The Dragon's Captive (Dragon Brides Book 2)

by Renard, Loki

  “It has been a very bad day,” Vilka agreed. “And it will prove to be an equally bad day for you, I promise you that.” His hand tightened on the back of her neck. “You are more trouble than Avastias himself. You are the very definition of trouble. And you are not sorry at all, are you.”

  “Of course I’m not sorry!” There was nothing resembling repentance in her tone, because she didn’t feel bad for what had happened. She’d told Vilka from the beginning that she needed to return home, and that she wouldn’t stop trying until she did. The fact that he didn’t seem to understand what that actually meant wasn’t her fault. “You should have let me go!”

  Vilka’s golden gaze seared fiercely into her very soul. “You have created not one, but two serious problems, awakened a world eater and opened a portal.”

  “I’ve had a busy day,” she said, taking refuge in smartass responses. What the hell was she supposed to do about any of this? The portal, by all rights, should probably close on itself. Maybe. She wasn’t actually sure. As for the dragon, that was way beyond her pay grade.

  Vilka gritted his teeth and for a moment she was not sure what he was going to do to her. She was baiting him and she knew she should stop. He was a man suddenly alone against the ferocity of a creature more powerful than any dragon. Many men in his position would probably have crumbled under the pressure, taken their anger out on the defenseless female in their grasp, but Vilka was better than that.

  He took a deep breath and a slow smile spread over his face, a smile that Kate was certain did not bode well for her immediate future.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do about the world eater right now,” he said. “But I know what I’m going to do with you.”

  “With me? Shouldn’t you be doing something about the massive fucking dragon out there?”

  “There is little I can do about Avastias in this moment. We are in no danger here; this fortress was built to withstand a direct hit from a world eater. I am certain that Avastias’ emergence will draw attention and assistance—and if it doesn’t, the portal certainly will.”

  He walked on, taking her with him, marching her before him.

  “I have time to deal with you,” he said. “And I intend to deal with you thoroughly. If this is to be the end of one world, or perhaps even two, it will not end without you being thoroughly punished.”

  They soon arrived back in his chambers, where her broken leash still hung from the bedpost, scattered links on the floor a silent reminder of just how hard she had worked to unintentionally unleash a beast of Armageddon.

  “It’s a prisoner’s right to try to escape,” she said before he could say anything. “I just want to go home. Is that so wrong?”

  “Yes,” he ground out. “For reasons I have explained to you several times already. You do not listen, and you do not obey. I have been too kind to you, human. I have allowed your weak flesh and your softness to make me treat you the same way—and it has done neither of us any good. Tonight you will face a proper dragon punishment. You will feel my fire and you will be chastised to the full extent of my capabilities.”

  “Vilka…”

  “Do not use my name on your lips,” he growled, his expression so furious she felt a true tremor of fear. “You have not earned the right to speak my name. You will call me Master and you will beg my forgiveness.”

  Kate stared at him, uncomfortable with the knowledge that she had in some way brought this consequence upon herself. She kept forgetting that this was not a human man. He had not been raised in good society. He did not know about concepts like equality. He was the ruler of his domain and he expected to be obeyed. She had trespassed against him in a way he likely found unforgivable and she knew there was no easy way out.

  “I don’t think you will be able to forgive me,” she said softly, casting her eyes toward the floor.

  “You do not know my mind, human,” he growled. “Or my heart. I would ask that you stop presuming the state of either.”

  “I mean,” she said with the beginnings of tears pricking her eyes. “I mean that I will never submit to this realm, or to your rule. This is not my world and you are not my master.”

  She expected rage. Instead, his hand cupped her chin and tipped her face up toward his own. “You are wrong,” he said in tones that were determined and deeply controlled. “You are so wrong, you cannot begin to understand how wrong you are—but you will soon. You are going back on a leash. And I do not mean a pretty, malleable leash like the one you destroyed. I mean one forged from chains you will never break if you work on them for a hundred years. You are not going to leave my sight. Ever. I cannot trust you even a foot from me, I think, human.”

  “You better not close your eyes, in that case,” Kate said petulantly. She was so frustrated with him and with herself for botching what would probably be her only opportunity for escape. The equipment had all been destroyed, leaving her with nothing. “I could escape beneath your nose, given enough time. You will never be able to keep me here against my will.”

  “I know you are an intelligent woman,” he growled. “And I know that you feel something for me. I know you feel some measure of guilt for what has befallen the fortress, for Avastias’ rising. I can see it in your eyes, even as you lie to me and tell me that you do not care. So why is it you continue to try to plunge our worlds back into war?”

  “I’m trying to go home!” she gasped in a plaintive attempt for him to understand that which he had thus far utterly refused to comprehend.

  “This is your home,” Vilka said firmly. “You will have my progeny and you will live out your life here.”

  His arrogance never ceased to stun Kate.

  “You can’t just tell me what I am going to do with my life! I did not spend all those years studying to be dictated to by some… some…”

  “Dragon,” he finished her sentence for her. “You came into my world. You made yourself my problem, and whether you like it or not, little human, your actions have consequences. I will never allow you to return to the human realm. You have everything you need here to make your radiation treatments, and when the time comes and my seed finds the spark of life which dances inside you—you will no longer need them.”

  They seethed at one another, she so small and furious, he so large and angry.

  “I am not going to carry your, your… progeny,” she spluttered. “How could you think of something like that at a time like this?”

  “I think of it every time I look at you.”

  The simple sentence took her breath away. Truth rang in his words. This was not merely some barbaric act of claiming he was speaking of; this was a yearning she could feel answered in her own heart—not that she would ever have admitted to it, and not that she planned to give in to it. Freedom was what she desired above all. Above anything. The desire to mate, to procreate, those were baser desires she had always considered herself above. She hated the way he brought them forth in her and made her feel so totally out of control.

  “Well… don’t!” She stamped her foot as he smirked darkly at her. “And don’t look at me like that. There is a disaster going on, remember?”

  “There is a disaster melting down in front of me,” Vilka purred, reaching for her again. His hand curled in her hair and his mouth descended on hers with a dominant passion that drove all thought and resistance from her mind. His tongue lashed against hers, stoking those animal urges that were so unfair.

  He took her to the bed and laid her down, his naked body covering hers, his powerful frame holding her prone as his mouth began to trace trails of liquid fire over her skin. The curve of her neck, the swell of her breasts, the tips of her nipples and down the middle of her belly to find the curls that were such poor guardians of her sex.

  Kate let out a cry as Vilka’s lips found their lower counterparts and he began to kiss and lick and suckle at the tender folds, giving her no quarter, no hope of resistance. She was soaked with need, a physical reaction to being held down and pl
easured, her hips bucking against his mouth over and over as his hands encircled her wrist and her thighs splayed with an instinctive surrender.

  “What must I do to you for you to realize that neither of us truly have a choice, Kate?” He growled the question against her cunt. “From the moment I saw you, I have wanted you. I have been consumed with need for you. I have thought of little else besides sinking inside you, filling you with my essence, making you my mate. I have seen our lives together in my mind. There are places I wish to take you, things I wish to show you, a whole world lies at your feet and you insist on trying to run from it because you cannot stand to be owned.”

  His tongue plunged deep inside her and Kate arced with desire. Tremors ran through her body, jolts of pleasure that would not be contained as the dragon’s tongue speared in and out of her pussy, fucking her tender little hole with hot, wet, muscular strokes.

  Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes, tears of a sadness that she could not simply allow herself to fall for this man. She had created her entire identity and existence around being an independent woman of the mind. She could not believe that she was tempted in even the smallest way to simply surrender to him and become what he wanted her to be.

  Her body was not so conflicted. Her body was riding his mouth, her clit a tight bud of desire so erect Vilka took advantage and pinched it, his fingers strumming up and down the little bud until she wailed and cried on the verge of ultimate release.

  Before she could come, her dragon lover slid up her body and his mouth met hers. She tasted herself in his kiss as he plundered her yet again and then broke the kiss, leaving her breathless as he looked deep into her eyes and spoke words too powerful to deny.

  “You do not love me, Kate? You do not need me as much as I need you? Then why does your heart leap every time you see me? Why do your palms begin to perspire, your pupils widen? Why does the very breath you take change when we are together, if I am not the master of you?”

  His thick fingers found the clenching entrance of her body and slid slowly inside. Kate let out a sigh of satisfaction as she felt her desperate pussy clasp his digits and draw them deeper. Vilka was whipping her body into an erotic frenzy and she was not sure she could contain herself much longer. She wanted to come so badly, but he was keeping her on the edge, denying her clit the rubbing it needed, denying her pussy the depth and power of the strokes that would have sent her over the edge.

  “I…” she gasped against his lips, unable to reach climax and yet so desperate for it.

  “Why can I hold your pleasure to my will?” he continued relentlessly. “Why can you not attain the climax you are so desperate for without me, if I am not the man who commands your flesh?”

  “Just fuck me already!”

  “You have not earned my cock, or my seed, my rebellious human.” Vilka shook his head with a husky low chuckle. “Rutting on my hand is all you deserve, and truly, not even that.”

  He drew his fingers from her pussy, and her resulting cry of complaint turned into a squeal as they returned in a stinging slap that caught her between her legs, not hard enough to truly hurt, but more than forcefully enough to get her attention.

  “You have earned a thrashing,” he growled down at her. “For being a spoiled, destructive, wanton woman who thinks she is above everything, even her own needs, desires, her own truth. I should spank your pussy every day before I fuck it to remind you who owns you—and who knows what you are even though you try desperately to deny it.”

  “Please! Please…” she gasped and begged, both to avoid the spanking and to gain the release only his cock could give her. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry!”

  “You might not have known about Avastias, but you knew about me,” Vilka snarled, his hand swatting her pussy lips again, making her hips buck with pain. “You knew what my orders were, and you knew what I would do to you if you tried to open another portal.”

  His palm caught her pussy again with another sharp swat. “I think you must want punishment,” he said. “I think you must want your pussy spanked and fucked. I think you must need my chain, my lash. There is no other explanation for it.”

  Her pussy was hot and stinging, her clit standing erect and proud, slicked with her juices as her reddened lips parted for the man who had taken her.

  His naked body stoked her desire, the sight of his thick proud cock standing rampant against his belly making her almost mad with need. He was spanking her sex, his fingers flicking her clit and swatting her lips and the more she writhed, the more he punished her pussy until finally neither of them could stand it another moment and Vilka slammed his cock into her tightness with one long, hard stroke that made her spread around him in an instant.

  “What am I, Kate?” He growled the question as his cock pistoned in and out of her desperate pussy, fucking her so hard and so fast she could not tell one motion from another.

  “You are my master!” The words were torn from her in a crashing orgasm that seemed to threaten to take her very consciousness apart. She felt an influx of pleasure so strong she could hardly contain it, her mind was blank, her body quivering and bucking, her sex greedily drinking his seed, drawing it deep into her clenching womb.

  When Vilka’s seed was spilled and the last vestiges of their joint climax faded, leaving them in one another’s arms, Vilka and Kate lay together, listening to the not so distant cries of the world eater.

  They were frightening, primal sounds, somehow evoking the deepest animal horrors lurking in the oldest parts of Kate’s brain. They made her heart beat faster and her breathing quicken. She buried her head in Vilka’s arms to block some of the creature’s sound.

  “We cannot hide from it forever,” Vilka said, easing her up out of bed. “Let us see what he has done.”

  Kate trailed after Vilka to the window, where they watched the beautiful and yet terrible creature circling around. It seemed to be looking for something. Food, perhaps. Having headed around the site of its mountain nest several times, it flew over the fortress, the sound of the wind displaced by its wings so loud Kate covered her ears.

  “What is it doing?”

  “Claiming territory,” Vilka said. “It has been centuries since Avastias reigned here. He must once more see what is his to take. When he has taken the measure of his territory, he will begin to feed.”

  “What does he eat?”

  “Everything,” Vilka said. “Animals, grasses, trees, rocks, even the earth itself. There is a reason why these creatures are known as world eaters. Our world is formed by their appetites, mountains, valleys, and plains.”

  “Um… he’s getting really near the portal,” Kate said, her fingers wrapped nervously around Vilka’s broad arm. Holding on to him made her feel a little better.

  “It is not large enough to allow him passage,” Vilka said. “He is almost certainly curious about it. I doubt he has ever seen one.”

  Kate watched, holding her breath as Avastias approached the portal and with his wings still beating in the air, stopped like a massive hummingbird and put his head through it.

  “Oh, my god!” She screamed the words, imagining the sight as it would be playing out on the New York skyline. A massive dragon’s head appearing through a glimmering portal. God. The panic and chaos would be widespread.

  Avastias pulled his head back into the dragon realm and Kate breathed a sigh of relief. It was a very short spell of respite, however. The world eater circled the portal, once, twice, three times, built up some speed on its massive wings—and then flew directly into the portal. The little glimmering slit was not nearly large enough, but it expanded as the beast burst through, allowing the massive dragon to pass from the world entirely. In less than a minute, it was gone, the tip of its scaly tail disappearing with one final gleam from the portal’s walls.

  Kate turned to Vilka, a look of horror plastered across her face. “We just unleashed an ancient dragon on New York!”

  “You just unleashed an ancient dragon on New York, wh
atever that may be,” Vilka said grimly. He was standing there stoically, watching events unfold with a certain detachment that she envied in that moment. “You just plunged two worlds into crisis. Congratulations, Kate; in a few short days you have managed to undo centuries of peace in the dragon realm—and decades of whatever truce existed between our world and the human world with it.”

  He spoke with a disturbing calm, and when Kate looked into his face she saw that he didn’t look mad. He looked so far beyond mad that he was entirely calm. The worst had happened and they were standing in its wake, caught up in a chain of events that was, undeniably, her fault. He had tried to stop her, but she had not listened and now it seemed that the technology she had so proudly pursued was going to ruin or maybe even take the lives of thousands.

  Kate couldn’t quite understand it; maybe she couldn’t even admit it to herself.

  The flock of dragons that had been in thrall around the world eater turned as the world eater disappeared from the world, sheared away from the portal and headed back toward the fortress in an exhausted cloud.

  “What do we do? How do we get it back?”

  “Some things, once done, cannot be undone,” he said. “They must simply run their terrible course.”

  “Vilka! There has to be something!”

  “Very well. If you insist on saving humanity from the wrath of a world eater, there is something to be done,” he said. “Someone can bait it from your world, return it to the dragon realm, defeat it in battle and return it to its den.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Sounds, um… difficult.”

  “No more difficult than tearing a hole in space and time and waking him in the first place, I am sure,” Vilka sighed. “Really, Kate, I did not think this situation could have been worsened, but thanks to your efforts, it has. Avastias rising almost certainly has the elders of our people en route to our door. Their wrath would have been terrible enough when they realized the circumstances of his awakening, but now when they arrive, they will have the additional question of what we’ve done with the creature.”