by Juniper Hart
Her legs felt weak, and she swallowed. Terran had a way about him. Somehow, without her permission, he always wiggled his way into her heart. He was strong and dangerous, yet gentle, kind, and caring.
“I thought you had found someone else,” she said.
Terran had spent roughly a hundred years being pure after their breakup, but eventually he turned back to sleeping with the many beautiful women of his realm. Or, at least that’s what she had heard.
“No. Nothing more than a fling here and there. Besides, they’re nothing compared to your eternal beauty,” he told her. “Sketches before a masterpiece.”
Unlike Hale, who seemed to just say the right things, Terran seemed to mean them. It wasn’t a show. It was honesty. Cassia had forgotten about his bluntness.
Terran turned towards the sun. “I have a place nearby where we can wait out Hale’s downfall in safety.”
She hesitated. She knew herself. She loved Terran; she wasn’t naïve enough to doubt that. Aside from that one argument, they were a wonderful couple. She had never had a man, half-dragon or otherwise, inspire such passion in her heart.
She’d never meant to stay with Hale as long as she did. He was a rebound, but he’d kept her around for centuries with his silver tongue and charming ways hiding his wicked traits.
She knew that if she followed Terran, she was basically allowing him back into her life forever. Was she ready to do that? Hale’s mind was apparently gone, which was incredibly sad to her despite the fact that his rational mind was not much of a kind one.
Even if they had never been terribly close, it was still sad to see his downfall. Time had made them close, closer than she might have wanted going into the relationship. A flood of emotions washed through her like a tornado. Confusion. Surprise. Sadness. Excitement.
They were almost too much to keep track of, and then there was the fact that Hale was going down. He’d finally done something stupid, finally given the EDJ a reason to arrest him. He’d get life if he was lucky, execution if he wasn’t. The guy was a real piece of work, bullying, killing, and tricking his way into success for hundreds of years. But it wasn’t about Hale. It was about whether or not Cassia was willing to follow behind Terran and take whatever came from it in stride.
She followed him.
She wasn’t going to fall back in love with him. Or at least that’s what she told herself. She had to take things slow. She was a different person. Maybe in another life, if things had gone a different way, but right then, all she needed was some comfortable clothes and a hot shower. Terran was still dear to her. No matter how she looked at it, she had to admit that.
Terran shifted into his dragon form like his body was made of liquid. Cassia followed suit. It was a funny thing to go from being a short human female to a car-sized beast capable of spewing flames. The first few times she’d done it had scared her half to death. It just didn’t feel natural. It felt about as awkward as trying to walk around on all fours. Sure, you could do it, but it just doesn’t feel right. Eventually, she got used to it and loved soaring through the sky high above the earth.
The first thing she had to do to transform was actually think about it. She felt something stir deep inside herself, and then she felt herself growing tall and big, very quickly. This was, by far, the most uncomfortable part of it all. The handy thing was that the magic surrounding dragon halflings meant that her clothes didn’t just rip off when she transformed. They somehow shifted away and returned in human form. How? She had no idea, and she hadn’t found anyone who could offer an explanation that made sense.
After growing bigger and taller, she usually felt a tingling in her chest, like she’d just chugged some tequila. It almost burned, but it felt good in an odd way. She’d learned that this was the part of her that could breathe fire. That was one thing that she never got used to. Somehow, flying, growing larger, and becoming almost bulletproof had lost its novelty after a while. But the fact that her insides were hot enough to make fire… now, that was incredible. She’d never quite wrapped her mind around that one.
The two dragons took off. Flying with Terran felt majestic. It was like being weightless, but somehow present, but also freeing. She felt invincible when she flew - especially with a powerful dragon prince by her side.
She soared with Terran through the morning air, across mountains and towards his safe house. Terran led the way, and Cassia moved up beside him.
Terran’s house was about one hundred miles away, a home away from his realm. Like all of Terran’s homes, the place was practically impossible to get to without knowing the exact location. It was a modern concrete structure chiseled out of a cliff with one small staircase leading towards the top of the cliff. All that she could see was a huge sheet of glass into the residence and twin defensive turrets watching them come in with people manning them. The guns were huge. They looked easily big enough to put a hole in a tank, meaning they could bring down most, if not all, enchanted or human threats.
The glass slid open to let the two dragons in. Terran shifted to land with a casual walk just inside the room. Cassia followed suit.
The place was a fortress. Terran didn’t believe in making a place pretty without making it solid as well. All his homes were easily defendable and practically indestructible. The walls were made of solid concrete pillars with stained wood accent walls and an open, pleasing aesthetic. Soft, warm rugs covered the floor. A huge flat screen television lined one wall. In the corner was a large kitchen. The large windows overlooked out the forest far below with the one-sided glass wall. From the inside of the house, one could see for miles, but nobody from the outside could see in.
Chapter Eight
“Wow,” Cassia said, looking around. “Your home is beautiful.”
Terran took a seat with a smile. “Thank you. Please, make yourself at home. I didn’t expect any visitors, so it’s a bit of a mess.”
There it was—Terran’s needless apologies for the mess. He rarely apologized, but when he did, it was almost always about some silly little thing that nobody was worried about. He was something of a clean freak. Everything had its spot. Cassia saw a robe hanging over the edge of the couch. That was Terran’s mess.
She slipped her heels off and wiggled her toes in the carpet. It felt heavenly. “Looks better than my place.”
Terran smiled and looked at Cassia deeply, as if trying to remember every detail about her face. He shook himself out of his stupor. “I’m going to call in what you told me. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
The dragon shifter went off to privately call the EDJ while Cassia walked over to the couch in front of his monstrous television. The couch nearly devoured her. She yelped and pulled her way out before she vanished into the cushions. She’d forgotten how soft Terran liked the furniture. Cassia was the exact opposite. She wanted rigidity and despised sitting in anything that felt like it was swallowing her.
Her hand flew out and hit a picture off the small table on the side of the couch. Using her good reflexes, she caught it before it hit the ground and set it back.
But wait.
She frowned as she saw the picture on it. It wasn’t a true picture, but it was a sketch. She’d drawn it for Terran back when they’d first met of a frog she’d found. It wasn’t a great sketch; she’d certainly improved over the centuries. Back then she’d barely had a grasp around anatomy and shading, so it looked amateurish.
He’d kept it. He’d kept it for nearly eight hundred years. She remembered drawing it, but it was just a silly thing. She never expected him to actually care about it. She stared at it, hard. He’d kept it and framed it in her memory.
Guilt. It was there suddenly like a bus, running her over and flattening her. She’d been cruel to him. Had he been perfect? No. But she’d rejected him when he was just trying to make her happy. All she knew was that she had been hurt. He had apologized endlessly for losing his temper, sending her flowers and gifts in the hope he could win her back.
He�
��d kept a sketch she’d done and framed it so he could remember her. Even after two centuries, he’d not given up on her. Even though she knew he’d dated other women since her, it seemed he still kept the hope they’d end up together again.
The bus of guilt backed up over her again.
Terran came out from another room. “I called it in.” He noticed her staring at the picture. “Oh, hey. You found it. You remember that?”
“Like it was yesterday,” she replied. “I don’t really understand it. It’s, uh, kind of ugly.”
He smiled faintly. “Not to me, Cass. Not to me. The day you drew that was perfect.”
She stared at him. She could see the hurt in his eyes. Terran was a great man. He had personally come to protect her, even though he had thousands of beings in his kingdom’s army.
“Terran,” she finally said after hundreds of years, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She sighed. “For rejecting you. For being so stupid. I should’ve given you another chance. I should’ve looked past my anger and—”
“Cassia, I’m not angry with you. Hale has always wanted you, which is why we never got along. I have always known he was evil. I’ve watched over you all of these years to make sure he never hurt you. I knew that I could not force you to be with me, so I gave you space to see Hale for his true nature—a truly evil being.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did Cassia, on many occasions. You chose to ignore me.”
Cassia looked down, ashamed to meet his eyes. “I’ve always been stubborn.”
He held a finger to her lips and met her eyes with his soulful gaze. “Cassia, I knew you were just angry. I knew you’d come back. You needed space to heal. If it took me a thousand lifetimes, I swore to myself that I would find a way into your heart again.” He gave her a gentle smile and brushed a lock of golden hair from her face.
Cassia opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t form words. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was, how she regretted her decision to break up with him every day. She wanted to say she had never really loved Hale, and that her heart still belonged to him.
But she didn’t say anything at all.
“So how about it?” Terran asked. “Are you willing to give it another shot? Are you willing to give me another chance to make you happy?”
“You have no idea,” she replied. Even though moments earlier, she thought things couldn’t go back to the way they used to be, being with him was the only future she wanted. “I’ve felt so empty over the centuries.”
He stroked her cheek lovingly. “Everything will be okay,” he assured her.
“Terran,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I—” She couldn’t complete the sentence.
Terran rushed over to her and lifted her into the air, crushing his lips against hers. He carried her over to the couch where he sat down, with her straddling him. She reached down and lifted his shirt over his head. Terran hadn’t changed. His tight, sculpted arms, chest, and abs glistened against the light from the large windows.
Cassia attempted to wiggle out of her tight dress, wanting to free her body from the tight constraint. Terran, ripped it from her body as if it was made from paper. Only wearing a bra and panties, she felt the heat from Terran’s body radiating against her smooth skin.
His eyes lit up, and he took in her body and buried his head in her voluptuous breasts, lightly licking and biting her soft skin. She shuddered under his touch, feeling relieved to be back in his arms. He was her one true mate, and every nerve in her body responded to his chemistry.
He belonged to her, and she was his. They were meant to be together, and she felt it in every fiber of her being.
She moved her hips back and forth, grinding up against his member. She wanted to feel him inside of her, filling her completely. She moved her hands down to his pants and unfasted the button to his jeans before slowly sliding down the zipper.
Cassia wiggled her way off his lap and onto the floor, kneeling in front of him. After sliding his pants and boxer briefs down to the ground, she threw them to the side.
Taking his large, rock-hard member in her hand, she stroked it up and down several times before taking his entire length into her delicate mouth. The skin of his shaft was soft, and she felt each vein as her tongue expertly applied pressure while she gently caressed his sack.
He growled loudly as she continued to move her mouth up and down, satisfying him like no other woman could. She felt him pulsate under her tongue as he was on the verge of climax.
Terran lifted her chin until her mouth was no longer on his erection. He lifted her back to the couch and onto his lap, guiding his cock into her slit.
“You’re even more beautiful than I remembered,” Terran murmured, reaching behind her and unhooking her bra. He slipped her out of it, exposing her supple breasts to his touch.
He placed his hands on her hips, guiding her movements so her clit rubbed against his pelvic bone with every movement. Terran was always acutely aware of her pleasure and knew exactly what to do to maximize her sexual experience.
He moved his hand up to her breasts and took her nipple between his thumb and index finger, slowly rubbing and squeezing it in the same rhythm as she moved with his body.
The sensation from him caressing her nipples traveled down her navel and into her core, where the feeling in her slick heat intensified. Uninhibited mewls passed her lips as she was unable to suppress her growing ecstasy.
Even the slightest touch was enough to send spasms through her, making her eyes widen and her breath come quickly.
She arched her back and continued to ride him as he thrust into her, bringing her to the brink of her orgasm.
“Oh, Terran!” she cried, grabbing the cloth of the couch so hard her fingers turned white as he penetrated her with vigorous intensity.
“How I’ve missed you, Cass,” he whispered just before she felt his movements become more erratic, and they were both sent over the edge in a chorus of pleasurable spasms that coursed through their bodies.
The world around her seemed to disappear as her body was overcome with raw emotions of lust, love, longing, and unparalleled carnal pleasure.
“I love you,” Cassia replied. “I’ve always loved you, Terran.” She meant it. After all that time, she’d finally said it. “Thank you for never giving up on me,” she whispered.
“I would never,” he replied, hugging her tightly as she still straddled him. “There’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you.”
They sat in silence for a second, both simply relieved and still shuddering with pleasure.
“But don’t try,” Terran added with a smile.
“Never!” Cassia said as she snuggled up against him.
He eagerly took her in.
Chapter Nine
After a much-needed shower and a second round of mind-blowing lovemaking, Cassia and Terran rested in his big, comfortable bed.
They whispered words of adoration to each other and talked for hours, trying to catch up on all their lost time together.
The veil of night had covered the sun as they stared out his large windows staring at the star-filled sky.
Terran’s phone buzzed.
“Ignore it,” Cassia urged, clinging onto him. She didn’t want the perfect moment to end.
“I can’t,” he told her. “With all that’s happened, I need to be available and ready to help if needed.” He kissed her on the forehead again.
He took one long look at her with an expression of peace on his face before he grabbed his phone and checked the screen.
Cassia couldn’t see the name on the phone, but Terran narrowed his eyes, so Cassia knew by his reaction that it was important.
“Who is it?” Cassia asked, leaning up in an attempt to see the name.
“It’s someone from the EDJ,” he replied. He accepted the call and brought it up to his ear. “Terran speaking.”
C
assia couldn’t hear the person on the other end as he spoke.
Terran’s lips tightened in frustration. “You didn’t?”
More talking.
Terran smashed his fist into a chair nearby in sudden rage. “Fuck!” The chair shattered from his strength.
“What?” Cassia implored. Terran didn’t spook easily. “What happened?”
Terran’s jaw clenched, and he looked at Cassia quickly to let her know what happened. “He got away.”
“Hale?” She went white. “You can’t be serious. But I thought that EDJ—”
Terran continued his conversation on the phone.
“Hey!” Cassia hissed. “Put it on speaker! I want to hear too!”
Terran did, putting a man’s voice on the speakerphone. “Terran,” he said. “We tried, but he got away! We have reason to think he might be headed to you.”
Uh-oh.
Hale was known to be a dangerous man for a reason. He was very talented in magic and apparently was now even more of a danger because of Pelo. If he really had escaped the EDJ and he was coming for her, she was in a lot of trouble. He could find her. He could find anyone with his magic tracking.
“Anything else?” Terran demanded.
“Nothing,” came the reply. “We just wanted to warn you that he knows Cassia left. We questioned some of his guards, and they let us know he was on a drug-induced rampage. He’s dangerous, Terran. You need to have a solid plan in place in case he attacks.”
Cassia walked over to the window and looked out at the darkness and the way the moon lit the trees waving ever-so-gently in the soft breeze. She needed comfort. Her entire world had turned upside down.
Minutes earlier, she was ecstatic believing that she had found her happily-ever-after with Terran. Now this. Then, she remembered her friends, Sam and the twins.
Oh my god, I hope they’re safe, she thought to herself.
Everything she dreaded was coming to fruition.
“We need to get out of here,” she said, turning to face Terran. “Let the EDJ deal with him.”
“They can’t,” he replied. “Apparently, he’s too much for them to handle. And I don’t run from a fight.”
