Leman

by Serena Akeroyd

  She wanted to join him in the water. His seed was sticky on her thighs. But she decided to let him be.

  When he was ready to talk, he’d shift back.

  Time and a little space was the wisest option.

  She’d put herself in danger, and she’d put her mate’s life in danger too, because Lara knew she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she lost Ios, and after all his years alone, more than double hers, she couldn’t even imagine what would become of him if she’d have perished in his arms as the sun turned her to dust between his talons.

  She gulped. The imagery stunning her and adding to the night’s guilt.

  The only trouble was, the whole ‘letting him come to terms with it on his own time’ was difficult to behold.

  After bathing in the hot spring, he went to his treasure pile. Every now and then, he’d let out hot blasts of fire that made the gems sparkle and burn. Some even shattered at the heat of his flames.

  He kept his eyes trained on her. A bizarre concept as he blended into the treasure pile, but his eyes, huge reptilian orbs with slits for pupils, were trained on her. Every now and then, the glower would deepen and guilt would fill her even more.

  She sucked in a shaky breath. Hating that he was sulking, hating that he wouldn’t shift back to talk to her. She’d not expected that of him. He was a talker. Always expressing himself verbally.

  Trouble was she could understand why. She couldn’t say it wasn’t justified. Even if it annoyed the ever living fuck out of her.

  She’d hurt him.

  That was as plain as the snout on his Dragony face.

  She loathed herself for having done that to him, but it was too late. She had to live with that.

  She’d let him think she’d run off or, worse, had been attacked by another group of Vampires who hated that she’d helped a Shifter. She’d let him think she might have been injured. That she was lost. Lara had taken herself out of his sphere of protection, when she knew how vital her safety was to him. She’d seen how tight a circle Remy kept on Mia the few times they’d all been together after she’d been recuperating from the daywalker’s venom. She knew Ios’s on her had been lax and loose; a fact he was undoubtedly resenting now.

  It all boiled down to her having hurt him. And to make it worse, at the cavern, what had she done? Tried to hide the mating mark. Because she didn’t like it. When it was everything to him.

  She bit her bottom lip and scurried past. Heading for the hot spring in the depths of the cavern, she decided to go for a swim and get cleaned up. At the side of the shoreline of the springs, there were rocky, craggy shelves that had been picked out of the mountain. She grabbed a towel and soap from them and headed into the water.

  Lara didn’t dawdle. Just swam around a bit then washed up. The heat sank into her bones, for though she hadn’t felt the cold at the cavern, she’d felt the damp. It had been horrible against her skin, and it had made her feel clammy and uncomfortable.

  The warm water combatted that, and she gladly soaked it all in.

  Afterward, she wrapped herself up in the towel. The entire time she’d spent in the pool, she’d been thinking of what the next best step would be…the best way to get him to at least shift back to talk to her.

  So, with a vague idea in mind, she trudged over to the treasure bed he was sulking on and curled up at his side.

  Was it comfortable?

  Hell no, it wasn’t.

  She had a sapphire sticking into her tit, and only God knew what prodding her ass, but the stones were warm, and they weren’t cut. Instead, they were like smooth cabochons. She nestled against him, curling up against his leathery wing.

  He stiffened up immediately, and she froze. Fully expecting him to get up, stalk out of the cavern, and fly off. Leaving her here, stranded. Safe, but alone.

  A shaky breath escaped her at the prospect, but relief whirled inside her as he didn’t do that though. Instead, he lowered his head and scared the shit out of her by blowing fire over her body. A shriek trumpeted from her as the towel immediately set on fire. She jumped up, sending gems spitting everywhere as she slapped her hands against the burning fabric.

  “What the fuck are you trying to do?” she hollered. Then, a weird realization came to her.

  The towel was burning away like fucking paper, but her skin wasn’t. And though Vampires were resilient and couldn’t really die, they could burn. They just healed after.

  She wasn’t burning though. Just the towel was.

  She glared down at the smoldering fabric, which she threw on the floor, and glowered at him.

  “You scared the shit out of me, Ios.”

  “If you’re going to lie beside me, I don’t want anything between us.”

  The words were a whisper in her head at first. A whisper that had her freezing and her head aching. The remark then came out as a fully-fledged voice, but she couldn’t hear it. It was like she was thinking it.

  The words were in her head, but they didn’t belong to her. They were his.

  “You can talk to me now when you’re shifted?” she squeaked, falling to her knees. She rubbed at her temples where an ache had gathered thanks to this surprising conversation.

  “Yes. Now you wear my mark and have been claimed, we can talk this way.”

  It was Ios’s voice but there was a sibilance to certain words. Like the Dragon was talking too.

  Only as she knelt there, stunned by what was happening, could she truly process that the Dragon and man weren’t two separate entities, but a whole. She wasn’t sure why that had been so hard for her to learn.

  With a sigh, she whispered, “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

  “I know you are. I heard your thoughts as you were swimming.”

  “You can read my mind too?” she complained, aghast at the lack of privacy.

  “Only if you project very loudly, and through your guilt, you were.” He settled his head on his front legs. “You can read mine, if you try. It’s not as easy for you, but you’ll learn with time.”

  She gulped, fell forward onto her hands, and crawled toward him again. Not stopping until she was pressed against his side, the stones warming all of her now the towel had gone, then she whispered, “You scared me when you did that. You could have warned me.”

  “And you should have trusted me.”

  She blinked. “I did trust you.”

  “You screamed.” He shot her a dour look from one single reptilian eye.

  “I did, but I didn’t run off to the water, did I? I was too busy being pissed at you.”

  He lifted his head, tilted it to the side in question. “You weren’t afraid for your life?”

  She frowned, thought about it, wanting to be truthful so he’d understand her reaction. That wasn’t exactly easy going because her reaction surprised even her.

  “I was mad at you and a little concerned, but I didn’t think you’d hurt me. It was just unexpected. I didn’t think you’d do that.”

  “You don’t like my Dragon,” he stated, and there was a definite pout to his tone.

  She rolled her eyes, feeling a little better now he was talking to her. It was more preferable for him to sulk like a toddler than to ignore her totally.

  “I don’t know your Dragon,” she instantly countered. “I’ve only met him a few times.”

  “He’s not separate from me,” Ios retorted, picking out on something she’d only just thought about. “It’s me.”

  “I know, but I haven’t been thinking of you that way.” She shrugged. “It’s only because I’m not used to it. I will be with time.”

  “You don’t like that side of me, because you think I’ll hurt you like my father hurt my mother.”

  His statement pissed her off, for the first time burning away at her guilt from her earlier behavior. She slapped his side.

  Hard.

  Enough for him to jolt.

  His scales were strange under her fingers. Like the ruffles on her belly, but hard too. They were d
efinitely armor, but she imagined there were places where they were more delicate, where he had vulnerabilities.

  She’d find them all so she could whack him there if he ever became too big a pain in her butt. Like he was being at the moment.

  “You’re just being self-piteous now,” she immediately retorted. “I have never, never,” she repeated, “been scared of you. Not even when you came for me, and when I know you deserved to be absolutely furious with me for scaring you the way I did, was I fearful that you might hurt me.

  “Georgios, the only one scared is you. I’m not. I never have been and never will be. You set my damn towel on fire, and I didn’t think you were trying to hurt me, just scare me. It worked, you prick. I know you’d never hurt me. Hurting me would hurt you.”

  He turned his head so she was staring down his ruby and sapphire-camouflaged snout into two amber eyes the size of freakin’ footballs.

  Jesus, his eyes were huge, which meant his head was the size of a small car.

  “Why did you punish me tonight?”

  “I didn’t. I was mad at you. It never occurred to me there were other portals you could use to get home. I just thought you’d see me there on the cliff and would know I was pissed.”

  “How do you know there are other portals now?” he pounced.

  “Arista came and told me off for being there without you.”

  “And she left you there?” he roared, leaping to his feet and sending gems skittering all over the cavern floor.

  “Said it was to stop me from doing it in the future.” She grimaced. “As a punishment, it worked. I won’t be doing that again.”

  “It’s not her place to punish you. It’s mine!”

  It was her turn to leap to her feet. She stacked her hands on her hips and retorted, “Hey! No way can you punish me, just like I can’t punish you. This isn’t the Dark Ages! We’re a team, Ios!”

  “There are times when punishment is a must, Lara. This realm is different to yours. There are so many dangers, you can’t believe them.”

  “Well, if you can punish me for speaking wrongly in front of a Goblin, then I’ll do the same when you make it so a fucking Alpha of a Wolf Pack can come to me and talk shit about something you told one of its members.”

  The Dragon had the good grace to look sheepish. He ducked his head, those huge, faintly glowing eyes shuttered to half mast, and he hunkered down on his hind once more.

  “No punishments,” he whispered, just as sheepishly, in her mind.

  “Exactly.” She folded her arms across her chest. “We work together, or we don’t work at all.”

  His huge head nodded.

  She sighed. “Won’t you shift back? I love you in both forms, Ios, but it’s hard to know how you’re reacting when all I can see are your eyes.”

  Within a blink, her mate was standing there.

  “You hurt me,” he told her, sadness lacing his tone. “I didn’t know if you’d been attacked or kidnapped…or if you’d just left me.”

  “I would never leave you. And I’d never allow myself to be kidnapped.” She couldn’t exactly argue about the ‘attacked’ part. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

  “The Goblins and Elven folk don’t like me, Lara. By crossing over to the portal, you could have placed yourself in great danger. We purposely put the portals in spaces so high they can’t reach them and have to use their own to cross over to the other realm, but you wouldn’t know that.

  “Anyone might have been able to take you from me.”

  The horror in his voice stemmed her words.

  It was then she knew this argument was about terror. About fear of loss.

  She was his world. His everything. And that was a huge responsibility.

  She’d never thought to be a mate to someone. Vampires didn’t have mates like Shifters did, so the possibility of being someone’s universe, and their being hers in return, wasn’t something she was accustomed to. Wasn’t something she’d really come to realize she’d need to embrace.

  But here it was.

  She wasn’t just this man’s partner. She was his reason for living.

  And God help her, he was becoming hers. The idea of being snatched from him had her legs shaking. Honest to God quivering. She sank down to her knees, once more, uncaring that the pebbles dug into her shins.

  “They’d take me from you? Keep us apart?”

  He nodded, equally as shaken if the torment in his eyes was anything to go by.

  “You have to stay safe for me, Lara. Without you, I’ll go to war on them. I don’t care. They already fucked with my sire. If they fuck with you, I’m a dead man walking.”

  She stared at him, her world unfolding before her eyes at the truth that was etched into his face, and then she did the only thing she could do. Held out her arms for him. When he dropped to his knees in front of her and tucked himself inside her embrace, the world ceased to quake.

  For those precious moments, everything made sense. They were together, and together was the only way the future made sense now.

  Epilogue

  “I feel like Mr. T.”

  “Who’s Mr. T?”

  Mia snorted. “He’s this dude from the A Team.”

  Remy rolled his eyes. “You will get used to the pop culture references, Ios. With time. Until then, they just piss you off. Especially when your leman enjoys using them to confuse you.”

  His glower had Mia’s smile widening. She patted his arm. “You love it, really.”

  “Good fucking job,” came the succinct retort.

  Ios scowled. “I still don’t understand why you feel like Mr. T, Lara.” He looked her up and down. “Maybe Mrs. T, but not Mr. You don’t look at all like a male.”

  Both lemans started snickering, and Remy shot him another exasperated, commiserative glance.

  Lara was wearing ceremonial garb. A long navy velvet waistcoat, which pinched in at her waist, flared out at her hips, and pooled around her feet in a large train. It revealed her slim-fitting cream underdress. The outfit was the plainest court garb he’d ever seen. Normally, as with Mia’s, they were decorated with the shattered tear stones. But his mate wore hers about her neck.

  The huge stone had been faceted and set in a large claw setting. It hung from a heavy gold chain, and the tear stone rested against her belly.

  Even in the grim corridors of the palace, it gleamed like fire. Each step she took had it bobbing against her stomach, making it glitter and sparkle like nothing else he’d ever seen.

  His thorough inspection confused him all the more, however. “No, you certainly don’t look like any male I’ve ever seen.”

  Lara stopped snickering, finally, and confessed, “Mr. T used to wear huge amounts of gold. It was all ostentatious.”

  Remy snorted. “You haven’t seen ostentatious until you see the court. Most women wear more than the tear stones on their garb. They’re loaded in stones. You look positively plain, if that’s any comfort.”

  “Just what every woman wants to hear, eh, Lara? That you look positively plain.” Mia huffed. “Last of the charmers… What a lucky lemon I am.”

  Remy gritted his teeth. “Leh-mann.”

  “Why is it so difficult for females to pronounce it correctly?” Ios complained, as he tucked his mate’s arm into his.

  “Because we have small brains,” Lara retorted, but it was definitely tongue in cheek.

  Mia chuckled. “And we can’t think about anything other than children or our ovaries.”

  Remy snorted. “It’s a pity you can only bake one then, isn’t it?”

  “Bake?” Mia squeaked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Grace, from Lara’s coven,” he explained, frowning at his mate’s bewilderment. “She said women bake babies in their ovens.”

  Lara sighed. “Have buns in the oven, Remy. We don’t bake babies. Jesus.”

  He scowled. “Your phrases are stupid.”

  Ios concurred. “He’s right. They
make no sense, and when we use them, they make even less sense.”

  “Only a poor workman blames his tools,” Mia quipped, shooting a wink at Lara who immediately set off in giggles.

  “It’s hard to believe, Remy, but I’m certain Mia is worse now that she has a bun in the oven.”

  Lara nodded at his correct use of the phrase and, then, smacked him in the stomach. He’d ceased being surprised by his mate’s contradictory behavior. “It’s rude to complain about pregnant women.”

  “Yeah, Georgios, it’s rude,” Mia retorted.

  He scoffed at that. “You’re barely pregnant. How is it rude? You have over twenty months still to carry the Dragonling. I refuse to walk on eggshells around you, Mia. You forget, mischief makers know fellow mischief makers.”

  Mia rounded her eyes, flaring them wide so she looked suspiciously innocent. “Who, me?”

  Remy snorted. “You fool no one, leman. It is proof positive of my agreement with Georgios that I let him speak to you so disrespectfully though you carry our ’ling. The last thing I need to do is encourage you when dangerous times are coming.”

  For the first time, Mia’s eyes turned from teasing to serious. She reached for her mate’s hand and squeezed his fingers. “All will be well with the others, dearling. You’ll see.”

  Both females nodded at their respective mates in what Ios assumed was supposed to be a supportive manner, but they had no idea of the evils the Elves could sow, or the magics the Goblins had at their fingertips.

  If either race truly had attacked Ios’s father, then a war with those people was imminent.

  The thought prompted him to ask, “Any news from Eirik yet, Remy?”

  “No. He’s been on the case for less than a week though, Georgios. Give him time.”

  Time felt like a commodity they didn’t have though.

  The somber turn of their conversation had them quieting down as they meandered the many corridors that took them from the landing strip atop the palace roof, where Dragons could arrive with their lemans, before descending through the palace toward the room where Arista held court.