She ached for him to say something, anything that might stop her from thinking about how she was standing on the brink of losing a connection that had filled her from the moment she was born.
She had never been alone.
Never.
She feared it.
He seemed to read that in her mind, because he smiled softly, his violet gaze filled with warmth but also a ribbon of fear, and whispered the most beautiful words she had ever heard. “You are not alone, Taryn. I am yours… if you want me.”
Gods, did she.
She wanted him with all of her heart.
“I am tired of fighting this… are you not tired too? We were made for each other. I honestly feel that… two halves of one soul… two hearts that were always meant to be together… that were created to complete each other.” He swept his thumb up her cheek and she couldn’t deny it, or the fire that burned through her in response to his heated but tender look.
She stood on the brink of losing a connection to someone she had loved, but she was also on the brink of forging a new one with someone she loved.
Someone she loved with all of her heart.
A male who did complete her, who made her feel safe and warm, cherished and protected, but strong too. His love gave her strength and courage, hope and conviction, and she knew that if she accepted the heart he was offering to her and the future he wanted for them, that she would always feel this way—filled with light when she had lived through so much darkness.
She didn’t need to fly. She didn’t need the blue skies of the mortal realm. She didn’t need anything that had once been everything to her.
She only needed Bleu.
He was her infinite sky. He made her soar while her feet never left the ground, made her warm as if sunshine bathed her skin, and made her feel whole.
He was her home. Her everything. Now and forever.
“Say something,” he whispered, a slight tremble in his deep voice that gave away his nerves.
Taryn tiptoed, framed his face with her hands to keep his beautiful eyes locked on hers, and let the words spill from her heart, no longer afraid of voicing them.
“I love you.”
CHAPTER 34
Bleu couldn’t believe what he was hearing as Taryn’s lips moved, her sweet voice rising above the rushing in his ears, sinking her words deep into his heart.
She loved him.
His breath left him in a whoosh, ears rang and heart thundered as he struggled to take that in and make himself believe it. His eyes darted between hers, her palms warm on his face, the contact keeping the connection between them wide open so he could feel everything that she was—fear, hope, nervousness.
Love.
She loved him.
Gods. Holy fuck. Hell.
He blinked hard, fought to convince himself to do something, to form some sort of response.
Loren’s words rattled around his head, telling him to complete their bond before the battle began, and everything primal in him responded to that with a ferocious need to finally claim the beautiful female who stood before him.
He growled low in his throat, the raw sound spilling from between his fangs as they emerged, punched long from his gums at the thought of finally having his own mate.
His ki’ara.
Taryn’s violet-to-white eyes lit up, hunger burning in them that stoked the fire in his veins and made it flare hotter, until it consumed him and all he could think about was how quickly he could get her to his apartment.
The shift was quick to come, startling him and Taryn both. She gasped and stumbled back as she grew smaller in his vision, the green lands of the elf kingdom falling away as he grew in size, his bones lengthening and distorting as his body transformed into that of a dragon. Her surprise passed, the hunger in her gaze growing as she tipped her head back and looked up at him with eyes that backed up the sudden spike in her desire.
She liked what she saw.
His female approved of his dragon form.
He threw his head back and roared, the sound echoing across the lands, tearing from his throat in a ground-trembling cry of triumph that he couldn’t contain.
His female loved him.
Taryn would be his forever.
An answering growl left her lips and he dropped his head and looked down at her, caught the fire that blazed in her eyes as her pupils dilated, gobbling up the white so her irises looked more violet. Like his.
His beautiful female.
He snarled and snatched her up into his paw, and kicked off, huge black leathery wings pounding the air as he lifted into it. Taryn’s hot little hands clutched his thumb and index-claw, and he tucked her closer to his chest. His focus fixed on the castle ahead of him and he beat his wings harder, desperate to reach it and claim his female.
The ground came up at him fast and he grunted as his back paws struck it hard and he stumbled across the grass, lumbering as he struggled to remain upright and keep from collapsing onto Taryn.
“You are trying too hard.” Her voice seemed so quiet when he was in this form, even when she was shouting.
He staggered to a halt and prepared for another attempt, and growled as Taryn pushed free of his paw and dropped to the grass. He swiped at her but she evaded him, dancing and spinning out of his reach as he tried to reclaim her. What the hell was she doing? He needed to get her to the castle now, damn it, right this instant. He didn’t have time for any delay. It was killing him.
He needed to claim her.
He reached for her again and reared back when she shifted, becoming a beautiful slender violet and white dragon. She stood a head shorter than him, her four white horns a contrast against her deep violet scales and bright purple eyes. Her vertical pupils narrowed into thin slits and his instincts as a dragon demanded he satisfy his mate. She desired him.
His jowls peeled back off his fangs as he drew her scent over them, caught the hunger and arousal in it. He stalked towards her, heavy footfalls shaking the ground, driven by a deep need to mate with her.
She blinked, turned away from him and kicked off before he reached her, taking to the air.
Bleu growled and beat his wings, lifting into the air after her. The ground dropped away as she flew higher and he wobbled as the wind hit him and then his stomach fell as the valley suddenly grew tiny. He spread his wings, smoothing out his ascent as the thermal carried him higher, faster, until he was closing in on Taryn where she soared gracefully above him.
She looked down, canted her head, and he swore she was smiling at him.
He didn’t want to look down at how high he was now, so he fixed his gaze on her and beat his wings, the rush of fear he had felt on suddenly shooting into the air flowing out of him as his hunger for her swept in to replace it.
When he neared her barbed tail, she let out a cry and dropped, swooping right. He growled and banked, plummeting after her. She beat her wings and circled around, and he mirrored her, giving a single hard beat of his to accelerate into the turn. Cold wind rushed across his face and streamed over his back, but it did nothing to cool his blood as he pursued her.
Whenever he had almost caught up with her, she twisted or turned, evading him. Every time she gained distance, his blood burned hotter, heart pounded harder. He lost himself in the chase, gave himself over to his instincts and embraced them.
Flying had seemed impossible and strange before, but as he pursued her through the cool air, mirroring her every move and slowly closing in on her, it felt as natural as breathing. He was rarely beating his wings when he had been hammering them before, constantly using them with little effect. Relying on them to keep him airborne.
Now, he relied on the thermals and currents, using his wings more as a tool to steer his course, gliding through the air on them and only beating them in order to accelerate.
It was incredible.
Taryn swooped again, rolling in the air as she banked left and downwards, her wings pinned against her back. He furled his and dro
pped with her, twisting through the sky, and a cry left his lips, startling him, born of the thrill that rushed through him. Taryn unleashed a cry of her own, one that he understood, shocking him again. She was enjoying this too, but her excitement was born of the chase. She liked him hunting her, pursuing her through the sky and slowly gaining ground on her.
She spread her violet and white wings and shot straight past him. His gaze tracked her, head tipping up as he watched her soar into the air until she was a speck. He stretched his wings wide and his stomach somersaulted as he caught the same thermal and rocketed up into the cooler air.
His wing knocked hers as he passed her and she playfully rolled onto her back, their eyes meeting for a heartbeat before she twisted back around the right way and dropped again. Her tail whipped against the air, streaming behind her as she plummeted towards the castle.
Bleu growled and dove after her, his blood rushing and heating as he slowly gained on her. Wind battered his face, chilling his scales, but he didn’t feel the pain of it biting into him as he chased her. He felt only heat and hunger, fire that blazed so hot he felt as if he could breathe it if he opened his jaw and roared.
Taryn unfurled her wings a few hundred feet above the castle.
He kept his pinned back, determined to catch his mate. She banked right and he twisted that way, adjusting his course. She lazily flew towards the rear of the castle. Towards his balcony.
Thoughts of claiming her flooded his mind, sending the temperature of his blood soaring, making his heart drum in his ears as he closed in on her.
She turned and looked up at him.
Just as he spread his wings and collided with her back. He grabbed her hips with his rear paws and her shoulders with his front ones, and drove her down. She unleashed a high pitched cry, but it wasn’t one of pain.
It was one of joy.
She loved that he had caught her.
They plummeted towards the courtyard and the elves scattered, some yelling obscenities at him as he sent his prize crashing to the ground. Her paws hit the stone flags, cracking a few of them, and he landed on top of her, beating his wings so he didn’t crush her with his weight. Instinct drove him, firmly at the helm, and he seized the back of her neck with his fangs.
Pinned her beneath him.
She settled, tucking her wings back, going still.
When he growled against her neck, she answered, her call stoking the flames in his blood when he understood it.
She was submitting to him.
Gods.
He staggered off her and her gaze was shy as she pushed up, but fire still blazed in it, desire that he could feel through their link.
She beat her wings and landed on the shared balcony outside their rooms.
He gave a single hard beat and leaped up to join her. By the time he landed, she had already transformed back, and his mouth watered as she stole his breath again, his mind spinning as he watched her walking into her apartment.
Naked.
She disappeared from view and he growled and willed the shift, eager to follow her. Hungry to gaze upon her delicious curves.
Hungry for her.
He didn’t feel the shift when she poked her head back around the tall double doors, her violet-to-white hair falling away from the left side of her throat, exposing the marks he had placed on her. He couldn’t feel anything but the fierce heat that burned in him, made him mad with need. He needed her.
The moment he was back in his elf form, he strode towards her, uncaring that he was naked on the balcony and there was a chance someone might see.
The only person he gave a damn about was seeing it and that was all that mattered to him. The fierce edge to her striking eyes as they raked down his body, heating every inch of him, the one that said she wanted to eat him whole, turned his blood to wildfire.
She disappeared into her apartment and he followed her, a slave to his deepest primal instincts, the ones that thundered in his veins and told him to claim her.
She would be his.
He rounded the corner, the sheer light curtains brushing across his bare skin as he pushed through them. They shifted to reveal her room.
It blurred as a hand closed around his throat and his breath left him in a painful rush when his back slammed into the wardrobe. Before he could gather his wits, her lips closed over his, crushing them with a fierce kiss that set his blood on fire. He growled, grabbed her bare hips and dragged her against him as he deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue past the barrier of her lips. Sharp teeth scraped against his tongue and he moaned in time with her as the taste of his own blood flooded his mouth.
Taryn’s hand on his throat slid to his shoulder and her claws bit into his muscles as she writhed against him, sending tiny bolts of hot pain skittering through his body.
His grip on her waist tightened. She moaned deeper, clawed harder, rubbed more fiercely against him. Her heart thundered in his ears and his chest, driving his on until the beat was so quick it was dizzying and stripped him down to his basest instincts, the ones that screamed at him to claim this female.
He obeyed them, running his hands up her sides to her ribs, aiming for her breasts, intent on driving her wilder with need than she had ever been, until she surrendered to him and begged him for more.
She stopped him in his tracks by snarling at him and seizing his other shoulder as her left hand returned to his neck. She shoved him against the wall by it, her grip so tight he had to drag his breaths down into his lungs with effort. Her kiss grew fiercer, a hard demand against his, her tongue stroking his before flickering over his fangs. The pleasure that rolled through him in response had him forgetting the tightness of her grip on his throat for a moment, drove it out of his mind for a few seconds, until he tried to kiss her back and she growled at him again, pressed him harder against the wardrobes.
Prickles chased through his blood, followed by a wicked sort of darkness, an inkiness that swept through him, obliterating the light.
Bleu caught her shoulders and shoved her back, fought her as she tried to keep kissing him, her hisses and growls filling the air.
He evaded her mouth and she went to work on his jaw, searing him with each sweep of her lips and almost making him fall back under her spell as she drifted down to his throat and devoured it with wet kisses and nips of her sharp teeth.
He shook his head to drive sense back into it, because something was wrong.
“Taryn!” he barked and pushed her back, and this time he seemed to reach her because her eyes widened.
But she didn’t release him and her body didn’t stop shifting, writhing against the air, her face contorting as frustration flooded the link between them. She needed him. He knew that, felt it drumming in his blood, and he wanted to give his female what she desired, wanted to pleasure her until she was boneless on that bed, sated and sleepy in his arms, but something was very wrong. It had been a couple of days since they had touched, but his instincts said that her fervour was born of something more than their time apart.
She tried to reach him again but he locked his elbows, keeping her at a distance. Her eyes flashed fire and she roared at him, and then reared back, shock flittering across her face and through their connection.
She looked down at her hands on him and her eyes widened, horror filling them when she spotted the one wrapped around his throat.
She released him and staggered back, breathing hard against the panic he could feel welling up in her.
“Taryn,” he whispered and reached for her, needing to soothe her.
She shook her head. “I need a moment.”
Squeezed her eyes shut.
“You need more than a moment… you need me. I can feel it in you, Little Dragon.” He advanced on her and she backed away, shaking her head as she opened her eyes and they implored him to keep his distance.
She feared losing control again.
Gods, he feared it a little too, but he was equally as afraid of losing control himself.
>
He needed her, now more than ever, his every instinct screaming at him to claim his mate at last, to make her belong to him forever.
Love him forever.
She halted and pressed her thighs together, wriggled them and moaned, her cheeks flushed and eyes dark with desire. He could see her control fading again, slowly torn away from her by her instincts. He hadn’t realised that the urge to mate would run as fiercely in her as it did in him.
More fiercely in fact.
She was barely in control, writhing on the spot, so hungry for release that she couldn’t keep still. It was his blood. She had drawn the smallest amount, not enough to seal their bond, and it was driving her mad with a need for more. He wanted to give that to her, as much as she wanted of him, completing their bond and tangling their fates forever.
Fear flashed in her eyes, fear of losing her weak grip on herself and fear of hurting him. He feared the same things.
“You’re not alone, Little Dragon,” he husked and her eyes narrowed, lids falling to turn them hooded, and a small moan left her lips, as if he had spoken words of seduction rather than stated simple facts. He held his left hand out to her and her gaze leaped to it, narrowed as she moaned again, wriggled and writhed, so hungry to take it and give in to him. She cast him a pained look and shook her head, tearing a sigh from him. “What is it you fear?”
She swallowed hard.
Sounded breathless, on the verge of release.
“Mating… it is too strong… the urge. I will hurt you… I-I am dangerous.” Her breath left her in a rush and she rocked back another step, her violet-to-white eyes glowing with fire. With need. “I am too dangerous like this.”
He wasn’t about to deny that. She was stronger than he was, and her urge to mate was fierce, too powerful for her to fully control herself. There was a chance she would hurt him in the act, but he wasn’t about to let something like that stop him. He stroked the scars on his neck, ones she had given him, and her eyes followed his fingers, pain flashing in them.
“Whatever you deal… I can heal, Little Dragon. There is nothing you can do that will stop me from claiming you.”
Possessed by a Dark Warrior Page 38
