Dragon Splendor (Immortal Dragons Book 3)

by Ophelia Bell

  Nicholas turned his head, rubbing his cheek against Calder’s, soaking in the intimate contact he didn’t realize he’d been starved for until tonight. “When you touch me it’s nothing like when I touch myself. Or even when I’m with the doctor or any of the others. Why is it so different with you?”

  Calder slowly forced Nicholas’s hands down and away from the door, crossed them over his chest, and held them there with his fingers slipping in between Nicholas’s. The embrace was so perfect, Nicholas lost breath to speak.

  “It’s because we are the same. Both adrift on the River, but caught in the same current. In a way, we belong together, at least for a time. It will feel like a lifetime to you when it’s over, but will be only too brief for me. And that’s where we differ in a very fundamental way, Nicholas. You are eighteen years old. I am more than three thousand years old. Time works differently for me. As it is with the guards on the outside, our time here will only be a drop in the River for me, but for you, it will feel like a lifetime has passed.”

  Nicholas shuddered out a long sigh and turned in Calder’s arms. The door behind him pressed coldly against his back, but he didn’t care about it now, not with the tender concern he was faced with in those deep-set eyes. “Why does time matter so much to you?” Nicholas asked. “Why can’t we just let ourselves have now?”

  “I know how precious every second is after being trapped inside here for so long. I was alone until they put you in the cell next to mine. Now that you’re in here with me, I don’t want to waste time, but you have to understand that this is not meant to be forever, no matter how much it will seem like it is.”

  Calder’s warmth was too far now, even though mere inches separated them. Nicholas raised a shaky hand, craving contact again. He rested his hand against Calder’s shoulder, soaking in the warm solidity of his sturdy frame. Now that they were face-to-face, Nicholas didn’t feel quite so huge compared to the other man. Even though Calder’s body was slimmer, they were the same height, and there was no question about the strength he possessed—enough to control Nicholas when he was wild with anger or lust.

  “Not forever, I got it. But now is good, right?” His heart pounded with uncertainty as he squeezed his fingers into Calder’s shoulder, then slid his hand up to Calder’s neck and gripped him lightly. He wanted to bring him closer, to feel the other man’s body pressed against his, but didn’t know if there were rules to this.

  “Now is perfect,” Calder said, closing the distance in a split second and gripping Nicholas by the back of his neck.

  Their mouths crashed together and Nicholas groaned, first with pleasure, then in response to the tingling flicker of pain that began at his navel and radiated outward in another fresh burst of fire he’d grown to despise over the last day.

  “Stop and breathe,” Calder said, turning them both and pushing Nicholas back to the bed. Nicholas sat heavily, already growing dizzy from the pain that had settled into his balls again. He didn’t quite understand why Calder stripped naked then, but didn’t care when his friend knelt straddling Nicholas’s lap and settled is lanky body on top of him.

  “Why is this happening?” Nicholas groaned, then regretted the question. He should know this already from his lessons. “Don’t say it.” He opened his eyes and glared at Calder, who smirked down at him.

  “Hold still, Nick. I don’t have the siphoning power another ursa male has, but what I can do is going to give you much more relief than what I did before.”

  Nicholas did as he was told, resting his hands at Calder’s waist and trying not to focus too much on the fact that their dicks were pressed together and Calder’s was every bit as huge and hard as his own. He’d have loved to feel Calder’s mouth around his cock again, so if what he was about to experience was better, he’d gladly sit back and enjoy it.

  He met Calder’s steady gaze while the other man threaded his fingers through his hair. A strange flicker of light passed through Calder’s eyes, his irises swirling hypnotically. For a moment, Nicholas felt like the world had done a somersault around him. He blinked, trying to regain his bearings. His body pulsed with warmth in a steady rhythm that he recognized as the same rhythm the agonizing throb normally kept, except it didn’t hurt anymore. He was still aware of the pain, but in a detached way, as though some kind of barrier had been erected between his consciousness and the hurt.

  When he closed his eyes, he knew why. Inside his head he felt the presence, knew it instinctively because he would know it anywhere. It was Calder who held the pain at bay, like a shield standing between Nicholas’s naked body and a raging inferno.

  “Calder, how…?”

  “It’s the melding. When I took your essence, it linked me to you. I can take the pain from you, but I need your help to persist for as long as needed to see you through.”

  “Anything. Tell me what to do.”

  Calder didn’t answer him. He only shifted his hips until his thick erection slid up along Nicholas’s belly, the soft underside of Calder’s scrotum caressing along the length of his cock until the tip of Nicholas’s own cock pressed at the hot, tight opening between Calder’s ass cheeks.

  Calder hovered there, his hand gripping hard at the side of Nicholas’s head. His entire body shook as he leaned in, pressing forehead to forehead, their gazes held tight.

  Panting, Calder said, “I need you to fuck me.”

  Nicholas tried to shake his head. “Don’t want to hurt you,” he said, even as the tip of his cock throbbed with need to feel that tight flesh wrapped around him.

  “It’ll feel like heaven compared to the pain I’ve taken from you already, trust me.”

  Still uncertain, but overcome with need to please Calder more than anything, he lifted his hips. Calder’s ass resisted for a second, then with the most delicious, tight stretch, it gave, and Nicholas was inside. Once past that barrier, he lost control. Grabbing desperately at Calder’s hips, Nicholas thrust up into him hard enough that they both cried out.

  “Fuck … I can’t … can’t not … I’m sorry!” Nicholas said, even as his hips seemed to move on their own, seeking out the perfect pleasure of Calder’s tight channel.

  “Don’t stop,” Calder said, clinging to his shoulders with his mouth pressed to Nicholas’s ear. “Don’t you fucking stop until the pain is gone. I’ll tell you when.”

  Calder’s phantom image faded from Nicholas’s reflection, though he could still sense a shadow of the other man deep inside his mind. He liked to believe that somehow through their meldings, a piece of Calder remained behind, but Calder had assured him that wasn’t the case. It was only an impression, he’d said one night, then sank his teeth into Nicholas’s wrist and held it up to show him the crescent moon of marks left behind.

  “That shadow’s no more me than these marks are. The more time we spend apart, the more it’ll fade.”

  He wondered if Calder had the same lingering impression of him. After that first night, they had melded repeatedly—every time Nick’s pheronesis took hold and his pain-induced rage convinced the guards to put them together to preserve the peace in the prison. After the second time, Calder had taught him how to project his own consciousness into his friend’s body, to feel what Calder felt, and to enjoy the intensity of the pleasure provided by the feedback that occurred when they were dually melded and experiencing both their own physical sensations as well as the other’s.

  Now he understood why Calder had been so reluctant to start what they’d begun that night. After almost two centuries of regular melding, coupled with the most intense sex he could ever imagine, losing Calder felt like losing a limb. Now that the memory of that early conversation came back to him, he realized how little of an impact two centuries must have had on Calder’s world. In the grand scheme of things, those years together were only a drop in a bucket.

  What had been Nicholas’s entire life had probably only been a brief fling to the ancient satyr.

  Nicholas bared his teeth at his reflection, gripping the
edges of the sink with both hands and struggling to hold in the agonizing combination of emotions that tangled in his gut. Calder’s true mate was a female he’d never even met before, yet she was at least his own age, not the naïve child Nicholas must seem to creatures as ancient as the two of them.

  Letting out a roar that vibrated the glass, he raised his fist and smashed it into the shining surface, aiming at the now clean-shaven face that glared back at him derisively.

  “You are a fucking fool,” he muttered, shaking glass splinters out of his skinned knuckles.

  A fool for what, he wasn’t sure. For letting himself love Calder in the first place, maybe. Or for daring to entertain the idea of getting into Aurum’s good graces by promising to take her to the Source. To even let himself feel that brief glimmer of joy her simple presence gave him. Even in the midst of her despair, she was filled with a light that warmed him, and he hated himself a little for craving more of her contact.

  Or was he just a fool on principle for thinking he could hold onto love with anyone who wasn’t his own kind?

  Letting out a deep breath, he closed his eyes against the spiderweb of a reflection in front of him. Drawing on his earliest memory, he spoke his mother’s name. “I’ll be home soon, Mama,” he said. “Then everything will be all right.”

  Except as much as he longed to return to the home he’d never even seen, he had trouble imagining his life without Calder in it.

  Chapter 4

  Calder

  The churning river rapids pulled Calder under yet again. He couldn’t drown—he knew he couldn’t drown—but he’d been away from the water for so long he’d nearly forgotten what it meant to be a nymphaea. The next time he plunged beneath the surface, he forced himself to relax, to take the water in and give himself over to its rushing power.

  Still, part of him wanted to give up more than just his control. The part of him that regretted what he left behind came close to wishing for the oblivion that the River could offer any but his own kind or the fish who lived in it. To drown would be the perfect release from not only his duties to his race, but to the painful loss of leaving behind the two people who mattered most to him in life.

  Aurum’s touch had burned him like she’d been made of sunlight, something he hadn’t felt for more than a few moments at a time during the thousands of years he’d been held captive. She’d even smelled like sunlight—like the succulent fruit that grew along the Nile, soaking up the rays all day until the flavor burst from its juicy flesh.

  He’d known most of his life that his fated mate was a golden dragon even older than him, but that abstract knowledge was no comparison to meeting her in the flesh. She was one of the six immortal dragons, one of only a handful of true immortals among the higher races. The pure, raw power she exuded was infectious. Her very presence had filled him with joy and light, which made it feel like the ultimate sin to leave her the way he had.

  But that sin was nothing compared to the way he’d rejected Nicholas. Aurum barely knew him—he had to hope she would understand that his mission was far too important for him to stay. But Nicholas knew him too well. So well that even knowing how crucial it was to their survival for Calder to leave, there was no way the young ursa wouldn’t wind up heartbroken over such an abrupt departure.

  It would have been too easy for him to stay. To tell Aurum he would accept her, but only if she would take Nicholas as a second mate so they could be together. Then to fall into a state of mated bliss with the two of them and forget about the world around them for the rest of their lives. This was his secret dream and something that could never be … not as long as Meri was still out there and his own race responsible for her rage.

  Nicholas was still young, at least. Once he returned to the ursa Sanctuary, he would have no shortage of other males to pair with. Once he got the color back that he’d lost after an entire life hidden from the sun, the females would see what a perfect specimen he was for a mate. The frequency with which his pheronesis occurred was a testament to his fertility. He was the son of the current ursa queen, after all. The son of Spring.

  The tinkling sound of the River’s voice tickled his inner ear, a pleasant reminder that he was free. While he’d lost the connection to all the River’s currents, he still had the immediate one surrounding him.

  Soon, Nicholas’s mother would die, the immortal spirit of Spring taking a new host.

  He hoped that Nicholas would find a way to return to his home before that happened.

  Calder’s own mother’s voice beckoned, the River’s currents catching at his hair and pulling him along. The shift in temperature and speed told him he’d finally been diverted into the secret flow that led him home.

  Only his own kind could reach the Haven via any natural flow of water in the world. He was comforted to know that the River had at least recognized him still as a nymphaea. Soon the current slowed and pushed him onto the soft, grassy bank of a small river. Trees surrounded him, their leaves rustling in a soft, warm breeze. Indirect sunlight filtered through the constant misty atmosphere of his home, dappled flecks flickering across the surface of the meandering current and over his wet skin.

  He lay there, savoring the peace of his homecoming and letting the familiarity of a place he’d been too long away from sink into his bones.

  Soft, tittering voices reached his ears from upstream and he turned, propping himself on one elbow to see who’d be the first to welcome him home.

  A trio of curious, nubile nymphs splashed along the edge of the river. No males followed, and with a jolt he remembered that he would see no males within the Haven, save for his uncle, Neph. His Thiasoi brothers and sisters, including his own father, had all fallen prey to their enemy, and though they still lived, they were being held captive in a place Calder had made it his mission to find in the process of taking down the slippery nymph who had captured them.

  Thoughts of the plight of the Thiasoi all but evaporated from his mind when the three nymphs descended on him, laughing delightedly.

  “Wait,” a dark-haired nymph said, holding her arms up to stop her friends. “He can’t be real. This must be some trick of the River. The satyrs haven’t shown their faces in the Haven for more than two thousand years. How can he be here?”

  Another nymph said, “He sure looks real enough. Are you real?” She reached out a hand and delicately poked him in the ribs.

  The third one stepped over his legs and straddled his thighs, staring down at him with a serious expression. Her eyes slid down his body, her head tilted as she inspected him. Her eyebrows went up when she got to his cock.

  “He sure looks male. His penis is almost as nice as Neph’s.” She bent down at the hips, her pale, translucent scrap of a dress falling open to reveal a pair of small, perky breasts. She leaned one hand on his hip and wrapped her fingers around his flaccid cock. “Let’s see what it’s like when it wakes up.”

  Calder’s eyelids fluttered from the sudden, unexpected pleasure of her touch. A very small part of him had the urge to object to the sudden intimacy of her contact, but he hadn’t been gone so long from the Haven that he didn’t know better than to reject such friendly advances.

  Soon all three of them were stroking him, commenting with their admiration of his size and shape.

  In the midst of it he finally remembered propriety. They would tease him mercilessly like this unless he made a proper introduction. Even though he’d been born in this very grotto of the Haven, he was essentially a newcomer to its inhabitants.

  With a soft sigh of pleasure, he put his hands out to halt the teasing touches of the three females.

  “I am Calder, son of Nyx. I’m afraid I will have to forego the customary greeting, but I would still love to know your names.”

  He’d been too long out of touch with his own kind, too long exposed to the very different conventions of the human world and the Ultiori prison’s strict rules. He’d been used by the enemy to service females countless times and been forced to make
himself enjoy the act for the female’s sake, as much as for his own. It hadn’t been until Nicholas that he’d truly begun to find pleasure in sex again.

  Being immersed again in his own world would take some getting used to, and today wasn’t the day to start—not with the image of Aurum still so vivid in his mind, along with Nicholas’s stony mask that Calder knew concealed a breaking heart.

  The three nymphs made disappointed noises, but curbed their enthusiastic caresses, keeping them restricted to his upper torso.

  The coppery haired one who straddled his lap sat back on his thighs and said, “Oh! You are the lost prince. That means you are Neph’s nephew. No wonder your penis is so glorious!” She gave the appendage in question a longing glance. “I’m Clio.”

  “And I’m Ephyra,” the pixieish dark-haired one said, sliding down beside him and pressing her slender body to his side. She trailed her fingertips over his chest, swirling them in tight little circles over his nipples.

  “I’m Pithys,” the third said, hovering at his head and stroking her fingers through his wet hair.

  “Allow me to be the first to welcome you home, Calder,” Clio said with a smile, leaning forward and giving him what passed for a chaste kiss in the Haven—deep and sensuous, the only thing differentiating it from a proper greeting was the fact that she wasn’t also fucking him.

  Welcome home, indeed.

  Once polite greetings were shared all around, the females took it upon themselves to greet each other, multiple times, while Calder watched. After insisting on such a modest hello without penetration, it was only polite to encourage them to follow through with each other, and he indulged himself just enough to direct them to their own orgasms with a gentle nudge here and there that they were happy to oblige. The sight of three females enjoying themselves so immensely for his benefit was a blessing and not to be discounted out of hand.