A big bed. A bed that looked like it could fit multiple Dracon at once, let alone Faith and her measly frame.
A mountain of blankets sat, draped across the bed, some furry, some scaly and leathery. Heaps of pillows. It looked like it was taken out of a cabin in the middle of the woods, all handcrafted and unique. A lone window stood on the wall beside the bed, revealing an orange sky.
Again, Faith said a single word, and again, her word felt inept and stupid: “Wow.”
“My room,” Dracyrus spoke, leading her before the bed, between the stone bedframe and the fireplace. “I spent many nights lying awake, picturing all the ways I would make the Harbinger scream before I cut out his tongue and gutted his stomach.”
Oh, yes. Faith remembered his colorful threats. She remembered being slightly turned on then, too. What could she say? She was a kinky freak.
Dracyrus dropped her hand, beginning to circle her like some kind of predator. “At first, I pictured doing the same to you.” Right, how absolutely charming. “But we both know things have changed.” He stood behind her, his hand reaching around her, lightly curling around her throat.
Once, he might’ve strangled her, but now…now he only held onto her. Who had the power here—Dracyrus or Faith? Did it even matter? They were now at each other’s whim and mercy. Their bodies, their hearts, their souls.
“Remember when you called to me?” Dracyrus whispered, his voice so gravelly and deep she felt it in her core. Her fingertips began to tremble with anticipation. “You wore nothing but the cloak, pulled me onto the bed with you, pressed your lips to mine…”
God, how the hell could Faith forget something like that? That had been…well, she hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time, but still. Hard to forget an encounter like that.
Faith was about to say something, but when his hand left her throat, she glanced down, noticing she’d changed out of her clothes sometime in the last few minutes—she now wore the same cloak. And only the cloak. Nothing underneath, if the breeze between her legs meant anything.
She moved to the bed, running a hand along it before her fingers went to her neck, undoing the string that held the cloak closed and around her neck. Within seconds, it fluttered to the ground, forgotten. Faith shivered, but she wasn’t chilly for long. Soon Dracyrus’s heat engulfed her, his arms forcing her to the bed.
Crawling on top of it, it took her practically years to travel from the foot of the giant bed to the top, where she could get under the covers. Dracyrus watched her all the while, his black eyes glinting with traces of something she couldn’t name. Hunger? Lust? Everything rolled into one? Dracon faces were cut sharper, their features more pronounced, more reptilian, scales aside. It was hard for her to say what look he gave her then.
Dracyrus said nothing as he worked to take off his own clothes. Just like that. No comforting words, no dominant, alpha commands. Just assuming that she’d take him. She would, but that was beside the point.
The area between her legs trembled as she watched him shed his clothing. He looked stronger, thicker than he did in the waterworld, maybe because this was real—or as real as it could be, considering. His chest was wide, solid in ways no Elf or Fae could dream of. Muscles upon muscles, all beneath a scaled abdomen, an eight-pack that looked rock-hard and oh-so-touchable.
Oh-so touchable? Who the hell was Faith turning into? She didn’t think thoughts like that—but when it came to Dracyrus, apparently she did.
He was…also very hung. Packing the heat, even before it was fully erect. Holy shit. Before Faith hadn’t let her eyes linger for too long there, because he was her enemy and how inappropriate was it to stare at the schlong of her arch nemesis? But now…now what was she supposed to do? There was no ignoring that particular part of him anymore.
In fact, all Faith could do was stare at it like she’d never seen one that big before. And she hadn’t, thank God, because she wasn’t sure she could handle one dick the size of his, let alone multiple.
Dracyrus got on the bed beside her, moving beneath the covers and snaking an arm around her waist, pulling her to him, breathing her in. What did she smell like? She wondered. He smelled like fire and heat, smoke and brimstone. Wild and feral, like a beast. A dragon of a man.
She ran her hands down his chest, feeling his muscles rippling beneath her touch. Slowly, her hands moved all over him, exploring places of him she never knew she’d be fascinated with. She lightly touched his face, cupping his cheeks, angular as they were, running her thumbs over the scales there. Faith felt so tiny beside him, but it did help that both of their heads were on the same pillow.
Dracyrus ran a clawed hand down her side, causing her to close her eyes and sigh out a shaky breath. “You…” he breathed out, “are such a tiny, frail thing. How am I to…” It seemed the mighty Dracon was at a loss.
So was Faith. She wasn’t sure how the hell this was going to work, but she wanted to find out. She needed to find out.
“We’ll figure it out,” she assured him in a bare whisper, feeling the desperate need to kiss him. Based on her past dream with him, his kind didn’t show affection by kissing. They probably wrestled with their horns or something—horns which Faith did not have. She leaned closer to him, pressing her lips against his, but not for long.
Dracyrus pulled his lips off hers enough to ask, “What do you call that?”
“Kissing,” Faith said, holding back the immature need to roll her eyes. She never pictured herself as someone who would have to explain what kissing was; she just thought everyone knew, that it was something everyone did. “That was a kiss,” she added, bringing her lips back to his.
This time, he did not pull back, although it took him a little while to learn how to reciprocate. It was as if his lips didn’t work like hers, but it was alright; she’d be patient with him for as long as she had to. There was no rush. Not here. Not now. This was their time, and by God, she was going to make the most of it.
Faith wanted to show him there was more to kissing than locking lips together, so she gently nibbled on his lower lip, slowly pushing her tongue into his mouth to meet his, carefully avoiding his sharp teeth. They were locked like that for a while. Time meant nothing to her, to him, as they were in each other’s arms, getting to know one another’s bodies. Finally.
She was the one who broke off the make-out session, breathing hard, ragged, while Dracyrus sounded and looked completely normal and put-together. Maybe Dracon didn’t get so winded; or maybe their kind was better all around. Who knew?
“I suppose,” he whispered, bringing a hand to her face, running his clawed fingers through her hair until he held onto the back of her neck, “I can understand why your kind enjoy your kissing so much.”
Faith giggled. She couldn’t help it. Hearing Dracyrus say the word kissing was not something she’d ever thought she would hear. He was a big, mighty Dracon, the Dracon of everyone’s nightmares. It was ridiculously hilarious.
“My kind—”
She felt the tip of her nose brush against his. “You guys like your horn play.” Again, not a sentence she thought she’d say, either, but here she was. Here they both were. Odds were they were both doing things they never pictured they would. Dracyrus with a Human, with a Human who was part Fae—two of his worst, most hated races. And her with him.
“Horn play?” Dracyrus echoed, almost cracking a smile but not really.
“Yeah, horn play,” she repeated. “I remember what happened when I grabbed your horns. I could grab them now—”
“If you grab them now, I may not be able to stop myself from taking you here and now, Faith,” he warned her, a low rumble coming from his chest. Almost like a growl, primal and carnal. Faith found she rather liked the sound.
Did that make her weird?
Oh, well. Who gave a shit? This was past the point of weird, and she didn’t care.
“Do you think it would still hurt, since this is a dream?” Faith had never been so awake in a dream before, self-aware that this was no
t real, but the Dracon three inches from her was. She felt his heat, felt his nails along her skin and the hand holding the back of her neck, but would she feel pain? Would the pain make her wake up?
Dracyrus made a non-committal sound. “I do not know. Perhaps.” The hand on the back of her neck traveled down along her spine, stopping only when it rested on the curve of her ass. “The least we could do is try, I suppose.” His thin lips quirked into a…another smirk. Not a smile. A freaking smirk. “Prepare you for the real thing.”
At this point, Faith didn’t give a single shit about preparing herself for the real thing. She wanted to wipe that confident smirk off his face—apparently she had a thing against smirking. Her eyes flicked up to his curled horns, and she had one idea that might just cause the smirk to fade from his mouth and make him want to take her. A win-win, definitely.
Her hands looked so small as they traveled up his face. His scales were smooth and soft, not a hindrance at all as Faith went to grip his horns. The moment she began to curl her fingers around them, Dracyrus’s entire body shuddered, and his eyelids fluttered closed, almost as if he could not stop them from falling. He let out a slow, shaky breath when her hands moved up the horns to the tips. Such impressive horns. The horns of the Devil, some might say. Faith herself didn’t care; he was a sexy specimen of a man, even if he was scaled and horned, even if his hair was longer than hers.
Dracyrus’s large body moved until he had Faith on her back, his forehead against hers. Faith’s hands still gripped his horns, but they were slow to slide off when he let out a low humming in his chest. God, yes, she was ready.
She watched as he worked to spread her legs, climbing over her until she felt the tip of his dick brush against her opening. Oh, yes. She was as ready as she would ever be for that monster of a dick. With the height difference between them, she could only stare at his chest, but she supposed it would have to do. Faith ran her hands along his sides, inhaling sharply when she felt the pressure of him pushing against her, into her.
With his entrance came, of course, pain, because her body wasn’t used to taking in something of that size—and right when Faith was about to cry out, mutter a swearword under her breath, Dracyrus faded from above her and she woke in her bed, surrounded by Light and Jag.
Since she knew they were both fast asleep, Faith whispered to herself, “No.” Way to give her lady blue balls, dream. Way to fucking go.
Faith turned on her side, but she couldn’t deny the warm feeling spreading in her lower gut. It was too strong a sensation to simply let be; she had to have sex now. She was way too horny to ignore it, thanks to Dracyrus.
Jag was out, between the bed and the wall, and she knew he’d be massively hungover due to his drinking the night before, so Faith turned to Light. It’d be weird if she just crawled over Light to get to Dracyrus, wouldn’t it? Dracyrus and Vyserous had their own room across the hall; there was no way she’d slip out without waking Light, and there was absolutely no way she’d be able to tell him where she was going.
She moved a hand to Light’s chest, stirring the Elf somewhat. Though the flowers on the vines were so dim they were nearly out, Faith could see the moment when his eyes opened, when he turned his head to look at her.
“Light, I…” Faith had no idea what the hell to say, so she trailed off, uncertain. A far cry from the confidence she normally oozed out of every pore. A confidence that irked a lot of people and made her annoying to many others.
She needn’t have worried; Light hushed her with a gentle kiss, grabbing the side of her face with an urgency she didn’t know he was capable of, since he’d just woken up. He normally was out of it for an hour or two after waking up. Hell, maybe he was still half-asleep now and thought this was some kind of wet dream or something.
A wet dream. A freaking wet dream was exactly what she’d just had with Dracyrus, only it was real. As real as a dream could be, meaning both she and Dracyrus were well aware of what happened inside it. Was Dracyrus as upset at the dream ending as she was?
When Light broke the kiss, he muttered a single word, “Go.” The hand fell off her face, and he let out a yawn before rolling onto his side and falling back asleep instantly.
Go. Did he mean go to Dracyrus? Faith wondered. What else could he have meant? What else could go mean?
Her will hardened, and she crawled out of the bed, moving over Light to get to her feet. Faith took a single step, then stopped. Should she put shoes on? Should she just waltz over to his door and knock? What if it was Vyserous who answered? With how that Dracon looked when he was talking about sex, the last thing the poor guy needed was two people going at it in his room.
She moved to the door, new doubts creeping up her neck. Faith went to open the door and step out into the hallway, and as it turned out, she needn’t have worried a single bit.
Dracyrus stood in the hallway, just outside his door, having exited his room a minute before she did. They met eyes; he gazed down at her while she looked up at him. They were so different, different races, different builds, but none of that mattered. Faith was going to make this work, somehow.
Mimicking the move he’d made in the dream, Faith extended her hand to him. Dracyrus’s black eyes fell to the hand, and it was but a moment before he stepped closer, taking her hand in his with a firm strength she couldn’t pull away from.
It didn’t matter, because Faith was done pulling away, done fighting this. With a destiny as huge as hers, she had to live every day like it would be her last—and right now all she wanted to do was Dracyrus. Or, maybe she should’ve thought: the only person she wanted to do was Dracyrus.
Oh, yeah. They were going to fuck.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Waking up from that shared dream, finding Faith was no longer with him, no longer beneath him, had made Dracyrus intensely and immediately irate. He felt his rage boiling in his silver blood, but then he remembered it was just a dream, and the real Faith was right across the hall. He couldn’t let his emotions take him over like that. If he was to be a part of Faith’s…fellowship, or whatever those idiots called themselves, he had to learn how to control his temper.
It would take a while, he knew, because in all of his previous lifetimes, he’d never been one for self-control. It was always better for him to go all out, channel every bit of rage inside his body to the war with the Harbinger.
Now…now Dracyrus had to channel the bad feelings into good ones. He had to focus on Faith.
He got himself out of bed, wondering what he should do. Should he storm into her room, drag her out, and bring her back here? Vyserous was asleep in the other bed, and by the looks of him, he was nothing but a fledgling still. Young. Inexperienced. While it was true Dracyrus hadn’t had much experience during the constant war, he was old enough to know where everything was supposed to go. He was able to talk about it without blushing like a Human.
Dracyrus went to the door, sliding out without a sound. He paused for a while, debating on what he should do. Faith had told him she’d spoken to the Elf and the Malus, but storming into their room and dragging her out of the bed they shared might be overdoing it.
He heard the door across from him move, and he watched as Faith exited her room, freezing only when she saw him. For a long moment after, they simply gazed at each other, until Faith extended a hand to him, much as he had in the shared dream. Dracyrus looked at it for a little while, taking a single stride closer to her before taking it.
By the fires of Furen, her hand was so small, just like the rest of her. How could he possibly…
No. He would not lose himself in doubts. They would do this, so long as Faith was willing, even if he had to carry her back to her room. Even if he had to carry her everywhere they went for the next few days.
Faith led him through the giant tree, apparently knowing where she wanted to bring him. She only got them lost once or twice, using Human curses each time she led them to a dead end. It took everything in his power not to chuckle at her
, not to show her how amusing he thought she was. Didn’t want to inflate her ego any more. That, and Dracyrus had appearances to uphold. He might bend to the Harbinger, but he was still himself.
Up and up they went, until they reached the top of the tree, where the branches were so wide and thick they created walkways surrounded by luminescent leaves. She led Dracyrus along a branch that ended where the leaves spread out, allowing them both the best view in all of the Aetherium from the top of the Eldertree. The sky above was still black, but there was light from the leaves, which would be more than enough for them to do what they must. What they have to.
This, Faith—most certainly a need. Not a want. She had passed on the scale of wanting a long time ago. Dracyrus needed her more than he needed anything. He needed her more than he had ever needed to defeat the Harbinger.
Faith was slow to release his hand, turning to face him, standing between him and the opening in the branches, the view that spread for miles. She still wore the cloak, and though the cloak was the last thing Dracyrus had of his sister, he didn’t want it back. It looked far better on her than it ever had on him. She was about to untie the string holding it around her neck, but Dracyrus stopped her, grabbing her hand with his. Her eyes, green and vibrant, met his, wordlessly questioning.
The time would come to shed clothing soon enough. Right now, there was something Dracyrus had to do. Something he’d told her he would do, and he was a man of his word. He never said things without following up. This would be no different.
“I told you,” Dracyrus whispered, still holding onto her hand as he began to lower himself. “I told you I would kneel.” He was halfway to his knees when Faith yanked her hand from his and grabbed his arms; though her strength could not truly stop him from lowering, he paused.
“And I told you I didn’t want you to kneel for me,” Faith said, her gaze a sea of emotion, a swirl of color Dracyrus could get lost in.
With Faith still holding onto his arms, Dracyrus lowered to his knees. When he was on his knees, his face was almost level with hers, though his horns would still place him taller. He stared at her, feeling strangely calm even though he was on his knees, something he hadn’t done for anyone. Not since his sister was crowned the High Queen.
The Lionheart (The Harbinger Book 4) Page 16
