He picked her up, scratched her between the wings, and then put her outside the door and shut her out. I could hear her little yowl of protest outside.
I curled my legs up and wrapped my arms around them, glaring at him.
“Are we being modest now?” he asked.
“You can’t just barge in on my bath.” I huffed. “This is what we need to talk about. I know this is your house, and your dice tell the future and you’re very rich and clever and you get things done, but that still doesn’t mean you get to call all the shots and act like you own me.”
“How do you suppose you’ll get around it?” He sat down, crossing his legs, lounging in the chair in a way that was so confident and graceful that it remained as distracting as the first day I met him. “If I am all those things you say I am…how do you keep me from controlling the situation?”
It was a good question. One I didn’t really know how to answer.
Instead I decided to just fling the bathwater at him, sweeping my hands up in a big scooping motion toward his face.
He tried to get to his feet but clearly he didn’t expect this. When he got back he raked his hand over his forehead, almost gasping a little as some of the water had hit his face, and stared at me with his mouth open. His clothes were soaking wet, hanging off him.
“That is your response?” he snapped. “You’re behaving like a child.”
“It’s just a little water and we only have about a hundred dry towels. Who cares? That is my response, yeah, because you know I need your talents, but it wouldn’t hurt to give me some respect. I’m still figuring out what my talents are, but maybe I have something to offer you too.”
He nudged his feet out of his shoes. “You’ve done it now, haven’t you?” He climbed into the tub with me, causing water to overflow all over the floor. I tried to wriggle away and get out, but that was a bad idea because he hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me down under him. He somehow twisted my hips around sideways and pinned them between his knees, my head barely above the surface. The bath water was still churning. We barely fit in the tub; his legs were hugging me tight, hemmed in by the walls; I wouldn’t have fit under him if he hadn’t moved me sideways. He put his hands on the edge of the tub and leaned over my face, looking down at me by the lamplight.
“Look at this mess you’ve made…,” he said, his voice ragged.
“Me?”
“You certainly started it.”
I felt a little fluttering panic at being trapped here with my face barely above the water and his strong body pinning me down. My heart was beating fast. He leaned down. Once again, he looked as if he would kiss me.
“Niko…”
His eyelids tipped shut as he kissed my forehead. His sigil was still covered, but I wished I could feel it burn against my own. His finger traced along my lower lip. He said my mouth belonged to him, but if that was true, then the location of our sigils implied face to face contact more than anything. We were meant to kiss. Niko didn’t kiss me often, but the tender skin of my lips soaked up the delicate touch of his finger. He reached in, now tracing the inside of my lip and then pulling my jaw open. I sucked on the tip of his finger, tasting the floral scented bath salts, and then I clamped my teeth down on him gently like I had done to his cock before.
It was a silent message to him. I have sharp edges too.
He drew a quick breath and wet his lips. Our eyes met like they never had before. He searched me like he was looking for something, or maybe like he was finding it even now. I had never seen this suggestion of tenderness and vulnerability in Niko before. Several strands of his hair had fallen down across his brow.
Then he suddenly pulled me up out of the bath and into his arms. We were dripping water everywhere. He didn’t look at me, only ahead, and he carried me out and put me down on the bed arms first so I crashed into the pillows. Then he grabbed one of the bed curtains and wrapped it below my hips, tying it around the rest of the curtain in a slip knot, binding me up in it like a swing so my legs dangled against the side of the mattress.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it; I heard him taking off his wet clothes just behind me and he threw them onto the bed right next to me. He was breathing hard. He was just going to fuck me, I thought, without seeing my face. At least, so he thought. What a jerk, after all. I wasn’t going to let him treat me like this.
I started crawling forward, trying to slip out of the fabric, and he grabbed my waist and then my upper arms and pressed me down, leaning close.
“Just let me do this and then I’ll be done with you,” he said.
“What the hell, Niko?” I kicked at him. “I thought you wanted to talk.”
“We are, in a way…”
“I want you to make love to me,” I said. “Not whatever this is.”
He slid his fingers along my wetness. “You love it when I dominate you…”
“But at some point there has to be more. And there is more. You’re afraid to get too close to me…but I see it in your eyes.” I struggled against his grip until he finally relented a little, and I turned over, tumbling out of the curtain swing in a not-especially-graceful way.
“You think you’ll be weak if you love me,” I said. “But be honest…isn’t it too late for that already? It isn’t just my magic that can make you strong… I want to experience how it feels to know you.”
He gazed down and I saw more tiny cracks in the armor.
“You’ve proven that I can trust your advice,” I said. “But I want to trust every inch of you. I want you to know you can trust me, too. I am your priestess. Your priestess. Forever.”
“Phoebe…”
I reached for the silver headband that hid his sigil.
He jerked back. “No. You know what happens.”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “Either you turn into a dragon like Abel did the first time, or you control yourself, like Abel did the second time. A fortune teller told you to wear this…”
“Yes…” He paused. “She used to be a temple maiden.”
“A temple maiden for the Elders, right?” I said. “Maybe she didn’t really have your best interests at heart.”
“I should consult my fortunes.”
“No, no,” I said. “You don’t need dice. Trust me.”
He let me lift off the silver headband, although I knew he was afraid, that this was the one thing that really did frighten Niko. He didn’t want to be a monster, or maybe more than anything he didn’t want to lose control. It was a disconcerting sensation, when your body suddenly wanted to tip into a new form.
He looked intense, concentrating as I tossed the headband aside. I lifted my head to his and pressed our sigils together, stirring all the sensations that helped bond us together and keep my desire for all of my men high. It was wonderful to feel that with him. The sensation was a little different with each one, as if it was a direct line to the innermost self. I tipped my mouth up to kiss him but no sooner had I met his lips than I felt him starting to twist and change. His body was so close to mine that I felt scales break out on his skin, brushing my stomach. His head whipped around as his neck grew longer and his face seemed to vanish in the blink of an eye, growing into the long graceful form of a dragon with shining purple-black scales.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Niko
I hissed and squawked in my attempt to speak. My body was not my own. I had Phoebe pressed under me and I lifted my weight off her so I wouldn’t crush her, because I felt more solid and armored than before. Everything seemed off and uncoordinated; my arms were too short and my body was too long and nothing moved like I expected it to.
I felt like I’d spent my life learning to be a superior human and now I was something else, something I didn’t know how to be.
Astria jumped up onto the bed with her wings lifted. She pressed her face to mine.
Remember, her eyes said.
I saw my mother again, and now she was a dragon too, with golden eyes and glossy scales. I
wondered at the feel of them beneath the palm of my human form. I remembered her rougher dragon tongue licking my arm and making me laugh as we nestled in a cavern of crystals. Back then, human and dragon—it seemed all the same to me. Both of them were my skin.
It was certainly my memory, but the boy and his mother seemed like someone else. I was so used to being alone, it seemed beyond my comprehension that I had a mother. When I woke up with Astria in this world, I remembered a brief period of feeling lost and scared, but almost as soon as I made my way to the city, I was thinking of what to do next, not just to survive, but to make the place my own. Was she the one who taught me that?
Her voice, low and musical, rang in my mind. Kista Comtressa… Sasanu sor Comtressa ko aksu…
Find the priestess. Beg her to help us.
The prayer of my people.
“Sasanu sor…”
“Niko?” Phoebe didn’t seem afraid of me until then. “What are you saying? That’s the thing the monsters say.”
I willed myself to change back. It took a moment, as I remembered some forgotten muscle. Pain shot through my body and my skin tingled as I jolted back into my human skin, but it would be easier next time.
I collapsed onto her, coming out of it more spent than I expected.
“Sasanu sor, Comtressa. Help us, priestess,” I said. “It’s the plea of all dragons. I remember it. I remember…a hall of dragons saying it, again and again. And my mother saying it to me. The dragons are trapped underground until we free them. I remember…”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “You remember this for sure? Not just because of what Priscilla said?”
I nodded. “They know the priestess is the one with the power to open and close the gate. All the monsters are pleading with you to save them. Maybe it’s all they can remember anymore.”
“You have a mother, Niko?” Phoebe looked at me with a small smile.
Suddenly I felt angry. These memories didn’t match my personal narrative of my own life at all. “I don’t know. She might be dead. It’s irrelevant now, until we open the gate.”
She was still smiling a little. She pulled me toward her to kiss her again. Before she shut her eyes, her look seemed to suggest it was too late. My facade was broken. Maybe she knew who I really was more than I did, at this point.
I kissed her anyway. I couldn’t resist the pull of this girl, of the feelings and memories she sparked. Between kisses she knocked her forehead against mine like Astria would, sparking our sigils together, flooding my whole body with warmth. Whenever our sigils touched, my skin tingled, wanting to change for her, to become my superior form with an armor of scales and claws and teeth. For a silent moment I was lost in this feeling of wanting to become something better, just for her, and wanting to expose my soul, just for her.
I could love you…
I think I could truly love you…
Old habits die hard. I had enough sense to know this was not wise. This was about her on the surface, but beneath that it was so much more. It was my people counting on me to save them, the buried memories. I understood now why I was who I was. Even though I had lost my memories, I knew I needed power for when the time came. I knew I had a mission. All the money and power I had accumulated was for my people.
I pushed Phoebe onto her stomach and nipped her ear. “Enough of this now.”
“Niko…”
“More than anything, it’s your power than I need, my priestess. I want to find my ornament, so you can give me greater power still. And then, I will get Abel on our side if I have to drug him, so we can perform the Grand Quintet.”
“Niko!” She looked back at me. “We’re not going to drug him. I hate to say it, but Forrest was right all along. Abel is too far gone…”
“I can tell you still don’t really believe that,” I said. “These things take time…”
“We go to the mountains without him first,” she said.
This conversation about the future was, however, entirely beside the point. This moment was not about thinking of the past. This moment was Phoebe and me, and this bond between us, slowly breaking me down. If I didn’t resist her, what would I become? Someone like Gilbert, who handed out pieces of himself so easily?
My eyes traced the curve of her ear, pink and delicate as a seashell, and the fine little hairs at the back of her neck, and then the slender line of the neck itself. I wanted to admire her and then I wanted to savor her.
I couldn’t resist.
I slowly dragged my tongue along her shoulder, up the side of her neck, then traced the lines of her ear. I can’t say I had ever been compelled to do such a thing before. Usually I got right to business, with her and every other woman I had ever been with. My urges were more of a nuisance than anything; they had to go somewhere and I hardly cared where. It was strange to find that I cared. She let out a soft little sigh. I brushed a few stray hairs away and kissed her ear.
I don’t know that I could ever say gentle words to Phoebe. I hoped I wouldn’t. That was when I would know this magic really had me in its clutches.
I slipped a hand under the curve of her stomach and slid up to her breast, feeling the soft weight of it in my hand. And then my other hand traveled down and found her so wet with hunger for me. She always was. I dragged my fingers through her cream until she was slippery as a sea creature, gliding along silken tender flesh. Even though I had already claimed her body many times before, and I had seen Forrest and Gilbert touch her, today I had the sense that she had never been touched before. I had never brought her pleasure without taking some for my own before. She made little sounds of surprise. My fingers explored every curve and fold and depth of her and I don’t know how, but she felt like something new.
“Niko…you’ve never touched me like this.” She looked at me, hopefully.
I felt confronted. Like I had been caught in something.
“I’ve realized there’s pleasure in teasing you, pet.” I pinched her clit.
“Ahhh…”
I picked up her legs and pulled her back into the loop I’d made of the curtain. I forced myself to take my hands off of her for a moment and leave her there. Would she fight? No. I had her too close to the brink. Good girl.
I put my hands around her upper thighs and slid my cock right in. She was quite ready for it. The way her inner walls gripped me like a sleeve was exquisite. Her fingers gripped the bedspread. With her hips dangling, caught in the fabric, I could swing her a little, pumping in and out of her fast without much effort, each motion wringing more and more sensation out of me.
I shut my eyes. It didn’t mean anything. It was just a moment, her power drawing into me. I tried to look at the ceiling of the canopy above her, but my eyes drew back down to her as she moaned.
“Niko, kiss me.” She said it more like an order than a suggestion. “Kiss me while you…”
She trailed off as I folded my body over hers, shielding her from the air, making her mine from head to toe. I slid my hands over her arms until my fingers found hers. She felt increasingly like a piece of my own body as our sigils brushed. I felt the beast inside me stir, and I went still as I calmed it down. I kissed her again, and her tongue entered my own mouth. As I thrust into her, she thrust into me, and she bit my lip. The girl certainly wasn’t afraid to use her teeth on me.
“Phoebe,” I growled.
“Niko…” She smiled with pure satisfaction, that smile again, the one that said she knew what I was thinking even if I never said a word, just before her eyes fluttered shut and she succumbed to me with cries of satisfying abandon. She was mine in that moment, all mine. But I had felt that feeling before. There were always plenty of women eager to submit to my will.
What made this so very different was that I knew I was also hers. She knew I was hers.
If the strength of the Lucky Dragon was that I had many friends but no allegiances, no weaknesses…then it seemed quite possible I was doomed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rin
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It had always been difficult for me to look casual, since one thing a prince of Gaermon should never be was ‘casual’, but I was getting better at it. My clothes were getting grubby, like it or not, and the more days I spent alone, degrading into this low class state, the more it started to feel real that I might never be a prince again. If my father was looking down on me, he must be crushed with disappointment.
But I had made it this far.
I was, in fact, a little bit proud of myself. Days of patient inquiry had led me to the information that the pathways around the imperial garden were open every day, and that the Princess Himika was sometimes spotted there, sitting on the grass. If I could at least see her…if I could offer her my humblest apology and assurance that I would do anything to save her and restore the House of Kai.
As I approached, I met with an imposing fence. I smelled the rather ripe aroma of animal dung in the sun, along with grass and flowers, but I couldn’t see anything through the tall boards. The path wound around the garden, yes, but the imperial family remained private behind it.
Well, mostly. As I came right up to the fence, a child pressed his nose to several slats. “This one, Mama. I can see the jaff.”
“The giraffe? Yes?” She looked too. “Yes, it’s certainly impressive.”
“…wanna touch the jaff.”
“We can’t, my sweet, he belongs to the emperor. Get one last look. We need to go meet Auntie Susan.”
The boy had to be pried away from the giraffe, sniffling, but as he did I realized that there was one spot where the boards of the fence had enough of a gap to see the gardens, without foliage blocking the view. As soon as he was gone, I took his place.
And there was Himika. Just sitting right there, not ten feet away. I hadn’t seen her in months, and I was relieved beyond words to see that she looked no different, although I couldn’t see the foot Phoebe said was injured. Her long, elegant dress pooled around her. Her hair had grown even longer, and some of it was gathered in braids woven with gold threads. She was sitting on a blanket, reading a book and occasionally eating a piece of fruit from a bowl beside her. The giraffe was behind a fence, wandering around in the far distance. She must have loved seeing that; Gaermon had no menagerie.
Priestess Bound: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Guardians of Sky and Shadow Book 2) Page 17
