Dragon Guardian (Drakins of Wyrmarach)

by Eden Glenn

  He retrieved a bottle of wine from the small apartment refrigerator below the shelves of electronic equipment, and then poured a pale golden yellow liquid with a greenish tinge, Riesling Spatlese 2007 GK into the crystal goblet.

  He swirled the wine under his nose inhaling the bright aromas then sipped the wine, velvety sweet fruit coursed down his throat. He paused to enjoy the elegant finish of the masterfully crafted German wine. The bloody trail of gore left by his gloves around the delicate crystal repulsed him, just like the wretched creatures, to taint the civilized enjoyment of a glass of wine.

  Scrutinizing the hide for any hint of magical power revealed nothing to him. The secret remained hidden in the leathery expanse. He refused to give up. A break-through had to be near, or he would soon have to find another dragon on his own because this one wasn’t looking good. Perhaps it was time to get some more live chickens for the thing to eat.

  He’d experimented on the monster for all these months, drinking the blood, pulverizing the cells to powder form for ingestion, wearing garments made of the leather, extracting hormones, cultivating bacteria from the animal’s skin and anything he could think of to trigger his own suspected dormant dragon gene.

  The documents about the sidhartha had convinced him the secret was to be revealed from the skin. This puzzle would not defeat him if he had to remove the entire hide, section by section, from the beast’s massive carcass.

  Yes, the work helped The Chosen concentrate and see the clarity of the situation. He valued this time working before he returned to his apartment and the complicated tangle there. It wouldn’t do to lose his temper again. Another sip of wine, and the knot of tension in his chest loosened.

  Even though he’d temporarily lost his first choice of women he had another waiting that could prove somewhat interesting, Maura. He savored the fae girls name over his tongue with the wine. Red haired vixens seemed to be his weakness and his bane. Perhaps tonight he could find her wings.

  Wren, the fledgling Guardian was the key to unraveling the whole problem. His success would require consummate planning. Next time he would lay a better trap.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Caleb reached around her, cupping her butt in his palms to lift her while Ethan lounged against the table of the small kitchen. Wren’s upstairs apartment was cozy. She stiffened and gasped, as if their slight foreplay had caused her to cum. Caleb spread her thighs open over Ethan’s. An age old battle between instinct needing sex now, and reason demanding patience, warred through him.

  She wanted them but was it only a response to their dragonic pheromones, something she would later regret. Yet, he felt powerless to resist her brand of chemical fire pounding through his veins. She had to be one of their lost people. Ethan’s cock pressed snug against the cleft between the cheeks of her ass. His energy signature sparked, pulsing gold with lust. The barrier of their clothes felt inconsequential.

  He focused his thoughts into Ethan’s opening the psi-link between them. Psychic energy bound the brothers’ thoughts and emotions around Wren as they positioned her to lean back against Ethan’s torso for support.

  Ethan filled his hands with her breasts, stroking his thumbs across the soft flesh, their weight balanced in his hands. He coaxed her pert nipples into tight points under the satin of her bra. The excited catch in her breathing and sparking mental consciousness encouraged him to demand more of her.

  Caleb experienced his brother’s appreciation of her perfect shape, lush and full. He grabbed Ethan’s emotion, wrapping their need together, delivered to Wren in a kiss, his tongue a welcomed invader to her mouth, showing what his body needed to do with hers.

  He stepped into the opening Ethan’s thighs spread for him, the hard length of his cock pressing against her intimate sweet spot. Her responsiveness encouraged him to push for more.

  Life energy built between the three of them, swelling with potential. Caleb wanted to shout his elation to the universe, to run, to fuck, and to conquer. The swirling mass of emotion, raw need and hunger consumed him, threatening his control with an underlying fear. Something was emerging between the three of them that was more than need of a woman for a casual fuck.

  Strong emotion and close connection could trigger him and Ethan’s change. The fear that the intense lust riding them would erupt, unleashing a shift to the primal animal within them, lurked on the edge of his perception. Fear that she might still reject either one or both of them. Fear that none of this was real.

  Caleb devoured her lips in a kiss she took control of, which robbed him of reason. He opened himself to sensation and blinding passion. He soared in spirit, like their dragon gliding the upper thermal air currents. She had a powerful chemistry beyond logic, something that drew them to her.

  The pheromones added to the effect of her blood in their systems. Yes, he and Ethan were high on the brain chemistry of this one two punch. Could this be what the women had felt, attracted by their dragonic pheromones, this unbridled, mindless hunger?

  She took control, giving herself to them through the kiss. Her assertiveness dissolved his doubts.

  Images from her mind of how she wanted them to love her filled his thoughts. He responded to her kisses, following her direction. He felt her acknowledge and accept their unique qualities along with their unrelenting need of her.

  Is this odd that we can sense her thoughts and emotions Ethan?

  Ethan’s distinctive touch slid into his mind.

  The connection has to have something to do with absorbing her blood. We’ve triggered some component of a chemical DNA exchange with her.

  The three of them were changing, aligning into something more than three individuals. He and Ethan touched her, working her body in direct response to her thoughts and needs as though inside her mind.

  The intense, chemical-induced eros to take her drove him wild with a mindless craving to bury his cock into her lush body, a craving to make the pictures in her mind reality, giving into the need for physical release. He wanted to drive into her, to give a tempo to the powerful primal rhythm, which raged in him.

  He wanted to blast open the connection in her mind so he could feel her-- no, more, be inside her when she came. Her pleasure in Ethan teasing her nipples and Caleb rubbing her clit radiated through the link. Her pants hugged her hips. Why did she have to be dressed in these impenetrable blue jeans?

  If he could get her out of these clothes, he could have her. With the last shred of wit he accepted he’d lost control of his emotion. Not that it mattered. His single important thought centered on her longing for them, wrapped around him in tight bands.

  She called for action, feeding an unreasonable heated hormonal thrall to mate. She wanted more, needed him, had to have him… them. He didn’t care that she barely knew them. Any reticence wouldn’t matter once he forged past those barriers. Sacrifice of his carefully built control was inconsequential to the pleasure they would have taking her.

  Fantasies of how tight she would feel, how her hot moist sheath would grip his cock. She would control him with whispered commands, and he would take her until she screamed his name as she came. She responded to their psychic whispers, building the churning emotion between the three of them.

  Passion shook him with an intensity bordering on pain. He pushed against her, hoping she would find a way to remove her jeans. He clasped her hips, lean and smooth in his hands. Caleb pulled her against his thrusts, her demanding kisses holding them together. Sharing her taste consumed him.

  Caleb thrust his marble hard cock against her jean-clad core one last time, sending her over the edge. His lips descended on her mouth to capture her scream of ecstasy. Her release wrapped around them and simultaneously through him. He swept the feeling through the link and into Ethan with the power of a lust filled orgasmic punch.

  Ethan moaned with the force the echo of her pleasure. They had become Wren reveling in the experience, her thundering climax became their own. She cried out between them, after-shocks of her orgas
m shattered the deep shared connection pushing Caleb and Ethan out of the link with her.

  Ethan rested his head on her shoulder holding her wrapped his arms, I feel her channeling through you. That’s never happened with any other woman. Caleb, how can you focus all this sexual energy? Caleb?

  An insistent irritation pushed in his mind and Caleb couldn’t respond so he ignored the distraction. Ethan’s touch pounded at his psyche, forcing reason into the lust-filled heat, which possessed him.

  Yes, he was here with Ethan, and this small woman. She could be theirs, her will was irrelevant, they’d take what they wanted, what they needed. Ethan intervened harder with a pinching psychic twist that radiated pain through him. Oww, ahhh, owww.

  Yes, that’s right, Caleb, now that I have you by the psychic nuts, get a fucking grip, man, we have to stay in control. We’re not barbarians. Claiming us and advancing the bonding has to be her choice of free will. Ethan’s mental voice infiltrated the haze, clearing his judgment. Wren unleashed something inside him that wanted to be wild and out of control.

  Ethan was right. Too much, Too fast.

  Yeah, brother, slow this fucking train down. There’s too much we don’t know. She could be trying to control us to keep us sidetracked. With Ethan’s help, Caleb forced a steel discipline over the raging heat before the loss of control stripped away everything human.

  Wren’s rational thoughts are being swamped by her body’s demands. If we push her to claim us before she has time to put all this together, we’ll lose her.

  Ethan, ever the pragmatist, restored the perfect balance between them and within Caleb. Ethan’s skilled Anchor talent braced him. They were fire and ice, balancing each other’s weaknesses and strengths.

  Being glad Ethan helped him maintain his self-control didn’t mean the metaphysical gonad crunch he’d used to do so felt good. She clung to them panting between murmured sighs of so good. He rested his forehead against hers, each breath inhaling her rich scent. She was perfect. He would find the patience to wait until she was ready to accept them both.

  ≽∞≼

  The first nagging thought buzzed around Ethan’s awareness like an aggravating moskfly, both beautiful and poison in equal measures. The buzzing of premonition made him curse, damn. He was going to have to extricate himself out from under the blanket of softness. Wren lay collapsed in sated sleep, draped over half his torso, one leg flung over his denim clad thigh.

  Caleb spooned against her back side opened his eyes to stare down Ethan in his dilemma. So, his brother felt it too. Not surprising. Caleb nodded slowly easing back off the bed away from the sleeping form of the woman.

  They’d brought her sexual fulfillment in a variety of ways always short of engaging in penetration sex with her. That would have to wait. It was obvious her mind was untrained and she didn’t know the consequences of what she was doing. After her first questing mental contact they’d both steeled themselves from letting her mind capture theirs initiating a shared bonding.

  Full cock buried sex would lower their shields too far to resist her wild energy. They couldn’t take the chance she’d need time to realize what a mental link with them would mean. She’d have to know what they became and choose a joined future with them. Anything less and she would resent the bonding.

  Caleb picked up his shirt. Ethan had to move her. He grappled with the decision to wake her or try to ease from the bed allowing her the sleep she needed.

  Mmmhhaa. She mumbled against his chest. He rolled her onto her back, pulling a pillow to cushion under her head. “We have to go.” He kissed her on the forehead.

  Her eyes sprang open taking her from drowsy to an impression of wide awake in a blink.

  “Go?”

  “Yes.”

  She blurted. “First I can’t get rid of you and now you’re leaving me. Where’s Caleb?” The random bubbles of thought gave away her less than alert state.”

  Caleb put his hand on her foot. “I’m here. But I must go with Ethan.”

  “Go.” She stated again as if saying the word would absorb the meaning of the thought.

  Caleb pulled the t-shirt she’d given him over his arms and poked his head through the neckline pulling it on as he strode to her side. “Yes, we must go.”

  She sat up cross legged in the bed, her ample breasts bobbing with the motion of her effort. The sheet draped down around her hips barely covering the dusky red curls nestled at the juncture of her thighs. So like a naked goddess. The dragon torque clasping the queen stones winked from its perch around her neck. Ethan had more questions than answers. Not a state that gave him comfort.

  Caleb leaned in close inhaling her scent. “We’ve been called and must attend to a matter.”

  “I didn’t hear the phone.”

  Ethan let the misunderstanding slide. “I want you to stay here in the apartment until we return.”

  “I’ve got things to do. What time is it? I have to reopen the shop.” She searched around the bed, patting and rifling the sheets. Caleb handed her the green shirt she’d been wearing.

  Ethan stepped away from the bed to retrieve his shirt. “It’s time for you to get more rest. You’re going to need it.”

  She blushed pink along the blades of her cheeks and pulled the shirt over her tempting round breasts.

  “I would have you stay naked and in bed waiting for us. We are far from finished.” Caleb voiced Ethan’s thoughts while he eased her hair up out of the fabric and smoothed it over her back. He caressed her sliding his hands down her arms. Tremors rippled along her skin chasing his touch.

  If she decided she couldn’t accept both of them and preferred one over the other it would complicate things immensely. The brothers had to live together. Ethan didn’t think he had the fortitude to reside in the same house, sharing their intimacy through his brother’s mental link without participating. He doubted Caleb could either.

  The feelings of unease intruded. He wanted to resist the urge. Say no to the call and say with Caleb to explore her lush treasures longer. He toyed with the idea of telling Caleb to stay with her, that he’d go on his own to explore the psychic call. But it would be useless breath.

  Their uniqueness in shifting required their united effort in all things and Caleb wouldn’t leave his side.

  “We must go Caleb.”

  There was really no way to determine where they were going or when they would be able to return. There was no point in telling her that critical fact. It would take too long to explain and she probably wouldn’t be able to understand why they were following a nebulous feeling into the unknown anyway.

  “Yes I feel it too.” Caleb kissed her shoulder and she closed her eyes leaning into his touch. Ethan reached out to cup her cheek and chin, so small and delicate in his hand. She nuzzled against his touch in a gesture so promising he had hope for the first time in years, if it was real. “I’m not sure how long this will take but we will be back.”

  Reluctance. Leaving her confirmed he’d never really understood the meaning of the word before. The moment redefined several things within him, perhaps changed things forever.

  The huge dark blob of unspecified anxiety weighed on him. They must discover who or what the woman was before this went much further. He really wanted answers on what caused their skin to absorb her blood.

  The whole experience had the potential for monumental fuck up.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Isobeau looked around at the shelves of books. The den doubled as a library in the old Victorian house that the watchers had made into headquarters on this side of the veil. Her fingers ran over the various titles. Herbal Healing, Candle Magic, Lexicon of Remedies, a favorite book by Jude Renlow a renowned author of pagan literature.

  The one immeasurable perk of becoming part of the Watchers organization was access to their extensive library. She pulled the next tome in her search, off the shelf checking the title. She swept her long dark hair over her shoulder in an unconscious movement. Maybe something here wo
uld finally reveal an answer to the hornets’ nest of questions buzzing in her mind.

  She’d learned quite a bit about Drakin society and ancient customs that had been obscured and hidden in part by their own mystique and in great portion by the reigning monarch of the realm, her mother. She sat down at the small corner desk she used for her office space. There were so many things that weren’t as they appeared. What would be the chances of one more intruding on her platter sized portion of problems?

  The door pushed open with a tentative easing.

  “Yes.” She shoved the book aside without opening the cover.

  Rhys ducked his head around the frame of the hard wood. “You asked to see me, mistress.”

  She beckoned him “Come on in.”

  The burly man filled up the doorway as he entered the room. His bearish lumbering closed the distance between them. She wished he’d sit but he never did, as if his size made him uncomfortable in the room. How could this man be a recessive? Everything about him screamed active dragon shifter.

  The question of Kiernan became a rhythm within her day. She’d known the dragon shifter from the before time, when she was a member of the royal house and he a leader in in the Solidarian. The power of his hatching as dragon, so different from her human shifter existence gave him a dark dangerous edge that called to her.

  She’d lived as a princess in her tower of royalty and him a warrior, sovereign in his own right, but just as trapped by conventions of their caste system. They were never free to be together. They’d met maybe twice in the order of her mother’s business. She’d never forgotten him.

  He’d probably never even noticed her or knew her name. Her affair with him grew from her one sided need.

  Isobeau motioned to the couch. “Any word on Kiernan?” It had been her question of the day, every day. In the six long months since she’d reported Kiernan’s presence on this side of the veil to the Drakin authorities, there hadn’t been an answer. It had been her impression he was here on her mother’s business and thought he’d be recalled home.