Hero's Bride

by C. J. Scarlett

  But he was still her friend and she couldn’t bring herself to purposefully hurt him, no matter how much she was sure he deserved it.

  “Erik, I don’t know what fantasy you cooked up in your head but you need to snap out of it,” she said. “You’re my friend, a very good friend, but a friend. Even if I was dating someone, it wouldn’t be your place to be angry about it. Dr. Tekkin did something nice last night to make up for some unfortunate stuff that’s happened recently with class and our politics. Please don’t try to punish him because of some misplaced jealousy.”

  Well, it wasn’t exactly misplaced, but he didn’t need to know that right at this second. She looked at Erik and watched his eyes soften. He desperately tried to cling to his own anger, but it was slipping away from him at every second. She watched it disappear, dissipate, vanish from his face until it melted into nothing short of misery. She didn’t like hurting him, she didn’t want to hurt him, as much as she liked knocking him down a peg.

  “I didn’t tell anyone and I wouldn’t,” he sighed. “Honestly, doing that never even really crossed my mind.”

  “Good.”

  “So, there’s really nothing here?” he asked, his hands gesturing between the two of us.

  She frowned. “You’re my friend, Erik. Do we have good chemistry? Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I want to start something. I like you as my friend too much to chase after something as silly as that.”

  “You think something with me would be silly?”

  There they were again, the walls, the chip on his shoulder. He had the most fragile ego of any man she’d ever known and one day, she would do a long dig into his history to figure out exactly where that inferiority complex came from that manifested itself in the form of total asshole-ish behavior.

  “You know that’s not what I’m saying but please pick a fight if it makes you feel better,” she said, crossing her arms. “Chemistry isn’t something to ruin an established relationship over. We can have chemistry with anyone. I like you too much as you are to try for more.”

  “Don’t you think this should be a two-way decision since I’m also part of this hypothetical we?”

  “No,” she said plainly. “This is my decision how to act on my own feelings; it has nothing to do with you.”

  And that was that. She wouldn’t go as far to say she broke his heart because she didn’t think his feelings ran deep enough for that. He was enraptured by a pretty face and got a little too excited at how well he argued. Maybe he even thought she was smart but beyond all that, there was nothing there for him to get overly bent out of shape over. She was a possibility, a prospect, not his true love.

  “Well, this has been a miserable and frustrating conversation,” Erik said. “I’ll see you in class.”

  And then he was gone. She let out a breath. She may have lost a friend, but her position at the school was still intact. Small victories.

  Chapter 14

  It was after the lecture on Wednesday that Dr. Tekkin asked her to stay after again. They’d been discussing the uprisings of the 1920s, how they led to uprisings in the 1960s and what communism had to offer the shifter ideal. Alessia knew Dr. Tekkin was really just spouting his own Marxist ideals but she also didn’t totally disagree with him. When he concluded with a lengthy speech about how capitalism would give way to a decay into communist America that prized shifters, he asked her to stay after to talk to her about something.

  She was totally prepared for him to actually want to talk to her about something from class, maybe a graded test or a homework assignment. She fully expected that perhaps he’d hand her some lecture notes to go over for next week, as he sometimes did.

  Instead, he waited until the last student closed the door to the lecture hall behind them before he took her face in his rough, large hands and pulled her face to his. She didn’t miss a beat, her lips coming up to meet his own in the familiar dance they’d practiced nights ago. She let her bag shrug off her shoulder as she wrapped both her arms around his shoulders. His hands went down to her hips as he maneuvered them, walking her back until the podium was pressed into her behind and he lifted up. She broke the kiss with a slight gasp but recovered quickly, bringing him back in as she felt the solid wood of the podium under her legs. He pressed closer to her. She spread her knees to allow him to settle there, inches from her.

  His hands grew a bit more daring, moving across the contours of her body, feeling her arms and the bumps of her ribs, massaging at her hips. She felt herself get a little too excited at the possibility that he’d been thinking about this all lecture. Maybe he fumbled over the word “autocracy” because he’d been imaging her pressed against him the entire time.

  “I thought we were pulling back on this,” she gasped into his mouth.

  “We are,” he said. “I just couldn’t help myself.”

  It was like a junkie convinced they’d be okay if they could just get one tiny hit. She was the drug and she could feel the heat rising from behind his navel with the way her legs were positioned to receive him. His temperature was rising. She wasn’t scared. She wanted to convey that to him. He wanted to wait, take things slow—or at least in controlled bursts of passion—and she’d respect that, but she also wanted him to know she wouldn’t go running. And, honestly, the idea of him getting a little too frisky in the bedroom because he was part dragon kind of excited her more than it should have.

  “Come over to my place tonight,” she whispered against his lips before moving to kiss down his jaw. “Please.”

  The real question in her request wasn’t lost on him and he pulled back to look at her deeply in the eyes. His thumbs came up to stroke against her cheeks and he brought his forehead to gently sit against her own. He was thinking and she massaged at his shoulders, moving to let her fingers dance through his hair. She didn’t want to force him, but she also didn’t want to lose this chance. She liked him a lot. She wanted to get to know him in as many was as she possibly could, as many ways as he would allow.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he asked so quietly she might have missed it.

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Please.”

  He took another long moment before he finally spoke again. “Okay. I’ll come over at eight. I have a department dinner.”

  She smiled and pulled him into a chaste, innocent kiss. When she pulled away, he was smiling too. She gave him a few more pecks as she got down off the podium and he picked up her bag to hand it to her. They eventually separated as she walked down the lecture hall, leaving early to give him time to collect his things and exit at a staggered time in case anyone was waiting outside to raise an eyebrow.

  She felt incredibly light, walking back to her apartment that afternoon. There was so much promise in his gaze, so much fire waiting there too. She’d had first times with plenty of guys—maybe not as many as Trish and she may have felt a little inadequate about that. But this was different. She’d learned that long ago, a first time with someone was nothing like her first time with another. And this was the first time she was most looking forward to.

  She got back to her apartment and set to cleaning it, lighting some candles to give it the sense that it always smelled like lavender honey. She poured through her closet to find the right clothes to wear. She didn’t want to overstep her bounds, but she wasn’t about to greet him in some t-shirt and sweatpants combo with a messy bun.

  She didn’t stop smiling the entire time, having no idea that by the end of the night, her world would be dramatically different for less enjoyable reasons.

  #

  She opted to not try to play the part of the stereotypical seductress and instead put on something as if she were meeting someone for a date. She put the candles out a solid hour before he was set to arrive to get rid of any residual wax or wick smell that would give away how hard she tried to get her apartment smelling this way. She also put on some jazz album so by the time he arrived, it was well into the middle of the vinyl and didn’t seem like she’d b
een playing it just for him.

  She was a mess, she knew. And kind of a dork. But she poured two glasses of red wine and set them out just as the clock struck eight p.m. and she heard a knock on the door.

  “That was prompt,” she said, opening to his smirking face.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  He stepped in. She closed the door behind him. She walked over and handed him one of the glasses of wine and they gave a light cheers, the rims of their respective glasses just barely grazing each other in a light kiss of a clink. They both took deep sips and pulled back together. The wine moved through her throat and down to her stomach in a warm wave, the bitter taste of the dark, dry red making a home on her taste buds.

  He stared at her with the eyes of a predator and she shivered. He noticed, and smirked deeper, darker. He set his wine down and she followed suit. He moved towards her closely until there were inches—maybe less—between them. His lips found their familiar home on hers and her hands wrapped around to link behind his neck, scratching at his scalp and already earning moans.

  He gently walked her back, this time towards her couch. He dipped her down and she lowered herself without issue, feeling the cushions to her back in strong contrast to the solid body hovering over her front. He braced himself with his hands on either side of her head and lowered himself to kiss her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, hiking her skirt up to give herself better access to his hips. He pressed down into her and she felt everything she’d been searching for, the hint of what awaited beneath the zipper of his pants.

  She moaned into his mouth and he took the initiative to move his tongue over hers, deepening the kiss. Eventually, it wasn’t enough and he moved to nip at her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, any piece of skin he could reach before the fabric of her dress was in the way. To remedy this, she sat up and brought his hands to the zipper at the back of the dress, at the nape of her neck. He got the hint quickly and pulled the zipper down, cold air hitting the newly exposed skin on her back.

  They peeled their clothes off in this fashion, zipper by zipper. Button by button. Eventually they were both down to the last barrier between them. She knew this was the point where he would hesitate, she could see it in his eyes, a war with his own nature. She removed her bra for him, carefully reaching back and undoing the clasp in a practiced flick of her fingers. It fell away and her hard nipples hit the air. His eyes were like saucers, his pupils blown out.

  She wanted to feel that fire inside him, wanted him to know it didn’t scare her one bit. In fact, it excited her. She moved to straddle his lap, to settle herself against him and then she moved her hips over him. He was the one shuddering now as her own heat moved to caress him through the fabric of his boxers. She let out soft moans when she hit sensitive parts of herself. But she kept moving. It was a little like being a teenager again, grinding in her underwear on the couch, but whatever got her point across. Eventually, he decided to move her away, pausing only a moment to remove his boxers before he hovered over her in all his glory. She swallowed a lump in her throat and watched him with dark eyes of her own. She nodded down to her underwear and he gently slid his fingers beneath the waistband and pulled down, revealing the last little bit of hidden skin.

  He took a breath. They stared into each other’s eyes now.

  “We’re so far past the point of no return,” he breathed out. “But are you sure you want this?”

  “Yes.”

  And then it happened and she careened over the edge into pure bliss and she wasn’t sure she would ever recover.

  #

  It was only after they’d both come down from their mutual climaxes that she learned exactly what he meant when he said that sex had been the gateway to the shifter form. He said it was like needing to release energy.

  “You’re going to see something I’ve never shown anyone,” he said with a shaky voice. “I mean I’ve slept with women before, but it was always a one-night stand kind of—”

  “Drake.”

  She placed a finger to his lips and then pulled it away, replacing it with the light touch of her own lips. She pulled back and held his hands tightly. She nodded and he nodded back, though entirely less sure of himself.

  The transformation process was more beautiful than she ever could have imagined. She’d read about it, the anatomy of it, the physics. But it felt like there was some kind of real magic floating in the air as she watched his skin turn gold, his body moved like liquid as wings appeared, his legs became hind legs, his muscled arms into talons. The only thing still recognizable about him were the eyes, hot and dark as ever.

  He waited there, a glorious vision in gold and heat. She tried not to stare but it was incredibly hard when he was so positively beautiful. It was interesting. She had never in her life felt like she could refer to anything as beautiful with as much conviction as she felt for the word now. That’s exactly what Drake was. He walked with more grace than she had ever seen in a creature, and moved towards the window, nudging it with his snout. She wanted to move to open it, but she was transfixed.

  She’d never even seen what Trish’s transformation looked like. Now she was naked and staring at the unashamed beauty of the dragon in front of her, and the burning eyes of the man underneath. It was glorious and heavenly, and she was sure she would fall in love with him after this.

  He opened the window himself and slipped out, taking to the sky like a shooting star so close to Earth. The moonlight dazzled off his scales, shined into her eyes from where he moved back and forth across the black night sky. He was a torch in the dark, something utterly beautiful to see. She felt it take all her breath away, steal every thought from her head. It was better than the sex, she realized. As wondrous and pleasurable as that had been, seeing him like this, in his trueness, was something she would gladly trade every orgasm in her life for.

  He returned after a few minutes and transformed back into the man. His body was now covered in a sheen of sweat to match where the scales had glistened. He breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling and she was reminded of him just moments ago, breathing so heavily on his back as he lay next to her on the bed, coming down from the highs of their passion. She swallowed. She wanted to put her hands all over him. She wanted to taste that salt on his body and chase every drip through the bend and folds of his muscles. He stared at her with a similar passion.

  Shifting, it turned out, really did do it for him.

  They moved into each other, their hands reaching out for one another. Just as they touched, just as they were about to bring their lips together and make fiery heat once more in her apartment, disaster struck. The door of the apartment banged open with a crash and the sound of splinters. Alessia didn’t have time to be embarrassed about her own nakedness and the scene of shouting strangers barging into her apartment when she saw they had guns and masks.

  Drake moved in front of her, shielding her vulnerable form with his own. She wanted to move him out of the way. He was no safer, no stronger. Shifter or not, he wasn’t bulletproof, and there were several men to just one of him.

  “Drake Tekkin,” one of the men in the mask shouted.

  “Him,” Drake said, identifying himself.

  “You’re under arrest.”

  “You’re not cops.”

  “We’re worse.”

  They moved in on him and he moved to fight back. She wanted to tell him not to, to let it happen. But she didn’t know what horrors awaited him, wherever they planned to take him. But watching him then, as he thrashed against so many men who beat him with the butts of their guns and shouted at him to stay down, she felt her knees shake. They opened his skin with a knife someone pulled out. A long stretch of a gash went down his back, crying out red almost instantly. He didn’t make a move to show he knew he had been struck, flailing at the men who overpowered him.

  She couldn’t bring herself to move in to help. She stood there, helpless. She’d been pushed to the side by the scuffle and watched as
so many hands that weren’t his own moved over his naked flesh in ways much less caring than her own. It was like a sick twist, an awful perversion of the joy they’d just felt now turned on its head.

  “Who are you?”

  A gun was now pointed in Alessia’s face, the flaring eyes behind the mask staring her down. From somewhere across the room, Drake shouted to leave her alone but was hit hard in the stomach with a boot that knocked all the wind out of his chest.

  “A grad student,” she said, shaky.

  “Are you a shifter or non?” he asked.

  She didn’t know which answer he wanted. She tried to get a read on the situation, on which answer would give her the best chance at getting out of all this alive and unharmed. But she couldn’t read it, so she was left with nothing but the truth. “Non.”

  He looked back to the other men and dragged himself up again. “Leave her out of this. She’s my teaching assistant.”

  “What’s going on?” Alessia asked, feeling a little bit more daring as she watched the bruises blossom over Drake’s face and exposed flesh of his body.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” the man said.

  “You broke into my apartment.”

  “And now we’re leaving.”

  It wasn’t good enough. But there were so many people here and they had guns. She was naked and small, and a little too afraid to be of any help to Drake as he was dragged away. She felt useless and limp, watching him go, feeling like she was no help at all. When they were gone, all that was left was blaring silence and the cold draft coming through her now broken door.