The sun sank below the mountains, and the clouds turned dark grey. All the light drained out of the world, and the stars twinkled between the clouds. Damen took one more wide sweep up into the sky and came back down to the ground.
He laid Reyna on the cold grass next to a stream. He stepped in a circle around her with his head weaving to and fro. He studied her with his fierce eyes.
She stared up into the sky for a moment. Then she rolled over into the fetal position. She closed her arms over her stomach and groaned.
“Reyna? Are you all right?”
Damen knelt down next to her, and his hand rubbed her back. She couldn’t look at him. She closed her eyes and buried her face in the grass.
“Reyna? Look at me.”
She couldn’t look. She couldn’t see a man where that dragon used to be.
He took hold of her shoulders and turned her over. He tried to pry her body apart to straighten her out. Reyna exploded in a frenzy of twisting and convulsing. She wrenched her body back and forth to shake herself loose from his grasp. “Let go of me! Leave me alone! Get away from me!”
He held on tight. The harder she twisted, the tighter he held. “Reyna! Look at me!”
“I can’t! I never want to see you again. Leave me alone.”
“What’s the matter with you? You’re distraught. You almost fell to your death.”
“Get your hands off me! You’re a monster! I never want to have anything to do with you again. I’ll never let you touch me again.”
“I can’t leave you here, Reyna. We’re miles from the Keep, and you would die out here overnight. Let me take you back to the Keep where you can get warm. Then you can decide if you ever want me to touch you again.”
“You want to tear me apart with your claws. I saw you. You changed into a dragon when I came into your room. I saw you then. You’re a hideous lizard. I never should have let you touch me in the first place.”
“Don’t talk like that, Reyna. You love me, and I love you.” His voice cracked.
“Everybody warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. I turned Whitney away. He’s the one I should be with, not you. You disgust me. You’re filthy. You’re not human. Get off of me!”
He stopped trying to reason with her. He folded her in his arms and crushed her against his chest. She flew into a rage of kicking and scratching and biting at the parts of his shoulders she could get at with her teeth. He weathered the storm and clutched her against his body until she went quiet and still.
She slumped into his embrace. Her arms fell onto the ground. Damen loosened his grip and held her back to look at her. Her head lolled sideways when he laid her on the ground. Then he stretched out behind her and curled his body around her.
How much time passed before Reyna came back to herself, she didn’t know. She woke in the dead of night. The cold air smarted on her skin. She shivered and hugged herself.
Damen’s arms closed around her tighter. “You’re cold.”
Her teeth chattered so she couldn’t answer.
“We have to get you back to the Keep.”
“Not yet. Not yet.”
“You can’t stay out here.”
“Can’t you light a fire or something?”
“Not in this dark.”
She didn’t say anything for a while.
“I have to get you back to the Keep, but it would take all night to walk there. I could fly you there in a matter of minutes, but that would mean I would have to change. I don’t want to frighten you again and send you into another fit.”
She closed her eyes and buried her chin against her chest. She couldn’t remember her convulsion very well. Someone else said those words. She never kicked and fought to get away from her Damen. She never wanted to push him away. Her own terror did that, not her.
“There is one other way I can keep you warm tonight, Reyna, but I don’t want to run the risk of sending you into shock again.”
“What is it?”
“If I change back into a dragon, I can wrap myself around you and keep you warm with my body. Our skin radiates warmth, but if I don’t change, it won’t be strong enough to keep you alive.”
“Do it then.”
“Are you sure you won’t fall apart on me again? You won’t lose your head and fight me off?”
“No, I’m okay now. Go ahead and do it.”
He peeled himself off her back, and the cold air rushed in to take his place. She huddled into a ball to protect herself from it, but the next moment, something hard and rough and warm surrounded her on all sides. Thick muscled coils wrapped all around her and pulsed warmth into her frozen limbs. Her teeth stopped chattering, and she started to relax.
She dared not open her eyes to look at him. Seeing him hurtling out of the sky to tackle her in mid-air was bad enough. She’d seen his outline in his room, and she saw shades of him when he first took her. She saw him for a brief instant outside the eastern entrance, but never face front in all his magnificent fury.
Would she ever get used to this? Could she ever reconcile herself to mating with a dragon? How could she ever look at him the same way again?
The deep rumble purred against her back. His massive sides rose and fell with his breath, and she breathed into his warmth. As long as she kept her eyes closed, he was still her Damen, the man she loved, the man she would sacrifice everything for her. The purple dragon didn’t exist.
His warmth put her to sleep, and she dreamed the same pleasant dreams she’d grown accustomed to in this place. She soared over the countryside on outstretched wings. She scouted forests and mountain ranges and tumbling streams.
She woke with the sunshine on her face. She blinked and opened her eyes before she remembered. A thick length of something purple and scaly lay across her field of view. She studied it at close range. Purple spikes ran down its length and disappeared somewhere under her head.
When she moved, she found the thing propped between her knees. Heat radiated from it into her crotch. She ached to press herself down on it, to ride it to the peak of orgasmic fulfillment, but she didn’t dare. She peeled her cheek off it where her head lay pillowed on its warm surface. She looked around. It ended in a pointed tail.
It heaved and slithered away when she sat up. She turned away and pushed herself up onto her feet. What was she doing, cuddling up to that thing in her sleep? Did Damen slide his tail between her legs and under her head, or did she do that by herself without knowing it?
The instant she got onto her feet, he twisted and flipped over. His tail whipped out of the way, and his long neck uncurled. His huge body contorted around, and he rolled up onto his four legs. He stepped around to face her. “I’m sorry, Reyna. I should have changed back before you woke up. Turn around, and I will change now.”
Her hand shot out. “Wait! Don’t change yet. I want to look at you.”
He stood still in all his purple grandeur. Reyna stared at him. Why did he surprise her? She’d seen him a thousand times in her visions. She just never realized that Damen—her own beloved Damen—and the purple dragon were one and the same being.
She gazed on him for the first time. A good night’s sleep settled her mind, and the terror of her near-death fall passed away. She could look at him now. She could hold his dragon self and his human self together in her mind and accept them.
He moved his head from side to side. She took a step toward him. He cocked his head sideways and scrutinized her with piercing eyes. He rustled his wings along his back. She took another step forward.
She walked around him in a complete circle. She studied every inch of him, from his spiky head to the tip of his tail. She stopped next to his shoulder and put out her hand. Her fingertips hovered over his shining purple scales. Then she let her hand drop onto his skin.
A shiver of excitement went through her at the touch. She ran her hand down the smooth scales. The purple color glowed between her fingers. She couldn’t move her hand up, th
ough. The scales caught her and held her hand still.
She petted his sides until he closed his eyes and purred. She could barely murmur under her breath in wonder. “What does it feel like? What’s it like to be a dragon?”
He opened his eyes and craned his neck around to look at her. “It feels perfectly natural. It’s the man who feels strange sometimes. I can understand how Rahni feels.”
“What do you mean? How does Rahni feel?”
“He prefers to keep his dragon form. He prefers to live as a dragon in the mountains than as a man in the Keep. He almost never comes inside anymore. Sometimes I wonder if he can still change back into a man or if he’s forgotten how after all these years.”
“He can change. I saw him as a man up there.”
“You did?”
“He was sitting with Asya. They were having a conversation.”
“Hmm. I suppose that’s good. I envy him sometimes. He lives his own life, without answering to anyone.”
“Would you leave and never come back?”
He bent his head low and nuzzled his forehead against her hip. “I will never leave —at least not as long as you’re here.”
“And if I leave?”
“I might. I wouldn’t want to stay around if you weren’t here.”
“You wouldn’t take a wife from another Clan?”
“I don’t want a wife from another Clan. I want you. You’re not like them.”
“I’m not a dragon like they are.”
“That’s what I mean.”
He ran his head down her leg, and his long coils traced her curves. That sensuous movement sparked a tidal wave of overwhelming emotion in her. Her cunt ached for him. Her heart yearned to circle her arms around his neck—his dragon neck, his human neck, any neck he had.
She closed her eyes and let the yearning suck her down into the dark depths. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder and took shelter in his presence. He was…he wasn’t a dragon or a man. He was only himself. She loved the spirit inside that body, inside any body he happened to be using at the time.
He slithered his head back and forth across the crease where her ass met her legs. His spikes bumped into her cleft and touched her ass. She leaned her ass back into his powerful curves while her head rested on her folded arms against his side.
His breath rasped through his smoking nostrils, and he rumbled deep in his throat. All the doubts and questions from the Keep drifted far away and evaporated with the morning mist. Nothing remained but the two of them, here alone.
He sighed and moved away. He left her in a torment of excitement and desire. He whipped around to face her. “Climb on my back, and I’ll fly you to the Keep.”
She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. “Forget the Keep.”
Chapter 16
He folded his papery wings across his back, and they sank into his skin. He arched his neck so far back his head it almost toppled off its snaky length. Then his neck retracted before her eyes and withdrew between his shoulders.
He stood up on his hind legs, and the knees straightened. His tail sucked into his body and the spikes along his back sank out of sight. His forelegs lengthened, and the clawed tips rounded into fingers. His body imploded to a fraction of its size, and the purple color faded to a dull metallic copper.
His face flattened, and his snout pulled inward. The spikes running down his neck and back vanished. In a moment, he stood before her, a man again. Reyna watched the whole process without fear or revulsion. He was Damen, nothing more.
He let out a long breath. His shoulders rose and fell with the movement she knew so well. The flickering designs waved over his skin and receded. She smiled at him.
He came toward her and put his arms around her. He stared into the depths of her soul, and his hand caressed her cheek. He pushed the hair off her forehead. He stroked her sides until his hands found their way up her back to her armpits. He lifted her off the ground to meet him face to face. His lips found hers, and they kissed in the fullness of eternal love.
He set her down, but their mouths continued their enthralling courtship of lips and tongues entwined for all time. The smoky taste of his mouth captivated her. She was kissing a dragon. Her thighs glided against each other in heavenly intoxication.
He gripped her under the armpits, and his fingers followed her shirt seams around to her chest. He tugged down her neckline to reveal her bra. In a second, he was inside with the full weight of her breast in his hand.
Her chest rose in glad release, and her nipple poked between his fingers. He squeezed it awake and brought a gasp to her lips. Her pussy ached, and the sweet nectar oozed along her lips. She couldn’t find relief no matter how much she rubbed her legs together.
How she wished she had those hot coils between her knees now. She would clamp her box down on them and buck her hips to grind her tortured cunt against his tail.
He cradled her breasts in both hands and delved into her throat with his tongue. The sunlight played across her eyelids and lulled her into a peaceful reverie. Nothing mattered. She was where she belonged, with him.
He sucked her nipple into his mouth. He nagged it with his teeth until she whimpered in agony. One knee slid between her thighs, and she pounced on it with relish.
She scraped her burning pussy against his strong thigh. He jammed it up into her box until she yelped. The words repeated over and over in her mind. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
He dove his hand into her pants and found the choice morsel hidden in its nest of delicate hair. He worked his fingers around it while he sucked her nipple. She flew into a wild dance between the two poles of fierce pleasure. She rocked her clit against his fingers and her swollen lips against his leg.
Her syrup coated his fingers and lubricated their passage down, down into her glowing inferno. His fingers glided into her canal, and her puffy tissues closed around it in carnal lust. She rode those fingers for all she was worth.
Against her will, he shoved her back to stand her on her own feet again. Her bare chest surged with heavy breath. Her glorious breasts pointed up into the sunshine. Her eyes burned with passion for him.
He peeled her shirt over her head and her pants down to her ankles. He undressed her with maddening slowness until she stood exposed to the clear air. He admired his handiwork and caressed her bare skin.
She put out her hands to embrace him, but he pushed them down to her sides. He dropped to one knee in front of her and took hold of her voluptuous hips. He kissed down her stomach to the bushy patch of wiry hair. He teased it apart with his nose until the red lips opened to let him in.
His tongue explored between her petals to find her hard clit. He lashed it back and forth, and he fingered her opening where the steaming elixir pumped from her cunt. He delved deeper, and his greedy mouth closed over her engorged pussy.
Reyna threw back her head and moaned. She combed her fingers into his hair and brought him into her. She tightened her stomach to push her pussy up into his face. She let one thigh move aside to welcome his fingers into her glory hole.
He devoured her sweet cunt with all his ardent devotion. He took his time sliding his fingers into her box until his knuckles bumped her spongy flesh. She sat down hard on that hand to reach the deepest spots in her sensitive channel.
He ate her out faster, and his hand pumped in and out faster. He banged her with his fingers and chewed her clit until she whined. She closed her fists in his hair and bucked against his chin. Her nectar gushed onto his knuckles and drenched her thighs.
She lifted her voice to the skies. She didn’t have to worry about anybody hearing her out here. No one would see her. No one would judge her. She was pure female, and she met her pure male counterpart in the wilderness.
She tackled his mouth and hand with wild passion, and the orgasmic rapture rose from the very planet, into her legs, into her cunt, into her heart, to burst forth in golden sunlight. She was the sunlight.
She surfed endless waves of pleasure until her knees buckled underneath her, but Damen caught her before she fell. He swung her up into his arms and laid her on the soft grass. He kissed her with his cum-spattered face, and she licked the dew from his lips.
He climbed between her legs, and she hooked her heels around his back. She stroked her fingertips down his back to his ass and helped him slide his pants off. She cupped his ass with both hands and guided his hips between her legs.
His cock surveyed her pussy with its all-seeing eye. She dreamed of it. She worshiped it. She breathed it into herself. Would he ever get there and end her suffering?
He kissed her longer, and longer. His tongue licked around her mouth to open her up. He rocked against her chest to send the vibrations humming through her.
His cock angled into position. She sucked in her breath in anticipation, but nothing could stop its inexorable advance. It inched between her curtains on a film of lava. Then it bent its head and plunged into her caverns where the darkness hid it from view.
Reyna sighed once. Then Damen knocked his pelvis down hard to hammer his spike into her being. His rock-hard shaft hit those spots along her furrow that wound her to a dizzying pitch. She stretched taut under him and sank her claws into his back.
He buckled down to his work. He pumped his meat into her blazing pussy with all his massive strength. He clawed her up out of the dirt and catapulted her heavenward. She bounced up and sank back onto his pulsing shaft, but she never returned to the cold clutches of the ground. She fluttered there among the billowing clouds on thermal drafts beneath her wings.
Somewhere in that pounding rhythm, she rode over a peak to a new country on the other side. She would never come back. His seedy mixture filled her with a comforting contentment.
Before her ardor could cool, he flipped her over and settled her on top of him. He pushed her back to sit up across his hips. She gazed down at him far below her, but her body knew just what to do. She hooked her fingernails into his chest and kicked her hips back against his rigid cock.
Damen (Dragons of Kratak Book 2) Page 12
