Emperor's Consort [Chronicles of the Shifter Directive 5] (Siren Publishing Epic Romance, ManLove)

by Scarlet Hyacinth

  Taryn couldn’t help it. When Hareem sucked his dick all the way into his throat, he screamed. Unlike Taryn, the draechen had no trouble with gagging. He alternated slow motions and lazy licks with strong, almost ruthless suction. His skilled mouth tormented Taryn, making his entire body alive with sensation.

  It was too much, too good, too torturous, sweet agony that threatened to send Taryn over the edge. He writhed, burying his fingers in Hareem’s hair, unable to hold back, shoving his dick in and out of Hareem’s wet cavern. He was so close he could almost taste the climax, see it just within his reach.

  Through the haze of pleasure, Taryn distantly registered a click and a snap. The sound didn’t really process until a slick finger prodded at his nether hole. Maybe Taryn should have tensed. No one had touched him there before, and although he wasn’t exactly naïve with regard to what happened between two men in bed, he had no practical experience with it. But as the digit slid inside Taryn’s channel, he only registered the pleasure. His body opened up to the slight invasion, all fears forgotten, blown away by Hareem’s ruthless passion. And then, Hareem’s finger brushed against Taryn’s special spot, and Taryn simply exploded. With another cry, he came, sending his spunk down Hareem’s throat.

  Hareem drank it all down, not missing a drop, as if he was greedy for Taryn’s taste. By some sort of miracle, Taryn managed to stay conscious throughout it all and took in the mind-numbing fact that he had the heir of Ornoz swallowing his cum. No. Not the heir of Ornoz. His mate. That was the only thing that mattered, their bond, which Taryn could see so very clearly now.

  As he floated through the haze of the afterglow, he had the urge to pinch himself, to make sure this wasn’t a dream. He did feel a little disappointed when his mate released his dick from his mouth. But Hareem wasn’t done with him just yet, and Taryn’s musings melted into renewed arousal when Hareem added another finger into his channel. His body was completely relaxed after the orgasm and accepted it, but without the distraction of Hareem’s suction, Taryn became more aware of the burn and the unfamiliar feeling of penetration.

  It didn’t bother him, though, not at all. Instead, it only excited him, assuring him that this was truly real. And when Hareem rubbed his fingers over Taryn’s prostate, the slight discomfort vanished in the onslaught of returning ecstasy. Once again, Taryn’s dick went rock hard, and he pushed back against Hareem’s fingers, needing more, needing everything.

  His mate added a third finger, still tormenting Taryn’s special spot and showing no intention to take things further. Whimpering, Taryn lifted his legs and bent himself nearly in half, wordlessly begging for the relief only Hareem could provide.

  Thankfully, Hareem at last took mercy on him. He removed his fingers from Taryn’s channel and reached for the lube again. This time, he used a generous amount to slick up his cock, never once looking away from Taryn’s face as he did so. Taryn met his mate’s gaze, his heart beating so fast it threatened to burst out of his chest. He almost forgot how to breathe when his mate supported his legs on his shoulders. And then, Hareem positioned his dick at Taryn’s opening and slid inside.

  He went slowly, just like he’d said he would, but still, Taryn tensed a little. His mate’s girth was simply too much for him to take. Or so it seemed at first. Hareem gave him time to adjust, whispering sweet encouragement in his ear, and Taryn found himself relaxing. His channel stretched to accommodate his mate’s cock, until at last, Hareem buried himself to the hilt inside Taryn. It seemed impossible, and it kind of felt like that, too. Taryn was just so full, every muscle in his body surrendering to Hareem’s mastery and every inch of skin buzzing with sexual energy.

  By this point, Taryn was even beyond screaming. If he was uttering any noise, it didn’t really process. He could only focus on his union with Hareem, and the world itself outside the here and now seemed irrelevant.

  Hareem stilled inside Taryn, still scanning his face with those surreally blue eyes. Arousal had turned them aquamarine, as if the ice of Hareem’s nature melted in the heat of their passion. Distantly, Taryn wondered what his mate saw when he looked at him that had caused this reaction, but he couldn’t really bring himself to focus on a foolish dilemma like that.

  Instead, he lost himself in their shared passion. Clutching his mate’s shoulders, he nodded slightly, wordlessly telling his mate that he was ready. This time, Hareem didn’t wait any longer. He pulled out of Taryn’s body and thrust back inside, so hard his teeth actually rattled.

  Pleasure exploded through Taryn as his mate hit his prostate. His world went white around the edges, and he actually thought that he might come right then and there. He managed to hold back only because he didn’t want this to be over so soon, and due to his earlier orgasm, but he suspected his resilience wouldn’t be able to withstand Hareem’s passion.

  His guess was confirmed moments later, when Hareem started a nearly punishing rhythm. He pounded in and out of Taryn, his lips bared in a near grimace, his eyes glittering with a nearly unholy glow. Hypnotized, Taryn could only lose himself in Hareem’s strength and let go.

  Over and over, Hareem fucked him, increasing the speed and strength of his motions. The draechen’s cock filled Taryn so perfectly that he didn’t even know where he ended and Hareem began. Every second seemed to stretch into an age, and every breath seemed to last an eternity. Taryn lingered on the edge of orgasm again, clawing through the substance of a reality that no longer made any sense.

  In that moment, something came to him with great clarity. It didn’t matter that Hareem was a draechen and Taryn a werewolf. It didn’t even matter that they’d been strangers before today. Taryn wanted Hareem to claim him. This was right. He could see it in Hareem’s eyes, feel it in his own heart.

  He tilted his head, one single word spilling from his lips, strikingly coherent. “Hareem…”

  In response, Hareem thrust inside him one last time, once again hitting his prostate. “Come for me,” he whispered.

  Much to Taryn’s dismay, his body responded to Hareem’s words. A tumultuous and cruel wave of ecstasy swept over him, and he went rigid as he came again, even harder than he had the first time. And yet, his wolf couldn’t help but whimper and howl in disappointment that his mate hadn’t claimed him, hadn’t taken him up on his offer.

  When he started to come down from the high of the climax, Taryn opened his mouth to ask Hareem why he’d done that, but then, Hareem slid out of him and kissed his temple. “Sleep, sweeting. I’m here.”

  The words were so gentle and comforting that Taryn allowed his doubts to fade away. He was being foolish. He and Hareem had only just met. Of course it was wiser to wait. By rights, Taryn should have had a little more self-control and not allowed his libido to take over like that. But he’d followed his wolf’s lead, and he knew in his heart that he’d made the right choice. Hareem would claim him eventually, and then, their union would be even more perfect than the one today. Perhaps he wouldn’t even have to wait for long. His mate might be planning to mate him when he woke up.

  Clinging to that thought, Taryn closed his eyes and cuddled close to Hareem’s side. Before he knew it, he surrendered to exhaustion, sleep taking over his tired body. If he dreamt, he didn’t remember it.

  * * * *

  They hadn’t mated that day, or the next. Weeks had passed without Hareem claiming him. Taryn had never outright demanded it, because he had acknowledged Hareem’s position. When it had finally happened… It had been the happiest day of his life. But that bliss hadn’t lasted. It never did.

  Of course, Taryn had to admit that, from the very beginning, the chemistry between them had been perfect, so much so that he’d given his virginity to Hareem when they were basically strangers. But to this day, he didn’t regret it. At a visceral level, the two of them fit, like halves of a single whole. Their circumstances, though, and their society, tore them apart.

  Taryn shook off the memories, not wanting to recall either happy memories, or heart-breaking ones. He w
as out of tears to cry for Hareem’s sake. The most painful problem was that he still loved Hareem so very much, and Hareem loved him back. But nothing had truly changed since that day when they’d met. In fact, Taryn could almost say the situation had almost become worse. Taryn might have been able to compete with the influence of an emperor, but not with an empire itself. In the end, he couldn’t even blame Hareem for his choices, because his mate’s motivations were always more selfless than Hareem himself realized.

  There was one thing Taryn did know. He had to snap out of his funk. Hareem wasn’t coming back to his side anytime soon, and Taryn couldn’t be selfish enough to demand it. He might not have been an important figure in his pack, but he understood that the situation Hareem was struggling with appeared to be very serious indeed. Taryn couldn’t help him, not like a true consort would have. So he had to at least stop distracting his mate.

  With a sigh, Taryn slid out of his bed and walked to the desk. His room in this particular draechen mansion had been outfitted with every possible commodity, and the soldiers guarding him were instructed to provide him with anything he needed. Out of everything he’d been offered, he most liked the computer. It wasn’t the technology itself that he appreciated, but something else he’d discovered through it.

  Taryn grabbed his laptop and carried it to the bed. He booted it up, and when the system loaded, he found the folder where he’d saved his recent e-book purchases. He’d discovered them just a little while ago, when he and Prince Sareltae Norrenddare had been waiting here together for news from Draechenburg. A completely random search had led him to a website that sold romance novels. Gay romance. With shifters. Dragons and werewolves. How could Taryn resist?

  When Sareltae had been here, Taryn had been granted access to the Internet, so he’d managed to download some of the books, at Sareltae’s expense. Now, he filled his lonely hours with reading, imagining himself as a hero of these books, dreaming that one day, he, too, would have a happy ending.

  He was curled in bed with his laptop, engrossed in a passage where the main characters were finally reunited, when something completely unexpected happened. Out of the blue, Taryn had an ominous feeling, like there was a strange tension in the air, the silence before the storm. Frowning, he set the laptop aside, wondering if he should go look for a guard or if he was just imagining things.

  “Sweeting, what is it?” his mate’s voice asked in his mind.

  Sometimes, Taryn tried to ignore his mate. Under rare circumstances, he decided to reply. Now, he didn’t even have to think twice. “I’m not sure,” he answered. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  He’d barely finished the phrase when an explosion shook the entire building. Outside, the sound of gunfire erupted and Hareem’s panic rushed through their connection. “Taryn!”

  As the sound of alarms reached his ears, Taryn jumped off the bed and quickly shifted into his wolf form. It was not the first time he faced a serious threat, and in this shape, he could handle it much better. The door burst open, and a group of strange men ran inside. How had they passed the defenses of the draechen so quickly? It seemed impossible.

  “Come with us quietly, wolf,” one of them said, “and you won’t be harmed.”

  Taryn just growled at them. He didn’t recognize them, but he recognized what they were. Vampires. He could smell them, the scent of the bat familiar to the wolf. They were his mate’s enemies, and therefore, also his.

  Slowly, Taryn paced around them, seeking a way past the intruders. They were blocking the door, and Taryn could swear he saw more of them around the windows. It seemed clear that they’d come en masse. Taryn needed to be very careful. He couldn’t allow himself to succumb to fear, but neither could he take too many chances. He had his child to think about.

  “Stall, sweeting,” his mate told him. “I sent Rachen to New York. He should be close by.”

  “I don’t think I have the time to wait for your brother,” Taryn replied. He was trying not to panic, but if these men wanted to harm him, they could easily kill his child. That was his worst fear now, not for himself, but for his unborn baby.

  The vampires must have noticed his hesitation. One of them beckoned him closer. “We only want to make a little trade with your mate. If the emperor gives us what we want, we’ll free you.”

  “Fallon,” Hareem concluded. “They want me to free Fallon and the other vampires. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.”

  “You can’t promise that,” Taryn reasoned with his mate. “You need them to figure out what’s going on. They’re important to Ornoz.”

  “Nothing’s more important than you,” Hareem answered.

  The draechen was wild with panic, having already abandoned his previous task and heading out of Draechenburg. Of course, there was no chance he’d actually reach New York in time, but that was beside the point. His reaction still filled Taryn with warm strength and affection, like the knowledge that he was loved gave him renewed courage. He could do this. He had to.

  Taryn whined slowly and approached the vampires, his tail lowered between his legs. He pretended that he planned to submit, and it must have worked, because they shared pleased looks. “That’s it. Good boy.”

  It was all Taryn could do not to snarl at the vampires. He wasn’t a dog. Even the draechen understood that. Some of them had actually started to treat him decently, if only because he was in the inner circle of the emperor. Then again, for those draechen, just like for the vamps, he’d become only a tool to be used to get access to the emperor. Some mate he was. Instead of being Hareem’s strength, he was a weakness.

  But he wouldn’t allow that to happen. He was capable of more than spreading his legs. If nothing else, he could defend his baby. Because most of all, Taryn realized all too well that he couldn’t trust these men to leave him unharmed if he surrendered.

  The vampires reached for him, ready to grab him. Taryn allowed their approach, but when they got within his reach, he struck. With a snarl, he leapt forward and buried his fangs in the flesh of the one closest to him. The man fell, more out of surprise, rather than because of Taryn’s bulk. His companions cursed, their somewhat friendly demeanors melting into hostility.

  Taryn dodged their attack, already on the move. He was smaller than his brother or other members of their pack, but that wasn’t always a disadvantage. It made him faster, wilier, and had often helped him evade draechen patrols. It was only Shtamakarein Tersain who’d ever managed to catch him, and these vampires certainly couldn’t be as powerful as the famous Dog-Catcher.

  So, in spite of the vampires’ efforts, Taryn managed to dance out of their reach. They had underestimated him, and Taryn unashamedly used that. Still, when he actually succeeded to bypass them and leap out of the room, he himself was a little surprised.

  Of course, he didn’t allow that slight shock to push him into a vacillation that could cost him. As soon as he was out of the quarters that had been his gilded cage, he turned and ran down the corridor. He bypassed unconscious guards, but he didn’t give them a second look. He couldn’t afford to worry about the obvious fact that he faced a foe who’d basically swept aside all of the defenses of the draechen. Taryn’s only chance was to seize the moment and hope that he wouldn’t run into other groups of vampires that wouldn’t be so easily duped.

  Sadly, his luck didn’t hold. He’d just veered off a different corridor when he ran into a large force of vampires, probably more than three times in number than the ones who’d originally found him.

  Taryn started to back away, but the tallest of the group—who until that point had been holding a draechen soldier up with one single hand—turned toward him. “That’s the wolf,” the man pointed out, completely uselessly in Taryn’s opinion. “Get him.”

  It didn’t take a genius to realize that the man was a leader of sorts. In fact, if Taryn had to guess, he’d have said that the stranger was related to Fallon. Taryn might not have met the vampire prisoner personally, but he’d seen Fallon in Hareem
’s memories. Besides, the fierceness with which this leader spoke suggested a personal vendetta. So… Family. Great.

  Taryn didn’t even think twice. He ran in the direction opposite to this new opponent. Unfortunately, this time, his speed failed him. A strong hand gripped his nape, stopping him in his tracks. Taryn yelped as his captor pulled him back. Frustrated and angry, he rolled in midair, clawing at the chest of the vampire who’d caught him.

  The action only served to anger the other man, who Taryn now realized was exactly the leader. Apparently, the stranger had decided to take things into his own hands. Panic flared brightly inside Taryn, both his own and Hareem’s. He flailed, desperately trying to free himself.

  Predictably, he was unsuccessful. With a sneer, the vampire hit Taryn against the wall once, twice, three times, again and again, until Taryn couldn’t even tell which way was up. Dazed, he couldn’t hold onto his wolf form, and he shifted into his human shape.

  The vampire dropped him to the floor, scoffing in obvious distaste. He lifted his foot, ready to knock Taryn out. Taryn curled into a ball, hoping that at the very least he’d avoid any harm coming to his child. Instinctively, he reached out to his mate, who was trying to contain his own fear, but failing abysmally.

  “I love you so much, Hareem,” he said.

  “I love you, too,” Hareem replied. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out. Just hang in there.”

  “I know. I trust you.”

  He waited for his opponent to act, but the blow never came. Out of the blue, the vampire stopped. He tilted his head and pinned Taryn with a glance. His dark, piercing eyes fell on Taryn’s stomach, and he smirked. “Oh, this is interesting. The emperor will be desperate to get you back, isn’t that right, little wolf?”

  Taryn winced. He’d managed to hide his pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and not shifting within sight of other draechen. It hadn’t been very obvious, but even if Hareem and he hadn’t argued, he still would have been forced to leave Draechenburg, because now, it was definitely showing.