by Zoey Ellis
It was then that Tyomar’s savage pummeling turned erratic. And when he exhaled and slammed the bulbous base of his cock into her, he wedged her open around it, knotting her the only way an alpha could.
Oshali floated in a blissful oblivion, relishing the luscious burn of the knot between her legs. The only thing better was when Tyomar gathered her into his arms and pressed her to his chest. “You are mine and mine alone, Oshali,” he muttered as she drifted to sleep.
Tyomar was between her legs all night, relentlessly working her on his cock. She was bent and twisted and spread and arched in every way possible, as Tyomar took his pleasure and gave her double back. Oshali submitted to it all, eager for every sensation he gave her. She never knew it could be this good! The rougher he was, the sweeter the pleasure and the sharper the pain, and she couldn’t get enough.
The next day, most of the morning had gone when Oshali woke. Tyomar was wrapped around her, pinning her down and she enjoyed the weight of him for a moment. Satisfaction emanated from every bone in her body—she could lie there forever with him, but as she recalled what happened last night she also recalled their conversation. She was almost certain now that she was going to be a fool for him, but she could attempt not to be.
Easing herself out from under him, she found her undergarments and put them on. As a Mheyu, she wasn’t supposed to ever take them off, but Tyomar always had her breaking rules. He might think that she was cut out to be a Mheyu, but she knew she wasn’t. Not if a single dragorai could make her break so many rules. It would be a relief to give up the Gowns after this assignment, knowing so much of what she’d done was against Mheyu guidance.
Strangely enough, having sex was not against the Mheyu guidance. Nor was having a family. Mheyu Guardians were encouraged to experience a normal life. But nothing could ever be normal for Oshali again.
She hadn’t just had sex with Tyomar, she had been opened up, destroyed, and rebuilt. Everything was so visceral, so raw, and so primal that she knew it was only because of him that she felt that way. And now, she could truly understand the many witness testimonies about the explicit encounters with the dragorai. They were not exaggerating. How was any normal alpha supposed to compete with that?
As she dressed, Tyomar woke, rolled onto his back and watched her. Nerves jittered in Oshali’s stomach. What was she supposed to say to him? But he simply reached for her, pulling her back to him and straddling her on top. He undressed her, despite her protests that they were losing daylight, then licked and sucked every part of her.
When they finally set off, Tyomar was quiet, mostly in his own thoughts for the majority of the day. Oshali tried to engage him, pointing out things, asking questions, and trying to get him to laugh. He wasn’t particularly moody, he still responded, but he certainly had other things on his mind.
They didn’t travel far that day, having woken so late, and Oshali was aching from the night before. But that didn’t stop Tyomar from pinning her down and riding her hard again that night. In fact, he seemed even more desperate to have her. The way he touched, bit, and spilled his seed on her was as though he was staking his claim, not realizing, of course, that he already had. Oshali already knew there would be no one who would ever come close to him, yet his future mate, she knew, would be far superior to her.
Her only option was to enjoy him and his attentions while she could. So the next time Tyomar leaned in close, to touch his nose to hers, she did something she thought she would never let herself do. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips against his.
Tyomar exhaled in obvious pleasure and deepened the kiss, darting his tongue into her mouth until their mouths were locked, savoring the taste of each other. A rush of something unusual burst into Oshali’s awareness, penetrating and filtering through her body as though she was air. It had to be magic, but it was more potent than anything she’d experienced before. It connected her to everything; she could feel the aching slowness of the dry barren lands, the vibrant trees nearby, the tiny energies of all the surrounding insects, and the stirring of a bigger and deeper force farther away, connected to Tyomar. The feeling faded as the kiss became wilder, and Tyomar rolled on top of her, kissing her with a brutal need that echoed her own. He kissed her throughout their next mating, working her on top of his cock as he savored her mouth and told her he would never abandon this.
And her heart broken again that he didn’t belong with her.
7
Tyomar was furious.
It was a deep, smoldering kind of fury that burned slowly from the inside out. All this time he had been holding back, trying to justify why he couldn’t have Oshali, why he had to exercise self-control. And in the meantime, the Mheyu already made sure that she would never want to risk being with him at all.
Granted, he couldn’t dismiss what the Mheyu said. Whatever they had heard in the interviews must have convinced them that all of his clan’s mates were due to arrive, and he was glad for his brothers to hear that, but Tyomar just couldn’t accept it for himself. He was beyond caring about any restrictions placed on him. He wanted this woman and nothing would stop him from having her. It may anger the Goddesses, but he would rather perish in the seven hells than give her up.
Oshali was perfect in every way. He had never known a woman so passionate about the dragorai, loyal to the Goddesses, who was stunningly beautiful, could speak Thrakondarian and wield magic, and had an innocence about her that needed protecting. And on top of that, she had tightest, juiciest, sweetest kon that he had ever experienced. How could she not be for him? As much as Nyro talked about the kind of connection between him and his mate, and how it was superior and beautiful and worthwhile, Tyomar didn’t care about that. He wanted Oshali.
They traveled on, spending their days traipsing across the land while spending their nights in orgasmic bliss, wrapped around each other. The more he was intimate with her, the more Tyomar learned about Oshali. She liked when he told her she was beautiful—she turned all shades of blush he hadn’t seen before, but she was flattered. She enjoyed having the backs of her knees stroked. She liked licking his cock to wake him, and having her face at his neck settled her. Their time together was an exploration he thorough enjoyed, and one he knew would continue when they got back to his mountain range, but they were ruthlessly reminded a few times that they were, in fact, traveling for a purpose and had to be careful.
Functioning villages and towns become more frequent the farther south they traveled, and it was harder to find places to camp safely. More than once, their nighttime activities had been heard and people had come to investigate. At one point, a group of travelers started tracking them. They should have been more careful. In one of the villages, Oshali had stopped to try to get the water well working, and the children had attacked with a knife to get to her cloak. Of course, they couldn’t get near her, but it had shaken her.
Another concern was that Ryndross was getting harder to control. The longer Tyomar was out in the lands, the more his dragon was fighting to leave the range and come to get to him. Tyomar spent a lot of the later part of the journey connecting with him, trying to soothe him, and making sure he abided the incantations, but he was shocked at how insistent Ryndross was. His brothers had been to visit him recently, which had calmed Ryn down, so Tyomar hoped they could collect the scroll quickly and head home straight away.
But what Oshali had said to him played on his mind the whole way. He couldn’t think of an argument against what the Mheyu had said. It would be foolish for anyone to get involved with the dragorai and expect to still be of interest to them when their mate arrived, but the last few centuries nobody and has had to worry about that. Now, all of a sudden it was a concern that was interfering with him and Oshali, making her think she would never be good enough, when she was the superior one in his eyes.
He couldn’t let it stand. Thinking back over everything they had discussed, everything we talked about, he formulated an argument.
One night, he had her on all fours
, ramming into her rapidly from behind. She rotated her hips, tilting to get him deeper, his body slapping against the pillowy cheeks of her ass. Her channel clenched and gushed and squeezed around him, driving him insane with unrelenting ecstasy. As Oshali’s pants and moans began to rise, he grabbed her hip and a fistful of her hair, and stilled her.
“Oshali,” he said, his voice gritty, “explain to me. You said you would be abandoned again if you are with me. What does that mean?”
“Tyomar,” she whined, rotating her hips again.
Tyomar struck the fleshy mound of her ass, sending a jolt through her body. “Focus!” he barked. “Answer me.”
Oshali ground out something unintelligible, no doubt irritated from the broken climb to her climax, but she took a moment before speaking. “I am constantly abandoned,” she said breathlessly. “My parents abandoned me in some sense, my friends who grew up with me at the sanctum both left to be together, but didn’t wait for me. And the Mheyu abandon all of us.”
“The Mheyu?”
She nodded. “They take us and raise us, teach us what is important to them and how we can use that to navigate the land, but ultimately if we want any kind of freedom, any kind of life that does not involve record-keeping, we must leave. And we can never return. We are abandoned by them.” She hesitated for a moment. “And I’m not saying that every child should be able to stay, but children should be able to return to where they were raised and see the people who raised them. It’s not their purpose, and that I can understand, but I still feel it is a sort of abandonment.”
“How can you say the Mheyu abandoned you if you are a guardian?”
“Please,” Oshali murmured, rotating her hips again, her channel squeezing down on him and sending a beam of pleasure through his whole body. Tyomar began thrusting into her slowly, reaching around to her clit to play with it while he spoke. “How have you been abandoned if you did not leave?”
“I always intended to leave.”
Shock slammed into Tyomar. Oshali was going to leave the Mheyu? “Why?”
But Oshali whined again at the lack of friction. Tyomar pushed her down onto the ground, pinning her at the back of her neck so her ass rose as high as she could get it. She spread her legs with relish and he fucked her savagely until she was squealing and clawing the ground, her slick splattering onto him with every slam.
He made her come twice more before he finally pulled out and came on her perfect, round ass.
Oshali collapsed, limp and whimpering, but he pulled her into his arms, cuddling her to his sweaty chest as he waited for her breathing to calm. She would need to sleep off the drowsiness her hard climaxes usually inspired. But in the meantime, his mind raced. Oshali had always wanted to leave the Mheyu? How had he not known?
She always seemed so intrigued and interested in what she studied, marveling at the various stories of what she considered to be history. Her excitement had not been faked, nor could she fake that she had painstakingly read all of the records. On top of that, if she didn’t want to be with the Mheyu, why was she doing this assignment? Her twenty-fifth birthday had passed. She should be free—and she should be his.
Oshali stirred.
Tyomar brought her flask to her lips so she could drink. She took a few gulps and then thanked him.
“Explain what you said,” he said as she rested back on his chest. “Why would you want to leave the Mheyu, and where would you go?”
Oshali shot him an accusatory glance. “You questioned me when I wasn’t thinking.”
Tyomar raised a brow. “You should have been thinking about me.”
She smiled and rolled her eyes.
Tyomar pulled her closer to him. “Tell me. Why leave?”
“I want to experience the realm,” she said simply, raising her shoulders. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Tyomar frowned, shaking his head. “But the realm is not… there’s nothing special about them. Why would you want to spend your entire life trying to stay alive among vicious people, and in a dead, warring land?”
Oshali shook her head. “You don’t understand. I grew up reading about a land that was magical, where Goddesses roamed among the mortals, where dragons flew overhead, where the excitement of a new creation was celebrated and rejoiced, where finding one’s mate was exposed, and the Mheyu were like the keepers of peace because no one wanted to be badly represented in their records.”
“I understand, Oshali,” Tyomar said. “But the realms are not like that now.”
“Yes,” she said, “there is war right now, but it’s still the same place. It’s still alive with all the events that happen as part of the war. And the potential for the realms to be what they were increases every day, especially now that you and your brothers might find your mates.”
Tyomar exhaled in annoyance. “No, they will never be like they were,” he stressed. “You being out in the realm, does not return it to what is was.”
“I know that,” Oshali said. “But I would be part of it; living in it, experiencing it, making it part of my history, rather than tucked away reading about what it used to be.”
Tyomar made a noise at the back of his throat, but he nodded thoughtfully.
It seemed to him that Oshali enjoyed putting herself in harm’s way as much as possible. There were people like that all over the realm, hells, Khyros was once like that, but he didn’t expect someone who’d been with the Mheyu to think that way. Maybe it was his fault for assuming she was already a Mheyu when she was communicating with him. The guardians were set in their ways and decided on their course in life, whereas Oshali had to decide hers.
He glanced down at her; his woman was reckless. It was clear as day to him now that this was simply part of her personality. She had been behaving that way since she told him she was going to travel the realm; she’d jumped off the ledge with no thought or care about her safety, she had planned a route that was unnecessarily risky, gone swimming in the lake when she didn’t know how deep it was… the list when on. “Reckless people do not live long, Oshali,” he said slimly.
Oshali sighed, heavily. “I wasn’t trying to be reckless. I’m trying to have my freedom.”
“You do not know how to navigate these lands, little cloak. No matter how much training you have it can only take you so far. You are highly intelligent and knowledgeable about the realms. How can you believe that by undergoing a few months of training you will be able to navigate these lands safely? Many would kill to stay at the sanctum.”
Oshali shook her head as she looked up at him. “I don’t expect to navigate the lands completely safely,” she began. “But I don’t want to always be safe. I’ve been safe for twenty-five years.” She held his eye. “I have never had the thrill of being in a hunt like you have, Tyomar. I haven’t gone swimming in the ocean. I haven’t stubbed my toe or grazed my knee climbing in a forest. I haven’t gotten lost or met a new neighbor, and I’d never experienced natural beauty, apart from your mountain range.” She looked up at him, a strange sadness in her eyes. “Don’t I deserve any of those experiences?”
Tyomar’s chest tightened as he finally understood what she was saying. Being so sheltered, she was desperate for experiences, enough that she went too far when she did. To some degree, he could understand that. It still wasn’t worth her safety, nothing would be, but he understood. “It is worth being safe and not having those things than to live your life constantly running, terrified and in fear. No one should experience life under that kind of stress and anguish. And it’s not just physical stress, simply seeing things happen can be just as damaging.”
“I can’t wait around for this war to end to experience things,” Oshali pointed out. “I am not a dragorai, or higher-mortal, I won’t live for that long to see the end of this war. I have to live my life now.”
“There is nothing you are going to say that will make it worthwhile,” Tyomar growled. “I have lived through many wars, the most detrimental one being the war against dra
gon females. You do not want that.” He leaned in to kiss her. “And it doesn’t matter anyway because you’ll be with me.”
“Yes,” Oshali said bitterly. “And when your mate comes and doesn’t want me with you, what happens then? When you’re too in love with her to say no?”
“That won’t happen,” Tyomar growled.
“No,” Oshali muttered. “Because I won’t be there to find out.”
The smoldering anger surged. “Oshali!”
She glared at him, and his cock twitched, but he ignored it. He had to stay focused.
“Tell me how you have managed to be a Mheyu Guardian if you want to leave?”
“I trained for my Gowns for almost a year when I knew I wasn’t planning on staying,” Oshali murmured. “I owe them a debt, so I am repaying it.”
“Why did you train for your Gowns if you knew you were not staying?”
Oshali’s sleepy eyes flicked up to his. “Because of you. I wanted to be near you.”
Tyomar was speechless. He stared at her. “You would have stayed at the sanctum solely for me?”
“Before my birthday, I hadn’t decided,” Oshali admitted. “But it was the reason I did my training. When they offered me the assignment, and told me about you and your brothers, I decided I would leave.”
“And leave me,” Tyomar growled. He exhaled heavy. “So this debt that you’re paying, what happens afterward?”
“I am free to go.”
A rush of relief tore through Tyomar. “You will come with me,” he decided.
Oshali shook her head firmly. “I already told you—”
“I know what you said,” he argued forcefully. “I want you in my lair.”
