by Ruby Dixon
I think I like this.
“You do?”
His hand caresses my jaw, his gaze locked to mine. I can watch your face as I pump into you.
I suck in a breath, because as he says it, he thrusts into me. Sensation spirals through my body with his movements, and I hold on to him, trying to raise my hips to meet his when he rocks into me again. His movements are slow and sure, but as I relax against him, he picks up speed, his thrusts taking on urgency.
The look in his eyes is possessive as he pumps into me, over and over again. My Sasha, he sends to me, and a low growl builds in his chest. My mate.
“Yours,” I whisper, trailing my fingers over his skin, trying to touch him everywhere I can.
He buries his face against my neck, and his thrusts take on a fiercer edge. He’s close to coming—I can tell by the spin of urgency in his thoughts, his need boiling over into my mind. His excitement fuels my own, and the harder he drives into my body, the more the friction seems to heighten my own pleasure. I’m surprised as I feel the slow stir of another orgasm start to build in my belly, and I gasp when his next thrust is followed by a swivel of his hips against mine, because that makes everything that much more exciting.
“Keep going,” I tell him. “Don’t stop.”
Not until you have your pleasure again, he vows, and nips at my neck with those sharp, wicked teeth of his.
I gasp at the sensation, locking a leg around his hip to increase the depth of his penetration. Faster and harder he claims me, and I cling to him, closing my eyes and holding tight as the elusive orgasm builds inside me. It’s almost there, but I need more, need something else to give me that little push—
Dakh gently bites at my neck again, and even as he does, I feel his hand slip between our bodies. His thumb presses through the folds of my pussy, finding my clit, and remains there. When he pushes into me again, it rubs against my clit.
That lights me up like a dynamite fuse. I cry out, digging my nails into his shoulder. He thrusts into me again, and I can feel my body clench around him, my pussy tightening in response to the orgasm that’s building. The growl continues to build in his throat, and he pumps into me harder, our bodies coming together so roughly that my back is sliding across the blankets and onto the floor. I don’t care. The only thing that matters is Dakh. Dakh’s burning skin, his burning golden eyes, the heat of him against me, pounding into me—
And then I’m coming. Everything shatters inside me, and I give a choked little cry as everything clenches and releases, the orgasm battering through me. He growls my name—aloud—and then I feel him shudder as his own release finds him, the heat of his seed sweeping through me. It’s such a strange—but pleasant—sensation to feel that.
Dakh thrusts into me again, shallowly, and then buries his face against my skin once more, licking at the hollow of my neck. My sweet mate. Take everything I have to give you.
Always, I mentally whisper to him, stroking a hand over his shoulder. Always.
30
SASHA
It takes a while to come down, and I’m in no hurry for him to get off of me. I love the feel of his warm skin against mine, the almost peppery taste of his sweat. The slick fusion of our bodies together. I love this. I could stay like this forever, I think. Just the two of us, alone in the world, the weight of him pressing between my thighs. Heaven.
You would starve, he says, and nips at the hollow of my neck again, then licks away the sting. And I would need to leave your cunt at some point to feed you.
“I didn’t say it was practical,” I tell him with a sigh. “Just that I liked the thought.”
I continue to touch him, tracing up and down his back, thinking. There’s so much to unpack and figure out. Bits of his memories are starting to return, I think. He’s said that he doesn’t remember much about his life before coming through the Rift, but in certain moments, hints of his past slip out. He mentioned drakoni and warriors. It’s not the first time he’s talked about battle. I relax into his thoughts, trying to peek into his mind.
All you have to do is ask, he tells me languidly. No sneaking is necessary.
I guess I’m not very stealthy, I tell him as I run my fingers through his thick, almost wiry hair. Do you want to try to focus on your past? See what we can figure out if we can work on it together?
He shifts against me, his weight sliding off of my body. We’re no longer joined, and I feel a sense of loss. A moment later, he puts his arms around me and holds me close against his side, mindful of my bad arm. Does the past matter? he asks. I am here with you now. That is all I need.
But maybe if we figure out your past, we can figure out how to get you back there.
I have no wish to return.
None at all? Even if this place fries your mind?
He strokes my cheek. Not if I have you here.
Sweet words, but I feel it’s a little too pat. I want him to know where he comes from so he can make informed choices. If he has an option, I want him to be able to take it. I know what it’s like to be trapped in a world gone hellish, and if I can prevent that from happening to one other person, it’d be a good thing. So tell me, I say into his mind as I stroke his chest. What are drakoni? Is that all people, like all humans? Or is it only certain people?
All my people. His thoughts are sleepy, buzzed pleasantly with the afterglow of sex. Drakoni is who we are. It is the fire in our blood. Our spirits are drakoni. It is where we come from, even if we no longer live there.
I make a mental note of that. Because you live here now?
No, even before we came here to this world, we no longer lived in drakoni lands. There’s a faint darkness around his thoughts, and the swirl of feathers that tells me that I’m pressing too hard. We lived…elsewhere…
I stroke his skin, tracing the scale patterns over his pectorals. Don’t worry about it, baby. Another time.
Baby? I can hear his amusement, as clear as day. Is this like the pie thing you called me?
It’s a term of endearment.
To call me an infant?
Yup. Just roll with it.
I shall. My sweet, sweet infant of a mate. His lips brush over my forehead.
I laugh at that. Uh, not quite the same thing.
Our thoughts mingle pleasantly over small nothings as he holds me close. I keep smoothing my hands over his scorchingly warm skin, touching and comforting until he falls asleep. The moment he does, I extract myself from his grip and creep over to my journal.
Day One of Project Dakh’s Past, I write down. Drakoni. No longer lived in native lands. Spirits are drakoni. Mention of “warriors” in the past.
I make my notes and then close the journal, then tiptoe back into bed with him and rest my cheek against his chest. It’s a puzzle, and one I’m determined to figure out. If he can’t remember his past, maybe I can help him piece it together and we can figure out who he was and where he came from.
It might take a while, but we have nothing but time.
31
Day Three of Project Dakh’s Past. Not much progress. Today, when I teasingly challenged him to a duel over some sexy stuff, he laughed like it was the funniest thing ever and kept saying “where?” Maybe duels mean something else to drakoni? Maybe they have them in specific places? Things to ponder.
Day Six of Project Dakh’s Past. Saw me clipping my nails and was horrified. Said it’s a mark of shame for a drakoni. Weird.
Day Eight of Project Dakh’s Past. Red dragons overhead today as scheduled. I was worried, but he said they would ignore me because I wasn’t a threat. Not sure what the difference is between reds and golds?
Day Nine of PDP. Reds are apparently females and can smell that Dakh has a mate. Little weirded out at all the smelling going on. Makes me want to do laundry.
Day Eleven of PDP. Was having sex with Dakh and feeling naughty. Suggested he come on my face and he acted shocked and not in a good way. Guess drakoni don’t do that. Said I was his mate and “deserved” his seed
. Oookay.
Day Fourteen of PDP. Memory really bad today. He’s resisting all attempts to answer my questions. Lots of ravens in his head. Poor thing.
Day Sixteen of PDP. Dakh is so sweet to me. It hurts when he hurts. Today we talked about family. I told him mine died in the riots after the Rift. He couldn’t remember his, and I could tell it bothered him. My poor Dakh. I do this journal for him.
Day Eighteen of PDP. Breakthrough? I hope! Dakh woke up this morning with a memory of mountains. He doesn’t remember much more than that, other than it was very warm and sandy. Sounds like a desert with mountains? I’m going to flip through the travel magazines and see if we can find something that matches his thoughts.
Day Twenty of PDP. Saw another dragon overhead, this time a gold one. Dakh says he didn’t know him, not like he knew Kael before. I wasn’t in danger from the dragon, but it bears to mind a question—if Dakh knew Kael and not this other, were there different groups of dragons? For some reason, I thought they were all together. Maybe not? All the dragons I’ve seen so far seem to be solitary creatures. Even Dakh’s quite happy to “nest” with just me.
Day Twenty-three of PDP. Emma’s suggested that I think about fantasy dragons and their habits and see if any of them apply to Dakh. She also asked if it was possible he came from an alternate universe, something very Lord of the Rings. It’s possible, but anything’s possible. I took a bunch of coins out of the old cash registers and some of the gold from the jewelry department and made a “treasure” bucket. Talked about it in front of Dakh and made a big deal about how valuable they used to be. He was more interested in having sex. So that’s a bust, though the sex was pretty awesome.
Day Twenty-four of PDP. Asked Dakh how he breathes fire. It seems to come from his gut, but it doesn’t burn his throat. He can flame on command and never runs out. Says it is something they achieve in a rite of adulthood. I’m fascinated at the thought, but he can’t tell me more than that. He gets a distracted look in his eye and his thoughts go murky. It’s almost like something on this side (aka Earth-side) is stopping him from thinking clearly.
Day Twenty-seven of PDP. No period. I panicked a little at that. I don’t know anything about half-drakoni half-human babies. Are we talking lizards? I suppose I should be glad they don’t get fire until adulthood, but maybe we need to think about condoms.
Day Twenty-eight of PDP. Nothing to do with Dakh’s past, but thought it was worth mentioning that the condoms here are all way out of date, and the moment they touch Dakh’s hot skin, they get brittle and break. So there goes that. Good news is that the pregnancy tests all say I’m negative. Unless they’re out of date, too.
Day Twenty-nine of PDP. Nope, not pregnant. Not sure how I feel about that. Kinda relieved but also kind of sad. Dakh is sad. It’s sweet that he wants to be a father, but I worry about bringing a child into a world like this. Plus, maybe it’s selfish, but I like it being just me and Dakh right now. Nobody to worry about but us.
Day Thirty-one of PDP. Dakh chased off another red dragon today. Said she was so crazed she didn’t even realize he had a mate. Whatever is in the air here that makes the dragons go nuts, it’s really bad for the reds. Remembering that the reds are females makes me feel a little weird, because I remember the dragon that attacked us back in the skyscraper was a red, and Dakh tore its throat out. He says she was going to challenge me for his attention, which I guess is a drakoni thing. Battles are very big for them. Females challenge other females for the right to approach a male, and then the female also challenges the male. It makes me wonder about their culture. What were they like in their human forms? Did they just go around challenging each other all the time?
Day Thirty-two of PDP. No written language for the drakoni, it seems. Dakh still finds it weird that I read “messages” in books. I asked him how they would get messages long-distance, and he said something that didn’t make sense. Said that it wasn’t necessary and they always answered “the call.” Whatever that means.
Day Thirty-three of PDP. I think the more I learn about Dakh and his people, the more I worry we’re not compatible. They seem so different from humans. Not that we’re great, of course. But I was reading a book—a romantic suspense—and the bad guy was taken in to the cops and sent off to jail. Dakh was incensed that the heroine did not “honorably” kill the bad guy. Said it was her duty as a protector and that those that are a threat to the nest are dealt with at once so they do not become a threat again.
I tried explaining to him that people just don’t kill people willy-nilly, and he didn’t seem to understand why. I guess I’m lucky that he loves me and I care for him, but I worry. What if we run into other people and Dakh decides he doesn’t like them? Is he going to straight up murder them because he wants to “protect” me? What will I do?
Sometimes I look at him and he’s just so human, and sometimes I wonder if I’m out of my mind, because there’s no way he’s ever been human. Not even close. His eyes aren’t like mine. His skin isn’t like mine. He breathes fire. I know he loves and talks and laughs just like I do, but I wonder if I’m attributing too much to him? Maybe he’s too wild at heart to ever truly understand what it is to be human. Maybe I need to quit trying to see him and the drakoni as misplaced humans who happen to be stuck here on Earth.
Maybe I need to see them as they are—dragons that happen to shift into human form for mating.
Day Thirty-four of PDP. I asked Dakh if drakoni ever mated in their “battle form,” which is what he calls the dragon form. He seemed appalled at the thought. Maybe humans are the freaks, because I’m pretty sure if we had a second form, someone would be out there getting their rocks off like that. Something to think about, I guess.
Day Thirty-nine of PDP. Been a quiet few days. Kinda stormy, so haven’t seen Emma a lot lately. Just Dakh and me, which means lots of snuggle time, lots of sex, and lots of me trying to prod his memory. Dakh doesn’t care for it, I think, because it makes the “ravens” appear in his mind. I think that’s his way of separating his crazy—it comes in the form of ravens. Which makes me think there are ravens in his world, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there. He only tolerates my questions because he loves me and wants to make me happy, but I know my endless harping on them upsets his mind. I can feel it. I’m starting to wonder if I’m not better off leaving things as they are. If we’re happy together, why does it matter where he came from?
I guess what matters is where we’re going together.
32
DAKH
My Sasha is writing in her “journal” again. I move behind her and put my arms around her waist, nuzzling her neck from behind. I love her scent, love the way she gasps every time I touch her, as if it is a surprise that I wish to caress her. Our days are full of joy, but I am starting to hate the journal. With it comes questions that make my mind hurt, and it allows the ravens to circle once more.
She puts it aside as I drag my tongue over her neck, sighing with pleasure at the touch. “Done hunting already, baby?”
Done, I agree. I still find it amusing that she picks strange things to call me in an affectionate way. I always call her the same thing—my mate, my fire, my Sasha. Never my infant. Never my pie. Come to bed with me, I tell her. I missed you.
“You were gone for an hour,” she says with a giggle, but her arousal perfumes the air. Now that my Sasha is used to my touch, it does not take much to produce her mating scent. She likes it when I caress her, and she especially enjoys mating. I make it a point for us to touch every day, even the days when she is bleeding. She does not like that, but I will eventually convince her that her body is beautiful to me, no matter what happens.
It was a long hour, I tell her, tracing my tongue over her ear. And there is a storm on the way. It will rain soon.
“Oh no, is it?” She pulls out of my arms, concerned. “Emma’s coming by later. I hope she doesn’t get rained on.”
Do you wish me to go fly her here? I can track her by her smell. Though
the stink has changed, the overpowering scent of it has not. It irritates my nose, but I endure it for my Sasha, who loves visits from the other human. She comes by on a regular basis, often enough that she does not blink when she sees me naked.
Which is good. I do not enjoy wearing the “pants” that my mate likes to insist upon when the human visits. Human customs are strange.
“No, I think she wouldn’t like that.” When I caress her throat, Sasha nips at my thumb-claw. “She’s still scared of you, you know.”
It is because I am a fearsome drakoni warrior. Of course she fears me.
“Well, try not to ‘warrior’ too much at her when she comes over. She said there should be some tomatoes ripe in the garden center, and we’re going to try to figure out how to can them for the winter.”
From her thoughts, I can tell she is talking about preserving food. My Sasha is obsessed with food. Since she has become my mate, she has filled out, the hollow look gone from her eyes. I can no longer count her ribs, and enjoy the rounded curve of her bottom now more than ever. Do I not feed you enough? Shall I go and get meat for you?
“You feed me plenty. It’s just that we need to be prepared in case things run low.” She pats my arm. “Just humor me, babe.”
Very well. I know she worries over foods and having enough. It will take time for her to realize I can care for all her needs. I rub my nose along the column of her neck. Tell me what to do so I can help.
“Just your company is enough for now,” she tells me with a bright smile and then impulsively reaches up and kisses me.
