Damen (Dragons of Kratak Book 2)

by Ruth Anne Scott

  She beat two fingers over her throbbing clit. At the same time, something sharp and very hard touched the outer opening of her cunt. She started to pull back in surprise when it leapt forward and penetrated her veils. It shoved her apart and scratched into her sensitive hole.

  She screamed, but the thing was on her. One thick loop pinned her hand against her heaving mons while that hard thing forced its way into her swollen cunt again and again. She shrieked, but the intoxicating rhythm caught her in its hypnotic spell.

  It held her hand against her clit and followed her quickening beats. The thing slipped in and out of her welcoming box in the same unstoppable beat. She bucked against it in ever-increasing waves of ecstasy and desire.

  “Yeah, baby. You know you like that. Can you feel that? Is that what you want?”

  She panted in her effort to answer. “I want it. I want it. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, God. That’s so good.”

  “Say it, baby. Let me hear you say it.”

  “Fuck me. Oh, fuck me. Oh, yes.”

  A hiss answered her, a hiss so low she could barely hear it. It vibrated in her chest and guts. It vibrated her clitoris through those long, looping coils against her delicate skin.

  Those purple pinpricks of light got brighter. They lit just enough of the room for Reyna to catch a glimpse of something in the darkness. What was it? It filled the whole room with solid, black bulk. It seethed with life and gave off that pungent odor that sparked her need in the first place.

  Whatever it was came closer, even as the object between her legs titillated her to a ferment. It towered over her. She quaked in a fever of fear and anticipation. What was this thing, working on her body and bringing shrieks of pleasure to her lips?

  Damen’s voice cracked the darkness. “Turn over.” The things fell away and slipped out of her hands. They left her gaping chasm empty and aching.

  She climbed up on hands and knees on the bed. The instant she turned around, his hands were on her. He stroked up her sides to cup her breasts, and he twitched her nipples until she mewed out loud.

  He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her off the bed. He lifted her onto her feet and hugged her against his chest. His warm skin caressed her with feathery strokes after those rough scales. His chest heaved against her back, and his erection poked into her ass from behind.

  She gave herself over into his hands. He bent her forward with one hand. His other hand gripped her chin and craned her head around to kiss her. She backed her ass up against his cock in joyous ecstasy. At last!

  His lips mangled her mouth, but before he finished kissing her, he stuck his finger between her lips. “Suck it. Show me how you suck it.”

  She sucked his finger, and his prick wedged between her legs. He planted his feet outside hers to keep her legs together, and his missile found the fountain of delight buried there.

  If she tried to bend farther, he held her back with his other hand around her face. He drove his cock into her glorious cunt on a slick trail of slippery juice. In an instant, the same rhythm took her. He plowed into her furrow with the same pounding pulse.

  Intolerable tingling spread from her heavy pussy lips, out through her pelvis and her skin to the rest of the world. She couldn’t contain the mounting sensation of explosive energy taking her to the farthest reaches of the universe. She stood at the center of a radiant wheel of pure being, everything sprang from the point where she joined with Damen.

  He released her mouth for an instant. He pulled back to gaze into her eyes. That purple light shone in his eyes, and it gave enough light for her to see his skin. It glowed iridescent purple, and the mighty wing-shapes sprang out from his shoulders. He was the purple dragon she saw the first time he took her. How that was possible, she couldn’t comprehend, but it was true. He was the purple dragon.

  She didn’t have time to let that concept sink into her mind before he closed his mouth over hers again. He sucked the gasps out of her mouth and silenced her rising cries. He muted her under his dominating presence.

  She couldn’t see anything, so she closed her eyes. The purple dragon loomed up large before her eyes. It pumped its slippery body into her and made her his own. He surrounded her with his wings and his spiky tail. His head bobbed on the end of his long neck, and smoke rose from his nostrils.

  Was he a man or a dragon right at that moment? She no longer cared. She gave herself to him in all his complexity. She wanted nothing but him, no matter what he was.

  A low rumble shook the ground beneath that room. It escalated out of the mountain itself and quaked the Keep to its foundations. It traveled through Reyna’s bones into her cunt. It burst out of Damen’s mouth in a thunderous roar that drowned out her orgasmic screams.

  His cock hooked into her flesh to lock them together. They seethed as one flesh in torrential cascades of shimmering power. Their carnal ingredients combined inside her cauldron to form a mysterious concoction beyond understanding.

  Chapter 13

  Reyna curled in the crook of Damen’s arm. Under the horse blankets, smooth linen sheets made his bed clean and comforting. She closed her eyes and inhaled the delicious scent of a satisfied man.

  Her skin glowed warm and clean against his. When she opened her eyes in the grey dawn light, she watched the shifting patterns under his skin. They played his dreams for her to see. Creatures appeared out of the sea of color, tumbled against each other and through forests of foliage and geometric designs, to disappear again. Then Reyna’s eyes drifted closed and she sailed in a dream world populated by those shapes and beings from another dimension.

  The last time she opened her eyes, she found Damen watching her. “Are you awake?’

  He laughed. “Are you awake?”

  “I can’t tell. I might still be asleep.”

  “Are you hungry? They’ll be gathering in the hall for the morning meal.”

  She hid her face against his chest. “I don’t think I could face your parents.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll be furious when they find out we’re together. They don’t want you marrying someone who is only going to leave in a year.”

  “We aren’t getting married—at least, not the last time I checked.”

  She didn’t answer. She traced a swirl around his chest and followed it down to his navel where it subsided into the hair along his belly.

  “Don’t tell me you want to get married.”

  “How could I marry you? I’m not going to stay on this planet.”

  “Answer me. Do you want to marry me? Tell the truth.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “I don’t understand those words anymore. I only know I want to be with you. When I think about leaving after a year, something tears in my heart. I gave myself to you, and I never want to be separated from you.”

  “Then don’t leave.”

  “I have to leave. If I stayed here, I would have to turn my back on everything I know. I would have to turn my back on my career, my sister, my nephew—everything. When the shuttle came to take the rest of the team home, I would stay behind with no way to contact anybody. I would probably never see my own people again.”

  “And if you do leave, you’ll turn your back on me. You have to make your choice, but you don’t have to make it now. You have a whole year. You might get tired of me and change your mind.”

  Her hips flexed, and she wrapped her thighs around his legs. “I’ll never get tired of this, and I could never find a man like you among the Allies.”

  “Think it over. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I couldn’t face your parents and the rest of your family over the breakfast table if I wasn’t sure in my mind what I wanted to do.”

  “Then I suppose you’re going to get very hungry.”

  She punched him in the ribs. “You clod! You’re supposed to help me.”

  He howled and contorted in mock pain. “Oh, the tragedy of a submissive man with a dominan
t woman!”

  She punched him again. “Stop fooling. This is serious business.”

  He wiped a tear away from his eye and bit back laughter. “Of course, it is. I’m sorry. I’ll be serious about it.”

  “You will not. You’re making fun of me.”

  He sat up and stretched. “That’s because it really isn’t as serious as you make it out to be. You have nothing to worry about with my parents. You just have to make up your own mind what you want to do. Do you want to have a good time with me for a year and then go home to your straw men?”

  “I told you not to call them that.”

  “Whatever they are, do you really want to go home to them? Do you really want to look forward to a life with one of them?”

  “I’d rather die.”

  “Then stay here. It’s that simple. If my parents understand that you hold no connection with me after one year, they’ll be happy to see you go. The choice is yours.”

  “What about you? Don’t you have a choice to make?”

  “I already made it. I’ll take as much of you as I can get. If you really want to go home to….to Whitney as your future, I sure won’t try to stop you. I’ll enjoy you while you’re here, and when you leave, I’ll kiss you good-bye and say good luck.”

  “And then what will you do?”

  “I’ll keep looking for a mate among our Clans. I’m sure I’ll find someone one of these days.”

  “Don’t you already know pretty much all the available women?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And you don’t want any of them?”

  “No. I want you.”

  “So, you would be happy if I stayed?”

  “I would be ecstatic.”

  “And would we get married?”

  “If you stayed here, we would be married. That’s what marriage is.”

  “Is there any kind of ceremony to seal the couple’s commitment?”

  “The couple goes home together. That’s the seal. The woman goes to live with the man’s Clan. Then they’re married.”

  “I see.”

  He got out of bed. “I’m hungry. I’m going down to breakfast. You can stay here as long as you want.”

  “I’m getting up, too. I have work to do today, and I have to face your parents for that, anyway.”

  “What are you going to tell them about you and me?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “One of these days, someone’s going to see you coming into or out of my room.”

  “And doesn’t that mean we’re already married?”

  “Not if you plan to leave in a year.”

  She pulled on her clothes. He bent over and kissed her. Then he left the room.

  She took a little longer to leave. She studied his room in every detail. It was nothing but a man cave, with none of the fancy decorations she’d seen in any other room in this Keep. She must be the first female ever to set foot inside it.

  No curtains hung around the window. Nothing interrupted a perfect view of the eastern mountains. Reyna gazed into the distance. These openings in the mountainside really were the perfect launching place for a flying creature to soar out into the distance.

  How wonderful the Krataks’ life must be. They could fly over this pristine countryside to their neighbor Keeps and come back to their warm, solid home under the mountain whenever they wanted. As she stood there, a green dragon she hadn’t seen before sailed across her field of view. It disappeared somewhere around the other side of the mountain.

  A deep sense of rightness filled her soul. Compared to the canned existence the Allies world offered her, this planet fulfilled a desire welling up from the bottom of her being. She never wanted to leave this place.

  When she repeated Damen’s words about going back to a future populated with Whitneys—a population of straw men and straw women—a deathly chill gripped her heart. She couldn’t go back to that. She could never touch one of those men again.

  She couldn’t face Damen’s family yet, either. What would she tell them? Oh, by the way, I just want to fuck your son for a few months and then I’ll leave him alone? Telling them she intended to marry him would destroy the last shred of legitimacy in the research team. Reyna dreaded breaking the news to Rose more than anyone.

  She couldn’t look Rose in the eye and say those words. She could never tell Rose pointblank she was staying on the planet and they would never see each other again. A lump stuck in her throat when she thought about losing Rose. Screwing around with Damen was one thing. Losing the touchstone of her life was taking this whole business too far.

  The Allies meant nothing to Reyna. She could walk away from the career she worked a lifetime to build. She could turn her back on people she trusted and cared for and respected. She could never turn her back on Rose.

  She sighed. That made up her mind. She had to leave Damen, no matter how hard it would be. She took one long last look around the room. Her professional self told her never to come back here, to break it off with Damen and stick her nose in her work. That was the only way to reconcile all the warring desires in her heart.

  She walked out of the room and shut the door behind her. She drew it closed with a soft click. She didn’t want to disturb the secret hidden inside. It would stay buried in her heart for the rest of her life. It would color every relationship and nag at her dreams. She would fly back here in her sleep and roll in Damen’s arms, only to wake up to a cold, loveless existence on some faraway planet. Her life would remain here.

  She found her way back down to the hall, but by the time she sat down and ate something, the rest of the team already started moving away. Rose couldn’t stop talking about Moira, and the Krataks kept quiet. Reyna grabbed something to eat, but she couldn’t escape Rowan and Fay studying her from across the table. Did they suspect she spent last night in Damen’s room?

  She bolted her food and got up, but before she could leave the room, Fay intercepted her. “You’re the genealogist, aren’t you? If you come with me, I’ll show you our family records.”

  Reyna’s eyes popped open. “Really? Thank you.”

  Fay led her back to the hidden stairway Haya used to descend to the underground chamber. Fay turned off at a different level just below the central hall and showed Reyna into a big, bright room lined on every wall with shelves climbing up to the ceiling. Every shelf groaned with stacks of papers and books. A thick coating of dust covered everything, even the chairs. “Hardly anybody comes here anymore. This is our family library.”

  Reyna stared at the place. “Where do I start?”

  Fay faced her. “Before you do that, I want to talk to you about Damen.”

  Reyna’s blood ran cold. “Okay.”

  “I didn’t bring you here out of the kindness of my heart or because I suddenly decided to help your mission. We all still believe the Allies harbor secret plans to take over this planet.” She held up her hand. “Don’t argue about that. Just listen to what I have to say.”

  Reyna kept silent and waited.

  “We all know what’s going on between you and Damen. You don’t have to hide it.”

  “I just don’t want to offend you, especially after you already told me you don’t approve of me.”

  “We have no objection to you as a person. We simply want Damen to marry someone from his own people.”

  “I understand that, and I want you to know I don’t plan to stay here beyond the end of the year. Whatever’s going on between me and Damen will remain casual. I should really break it off with him. I have a job to do.”

  “You don’t have to break it off with him. You just shouldn’t sell yourself short. You have a sweetheart from your own world already.”

  “Who? Do you mean Whitney? No, everything’s over between me and Whitney. I could never take a sweetheart from my own people again. Damen has ruined them for me.”

  “Ruined them—how?”

  “I just couldn’t take a
sweetheart from them again. I don’t want a man like that anymore. I want a man like Damen. He’s the only one I want.”

  Fay stared at her. Then she sank into a chair with her head on her hand. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry.”

  “What do you have to be sorry about? You didn’t do anything.”

  “I had no idea you felt that way about Damen. I thought you were toying with him. I had no idea you were so serious about him.”

  “Serious? I don’t think so. I made up my mind not to stay here for him. I couldn’t turn my back on my sister. We’ve been together all our lives. If I stayed here, I would never see her again. I can say good-bye to everything else, but not to her.”

  Fay sighed. “If you made up your mind, then that’s all there is to say about it. I just want you to know you would be very welcome to stay here if you chose to. None of us would object to you marrying Damen if that’s what you both want. We simply want him to stay here, with his family, to take a wife and have his own children here on Kratak where we can see him. That’s all.”

  Reyna’s head came up. “Do you really approve of me and Damen? Is my leaving really the only objection you could have to our relationship?”

  “Of course. What did you think we objected to?”

  “I thought you objected because I’m an alien, and because I come from a female-dominated world you see as an enemy. I thought you wanted to keep me and Damen apart for political reasons.”

  Fay laughed. “No, no. Nothing like that. You’re a very nice person. Everyone on your team has been unfailing polite to us, even when your sister disagrees with us.”

  Reyna took the chair next to her. Her heart went out to this reserved older woman. Of course, she didn’t want to lose her sons, especially since their Clan was already so small. They wanted everyone to stay close to home so they could keep their close-knit family connections. Anybody could understand that.

  “Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your home Clan and your life. I want to get to know you better—if you don’t mind, that is.”

  Fay leaned back in her chair, and a contented smile spread over her face. “Of course, I don’t mind. I was born in Prowiss Keep, far to the north of here. It’s a wonderful country there, full of snow-capped peaks and ice caves. My brother Connal and I used to explore the country together, sometimes for days at a time. We would go out and stay out. My parents soon learned not to worry about us.”