh come on. The wolf worries for no reason. There’s too much to do for me to lay in bed all day.”
I look at Bastian, and he just shrugs in a what-are-you-going-to-do kind of way. Men.
“You will do as the healer said,” I growl. “You’re going to rest for the next three days, even if I’m going to have to sit on you to keep you in bed. Got it?”
He winks at me. “If you sit on me, I’ll gladly stay in bed, tesoro.”
I have to laugh. The stubborn dragon was half-dead an hour ago, and already he’s flirting. “No extracurricular activities.”
Ever want to see a dragon pout? Tell him he’s stuck in bed for three days and there will be no naked time.
79
Aria
“How are you, mausezähnchen?”
It’s Friday. Almost one full week since I got to Germany, and things have finally settled down.
Mateo’s made a speedy recovery. Despite what Frau Haas said, he was up and about yesterday. “The more I think about it,” he said sheepishly during our magic lesson in the library, “The more I’m inclined to blame the beer. I’m never going to live this down.”
For the last couple of days, I’ve only really seen Bastian at meals. He’s been busy with both his company and with all the bullshit that comes with being Head Honcho Dragon.
But tonight’s our date night, and it’s also the night I get to give him my present.
“Really good,” I answer. I can’t hold back the smile that spreads across my face as I look at Bastian. It feels like so much has happened so quickly, and I haven’t had nearly enough time to appreciate the fact that I have five amazing mates. It all still feels surreal.
I close the distance between us and push my hands to Bastian’s strong chest. “Better with you here now.”
He gently tucks a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy,” he says. “I wish I could spend more time with you…”
“But you have responsibilities. That’s okay. You’re here now.”
Being so close to Bastian has my body heating uncomfortably. My nipples press against the cotton of my bra, and I have to fight the desire to rub against his body like a cat in heat.
Bastian’s nostrils flare, and I have no doubt that he can sense my need. “Have I been neglecting you, mausezähnchen?” He pulls me against his body, closing the little space that remained between us. “I would hate for you to feel neglected…” He cups my breast, rubbing his thumb over my hardened nipple.
“Not neglected per se…” I moan when he presses his lips to my sensitive neck, licking and kissing me in a way that never fails to drive me crazy. Threading my fingers through his hair, I drag his mouth to mine.
There is no slow build to our kiss. Bastian is always in perfect control of himself—and me—and the fact that he’s as wild and out of control for me as I am for him makes me feel wanton and bold.
I break away from his grip. “You know, Bastian…” I tease my fingertips down his chest, coming to rest on the hard muscles of his abdomen. “I never did give you your birthday present.”
I slowly move my hands down until they are resting just above his belt.
Bastian swallows thickly, his eyes flashing with desire. “You’re all the present I need, Aria,” he says. “I don’t want anything else.”
Aww. Sometimes, Bastian’s so unexpectedly sweet that it’s almost a jolt to my system.
Don’t melt into a puddle of goo, Aria.
“Would you like to know what I wanted to give you?” I quirk up an eyebrow and smile innocently, my fingertips tracing back and forth along his waistband.
Ask me. Go ahead. Let me blow your mind.
“Tell me, mausezähnchen,” he commands in his typical control-freak manner. He looks like he’s ready to throw me down on the nearest flat surface and have his wicked way with me, and I’m trying to resist the urge to let him do exactly that.
“After our dance at Equinox,” I say, licking my lips. “I was going to drag you off the dance floor and into the men’s restroom for a very special birthday blowjob.”
Bastian goes from horny to green in seconds. “In a public restroom?” he asks, sounding aghast.
Oh God. This is hilarious. I think my big, scary dragon is a germaphobe.
“Mhm,” I nod, trying to hide my smile. “That’s right. I was going to push you against the wall…” I take a step toward him and reach for his belt. “Pull out your big, beautiful cock.” He still looks freaked out, and I have to bite my lip to keep myself from laughing out loud as he takes a step back as if to escape me and my terrifying germs. “And then I was going to fall to my knees in front of you… right there in the middle of the restroom. Where anyone could have walked in on us.”
“You were going to… in a public restroom?” he repeats.
I’m almost offended at the look of disgust on his face and the incredulity in his tone. Almost. This is the funniest thing of all time.
“You seem awfully hung up on the whole public thing. I would’ve locked the door before getting on my knees for you, but…”
“You can’t be serious about having sex in a public restroom.”
“Did I say sex?” I tilt my head to the side. “I was just going to give you a blowjob, but if you’d rather sex… I’m sure we could’ve made that happen.” I grin at him. “It was your birthday, after all.”
“Do you have any idea how filthy a public restroom is?” Bastian asks, his tone deathly serious.
I give up the fight and give in to my giggles. “Oh my God, you should see your face. I wasn’t planning on licking the floor, baby. Just you. Don’t tell me the big bad dragon prince is scared of a few measly Norm germs.”
His voice turns offended. “Just because I appreciate cleanliness doesn’t mean…”
He doesn’t finish his thought because I’m laughing too hard. Seeing my mirth, he reluctantly cracks a smile. “Okay,” he admits. “I’m a little paranoid.”
“Can Norm germs hurt you?” I ask curiously. “If you caught a cold, would you be sneezing fire?”
He shakes his head with a chuckle. “Like all shifters, we’re immune to most Norm diseases.”
“So what is it about public bathrooms then? I thought it was a rite of passage for men to have dirty sex in a darkened club restroom at least once in their lives.”
Bastian snorts. “Not everyone enjoys the idea of orgasming in a place where there is fecal matter on the ceiling.”
Wait, what? So. Much. Ugh.
“I am never going to forget that image,” I groan and then sigh. “It is a shame though. You’ll never know how good I am at giving blowjobs in a restroom.”
Bastian’s eyes flash with mirth as he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder. I squeal in protest and smack him on the ass. “Put me down!”
He ignores me and continues taking long strides to wherever he’s carting
me off to. We abruptly stop, and the room spins as I’m righted. I stumble a little as the blood rushes back to where it belongs. Bastian flicks the light on, and I giggle when I realize he’s carried me to his personal bathroom.
Marble tiles, gold fixtures, and velvet drapes. Definitely not a dirty public bathroom. Luxurious is an understatement.
“What are you waiting for, mausezähnchen?” Bastian asks. “I think I’d like my birthday present now.”
My breath catches in my throat at the hungry way he’s looking at me. Yes, please! All thoughts of teasing leave my mind as I fall to my knees in front of him. I quickly undo his belt and pull down both his pants and boxer briefs. Gripping his thick length in my hand, I look up at Bastian through my eyelashes as I run my tongue over his straining length.
Fire lights his blue-gray irises as I slowly suck him into my mouth. I swirl my tongue around the head, then take more of him into my mouth, going as deep as I can, swallowing around him so I don’t gag.
“Oh fuck, Aria.”
I use my mouth and hand in perfect sync, making sure every inch of his length is stimulated. Bastian is practically vibrating with need as I work him toward climax. I’m slick with desire, and I feel my free hand moving toward my pussy without conscious thought.
“Hands behind your back, Aria,” Bastian snaps.
My eyes widen, and I look up at him in question. “You heard me,” he says firmly.
Control freak. I moan around his cock, and my hands move pliantly behind my back. Bastian grips my hair and takes control of my movements. My nipples pebble to painful bullets and my pussy clenches hard. I love it when Bastian takes control.
He moves me up and down his length, telling me to suck harder. Telling me that I’m perfect. That I look beautiful with my mouth wrapped around his cock. That he can smell my wet pussy. Each dirty word ratchets up my own need until I’m delirious with heat. I want him so much.
“I’m going to come in this pretty little mouth,” he grinds out. “And I want you to swallow every drop.”
I moan in agreement, sucking him enthusiastically. Bastian’s length swells, then pulses as he releases in my mouth. I swallow him down, using my tongue and throat to milk him of every drop. “Fuck,” he groans again.
I’m so wound up that just one touch on my clit will do it.
I barely have time to catch my breath before Bastian’s got me bent over the sink, my pants around my ankles, and his face buried in my pussy.
“Bastian!” I scream as my orgasm explodes through my body. Holy shitballs Batman. I’ve never climaxed so fast in my entire life. I try to stand up, but Bastian’s big hand cracks down on my upturned ass.
“Did I tell you that you could get up?”
Hell yes. Dominant-Bastian is hot.
“No,” I reply meekly.
“Then stay where you are, mausezähnchen.”
His tongue flicks against my clit, and I shudder. When he sucks it between his lips, I come undone. When he buries his fingers deep inside me, pressing against my g-spot with expert precision, I know I’ve died and gone to orgasm heaven. My body convulses as another climax racks my body.
Somewhere between orgasm two and three, I think I pass out. The next thing I’m aware of is being cuddled up to Bastian in his bed. I’m exactly where I want to be.
80
Aria
A week goes by. My days are filled with magic lessons and practicing with Endellion. Most days, my sword-fighting skills are far superior to my magic ability. But through experimentation, we find that whenever I’m wearing the Bloodstone around my neck, my magic feels strongest, even though I’m careful not to borrow magic from it. Not after what happened the time I bled on it.
But it’s not all work. Mateo spends a lot of his spare time working on a complicated piece of magic. “I’m trying to translocate one of the rooms in the castle,” he says when we ask him what he’s doing. “Specifically, the study.”
“Umm, why?”
“The Silver Mage’s wards are tied to the castle,” he replies. “My hypothesis is that if I can move one of the rooms somewhere else, then the wards will come with us.”
I remain confused until Mateo manages to perfect the spell, and I get to see it in action. One weekend, Mateo piles all of us into the study, and tugs at the threads of magic. I feel a whoosh of air and a sense of being displaced. “What happened?” I ask when he lowers his hands.
He smiles at me with a twinkle in his eyes. “Look out the window.”
I do, and my mouth falls open. The view isn’t of the snow-tipped lawn in front of the castle. No. When I look out, I see the Eiffel Tower. “Are we in Paris? How is this possible?”
“I told you,” he replies. “I moved the room.” The others are looking just as impressed as I am, and Mateo shrugs, seemingly uncomfortable with the attention. “It’s not hard to move an object,” he says modestly. “Aria, you know that as well as I do. The only complicated bit was making sure that the castle wards stayed intact. Which they have. So, shall we go explore the city?”
“Can you move people too? Never mind, that’s a dumb question. I mean, you moved us, so obviously you can.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not a dumb question,” he replies. “And the answer to that is, only if I can see them.”
“Why?”
“Dragons can’t sense other dragons,” he replies. “You can see each of us in your mind’s eye, but I can’t. We have a built-in immunity to some kinds of magic.”
Huh. Interesting.
After we return from Paris, Mateo starts teaching me how to translocate people, and I realize how simple it is to summon an object in comparison. “He’s fighting me,” I complain as Mateo tells me to move Rhys from one end of the room to the other.
“Well, yes. Of course he’s going to fight you,” Mateo replies. “Try again.”
By the end of that week, I’m exhausted. “I wish I could summon a broomstick and escape these dragons,” I snap at Mateo in the study after a particularly grueling lesson.
He looks puzzled, and it breaks my nerdy little heart. “What are you talking about, tesoro?”
“Harry Potter? When he summons his Firebolt? You’ve never read the books? What about the movies? Surely you’ve seen the movies.”
He shakes his head. I turn to Bastian, who’s doing something on his laptop. “Bastian, what about you? Have you seen Harry Potter?”
He looks up from his screen and gives me a perplexed look.
Okay. This must be fixed. My face brightens. “Let’s do a movie marathon tomorrow night.” I look around the room, meeting the eyes of all of my mates. Erik tries to avoid my gaze, but I’m having none of it. “All of us,” I add for good measure.
Bastian has a movie theatre in his castle. Because that’s normal. I gasp when I see it. The room’s set up like a high-end movie theater. The whole front wall is a massive screen, the furniture consists of plush chairs that recline, and there’s even a popcorn machine off to one side.
“It’s not my fault,” he says defensively when he catches my astonished expression. “I haven’t been here in twenty years, remember? The designer got carried away. It looked good on her portfolio.”
Frau Ziegler bustles into the room. “The pizza has been delivered, Lord Jaeger,” she says. “Shall I bring it in?”
“Yes, please.”
My eyes go round. “There’s pizza? Really?”
“Olives, mushrooms, and spinach,” Casius says with a grin. “Ready for dinner?”
“The real question is, is dinner is ready for me? I’m starving.”
He chuckles. Frau Ziegler enters the room, carrying five large boxes of pizza in her hands. For six people. Seems about right. I grab half of them from her and set it down on the table in the back.
“We’ve got it from here,” Bastian tells the housekeeper. “Take the night off, Frau Ziegler. I don’t want Derther complaining that I’m working you too hard.”
“Nonsense,” she says w
ith a smile. She puts a slice of pizza on a plate and hands it to me, and then turns to leave. “Are you sure you don’t want anything?”
“Perfectly sure,” Bastian replies with a grin. “Unless you have a way to get me out of watching this movie?”
I give him a withering look, but there’s a piping hot slice covered in black olives, mushrooms, spinach, and dripping with extra sauce in front of me, and that takes priority. I take a bigger than necessary bite and moan in delight.
“Good?” Bastian asks.
I nod as I chew. “Almost as good as New York,” I say between bites.
He chuckles. “Almost? Next time I’ll send the plane to fetch it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I gasp before I realize he’s teasing me. Jerk.
We start watching the movie. All my dragons snort at the scene in the Sorcerer's Stone when Hagrid shows Harry his dragon egg. “Dragons do not hatch from eggs,” Erik points out with a frown.
“It’s fiction. Look, the egg’s hatching. See how cute the little baby dragon is.” I grin at them. “Wait, do you guys have baby pictures somewhere?”
“The camera was invented two hundred years ago, love,” Rhys points out. “Well after I came of age. But I’m pretty sure there’s a portrait of baby Bastian somewhere in this castle.”
I swear Bastian goes pink. “Griffith, do you have a death wish?” he growls.
The baby dragon on the screen coughs and sets Hagrid’s beard on fire, and the dragons turn their attention back to the screen. “That would never happen,” Erik says again. “We don’t get our fire until puberty. Otherwise, none of us would ever grow to adulthood.”
I give Erik a quelling glance. “No talking during the movie.”
Halfway through The Prisoner of Azkaban, I get up to get popcorn and end up pulled down into Rhys’ lap under the guise of sharing. Not that I’m complaining.
