“I don’t know how I’m supposed to convince you,” he complained, “If you won’t let me make love to you?”
“Convince me of what?” Lexi asked.
“That you are beautiful. My ideal woman. And that I love you. Later we’ll deal with the matter of you no longer being able to clothe yourself at will. I’m sorry that we have no fast way of getting you pretty clothes.”
“It wouldn’t help, I’m fat and short, and I bulge oddly.”
Theo ran a hand over her breasts. He circled a nipple through her tunic. “I like your bulges. Only I think we should call them curves.” He squeezed her hip. “I like that you have soft, supple muscles.” His hand moved from her hip over the rise of her thigh and pushed the hem upward.
“Lexi, darling, can I take this off?”
“I suppose so.” She was reluctant to be naked. “It was all they could find.”
“You’re still only tiny,” Theo said dragging the wretched thing over the coronet of braids his sister had made of her hair. He started to laugh.
Lexi attempted to cover herself with her hands. “I told you so.” Tears threatened again. She thumped him as hard as she could.
“You’re such a violent little critter,” he said admiringly.
“You drive me to it. Stop laughing at me.”
“Not at you, Lexi. I was laughing at my sister’s handiwork. Or maybe it was Mamma’s.” He showed her the thick and puckered seams of the garment he had removed. “I understand they had to make it smaller to fit you, but this is just ridiculous.”
“They used magic tape. Needle and thread would be better. And scissors.”
“Double-sided tape,” he said absently. He threw the garment across the room. “You shall have an army of seamstresses to make you clothes as beautiful as those you wore when you were an elf. I promise.”
There didn’t seem to be any point in trying to explain to him that that was not a possibility. And then she thought about nothing else except the thrumming in her body and his mouth burning a trail from her neck down between her breasts. He stopped when he came to the ring.
He traced a line of fire along its top edge. “I don’t know why I could put it on, but I can’t take it off again?”
Lexi buried her fingers in his hair. “It wasn’t supposed to work like that,” she said sadly.
“Do you think you’d stop being mortal, if it was removed?” Theo placed an idle row of kisses from belt to navel.
“I don’t think so. But I don’t know for sure.” Lexi sighed. “Everything has wound up muddled.”
“I wouldn’t like it much if you didn’t stay Theo-sized,” he repeated. “Have I told you how soft your skin is?” He didn’t wait for her to answer.
* * *
Theo carried Lexi to her bed, not breaking the kiss. He ran the tip of his tongue up inside the sensitive tissues behind her lips, stroking and tasting before playing with the very tip of her tongue. He coaxed her tongue into his own mouth. She explored his slick teeth, probing under his tongue and along his cheeks. His hands tightened in her hair but he did not try to take control of the kiss. His little mate needed him to hold back.
A gentle purring hum filled the bedroom. Theo pulled his mouth gently from hers and kissed her cheeks and chin. Her hum of pleasure became a moan of deprivation. His hands found the sides of her breasts and traced little circles with his rough fingertips.
“Do you like that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she managed.
“May I touch you here?” Theo asked, ruffling her feathery outer lips.
“Hmm.”
“May I, Lexi darling?” he begged.
“Yes!”
He whistled with satisfaction. A single long drawn out note that reverberated in his head. His fingertips tap-danced on her outer labia and made flirting forays to the wet and swollen inner lips. He smeared her pussy juice around the entrance to her vagina and then approached her stiff clit with a delicate massage that tantalized but did not linger.
“Can I put my finger in you, Princess?” His husky plea was made in her ear. His tongue licked the swollen lobe and he brushed her arching neck with his beard. “May I?”
“Yes.” Her response was a keening cry.
He slipped a big finger just inside the swollen entrance and began to play. He moved forward into her tight sheath as slowly as he could while the other hand continued to tease her rocking buttocks.
“More?” he asked.
“More.” Lexi was making a deeper noise now. She was well past a hum. This was the roar of an unsatisfied woman.
He slid his finger in to the first knuckle and found the ridged and swollen spot. He explored it with slow circles, first in one direction and then the other. When her moans became desperate, he pressed upward, while he pressed on her clit with his thumb. He held her engorged raspberry in a gentle pincer grip and pulsed a tender rhythm.
“Come for me, darling,” he said. And just like that she began to convulse.
“I want to be inside you, Lexi,” Theo announced after a long time of holding his damp and languid pixie.
* * *
Lexi pushed up on her knees and looked at her mate’s face. She didn’t feel as disconsolate as she had before. She reached behind her and found his cock was still a stiff hard lance.
“I want you inside me,” she admitted and rose up to let him in.
“Easy, Princess.” One hand spread her labia wide. He let just the tip of his cock penetrate her. “Let’s not rush this.”
Lexi let her hips descend. She stopped because he was too big for her swollen tissues to admit. His hands lifted her buttocks higher and his voice rumbled. “Just a little deeper, love.” He let her back down and her passage opened a fraction more.
Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down to his brows but he did not falter. She raised and lowered herself by infinitesimal degrees while his mouth opened in a silent scream. Gradually her excitement built again, even though he was barely inside her. Her vagina convulsed over the tip of his cock, pleasure shot through her clit and radiated to her bottom and breasts. Theo bellowed and his hands squeezed her hips as if he would wring her dry.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Theo woke. Golden sunlight hovered on the edges of the gray sky. The wind blew yesterday’s snow into a swirling cloud just outside the windows. He felt good. Better than good. Better than he had felt in years. He folded his arms behind his head and contemplated his blessings.
Life was good. After many years he had a mate. It was true that Lexi was unlikely to ever fall pregnant. He had no idea what they would do. Adopt perhaps? It would be quite something to try to rear mortal children in a dragon household under the watchful eye of social services. But this morning – Christmas morning – he did not care.
In a little while he was going to wake Lexi up and show her some of the other ways in which she could please him as she had pleased him last night. And he was going to think up one or two other ways to return the favor. And then there would be Christmas morning with stockings and games and breakfast. And possibly taking Leo out to play on his new sled which Santa had left under the Christmas tree.
The smell of his woman made him happy. She smelled like homecoming and warm lodging and good times. Like his mate. He rolled sideways, seeking her. On the pillow beside his, curled up, with her small green snout under one translucent leaf-like wing, was a pixie-sized dragonette.
The dragonette’s eyes opened. Emeralds flashed. She leapt straight up into the air, flapped her foolish baby wings, immediately lost altitude and plummeted to the mattress. A blast of fire ignited the sheet. Theo extinguished the flames with his pillow. The dragonette squeaked indignantly from underneath. Theo lifted the pillow and set her free. She backed away from him and tumbled over the edge of the mattress to the floor.
Theo strode around the bed to see what happened to Lexi. She was crouched on her haunches attempting to rise to all four legs. She got the hind ones working but then they splayed s
ideways and down she went onto her muzzle. The distance from head to floor wasn’t great, but she didn’t look pleased. He let her struggle for a few moments before picking her up.
The source of her clumsiness immediately became apparent. The ring of Hrothgar was still around her waist, unbalancing her. Other than that, she was perfect – if miniature. From her iridescent green scales, to her creamy underparts and glossy black tail dart, she was a creature of great beauty – and his fated bride.
* * *
Once Theo finally lifted her, Lexi could use his hand to launch herself into space. She knew how to fly. She could do this. It was fun. Only a little tiring. Dragon wings used an entirely different set of muscles than her pixie wings had. She circled the room swooping and braking. She stalled out. And dropped like a stone to the wooden floor. This transformation was almost as awkward as becoming a mortal woman.
Curses. Were those sparks? She was going to burn this castle down. She didn’t care for it much, but it seemed to be the only one that the Lindorms had. It was better at any rate than the wooden huts of their ancestors. Those smoky, drafty, smelly longhouses were just nasty—no matter how warm sharing with cows made them. She tried to extinguish the smoldering rug. But her spells did not work. Despite her best efforts, the rug began to glow. It was disconcerting and unpleasant, and in some obscure way it was all Theo’s fault.
His bellow of dismay was music to her ears. He scooped her up in one hand and flung the rug across the room with the other. “What are you doing?” he roared.
Lexi hunkered down on his palm. She had no power of speech in this form. And she wasn’t at all convinced that he could hear her thoughts. She could not hear his. Which was just flat out wrong – he belonged to her, she owned those thoughts. She dug her talons into his hand as hard as she could.
“Lexi?” His anger seemed to have been replaced by amusement. She was going to sting him with her tail dart, if he didn’t stop mocking her. “Are you okay?”
How did he expect her to answer him, when she was a dragon? Should she return to her human form? But becoming a dragon had been painful. She feared the change back might be worse. And although she couldn’t fly properly, being a dragon was preferable to being a woman. She crouched on his hand and thought about the effect a little fire would have on his tendency to ask stupid questions.
“Did I do this to you?” His voice was doubtful, proud, and concerned in equal measure.
Of course he had done this to her. He had transformed her into a dragon. She huddled into a ball and waited to see what he would do. What he did was stroke her again with his forefinger. A burr filled the air. He chuckled delightedly.
“Purring?” The prick asked. Great Thor! She was the one responsible for that ridiculous noise. She suppressed it with an effort.
Theo’s blue eyes sparkled. He scratched her scales gently and rubbed the underside of her neck. That foolish noise of hers started up again without permission.
* * *
“It’s Christmas morning,” he whispered in her ear. “You need to change back into human so we can go watch Leo unwrap his sled.”
Lexi rolled herself into a tighter ball. Only her tail with its venomous dart was moving. She had driven all twenty of her tiny talons directly into his palm. And she was lashing her tail from side to side.
Theo sniffed behind her ear. His poor little mate was torn between anger and grief. His palm began to collect a small pool of dragon tears. These were beyond measure priceless, and they instantly healed the wounds she had made, but dragons ought not to weep indiscriminately. His dragoness ought not to weep at all.
“Lexi, sweetheart, don’t cry,” he begged. “Turn back into a woman and talk to me. We can sort this out together.”
She turned her head like a cat seeking more petting, but she continued to huddle sulkily on his palm. “Come on, darling,” he coaxed. “Let’s fix this together.”
He set her gently on the bed, and continued to speak softly to her. At last she raised her head. And with a mewling cry, she slowly morphed back into woman. Her eyes were swimming with tears, and she still smelled of anger and fear.
“Tell me what troubles you, my heart,” Theo tried again.
“You don’t love me.” She wiped her streaming eyes. “And I can’t fly properly. And I’m ugly.”
“Are you back to that again?” He pulled the duvet around her shoulders and she held the edges together. “Shy?”
“I want a baby,” she said.
Theo put his hands inside the covers and placed them on her already swelling waist. “I think we’ve taken care of that,” he said against her head.
“Don’t lie to me. Your mother and your sister and your sister-in-law all said we can’t have babies.”
“That was because they thought you hadn’t turned into a dragoness. And they didn’t think you would.” The ring of Hrothgar the Magnificent was warm underneath his hands. Warmer than the flesh beneath it. Almost absentmindedly Theo pulled on it. It came apart in his hands as if it had never been a single unbroken circle around Lexi’s waist. He showed her the two halves.
“How did you do that?” She gasped.
“I don’t know. I just knew that I could and I did.” Theo shrugged. “Does it matter? Did you want to wear it around your waist forever and ever?”
He rolled one half into a circle and pulled her left hand out from under the coverlet. “Here,” he said. “With this ring, I claim you.” He slid the ring he had made onto her finger.
Lexi’s eyes widened. She touched the ring and tried to tug it off. It didn’t budge.
He held the other half out to her. “Give it a try.”
“I don’t have any magic anymore,” she said. Her eyes filled with more tears, and the drops immediately turned into diamonds and plinked onto the bed.
“Maybe you don’t have Elven magic anymore, Lexi darling. But you should have Dragon magic now, give it a try.” Theo began to pick up the uncut diamonds with his other hand.
Lexi took the other half of the ring of Hrothgar and doubtfully began to roll it between her two hands. “It’s getting hot,” she said excitedly.
Theo held out his left hand. “Claim me,” he demanded.
“I claim you, Theo son of Lind,” she said solemnly. She put the strip of metal over his left ring finger. “This isn’t going to work,” she muttered.
But the ring shrank and adjusted itself into a seamless band. “Looks fine to me,” Theo assured her.
Lexi turned his hand over and stroked the ring. “All the runes are still inscribed,” she said with wonder. She looked at the ring on her own hand, “and they’re also on mine.”
“I guess this means that were bound together forever, my heart.”
“But do you love me?” Lexi asked.
“Yes. You are the other half of me. My mate.” Theo put his hands back on her now swelling waist. “You are my Christmas present. You and our child.”
“There will be no babies. Your mother and sisters said so.”
“They were wrong. We may even have a daughter. Unless we have to actually be wed to break the curse.”
“What curse?”
“The curse of Jörmungandr. Your father cursed him and all his get with never having daughters until one of them married you.”
“I know,” she said. “I granted your mother her heart’s desire when she wished for a daughter.” Suspicion made her fearful. “Is that why you want to marry me—to end the curse?”
He laughed and spun her off the bed. “Nope. Do you just want a baby? Would any man do?”
“No,” she admitted. “Only you, Son of Lind. But you are going to have to wait to see. I have no more magic such as I used to grant your mother’s desire for a daughter.” She scowled down at her lumpy body.
“I know that you aren’t happy with your mortal body, but you won’t have it for long, you are about to have a completely new one every day for the next nine months.” He chuckled.
“What do you
mean?” Lexi asked.
“Just that pregnancy lasts for nine months, and those are nine months where your body changes daily.” Theo cupped Lexi’s face with his hands. “I love you now, and I will love you for every change our baby makes in you.” He kissed her softly.
“Thank you for my Christmas present.” His eyes twinkled mischievously. “Do you love me, Princess?”
Lexi nodded. “I think so. But I’m not sure. If I love you, how come I want to box your ears half the time?”
“I don’t know. Especially given how kind and generous a mate I am.”
She thumped him over his heart.
“I’m sorry,” he picked her up and sat down again so that she was sitting on his lap. “I promise to stop teasing you. I keep forgetting how hard this is for you. I’m so happy myself, that I forget that this is all scary and new and not as delightful as you had expected.”
She sighed again. “No, it’s not. I didn’t think that being a mortal meant that I would be so lumpy and look so –” she broke off as though she had no words to describe her appearance.
Theo cupped one soft and pendant breast and gave it a fond squeeze. “I love your lumps,” he said. His hands roved over her belly and circled behind to knead a buttock. “Except we ought to call them curves. They’re beautiful. And sexy. You’re everything I ever dreamed of in a woman – in a wife.”
“I know. I formed myself out of your dreams. But I didn’t expect to look like this.” Her voice was incredibly disgruntled.
“Thank you. How did you think you would look?” Theo asked humbly. He fortified himself against his impulse to laugh. To Lexi this was not in the least amusing.
“Like a princess, of course.”
“I’m sure we have a tiara somewhere.”
She doubled one small hand and made a fist and clouted at him in the chin. “Hey.” He grabbed her hand. “None of that. You are such a violent little thing.”
“I’m not little,” Lexi said indignantly.
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