STONE DRAGON: A Prison Moon Series Romance Novel

by Marell, Alexandra

  Finally, he let go a long breath and turned to heave the great door closed.

  “Don’t lock us in.” Claudia spoke aloud in panic, her mind frantically probing the disabled wards and spells to make sure they didn’t work on this side of the door, too. She didn’t want to be found, a bare skeleton, in a hundred years or more by others who ventured up here, wondering what they’d discover.

  There’s another way out, right?

  “It opens from this side, I made sure of that. And yes, there’s another way out.”

  The door slammed shut with a boom, puffing dust at the hinges and sides.

  We can get out. We’re not trapped. Claudia tamped down the panic, turning her attention to Tharius staring at the back wall, at a place where the rock thinned. Her inner eye showed a tunnel beyond, leading up and into the light.

  To escape, your dragon would have easily blasted a hole in that wall. Am I right?

  Tharius turned to her, lips pressed together in apology. “Easy for my full dragon, he would never have been trapped here.”

  We’ll find him again, don’t worry. She remembered to breathe.

  I don’t like closed spaces. That Italian Count kept her in a room so tiny she’d nearly lost her mind. But this was no small space. She looked around. The pile of gleaming gold and sparkling gemstones took up the whole of the back section, heaping against the wall and spilling almost to the centre of the room. Tharius pulled on the door, satisfying himself it held, and then pushed a bar across, securing them inside.

  It’s calling me. A new voice whispered, drawing her to the gleaming glitter. Inviting her to touch and luxuriate like a big cat basking in the sun.

  “Hey.” Tharius lifted her before she could protest, and marched forward to the hoard, lit by evenly spaced shafts of light coming from the roof. Filtered daylight, she supposed. So clever. His bare feet chinked on loose, coin-shaped gold pieces, and nearer, she picked out goblets and rings, plates and bracelets. Polished and faceted gemstones mingled with rough-cut stones, yet to reveal their beauty. Pieces in silver, gold, and other metals not found on Earth.

  “Tell me,” he said, stopping a little short of the heap. “Does your dragon speak?”

  Technically it’s just a little spark.

  “You are of the dragon. Tell me.” He growled out the words on a note of command, a hint of desperation. He needed to hear it.

  Well, Diamonds are every Earth girl’s best friend, and you have enough here to put Tiffany’s to shame.

  He squeezed tighter. “Tell me.”

  How about I show you? Her inner dragon was practically dancing a jig at the thought of touching that gold. The mental connection with Tharius flew off the scale. She couldn’t fail to understand that message.

  Tharius pushed his face into her neck, teeth grazing her skin. “Yes,” he growled. “Show me.”

  His skin was rough against hers, and she sensed the dragon forcing its way forward, yearning for the hoard. Aching for her.

  She thought it was all myths and fairy tales, but the affinity for this dead, shiny stuff astounded her.

  “Not dead, Claudia.” Tharius climbed the hoard, slowing as he dragged one foot after the other through the piled up treasure. “Can you feel how alive it is?”

  I’m used to holding a ring, or some personal object, and reading its history. But this is a whole new level.

  “Does it speak to you? Do you understand, now?” When he set her down, she slid awkwardly, trying unsuccessfully to right herself on the loose, slippery mound caressing and scraping at her skin. An oddly sensual sensation, urging her to roll over and sink right down until it covered the whole of her body.

  You slept here? She saw it so clearly, his huge dragon self curled up on his gold, sleeping content as a puppy. Clawing her hands, she let the treasure slip through her fingers, loving the cool slide of the coins. The way light sparkled off the facets and planes of the cut stones.

  “The hoard is life to a dragon.” Tharius’s eyes were two dark pools, drawing her in. Long strands of his black hair fell about his face, the features shifting subtly to a new state. Not a half-shift, more like he was both full dragon and all male. He crawled over her, pushing her skirts high over her hips.

  And she was helping him, wriggling and pulling at the soft hide, wishing he’d rip it off her and take her with no soft words, no foreplay. She wanted him now.

  “I hear you, Claudia. Tell me in your own words that you want me, desire me.”

  His arm braced beside her head, sunk into the loose mound, and she wondered vaguely if a person could suffocate under a pile of gold.

  Death by pirate treasure. What a way to go.

  “I want you, Tharius. Please.” Did she just beg? It’s the treasure, she thought. The dragon mojo making her writhe under him with such abandon. She’d wanted him outside, but in here, it was primal, calling to its counterpart inside of him. She raised her arms when he lifted her dress. Tilted her hips so he could push off her underwear. She’d lost a moccasin. Would they ever find it under all this gold?

  He came to her in flashes of dragon and man. A beast pinning her with such possessive fervour she’d never escape him. A man with passion softened by tenderness in his eyes.

  The more she sank into his treasure, the more she sank into him. She’d never felt so alive; the energy from the hoard flooded every cell, amplified every thought. The crunch and slide of the gold sounded like music playing so softly it became a part of her.

  And that smell? Tharius’s hair tickled her cheek, and she realised it was him, giving off some sort of pheromone to attract his mate.

  As if she needed inducements. She threw back her head and laughed, feeling his mouth on her throat, kissing and nipping, skimming her collarbone and the curve of her breast. His touch on her breast was gentle, the skin rough, a beguiling combination. He thumbed her nipple, grazing sensitive nerve endings with his curved dragon claws.

  “We both want you,” he murmured and dipped lower, licking a long, damp line over her stomach and down to the slick wetness between her thighs. “You don’t know how often I dreamed of doing this, here with the female of my ama. How much this fulfils me.”

  Could you drown in treasure? When she tipped back her head, the cool pieces covered her face, but somehow she didn’t care. The ember inside of her flared into a flame, igniting where his lips and tongue worked their magic, circling her clit until she was lifting and sliding and pushing into his mouth with a desperation that should have shocked her.

  She liked sex, but never needed it like this. Every warm breath fanned her inner thighs, every rumbling groan threw fuel on the fire. “Please,” she said. “I need you now.” I need you, Tharius.

  “I understood your words.” In one deft move, he crawled up her body and rolled them both, hoisting her above him. “Easier this way,” he said, and groaned when she slid over his hard cock.

  The slip and slide of the moving hoard made balance difficult for both of them. He lifted her easily with his good arm, allowing her control.

  Oh Dio, it’s amazing. You’re inside me, outside me, in the gold.

  “You are connecting to your power.”

  “Yes.” She bore down in time to his upward thrusts, each one sinking them farther into the hoard. The flame deep inside of her pulsed in time to his hard thrusts.

  She was burning, bathing in flames leaping and dancing all around them, sending a slow vibrating wave of sensation rippling over her belly and thighs, tipping her into her first, clenching climax. Tharius thrust up into her with a savage desperation.

  “Climax with me,” he said, and quickened his pace. Another wave built, this time a shivering, clenching ache that promised oblivion, if only she could reach it. She ground down and felt his fingers on her clit, pushing her over the edge.

  “Yes.” She really should teach him more words. It was the last coherent thought before he shoved into her with a dark, rumbling groan, and his climax became hers. She fell onto his chest,
rising and falling with his panting breath, as he thrust on weakly until he had no more left to give.

  A stray beam of light shafted his face, lighting his ridged forehead, the sharp planes of his cheeks. The soft, round jut of his bottom lip. He opened his eyes, stunned from the intensity of their joining. She felt the way he looked.

  I had no idea it could be like this. He was still inside her, his body and his mind. So deep inside he’d never leave.

  “I never thought to experience this. Thank you, Claudia. How will I ever show my gratitude for all you have given me?”

  Oh, I’ll think of a way. She was grinning now. Leaning over to brush her lips with his. Claudia rolled off him, sinking beside him into the gold. Raising her hands above her head, she stretched out and felt his seed seeping over her thigh into the treasure.

  “Have I planted a youngling in you?” Tharius propped up onto his elbow, a strand of sweat-slicked hair stuck to one cheek. More male than dragon now, he twisted his injured arm to a more comfortable position. A slow measured move she wasn’t supposed to notice.

  If it’s going to happen anywhere, it will be here. That was the most she could give him on that. Tharius, let me send that arm healing. I’ve never felt so powerful, so potent. I don’t know if it will last outside of this room. Make use of it while you can.

  “Do it.” He didn’t press her with more baby talk. One thing at a time, and she wanted him whole, for his sake. A man like him wouldn’t take such a disability lightly.

  Come into my arms, then. I’ll heal you while we sleep.

  The cameras were near. This new power let her sense them sneaking around, seeking a way into their sanctuary. She rested her attention on the door locks. Found all secure. Tharius was wrong, the spells did work from this side, but she had the codes to get them out when they were good and ready to jump back into battle.

  The quality of the light had changed. Whiter now as the rising sun climbed higher into the sky. Tharius nodded and lowered his head to her breasts, giving her all of his weight. She enclosed him in her arms and let the healing, the built-up energy, flow into him, stroking his hair until he sighed and relaxed into sleep.

  The room was little more than a vast cave hewn by weather and ice-floes, banked at the back by a rock fall at some time in its history. The rough walls were softened with tapestries that hung in tattered threads, rotted by time and gnawed by the teeth of countless small insects and creatures.

  As the chamber brightened, she saw the richly woven floor coverings had suffered much the same fate, yet patches that lay out of the light had retained their bright colours. The wards and spells were set to protect everything within the chamber, but as they weakened, time’s seeking fingers had rotted and ravaged

  Tharius furnished the room with such care for a mate who never came here. How sad. The sun crested the horizon, chasing away the shadows. Weak sunlight filtered through the gaps in the ceiling, one slim beam catching the gleam of a golden harp frame standing silent in the corner.

  Crilla, the golden harp. Claudia’s heart did a little dance in her chest, and then immediately clenched with dread. Tharius called this a dream, and that’s exactly what it was. People woke up from dreams to cold reality. To the cameras waiting outside the chamber, and the thousands of rabid viewers’ whims. To Othrid, the warlord, and his mad seer. The wyvern baying for revenge for his slighted honour.

  The harp appeared to have survived, strings intact. The floor coverings, in places. The rack of clothing had not fared so well. Only a few items remained wearable.

  Tharius stirred and muttered in his sleep. “Toren.” He spoke his brother’s name, and she saw in her mind another blue dragon soaring the skies, its talons gently curved around a body of another human female, like her. Pieces of the present and the future yet to come. A shimmering blue dragon fighting, plummeting from the sky. A woman’s screams.

  Dead, or injured? Too clouded in duplicity and doubt to see his fate.

  The Corporation had tasted dragon and now they wanted more.

  No way to hold them back unless she and Tharius chose to die in this room like two tragic lovers. Neither she nor Tharius fit that role, and she wasn’t ready to give up yet, no matter how hopeless things seemed. Tharius would come out fighting, and so would she. And now, his mind was so firmly enmeshed with hers, his future was obscured from her, too.

  They’d be fighting blind, but one thing she knew for certain. They’d be fighting for their lives.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  He should have warned her of the magic of the hoard. Not real magic, something far more primal. Forged in fire, like the gold and precious stones, the dragon and the hoard shared an origin that bound them for eternity.

  Magic that made music played by the gods themselves. Tharius lay on his treasure, listening to the ethereal sound winding its way around him, over him, contentment robbing his ability to move. Why would he want to move when he could be doing this?

  And then he remembered that General Tharius Dra’Kathis was a man of action, not one who lay about dreaming of poetry and song. He opened his eyes, taking in the arc of the rocky cave roof. The shafts of daylight coming in from the openings once covered in oiled cloth to let in the light and keep out the rain. The hoard chinked quietly around him, whispering its approval to the gods who bestowed him a mate who knew its value.

  “Claudia?” He pushed up, seeking out the source of the singing and lilting strings. She was dressed in her simple gown and sitting on a small stool, embracing the harp, fingers caressing the strings like a lover. Singing, a song he didn’t recognise, and the joy in her expression took the air from his lungs such that he almost couldn’t breathe.

  Rolling his head to the side, he checked the door. Still locked, by the look of the wooden brace, the bolts he’d thrown home, but he must rise and try it for himself. If only he could find the energy to move. He felt at once as if he could fly to the far distant planets in a single journey, and so heavy his limbs sank into the loose treasure mounding around him.

  He rolled, pushed up, and slid from the pile. Stretching, he rubbed his face, surprised to find a prickle of beard, and studied the rack and pegs where they stored the garments required after shifting from dragon to upright form. Most of the material had rotted, but it seemed a selection of the leather vests and pants remained.

  He cracked another joint, surprised to achieve a slight bend in his injured elbow, a definite loosening of the frozen shoulder. His gaze slid to Claudia, his little powerhouse who might even now be carrying their child.

  She played on, concentrating on the strings, the music. Not in his mind at all, but somewhere far away from this cave on this alien moon. He would not disturb her. She deserved the respite, and perhaps the music recharged her, as the hoard did him.

  First check the locks. He had no doubt the evil eyes lurked outside, waiting now their time alone had come to an end. All the bolts were in place, the bar secure. But with the wards so weak, the eyes had firepower enough to blast through.

  There’s still a little magic left. But they’re out there, Tharius. If we don’t go willingly, they’ll take us by force.

  Claudia back in his head, practical as ever. The music never faltered, but he heard the resignation in her tone. He moved to the rack and flicked through the hanging garments. General Tharius would meet them with force, prepared to give his life for the honour stolen from the Draegon. Tharius of Dra’Kathis must learn to fight a different foe with alien tactics.

  He must now learn to listen to his mate.

  He chose a hide vest and loose pants to accommodate the bulky half-shift state. A pair of boots with soles still intact to protect his feet. Dressed, he felt the male coming to the fore, telling him to go to her, to whisper soft words of gratitude as she lost herself in song.

  Claudia’s fingers paused on the strings and she leaned her forehead on the golden frame, listening to the lingering vibrations of the harp. Her mind flooded his, saying something so surprising,
he wondered if he’d heard it right.

  I think the Corporation have, or had, your brother. I saw the name Toren, and a human woman. There was a fight, or that might still be to come. It’s all clouds in my head right now, with snatches of light.

  He crossed to her in four strides. Standing behind her, he touched his lips to her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of her. “Look harder, I would know.”

  Claudia raised both hands, palms upwards in a gesture of resignation. That’s all I saw, but I’ll try. You know the cameras are outside, waiting?

  “I will tear the wall down and get us out that way.” So charged by the hoard, by the healing sleep in her arms, he felt as if he could demolish the mountain with his bare hands.

  She shook her head and leaned into him. He traced the profile of her chin, her lips and nose with a light finger. You’ll only injure yourself trying, and chances are they’ll be waiting for us wherever we end up. They have our body signatures on their sensors; they’ll never give up.

  “They will not have my hoard.” The last word choked in his throat. He would have died defending it, but with Claudia in the mix, he could not ask that sacrifice of her. But the thought of a wyvern’s cursed claw on his gold…

  Tharius, it’s a miracle they haven’t already found it. Claudia settled the harp and stood, turning in his arms. She rubbed the soft hide loosely laced at this chest. I must say you look very hot in leathers.

  “I will not overheat wearing this.”

  Hot means sexy where I come from. But I guess to dragons, it has a whole new meaning.

  “How do you feel?” Had his seed had already taken root. A Draegon mate knew these things by instinct. Perhaps he’d hoped for too much, and such a thing wasn’t possible between her species and his own, no matter that she harboured a dragon spark in her making. Claudia listened patiently to his stream of thought, her expression a little sad, as it always was when they spoke of offspring.