I do not know what to say or do, but my mate is stronger than I ever suspected. She covers her face with her hands for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “I am sorry, Roarke. I know you are not him. Can we perhaps try this again?”
Wrapping my arms around her, I nuzzle her neck, the urge to bite her, to give her my mark and claim her as mine forever, so strong, I can barely stand it. But she is not ready yet. She may never be. Not after what she endured. And I will wait, by her side, or close, for as long as she needs.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“And I love you.” Hand in hand, we walk back inside, and I gesture to the shower. “Let me show you how to work this.”
I expect her to ask me to leave, despite the fact that we slept naked in each other’s arms all night, but as she steps under the spray, she holds out her hand. “Will you join me?”
“Aurelia, I would do anything for you.”
Three days pass, and we still have not mated. But Aurelia smiles often, laughs, and sleeps against me each night. We spend our time getting to know one another in every way. All the ways we should have before these horrors. If only I had not been so afraid of the Fae noticing me, we could have been mated years ago.
On the third night, when we climb into bed, she pulls me close. “Roarke? I have never felt like this before. It is as if my heart beats only for you.”
“That is as it should be. As it always is for those who are fated to love one another,” I say.
“But how do you know this? Until a few days ago, I thought I was human. We do not…mate. We form partnerships. We marry. Sometimes, there is even love involved. But we do not simply ‘find our mate.’”
“This is the blessing of being other. Shifters, Fae, even witches feel this pull, from what I have always been taught. My parents…their souls were intertwined. So much so that they died within minutes of one another.”
She covers her mouth with her hand, but I shake my head. “No, my love. That is how they wished it to be. They were never parted. Not even in death.”
Aurelia is silent for long moments, then, in the waning light, she leans up on an elbow so her hair hangs down and tickles my shoulder. “I have never…been with a man. But these past days, being so close to you, I want you, Roarke. I want you for the rest of my days. I need you. And as ridiculous as this sounds, I need you to claim me.”
Carefully, I ease her on top of me so she can feel the hard length of my cock. It weeps for her, only for her, and Aurelia shifts her hips against me.
“Fuck, Aurelia. My love. My heart and soul.”
She peers down at me with hooded eyes. “Tell me what to do.”
“Lie back and let yourself feel.”
Making herself comfortable on the bed, she watches me as I part her legs and position myself between them.
“Roarke? What are you doing?”
“Oh, my love, there is so much more to sex than…the single act you have imagined.” I smile up at her, my hands caressing her creamy skin. “If you need me to stop, you have only to say.”
The dewy curls covering her mound beckon me, and I plant gentle kisses from her knee to the junction of her thighs, and with every one, she trembles.
Down the other leg, back up again, and her hips start to have a mind of their own.
“I am going to taste you now, my love.”
Aurelia tenses, but when my tongue parts her slick folds, she cries out in pleasure. “Roarke! What…? I…”
Crawling up her body, I silence her cries with a kiss, then once she is panting, her unbroken fingers digging into my back, I score my teeth over one dusky pink nipple, and she shudders, her back arching.
“I cannot be selfish,” I whisper against her other breast, and by the time I kiss my way back down her stomach and to her mound, she’s babbling incoherently. I catch the occasional word.
“Need.”
“More.”
“Oh!”
My second taste is more delicious than the first, and I lap at her essence, finding the tiny nub that will undo her. Feet scrambling for purchase against the sheets, she cries out, louder now, and I think I hear my name, but I focus only on Aurelia. On sending her over the edge and into an ocean of pleasure.
“What…was…that?” she manages after her tremors subside. I have her in my arms, the blankets drawn up over her shoulders. My dragon warms us from within, and my teeth ache with the need to claim her fully—to mark her.
“That was only the beginning.” Our kiss tastes of her pleasure, and she skims her uninjured hand down my abs until she finds the hard length of my cock.
Now, it is my turn to shudder and groan. I have wanted this for so very long, and the idea that I almost lost her—that we almost lost each other—is too much to bear. “I love you, Aurelia. I want to make you mine. Forever. But only if you want that as well.”
With her fingers still wrapped around my shaft, she meets my gaze. “I have known since the moment in the square. When I saw your eyes as the King bound me. I knew you loved me then. And that I felt the same.”
Hope fills my heart. “Does that mean…?”
“Yes, Roarke. I want to be yours, and I will make you mine. Tell me what to do.” Positioning myself over her, I nudge at her entrance, and her eyes widen. “Will it hurt?”
“Only for a moment.” I seal my promise with a kiss, and she wraps her legs around my hips, welcoming me home.
A single gasp escapes her lips when I push past her barrier, and then, she draws me deep, her eyes open, her gaze locked on mine. “I do not know how the Fae claim their mates. Or if they even do. But I claim you, Roarke. My dragon. I name you the keeper of my heart, the guardian of my soul.”
Aurelia places her fingers over my heart, and for a single moment, white hot pain sears my skin. But it fades almost immediately as she jerks her hand away with a tiny mewl. “I marked you,” she says with wonder.
The brand is the most stunning mark I have ever seen. My dragon flies, wings spread, with a silhouette of Aurelia perched on his back. The design is small. No larger than her palm, but exquisitely detailed, and there is no question it is the two of us.
“I did not know I could do that,” she says. “There is something you must do to claim me? I can feel it. This overwhelming need deep inside me. I will not be complete without—“
With a growl, I lunge forward and clamp my teeth around the soft skin at the curve of her neck. Aurelia whimpers as her core tightens around me, and when my dragon’s fangs descend and break the skin, she cries out in pleasure. I thrust hard and deep, and Aurelia’s short nails dig into my back. My new brand presses to her breast, and we are connected in every possible way as we lose ourselves to our shared pleasure.
Chapter Sixteen
Aurelia
Roarke tells me of the world outside the realm, and though I fear the unknown, I do not wish to stay here. There are too many memories.
The castle fell two days after we escaped. The ground shook, and we ran outside to see the stones crumbling in on themselves. The guards did as they promised, and I cannot help but hope they found their way home.
“How will we survive?” I ask as I pack up the last of my meager belongings. I own little beyond the wool, cotton, and silk garments I spun myself. My mother’s golden hairpins, my grandmother’s locket, and the iron dagger that saved our lives. Roarke wrapped it in several thick pieces of leather so it would not harm me, but I can still sense it, even now.
“Dragons,” he says with a smile, “are hoarders. Bright, shiny objects, stores of food, and money. I have been gone for many years, but some of my stores should remain. And if not, we will find my brothers. They will shelter us until we decide where in this vast world we wish to go.”
“They will not hate me?” I rub my fist against my heart. This power inside me still feels foreign, and it aches when I focus on it.
“You are my mate. They could not hate you. Not ever.” He slides his arm around my back and pulls me close. “Dr
agons and the Fae have been enemies for thousands of years. We can change that.”
Wrapping a large piece of leather around his trunk, he tests the knots, nods, and then hefts the trunk onto his back. I follow him outside into the morning sun, and frown. “What are you doing?”
“Aurelia, my love,” he says as he loosens two buttons on his silk shirt and shows me the brand I gave him during our mating, “the fastest way to reach Alaska is to fly.”
Ducking into his cottage quickly, he returns with a long, leather coat and thick pair of gloves and holds them out for me. “These will keep you warm.”
“And you?” I ask, eyeing his bare feet and half-buttoned shirt.
Roarke grins as he strips off his clothing, folds the pants and shirt, and tucks them into a bag secured to the trunk. I watch, transfixed, as his dragon emerges. He is pure power and grace, and the magic rolling off of him glows and makes his scales shimmer.
One wing angles down to the ground, and I can hear him in my head, telling me how to mount him and where to hold on.
“Are you ready, my love?” Roarke asks as he grasps the leather cord in his talons and lifts his massive head.
“Y-yes.” In truth, I do not believe anything could prepare me for what we are about to do, but he takes several quick steps and flaps his wings, and then there is nothing but the wind on my cheeks and the feel of my dragon beneath me.
I hold onto his neck, his warmth protecting me as we fly faster and higher than I ever imagined. I know the instant we pass what used to be the edge of the realm, and the feeling of pure freedom is one I will relish for a thousand lifetimes.
Excitement makes my heart pound, and I cannot wait to see where he takes us—where life takes us—for an eternity.
Thank you for reading Twisted Captive. I hope you enjoyed this new world with Dragons and Fae and magic. If you’d like to know what happens to Adrian, Rumpelstiltskin’s tortured brother, his story is coming soon.
You can find it in Tempted By Fae, a Midnight Coven anthology. You’ll get fourteen stories by some of today’s hottest paranormal romance authors, and if you pre-order now, you’ll get them for only $0.99.
All profits (after expenses) from this anthology will be donated to the World Literacy Foundation.
So pick up Tempted By Fae now so you can read Adrian’s story the moment it’s available! And turn the page for an exclusive bonus scene featuring Adrian.
Rescuing Adrian
Adrian
I sense the moment the King dies. The charms keeping me in constant agony, tormented and unable to speak, to sleep, to find a moment’s peace fall away, and my eyes close on a sigh.
Perhaps now, I will die. As half-Fae, I should be immortal, but my father and brother have kept me chained to this altar in the deepest bowels of the castle for more than a century.
The iron shackles burn my wrists, ankles, and neck every second of every day, and the platform I lie on has an intricate pattern of the deadly metal inlaid into the stone.
A drop of water falls from an iron spike driven into the stone ceiling, right onto my lips, and I force myself to lick it off. Fae can live without food, but the half-human side of me needs water. My sadistic father devised a way to make each drop cause me the maximum amount of pain.
I have no voice. I cannot even moan. He took that from me as well. All because I wished to live among the humans. Because I begged him to free my mother. Because I bested my brother—Rumpel was always my father’s favorite—and knocked him down a flight of stairs in the process.
Another drop of water hits my chapped and blistered lips, and the pain sends me into blessed oblivion for the first time in more than two hundred years.
The scraping of heavy stone rouses me from unconsciousness. Light sears my eyes, more painful than the iron, than the forced immobility, than the all abiding loneliness that has been my only companion.
“My liege.”
I have been trapped in this never-ending silence for so long, I forgot what voices sound like, and this male’s call hurts my ears. I wonder if my own vocal cords still function.
A warm hand caresses my arm, then my jaw. I know this touch. This scent. It is one of comfort. Of my childhood. Of love.
Mother?
Tears fall over my cheeks. Her tears. I am so cold, they feel as if they are burning me, and I flinch.
Shock steals my breath. I have not been allowed even that much movement since the King locked me down here.
“My king,” the male voice says again, softer this time. “It will take some time to free you. But we will free you.”
King?
My mother brings something soft to my lips—a sponge maybe—and liquid flows over them. Pure, untainted water. Not too much. Just enough for me to open my eyes to slits. She has aged in the centuries I have been bound. But thanks to my father’s Fae magic, not as much as she should have.
Say something. Please.
I have not heard her voice in so long. But she shakes her head and touches her lips. He silenced her as well. My powers are almost gone. Stolen by iron, starvation, and the King’s charms. I cannot read her thoughts. But her emotions overwhelm me. Sadness. Joy. Hope. She gestures at the guard who is working to unlock the iron around my right ankle, then motions for him to speak.
I do not know this male. Or, if I do, I cannot remember him.
“The King and the Prince were banished from the Fae realm, my liege. Fifty human years after they trapped you here. They convinced many of us to join them. But once they sealed off this new realm…” He shakes his head. “They toyed with the humans. Trapped more every full moon.”
My father was a monster.
The first shackle cracks open, but the poisonous metal was locked so tight for so long, that it has almost become a part of my ankle.
“This will hurt, my liege.”
I cannot nod or speak to give him permission. But I hold his gaze until he pulls the cuff free, tearing my skin off with it.
“It is better this way, my queen. When he wakes, we will be done, and he can start to heal.”
I am awake, you dolt. Simply too weak to open my eyes.
My mother makes a low, sorrowful sound and rests her cheek on my shoulder. Again and again, the guard rips off the manacles, until he unlocks the one at my neck. This one…I fear it may kill me.
Forcing my eyes open, I beg him silently. Do not do this. I will bear the pain and the weakness from the iron for the rest of my days—however long they may be—to avoid what I know will be pure agony.
“I am sorry, my liege. But the castle will soon be destroyed, along with all of us who carried out your father’s vile deeds. You and the queen cannot be here when that happens. You deserve to be free.” The guard takes a piece of leather from the pocket of his robes and gently guides it between my teeth. “Bite down.”
My mother holds my hand, now bloody from the torn skin at my wrist. I must have passed out for at least a short time, for I do not remember the guard moving my arms to my sides—an event I am fortunate I did not have to experience. Bound spread-eagled for centuries, I can only imagine how my joints have locked up and frozen.
This, though…the removal of the collar…this is easier. Perhaps swallowing—the only movement outside of blinking and breathing I was allowed—kept the metal from fusing to my skin.
Tell me more. Please.
My gaze pings from the guard to my mother, and he nods. My own powers are useless, but his…he can understand me.
“The King trapped a human woman in a bargain. Rumpelstiltskin wanted her as his bride. He tortured her, but they—the human and her dragon mate—killed the king and the prince and escaped. But not before the king removed the queen’s tongue for speaking out against what he was doing.”
Anger flares as I find my mother’s eyes filled with tears.
“They are both dead now, my liege. You will be welcomed back in the Fae realm. You and the queen. There…perhaps you will be able to heal.”
&nb
sp; Also by Patricia D. Eddy
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On His Six
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Twisted Captive
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A Shift in the Air
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Destined: A By the Fates Story
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By the Fates, Fulfilled
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If you love hot Italian vampires and and a human who can hold her own against beings far stronger, then the In Blood series is for you.
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Love and Libations
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