“Then I want nothing of it.”
“You don’t wish to taste my blood and wallow upon my dragon as you promised when I agreed to come with you? I assure you, he’s more than eager to Dance the Blades with your claws and teeth. You won’t need your Reds to pin me with their knives in order to do as you wish.”
Lady help her, she could envision all too clearly: dragons hissing and clawing at one another, necks twining, teeth raking, wings and tails thrashing each other into submission. Swallowing hard, she forced that image away. “That is your idea of a bath? How do any of your people survive, then?”
He laughed softly. “Not all are affected by the oil so strongly, brightheart. You are White. I am Black. We’re naturally drawn to each other. We fight, and if we don’t kill each other, we mate each other into a stupor. Even then, if one isn’t wrestled into submission, they might both end up dead. In the wilds of Keldar, it’s not unusual to follow signs of dragons in rut only to find their carcasses roasting in the sun. Dragons mate with violence and blood and Fire, and we Black and White pairs feel it all the more.”
“You said you have no Fire.”
“Oh, I burn, brightheart, but not with flame to destroy my enemies. I burn for you.” His eyelids hung heavy and sultry. He flickered his gaze at her Blood, dropped his hands to his trousers, and loosened them so the black material slid down his thighs to puddle on the tile. “Red is much safer for you than Black.”
A vicious rumble rolled out of Dharman’s chest and he stood, eyes blazing, muscles bunched. She touched his arm lightly and he quivered but didn’t break eye contact with the other man.
Mykal stood silent, his gaze daring her to examine him and find him lacking. Lean and deceptively slender, he wasn’t as tall as Dharman. The least of her Blood likely outweighed him by five stone or more. Yet there was an aura of coiled power in his stance and the still, controlled way he stood. In a flash, he would strike, as deadly as his tribe’s namesake. His skin was darker than even Gregar’s creamy caffe skin, a rich, oiled mahogany. Sweeping down his back to his calves, his ink black hair was even longer than Sal’s.
Her red-haired Blood huffed beneath his breath and thought very hard about shaving the Keldari’s head with an extremely dull rahke.
“May I have my oil?” Mykal lowered his head. Not to be submissive, oh, no, but to ensure his hair slipped forward over his shoulder, drawing her eye down his body again. Not an ounce of fat softened him. He might as well have been carved from dusky marble. “It will cauterize my wounds and cleanse me. I would not lie with you as a sweaty, dirty savage, Your Majesty.”
“You won’t lie with her at all,” Dharman retorted.
Mykal inclined his head even farther, bending slightly at the waist. “I believe she has already made her choice, my young friend.”
Lady help her, she had. From the first moment the Black Dragon had invited her to join him on the ridge above the salty lake beneath a full moon, she’d been intrigued.
:Entrapped, more likely.: Dharman glared at the man but grudgingly sat back on the bench beside her. :Have a care, na’lanna. This dragon’s bite is as poisonous as his fire.:
She sighed. “Give him his bag.”
* * *
GRIM-FACED, THE YOUNG RED handed Mykal his things and stepped back, but didn’t leave. Indeed, all nine of her personal guard had come into the room. Her two closest remained in the Well with her, but the other seven surrounded him. He suddenly had a vision of her rutting on him with nine sets of boots standing toe-to-toe about them.
As long as she took him, he didn’t care.
Ignoring their glares, he spread out his taamid on the cold stone, sat cross legged, and opened the bag. He made a great show of rummaging through his items and setting them out one by one for her perusal. As he hoped, her curiosity drew her back to the edge of the pool.
She touched a lumpy packet. “What is that? It feels like a bag of sticks.”
“Fire Tea. Would you like some? It’s a traditional Keldari drink.”
“Maybe later.” Eyes narrowed suspiciously, she indicated a small black vial. “And this?”
“Not poison,” he said, amused, although in all honesty, it was a foul concoction. “We call it Dragon Piss. It’s a stimulant that is used only when all resources have failed and death is imminent. As a much younger man, I was once deep in the desert tracking a pista when my horse broke its leg. On foot in merciless heat with barely a drop of water for the day, I had to make my way to the nearest Well or die. Without this foul brew, I wouldn’t have made it.”
He didn’t mention that he’d killed six Keldari left to protect the other tribe’s Well.
“Is that your memory or his?”
Mykal shrugged. “It’s ours.”
Her eyes locked on him and he felt her mind stroking his bond. He held himself still and didn’t resist her search through his memories. Indeed, he led her through them as though on parade. He let her see him Dancing the Blades at the tiny precious hole in the lee of dunes beneath two drooping, brown palm trees, swinging scimitar and short sword in tandem, taamids flying as he killed so he might drink and live. He thought of sweeping branches and trunks so large a palace had been built inside—a marvel no Keldari would ever believe as more than a dream. He knew lands of humid, lush jungles with birds of brilliant plumage and tigers prowling in shadows that were not animals. He’d surviveddark prisons of torture and death. He let her see him killing Keldari, Mambian priests, and Xyan pirates, without reservation, for they were just as Shadowed and corrupt as him.
He let her see his despair, the ever thickening darkness sucking him under. He killed and plotted and raged as his plans unraveled one by one, until only the faintest, barest slip of moon shone in his soul. Her moon, her sweet light that penetrated even the darkest murk and gloom of Shadow.
Carefully indeed, he buried his most recent lives before Mykal as far and deep within him as possible. She would have the truth if she sought deeply enough, and he’d likely release at the exquisiteness of her mind sliding through his. It’d almost be worth giving her the small truth that would earn her hatred simply to feel such pleasure.
His eyes rolled back, his head lolled, his hands trembled, and iyeh, he was close enough to explode if she even thought about touching him.
Water sloshed, a sound like heaven to a Keldari whose entire tribe must be sustained by a Well small enough to step across. She settled her palm, hot and wet from the bath, on his chest and he couldn’t stop the release that poured through him. Gasping and trembling, he buried his face against her neck. At least he had emptied his body of the fertile seed, and he would fervently pray the horse poison killed the rest. “A thousand tellans, brightheart.”
She rumbled out a husky laugh that sent another pulse through him. “I believe I owed you at least one after the way I welcomed you to my bedchamber.”
He touched his tongue to her flesh and shuddered with ecstasy. Water on her shining womanly form could cause him to commit another devalki. One small taste was worth eternal punishment. He licked and sucked her neck and the swells of her breasts—carefully avoiding the marks on each that gleamed in his mind’s eye of her Reds.
She gave a tug on his hair, drawing his gaze up to hers. “If you’re that thirsty, let me—”
“Thirsty only for you.”
He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and sank his teeth hard, just shy of breaking the skin to taste copper on his tongue. He felt the pain of his teeth in her bond, and the immediate rush of molten need. His dragon thrashed to the surface of his body. Wings stretched within him, claws clicking against his ribcage.
Drawing back, he tugged her lip in his teeth until she cried out and then he released her. She searched his gaze, her eyes wide and dark, her mouth so lush he wanted to swallow her whole. No kiss from him would be safe, though, no matter how much he burned to drink from the moonlit power that welled within her. He could not risk giving her any of his own Black that might stain those holy
waters.
She knew his dragon paced the surface, and he didn’t attempt to hide the violence rolling within him. Despite the spilling of his seed, tension still hummed in his body. The fight to remain in control of his dragon long enough to make love to her would be the greatest Dance of his life, and he knew her all too well to make the mistake of assuming she would make that battle easier for him. She would stir his lust and fire like no other and demand he still find a way to control it.
“If you change your mind, I understand. You’ve already given me more joy in these few hours than in all my lifetimes.” The dragon howled and raked claws down his spine so viciously he couldn’t completely hide the stiffening of pain. “Do so now before it’s too late. Once I begin, if you need me to stop, tell your Red to kill me. Nothing else will bring me under control.”
“Dharman.”
“Aye,” the Red replied, his voice flat, whether with jealousy or concern, Mykal didn’t know him well enough to discern. Both guards had climbed out of the well and stood close enough to kill him between one heartbeat and the next.
“You are First. If you feel I’m truly in danger—”
“Aye.” No emotion burned in his voice, simply the bare promise of death. “I shall kill him.”
Relief filled Mykal, quelling some of the dragon’s rage. He met the Red’s blazing gaze, and with two fingers of his right hand, he touched the tattoos beneath his eyes, his heart, and rolled his wrist, palm up, to point at Dharman, silently pledging allegiance of both heart and tribe.
“Now,” she let her gaze wander across Mykal’s chest to his shoulder, lingering on the puncture wound she’d given him, “where’s your oil?”
He pressed the amber bottle into her hand, followed by a small square of cloth. “I have wounds. Will you tend them?”
Carefully, she uncorked the vial. His scent curled through the air, stirring them both to greater heat. She breathed deeply and a tremor shook her body. Her skin shimmered, the scars in her body brightening with the light of the moon, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy trying to distract herself with questions. “What is this made of?”
He waited, barely breathing, while she upturned the vial onto the cloth, set the vial aside, and lifted the cloth toward his shoulder. “Do you really want to know?”
She touched it and fire exploded in the wound. He couldn’t help but suck in his breath, hold it a moment, and then let the air out noisily.
“Sorry.”
He shook his head, a smile quirking his lips. “Your touch stirs my Fire, brightheart. The pain is nothing. Each warrior blends his own oil with an aroma he finds pleasing. Some use herbs, others use oils from foreign lands, and very few use no scent except what the original dragon infused.”
She lifted the cloth from his wound and her breath sighed out. Touching his flesh lightly, she whispered, “I burned you.”
“Dragon oil burns, but without blood, it’s merely arousing. With blood, it blends with my Fire and ignites to cauterize wounds. In a land of little water, severe injury leads to blood loss, and fluids cannot easily be replenished. It’s better to burn the wound shut than bleed out.”
“You smell…” She rubbed her face against his neck and down his shoulder. “So good. Is it you, or the oil?”
“Both.” Deliberately, he shifted his wounded shoulder to rub oil against her. He took the cloth from her and swept it down his neck and arm, across his chest, down his belly. Fire pulsed in his body, dragon wings sweeping through a night sky. “This scent sang to me, so I used it. You sing to me, and so I give my oil to you as well. That you hear its melody tells me more than anything that we should wallow and rut on each other as long as possible, for time is my enemy.”
I have a purpose. The thought ripped his heart out of his chest and left him gasping for breath, dying, bleeding beneath a new moon.
Her mouth firmed into a hard slant. “Don’t tell me you’re going to die.”
She jerked the cloth out of his hand and dumped more oil on it. A great deal more. Yet it was her lips she put to the next wound, not the cloth. Her teeth dug at his skin, her tongue sliding over his flesh until he wanted to pin her beneath him and spill oil from head to toe.
“I’ve had enough of death. Besides, you seem to live forever.”
He shuddered. If she only knew how many times, in countless violent painful ways, he’d died.
“We waited too long.” Sighing, she pulled back and stroked the cloth over the wound. More oil leaked into his body, pumping through his bloodstream. “These wounds have all closed.”
“Then you had best make new ones.”
* * *
SANDALWOOD ROASTED BY THE HEAT of the desert filled the air. Every breath seemed to burn through her body, melting her bones, firing her blood until she wanted to throw her head back and roar. Or better yet, she’d bite him over and over until not an inch of his flesh remained unmarked.
“Do so,” he whispered, lying back. “My heart beats for you.”
Strengthening her resolve, she stroked the cloth over his skin until he was slick and glistening. His head rolled back and forth restlessly, his fingers clenching and releasing fists at his side, and his bond...
Lady above, the dragon screamed at her, spiraling higher and higher in a black velvet sky devoid of stars or moon.
“Taste me,” he urged. “Eat me alive.”
Closing her eyes, she fought to control the need. His suggestions certainly weren’t helping. So far, not much of the oil had gotten on her, but his scent inflamed her. She wanted to rub herself on him, coat herself in his scent, his oil, fill her mouth and her body with his flesh, and devour him whole.
Her skin felt too tight. Her nerves jangled painfully, the beat of his heart a thunder in her head, his scent a lure that she couldn’t resist. What would his blood do to her?
The Silver Lake shone in her mind. Mirrored waters rippled. A shape rose closer to the surface.
She bent to look into the water, and the White Dragon surged out, crystal waters cascading rainbows all about her. It snagged her in its jaws and flung gleaming white scales and wings into the night sky.
Mykal groaned and buried his hands in her hair. The taste of his blood rocketed through her. She didn’t even remember biting him. Sandalwood-spiced blood fed the dragon and powered the strokes of her powerful wings. Oil sizzled on her skin. She rubbed her face, neck, and breasts against him. His scent burned into her body, his blood a feast. She bit him again, not to mark him, but simply for the pleasure of having him in her mouth.
Far, far away in the distant night sky, the Black Dragon sent a ground-rumbling bass call to her White.
Fly, he whispered. Soar to me.
She bit Mykal again and again, gripping his flesh in her teeth, filling her mouth with sandalwood and dragon musk. His blood smeared with the oil, searing the burn even higher, but she couldn’t stop. She straddled his stomach and threw back her head on a long, shaking cry as oil burned deeper.
“Wallow,” he growled. “I want my scent on every inch of your body.”
Stretching out on him, she rubbed her stomach against his and wriggled lower, biting as she went. She licked the pearly mark she’d put in his groin and left another bleeding ring in his thigh.
“I said wallow.” He twisted her hair, drawing her over on her back. Thrashing, she cried out, blood and oil searing her flesh. The mark in her buttock felt like a red-hot branding iron blistered her skin. “Iyeh, that mark knows I want to taste it.”
He rolled so hard and fast the air slammed out of her. Dazed, she instinctively tried to fight him off. The White Dragon clawed inside her, furious that the Black had thrown her, but he wouldn’t be denied. He pinned her flat with a hand behind her head and the weight of his shoulders against her thighs.
“What a beauty,” he purred, rubbing his cheek against the old scar in her buttock. “Who gave this to you? Your young Red?”
“Nay,” Dharman replied, his voice soft but his tone r
inging. “If it were my mark, my rahke would be in your heart.”
“My Khul.” Lady above, he was heavy and strong. Her ribs ached. “Get off me, Mykal.”
“Make me.” He swiped his tongue over the scar and she twitched, struggling helplessly beneath him. “Did you mark the horse king the same way?”
“Yes.” Irritated, she tried to push him away with jealousy. “As I did Gregar and Sal.”
He laughed and gripped her teasingly. “Ah, you like a man’s backside.”
“Only truly remarkable ones,” she threw back at him.
“Now, now, there’s no need to insult your First Red. I’m sure he’s not pleased that you find him lacking.”
She tried to kick the bastard but she couldn't get her heel back far enough. “I never said such a thing!”
“Then why doesn’t he wear your mark on his buttock? Is he that unremarkable? He looks big enough to impress you, but then again, looks are often deceiving.”
Fury darkened the Silver Lake inside her. “Don’t try to make him jealous. I love him without question.”
“I know, brightheart.” The sudden despair and longing that ached in his voice filled her eyes with tears. “You can’t help but love him.”
When he sank his teeth hard into that muscle, her emotions crashed from sympathy back to rage. Vulkar damn him, I told him no blood!
Twisting in his grip, she swiped at his throat. Blood welled in vicious stripes across his neck and shoulder. Her nails glistened, long and curved like dragon talons.
“Dharman!” She screamed. “I killed him!”
Chuckling, Mykal rubbed his throat against her hip and waist. Blood blazed with oil, a wildfire of need that spiraled higher. “You can tear me up, bite me, claw me with these delightful talons, and my dragon will howl with pleasure.”
He pushed up enough to allow her to fully roll over. Shaking, she touched the deep furrows she’d left in his throat. His skin appeared darker and thicker. Beneath her fingertips, she felt tiny patterns.
Scales.
They armored his throat, sprinkled across his chest and shoulders, and grew heavier down his forearms to his hands. Exactly as in her dream. They looked like tattoos, but she could feel the rigidity in his flesh.
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