by Jory Strong
Their guide reached the first opening and entered the tunnel. On hands and knees, Analia followed, while Kellen rid himself of the human form and became hound.
“Cheater,” she said, and he couldn’t resist the urge to nip one shapely buttock.
She gave a little yip, and he smiled a very toothy hound’s smile as he padded forward, packed earth beneath his paws.
In the tunnel, the glowstones were spaced much further apart, set in thick roots that ran parallel to the burrow, and above it, offering greater stability and perhaps shielding the grigs from an attack coming from the surface.
Unlike the yellow glowstones in the main entrance and stairwells, the ones in the tunnel were blue.
There were openings off the burrow, leading to additional tunnels. And along those tunnels as well as the burrow they were in, wooden doors indicated private dens.
The doors were carved, or painted, some more artistic than others, some projecting a serious tone while others were whimsical.
“I wish Sabra and Saffron and Ace could see this,” Analia murmured, then glanced over her shoulder. “Will I even be able to tell them about this adventure?”
In hound form he couldn’t answer, so he shifted and said, “I don’t know about Sabra and Ace, but Saffron can know. She’s part of the supernatural world.”
Analia gave a small laugh. “Probably just as well. Sabra and Ace might think hooking up with you has negatively impacted my sanity.”
The young grig in front of them stopped and turned to face a door on the left. He gave it a push and it opened. “These are your quarters.”
He spoke a word so ancient it had become universal in origin, and the dark space was illuminated by soft, golden light.
On hands and knees, Kellen followed Analia into the chamber. He breathed a sigh of relief and stood, closing the door behind them with a thanks to their escort.
Analia also stood. She rolled her shoulders and together they took in their quarters.
A thick mat of woven material was placed in the center of the room to serve as a bed. There were no blankets, but they weren’t needed. Warmth seeped from earthen walls.
In the far left corner, a stream of water traveled from ceiling to floor, its path created by a thick root. In the far right corner, a wide pot created out of clay sat next to a ceramic slab covering what was no doubt a hole for disposing of waste.
Kellen grasped Analia’s hand and pulled her close. He speared his fingers through her luxurious hair and covered her mouth with his.
His tongue licked across the seam of her lips and he moaned when she opened for him, her tongue immediately seeking his, gliding slick and welcoming along its length and making his cock jerk and spasm with a demand for the same greeting.
He tugged her shirt upward, slid first one hand then the other beneath the material to caress her silky skin. Her hands went to the front of his shirt, slowly freeing the buttons, then pushing it off his shoulders.
He unzipped, rid himself of shoes and pants, and needed her naked.
Their eyes met and held. He wanted to promise that he’d never again be a source of pain. But he had only to remember those moments before she’d been whisked away to the grig realm to know such a promise would be impossible to keep.
Misunderstandings would happen—especially if he continued to hold back the truth. But he’d do his best to ensure she never regretted becoming his mate—and when the time was right, he’d tell her they were bound.
That promise he could make to himself as well as her. He leaned in, took her mouth and found it so much easier to convey the enormity of what he felt for her, the precipice he’d chosen to jump off for her, the trust he was placing in her, with the slide of lips against lips and the twine of tongues.
She’d become his world. And as he stripped her of clothing, he was surprised he’d lasted this long—given she’d ensnared him with her scent at the supernatural fair.
His hands swept down her naked back. His cock brushed against her abdomen, wetting her silky skin with its own kiss.
Her nipples were tight points jabbing his chest and demanding attention, and for the first time in his life, he imagined himself siring children, imagined walking into a room and seeing them at his mate’s breasts—at Analia’s breasts.
The imagery sent a hot throb through his cock, and a rush of heat to the place where it would soon swell and lock inside her channel. His hips bucked, driven by his dick’s desire.
Her soft laugh drove her lips away from his. “We don’t have to do this standing,” she teased, flooding his heart with a giddy, unfamiliar lightness.
“True,” he said, swinging her into his arms, the lightness swelling his chest.
He carried her the short distance to the mat and placed her on it, immediately covering her body with his, the press of skin to skin, the pleasure of having her beneath him, turning the swelling in his chest into the driving need to ensure she remained in his life forever.
His lips took hers and he reveled in the feel of her hands in his hair and raking across his back, revealing her need as surely as the scent of her arousal did. Her legs locked around his waist and her pussy rubbed against his cock in its own demand.
Need shuddered through him. His foreskin retracted further, bringing instinct to the forefront.
He should give her some warning about what lay in the future. Once the magic bound them together, she’d need his touch. She’d be bereft without it. The fey were like an addiction when it came to humans.
While she lived, it would be impossible for him to be with another female. And part of him demanded that he trust her completely, surrender all of himself. She wasn’t like Cosette, wouldn’t be repulsed to learn he hadn’t been born perfectly formed.
When we get back to the human realm, he told himself, not wanting to share his childhood, his fears with her. Not wanting to open himself to the world of pain that would come if he was wrong about her, not when it was so easy to lose himself in pleasure.
Her fingers speared through his hair and she urged him downward, back to her mouth, and he let himself be guided back to her lips and the promise of ecstasy.
Heat suffused him, need translated into the thrust of tongue against tongue, the rub of cock to pussy.
Want and instinct entwined, became a driving, pulsing imperative that could only be answered in one way. With a panted moan he rose onto his knees, had to grip his cock to silence its scream of protest. Then squeeze harder when she rolled over as if answering his unspoken command to position herself for mounting.
She got on elbows and knees, opened her thighs, and his gaze was instantly locked on the slick, parted lips of her pussy.
He covered her, entered in a single, mind-blowing thrust. “Fuck, Lia, you’re going to be the death of me.”
It was literal truth, but he readily accepted her mortality as his own. Couldn’t imagine life without her now that he’d stopped fighting the idea of a mate.
He pressed kisses along her shoulder and neck, fought the need to thrust and keep thrusting. He wanted to savor the sensation of being inside her and knowing this time he wouldn’t retreat when his shaft swelled in preparation for locking him into her channel.
He breathed in, filled his nostrils with the lush scent of his mate. And lost the ability to delay.
He thrust. Then thrust again, and again.
His kisses turned into sucking bites and finally the grip of his teeth where shoulder met beautiful neck.
She rocked back against him, driving him deeper, deeper, instinctively demanding what was her due, and his cock answered that demand, swelling beneath the head, his balls swelling at the same time, filling with semen.
His hand went to her swollen clit, swirled over the sensitive head, pressed and pumped, increasing the frequency of her moans and the fierceness in which she rocked backward, internal muscles spasming on him, her hot arousal scorching him, sending him into a frenzy.
All control fled.
He
was driven by one thought, one goal.
She came on a sharp cry and the savage squeeze of her channel on his shaft had his cock locking inside her, his hips jerking wildly as hot rush after hot rush of semen erupted.
Sated, he collapsed, taking her down to the mat, still beneath him, his body still tied to hers. He felt the bond between them, a magical leash he relished rather than rejected.
He rubbed his cheek against her shoulder, her hair. He pushed his hand beneath her chest to cup her breast.
Mine.
She was finally completely and totally his.
His mouth found the place he’d gripped and held her as they’d mated. He sucked the tender skin into his mouth.
Her channel squeezed him, sending a fresh rush of renewed desire through his dick. He rubbed his fingertips over her nipple until it turned into a tight berry of need.
Slowly the swelling in his cock subsided, allowing him movement in her slick, heated channel. “You okay?”
“Will your ego become uncontrollable if I say I’m far better than just okay? That I’m still being buffeted by wave after wave of pleasure?”
He grinned and captured a nipple between his fingers. Nuzzled the place on her shoulder now marked by his bite. “It might. But I suspect you can easily wrestle my ego back under control.”
He kissed along her neck, felt a contentment he’d never experienced before, a soul-deep happiness that made all things possible in the future.
He luxuriated in the feel of his mate’s body beneath his, in the wet heat of her welcoming channel. He’d tell her soon, he promised himself. He’d tell her how much she meant to him.
Finally, reluctantly, he rolled off her, only to begin swelling again when she covered his body with hers, rubbing her smooth belly against his shaft and murmuring, “My turn to be on top.”
Chapter 12
Morning came with the rap of small knuckles against the door. Snuggled against Kellen, his arm draped over her waist and his hand cupping her breast possessively, Analia didn’t want to leave the mat.
Something had felt different last night with Kellen. More intense. More serious. More committed.
Her heart fluttered with hope. Then fluttered again with both fear and excitement at what the day might bring.
The rapping came for a second time, followed by Gwendolen saying, “The sun is up. Gellawin and the other elders want to get started.”
“Okay,” Analia called.
She twined her fingers with Kellen’s over her breast. “We’d better get up and dressed. And get some breakfast.”
He hugged her against him and she felt his cock stir where it pressed to her buttocks. “I wish I could convince you stay here, where the danger is minimal.”
“But you know you can’t.”
He nibbled her shoulder. “Yeah, I know I can’t.”
Gwendolen rapped on the door again. “I’m supposed to lead you to where the food is being served.”
“We’ll be right out,” Analia called.
She forced herself to leave the comfort and temptation of being snuggled against Kellen. Had to fight to end the skin to skin contact.
She craved it like an addict craved drugs. Felt the physical need to be touching as much of him as possible, as if her life depended on being able to soak in enough of his fey magic.
The thought brought a frown, a stirring of uneasiness.
She shook it off. There was no time to worry about it now.
They washed, using the water cascading along the tree root that traveled from ceiling to floor. Dried themselves with cloth woven from something similar to cotton.
Analia grimaced at having to pull on the previous day’s clothes, though she stuffed her panties into a pocket and went commando.
Kellen’s eyes hooded and his nostrils flared. “The journey just got more difficult.”
She couldn’t help but thrill at the obvious direction of his thoughts, and at finding herself the focus of his fantasies. She almost felt as if she should pinch herself, to make sure this was real.
Then again, if it was a fantasy, she wasn’t ready to wake up. She smiled and Kellen prowled forward, sending her heart careening around her chest.
He enfolded her in his arms, his mouth swooping down, covering hers and remaining there until another impatient knock sounded against the door.
They left the chamber, hid their smiles and ignored the tiny girl’s exasperated, “Finally!”
It was easier to ignore Crew’s smirk when they joined him in a huge underground chamber with a thick root running down the center of the room to serve as a table.
They sat cross-legged near the door, Crew on one side of the root, them on the other. Smooth wooden plates and cups were stacked in neat rows along the length of the table.
Gwendolen stood on tiptoe to reach several of the plates. She set them in front of Analia, Crew and Kellen, then distributed cups, before grabbing a plate and cup for herself and plopping down next to Analia.
The six elders were present, along with perhaps two dozen other grigs of varying ages. Gwendolen was the only young child in the chamber.
An older teen, carrying a platter of sliced bread, entered from another doorway. He was followed by a boy of about the same age carrying a platter of sliced fruit. They went to the elders clustered mid-table, allowing them to fill their plates first.
The girl who’d told Analia that dragons loved to look for their mates in the human world came in with a wooden pitcher. She was followed by another teen boy, this one carrying a bowl.
They approached the elders as the other two servers reached Analia. She loaded her plate with fruit and bread, suddenly ravenous.
The girl carrying the pitcher arrived a minute later and poured something white and creamy into the cup. Analia lifted it, sniffed and was surprised. “It’s coconut milk.”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “Coconuts are animals?”
Analia shook her head. “They’re nuts. Really hard nuts. But inside them is a juice we call milk, because it’s white. There’s also a lining inside the shell that’s called meat.”
“It sounds kind of like the mirango fruit, where this juice comes from, except the fruit grows on vines not in trees.”
The boy carrying the bowl reached them and Analia saw it was full of small, speckled eggs. She lifted one, and discovered it was firm and warm, as if it’d been hard-boiled.
Gwendolen popped a small egg into her mouth, crunched and popped a second, more heavily speckled egg into her mouth. The servers moved away, heading back to where the elders sat.
“What are we up against?” Kellen asked Crew.
Crew carefully rid a tiny egg of its shell. “Nothing good.”
Kellen snorted. “And that’s nothing new.”
Crew leaned forward, darted a glance at Analia. “Did you tell her about the encounter with Deidra?”
She tensed at the mention of the female fey hound who’d commanded masculine attention at Stones.
Kellen said, “It didn’t come up.”
Crew’s smirk reappeared. “No doubt, what came up was far south of conversation.”
“Something like that.”
Aware of Gwendolen at her side, Analia blushed and said, “Guys.”
Crew laughed, though it was short lived. “Just before we were brought here, Deidra attacked.”
“Deidra and a grig, though the smell of blood and charred flesh overwhelmed the underlying scent of apples.”
“Tobik,” Gwendolen said, hugging herself.
Analia put her arm around the girl, then placed a hand on Kellen’s back, fingertips tracing the scar tissue. “That’s where this came from?”
“Yes.”
Crew said, “Baoban Sith.”
Gwendolen shivered and whimpered, hugging herself tighter.
Kellen muttered a curse.
“What are they?” Analia asked, her own heart racing.
“Supernatural nightmare,” Kellen said.
H
e shuddered as he remembered the loss of free will. “They can enslave with their blood and weave their hair into a controlling collar. Deidra has a braided strand of baoban hair.”
“She tried to use it on you,” Analia’s said, fingertips tracing one of the blade scars, fear and fury in her voice.
“Did use it on him,” Crew corrected. “Stole his will. And for the record, if not for me…”
Analia’s soft laugh lessened the horror though Kellen couldn’t suppress a second shudder.
“He did mention that he was okay thanks to you,” she said.
The dragon grinned. “There you have it, I am the best at what I do—saving the day.”
“How many baoban?” Kellen asked. “And how many beings have they enslaved?”
“The elders think there are three baoban. There are other grig clans in this realm. The elders aren’t sure how many of the grig have come under the baoban’s control, or if they’ve also enslaved other fey.”
“Hopefully we won’t find out,” Kellen said, cupping his mate’s thigh and wondering if there was any way he could convince her to remain in the grig’s burrow until he returned.
A glance at the determined look on her face was answer enough.
They finished eating. Gwendolen said, “Those assigned to the meal room will pick up our plates and cups. Our supplies are waiting for us outside the burrow.”
Already the elders were walking past and the young men and women who would most likely serve as guards were hustling to finish their food and follow.
A man stopped next to Gwendolen. He placed his hand on the child’s head. “Come along. Your mother will need a hug and a kiss before we leave.”
The girl followed him out. Kellen took his mate’s hand and squeezed.
His mate.
Once those two words would have been incongruous, impossible for him to imagine. “We’ll let the tunnel clear, then go.”
They left a few minutes later, after the last of those in the eating room had gone.
Outside the air was warming, the crisp of dawn yielding as the sun lightened the sky. The gathered grigs wore a variety of sacks tied to belts and many of the younger clan members carried bows and quivers.
