The pleasure gathering at Leyloni’s core finally became too much to bear. It burst with all the power of Arysteon’s lightning, blasting through her body in merciless, crackling arcs. The ecstasy swept her up like the winds of a storm, obliterating her awareness of everything else as it tore her apart and pieced her back together.
Leyloni covered her mouth with her hands to stifle her cries as she writhed beneath Arysteon. Her sex quivered and contracted, and she spread her thighs wider still, welcoming his cock deeper, welcoming the sensations it caused, reveling in them.
Arysteon’s rhythm—which had been steady in its relentlessness—faltered. His muscles flexed, and a deep growl tore from his throat. He leaned over her, bracing himself with one hand on the floor, and bit down on his forearm as the light in his eyes intensified and faint sparks crackled over his scales.
Even though his ragged cry of pleasure was muffled, Leyloni felt it vibrate through her. That sensation was nothing compared to the eruption of his hot seed inside her, filling her impossibly more. His cock pulsed, spurting more and more seed into her, and its movements—paired with the vibrations of his growls—sent her into another climax.
Shudders spasmed through her, nearly painful in their power. It was a delicious torment that she didn’t want to end.
Arysteon wrapped his hand around her throat, pinning her to the floor, and ground his pelvis against her, pushing deeper still. It was yet another reminder of his true nature, his true prowess, and it both complemented and enhanced the gentleness he had so often shown her since they’d met. She was at his mercy, and she trusted him entirely.
He continued erratically pumping his hips—spilling a little more seed into her with each thrust—to prolong their mutual pleasure as he slid his hand down from her neck. The tips of his claws grazed her skin, raising gooseflesh in their wake, until finally his palm settled over her breast. He stroked and kneaded her tender flesh, his fingers firm and rough, his touch covetous.
The motion of his hips gradually eased, coming to a full stop some moments later, but he did not release her breast. His ragged breaths and pounding heartbeat, echoing her own, likewise eased, though the ecstasy thrumming within Leyloni was slower to fade. Every tiny twitch of his cock—often in time with his pulse—roused a little of that pleasure.
Leyloni glanced toward Serek and silently thanked Mother Eurynome that he was still sound asleep.
Body lax, Leyloni let her hand fall beside her. She didn’t think she could lift a finger if she tried. She’d never felt so much pleasure, had never felt so fulfilled, had never felt anything so powerful as what she just shared with Arysteon. Her eyes met his, and her lips curled into a smile.
Rogue strands of Arysteon’s hair hung in his face, undoubtedly tousled during their mating. They added a certain charm to his answering smile that she could neither define nor resist. The happiness in his expression, the wonder and caring, was overwhelming.
And Arysteon was hers.
He made a low, appreciative rumble that she felt more than heard—especially through his shaft—and lifted his hand away from her breast. Gently, he tucked several loose, sweat dampened strands of her hair behind her ear. “I have no adequate words to describe that experience.”
Leyloni reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers along his jaw. “The words do not matter. What we felt, what we shared, is far more meaningful.”
Arysteon caught her wrist and brought her hand to his face. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, and Leyloni felt his tongue against her palm for an instant before it was replaced by his lips. He released his breath in another contented rumble and opened his eyes again. “My beautiful mate.”
“Will I be your only?”
Leyloni’s eyes widened. She didn’t understand why those words had slipped out like that. She had no right to ask that question. Males took many wives, and that was simply the way of the world. It was the only way to produce enough children to keep tribes strong through the generations.
But the thought of another female touching Arysteon churned her stomach and struck her with a sense despair and anger like she’d never before experienced. It was selfish, it was wrong, but she could not help it. He was hers.
Arysteon released her wrist and slipped his arm under her shoulders, lifting her torso slightly off the floor. Before she knew what he was doing, he tipped to the side, falling into a roll, and drew her along with him, all while keeping his shaft sheathed within her.
She gasped and pushed herself up on her forearms as her legs fell to either side of his hips, looking down at him. In this position, his cock felt bigger, thicker, and sank much, much deeper.
He pressed his palm over her cheek and smoothed his thumb across her skin, staring up into her eyes. “You are my only and my forever, Leyloni.”
His tongue flicked out, and when it returned to his mouth, he closed his eyes. His lips curled in a smile as he began to hum.
It was immediately apparent that this song was not the same as the last one he had shared with her. This could not be mistaken for a song of mourning. She placed her hand on his chest, feeling the vibrations through her palm—and where their pelvises were connected—as this new song took shape. It was equal parts soft, sweet, intimate, and soaring, building from a simple but beautiful melody and gaining complexity.
That tingling in her chest, that spark he’d shared with her, responded to the song. It danced along with his humming, spreading a soothing warmth through her.
Arysteon placed his free hand on her back and guided her down, accepting her full weight atop his body. She turned her head to rest her ear on his chest, closed her eyes, and let his song wash over her.
Even without him saying so, she knew this one was just for her.
This was his heartsong.
He moved his hand away. A moment later, the blanket settled over her, draping her in warmth—but it was a warmth that could not compare to that which he emitted. Arysteon returned his hand to her back and caressed her skin with the pads of his fingers. He carefully combed the fingers of his other hand through her hair, their claws occasionally grazing her scalp.
The combination of his gentle touch, his beautiful song, and his warm, secure embrace was more than she could withstand. Sleep swiftly claimed her.
10
Arysteon woke languidly from the deepest, most contented slumber of his life. This one night of sleep with Leyloni in his arms had been more restful than even the nap he’d once decided to take to slumber through winter—only to have awoken during the autumn a few years later, based on the state of his lair.
He and his mate had shifted during the night. They now lay on their sides, her body tucked against the curve of his with her back to his front. Her head rested upon one of his arms, her soft, curly hair was draped over his scales, and his other arm was around her middle, holding her firmly against him. The blanket atop them had trapped in their mutual warmth. Arysteon would choose this source of heat over lying on the rocks to bask in the sun any and every time.
Leyloni’s body was supple and smooth, soft in all the right places but possessing surprising strength. He’d barely begun his exploration of it. In time, he’d learn it intimately, right down to the tiniest details.
He tightened his hold on Leyloni and nuzzled her hair, drawing in a deep breath. The air was laden with her intoxicating fragrance, which mingled with the new scents produced by their mating to create something impossibly sweeter. But there was something else there, too—something just as distinct, just as familiar, something bearing a metallic tang.
Blood.
Arysteon’s heart stuttered. He lifted his head away from Leyloni, opening his eyes to gray dawn light streaming into the chamber, and tasted the air. The blood scent was coming from very close, and it was very fresh.
And he knew, somehow, that it was Leyloni’s.
His spark flared and sputtered as though on the verge of either exploding or fizzling out.
Arysteon jerked in
to a sitting position, dragging his mate up with him, barely able to hear anything over the thunderous beating of his heart.
“Leyloni,” he called, his raw voice echoing through the chamber.
Leyloni jolted awake, her hands flying to his chest. Her wide, alert eyes met his before seeking out Serek as the hatchling’s startled cry filled the lair. “What is it? What is wrong?”
“Blood.” Arysteon grasped the blanket in one hand and tore it away to bare his mate’s body. His gaze dipped frantically, searching for wounds, for the source of that scent. When his eyes moved past the skirt bunched around her waist, he froze.
Her inner thighs were smeared with crimson, and it was as stark against her pale skin as blood on fresh winter snow.
I harmed her. I have wounded her.
With trembling hands, he gently grasped her knees and spread her legs wider, following the bloody path to her sex. Her copper curls, once dewy with her lust, now glistened with crimson instead. The blood was coming from her slit.
Leyloni’s brows creased and she looked down. Gasping, she attempted to close her legs and pull away, but Arysteon held her firmly in place.
His insides twisted, and a great weight sank in his gut. He had been too rough. He had rutted her like a ravenous beast rather than taking appropriate care with his fragile mate. “What have I done? Leyloni…”
Her cheeks flushed. She kept her face downturned as she pulled the blanket over her lap and said, “You have done nothing.”
Serek’s cries quieted as he sat up.
Arysteon’s fingers twitched, and his claws pressed against Leyloni’s flesh. He withdrew his hands abruptly. He could not allow himself to harm her any further. “You are bleeding, Leyloni. That…that is not nothing.”
“It is natural.”
Arysteon lifted a hand, sweeping back loose strands of his hair that had fallen into his face. He closed his fist on his hair and squeezed tight, producing a faint sting atop his head. “Natural? Bleeding from a wound is natural. This is not natural for any creature that has not suffered an injury!”
He leaned forward on hand and knees and reached for her, delicately catching her chin and lifting her face toward his. “Was I too forceful? Did I hurt you?”
Leyloni curled her fingers around his wrist and shook her head. “No, Arysteon. You did not harm me. What we shared was wonderful. It…was also my first time, so there was some…discomfort, and there was likely some blood after you breached me, but this…” She averted her eyes. “This is my bleeding. Females—human females—bleed once every moon cycle. It…is a sign of fertility. It means we can bear young. It is a good thing.”
She looked back at him, smiling shyly. “This is simply poor timing.”
Arysteon’s mind raced, concern and confusion warring with the implications of what she’d said. His feelings for her, this connection that had been formed between them, it was all so new, so raw, so unexplored. “So…you are unharmed?”
“I am unharmed.”
Serek’s hand settled on Arysteon’s braced arm, calling Arysteon’s attention down to the hatchling. Serek looked up with those dark eyes and smiled, speaking words in his nonsense language of which only he knew the meaning.
Leyloni reached out, picked Serek up, and sat him on her lap. He turned toward her, immediately seeking Leyloni’s naked breast and latching on with his mouth.
She started. Her gaze dropped to the hatchling, and she frowned as she caressed his hair. “He…misses his mother.”
The soft sorrow in Leyloni’s words produced an all too familiar ache in Arysteon’s heart. His brow creased, and he reached forward tentatively, smoothing the backs of his fingers down the hatchling’s arm. “Are you not his mother now by all but blood?”
Leyloni’s frown deepened, and her hand slowed in Serek’s dark locks. “I am. And he is so young that he will forget his birth mother before long. It will be my duty to tell him of her. To ensure he knows he is the son of Atalla, and that she was a proud huntress, a loving mother, the best of friends and sisters. To ensure he knows that he carries her strength and spirit.”
Arysteon’s eyes rose to Leyloni. There was determination in her expression, shining through the sadness in her eyes and the doubt in her voice. She was displaying a hint of that fierceness at her core that he’d glimpsed so often in his few short days with her. He had no doubt that Atalla had been a strong, capable female, but he could not imagine anyone matching his mate.
Did Leyloni not recognize her own strength, her own capabilities? Did she not understand what Arysteon saw when he looked upon her?
She was Serek’s mother, and if her bleeding meant she was fertile…she would also be mother to Arysteon’s hatchlings. What would it be like to see her belly grow with new life inside it? What would it be like to see her holding his son or daughter in her arms like this, feeding them, soothing them?
He’d known all along that hatchling was the wrong term for human young. They did not lay eggs like dragons, birds, and lizards. There were so many differences between Arysteon’s kind and Leyloni’s, so many things he might never have considered, but he found himself looking forward to experiencing those differences firsthand.
In claiming her, he had claimed Serek as his child. What would their little clan look like in a few years? How different would Leyloni and Arysteon’s offspring be from Serek? How similar would they be? He could almost imagine them laughing and playing, could almost imagine the chorus of little giggles as they splashed through puddles in the rain or raced through a springtime forest in bloom.
And Arysteon was eager to make it happen. Eager to touch her, to mate with her, to gift her his seed again and again so it would take root. He wanted more of what they had shared the night before—wanted more of her.
He wanted it all.
Serek squirmed in her arms, whining in frustration, and closed his fist tightly on the tender flesh of her breast.
Leyloni winced and carefully dislodged his mouth from her nipple before drawing him away. “I am sorry, young one. There is no milk to be had. At least not from me.”
“You are unable to provide him with milk?” Arysteon asked.
“A woman produces milk when she is carrying young and continues to do so for as long as that baby feeds.”
Serek released a high-pitched wail, tears brimming in his eyes.
Leyloni held the young one out to Arysteon. “Could you change his diaper cloth for me? I will get his food ready and then…uh”—her cheeks pinkened—“clean up before we leave.”
Arysteon accepted the hatchling—baby, that was the term Leyloni had used—in a careful grip as Leyloni stood to perform her tasks.
Serek’s wails ceased abruptly, and he turned his eyes toward Arysteon, staring in silent wonder for several moments before reaching forward and patting Arysteon’s forearms with his chubby little hands.
The sound of those tiny slaps produced a huge smile on Serek’s face, prompting him to repeat them. Arysteon laughed, his own smile wide enough to make his cheeks ache. These two humans were his clan now, his kin, and he did not regret making it so. He’d do everything and anything he could to provide for and protect them.
As daunting as it seemed, he would not let the task of changing a soiled cloth give him pause. It would be helping his mate and Serek at the same time. Besides, though Arysteon himself had not changed Serek’s diaper cloths, he’d seen Leyloni do so many times over the last few days. It couldn’t have been that difficult.
Serek pressed his little lips together. His body tensed, his face turned red, and he grunted.
Arysteon’s smile died, and he clamped his teeth together to keep his tongue inside his mouth. Unfortunately, that could not protect him from the stench that had already befouled the air, malodorous enough to nearly make him retch. He turned his face away and extended his arms to put some space between himself and the doubly soiled diaper cloth, breathing in what bits of fresh air he could find.
“I see you are keen
on doing me no favors, little human,” Arysteon said.
Serek squealed with laughter.
11
The grayish dawn light to which Arysteon had awoken was gone by the time he, Leyloni, and Serek exited the lair, having given way to the golden glow of midmorning for the first time since the storm had begun a few days before.
Water droplets clung to the surrounding foliage, occasionally catching the sunlight and refracting it in sparkling, gemlike displays as they made their inevitable journeys to the ground. The visible dirt was wet and dark, the carpet of fallen leaves sodden, and the standing puddles bore dark reflections of the forest canopy with flashes of blue sky between the swaying leaves.
Arysteon paused in a shaft of sunlight that was streaming through the tangled boughs overhead. It warmed his scales, chasing away the lingering chill in the air. In a few more weeks, that early morning chill—the last breaths of the past winter—would be forgotten.
Where would he and his humans be by then?
He turned to face Leyloni, who was just behind him with Serek in her arms. The sight of them made Arysteon smile; she smiled back.
Arysteon could not deny his excitement. So much of his life had been spent traveling, wandering, searching for a place, and he’d wearied of it long before he’d first arrived here. But so many years in one place, all alone, had been little better. With a new clan at his side, he was eager to go out again, to see the unknown and find a new place to lair.
His gaze rose from his clan to his lair, and his smile faltered. Though that entrance was at least three times his current height, it remained wholly familiar to him. He knew every one of the shaped stones that formed it, knew all the strange, timeworn carvings, knew which cracks had formed in the years since he’d come, and which had already been present.
Though his attachment to Leyloni and Serek was a thousand times stronger than his attachment to this place, this had served as his home for more than two centuries. He had dreamed of bringing his future mate here, of building a nest for their eggs inside, of watching their hatchlings play and grow in the surrounding woods. But this was only a collection of stones—his home was with his mate.
To Love A Dragon; Venys Needs Men Page 10
