by Sharon Page
Greystone clasped her hand. “Come with me.”
Lucy let him lead her, though she did not like to be taken somewhere without knowing where it would be. He walked off the road, while she tried to become accustomed to the dark.
“There are bogs everywhere,” she warned.
“I know. I can smell them. And, since vampires have excellent vision, I can see them. There is a track here. I assume if we stay on it we will be safe.”
“Where are we going?”
“Trust me.”
The moors were open, with dark quiet hills sloping beneath a wide, endless velvet black sky. Above, the countless stars glittered and winked. Lucy was accustomed to Town, to Mayfair, to streets illuminated at night with artificial light. It was so vast and quiet it felt heavy.
Finally, he stopped on a hillside. The road and carriage were many yards away and almost impossible to see.
“There’s no one around,” Greystone said. “No one to see. Why not shift into your dragon form and fly? You would find it would ease the tension and pain inside you. Fighting your true nature is difficult, Lady Lucy. In the end, it will destroy you.”
“That’s not true. It can’t be.” She frowned. No one had ever said that to her before. “If that were true, my father would have told me. He always approved of me controlling my shape-shifting.”
“Tonight, just let yourself go. Be who you are.”
“Are you planning to do that?” she demanded, her heart thudding in her throat. “Are you planning to be a vampire tonight?”
“Do I intend to find an innocent maiden and drink her blood? No, my dear, you do not have to worry about that. You’ve pleasured me well.”
Lucy did not particularly like having the intimate things they had done likened to a good supper. And ... well, she was stalling for time.
“Go ahead,” the duke coaxed, and he might as well have been pointing at the juiciest apple on the forbidden tree. “You can fly here. Let yourself go.”
“I have to ... get into the appropriate position,” she lied primly. Lucy stalked a few yards from him. She stepped into spongy grass and hissed as the cool damp seeped into her boot.
She did not want to do this. Why on earth should she shift shape just to fly about in the dark? He was wrong. She did not need this—
“You don’t have to be afraid. There is no one to see you.”
“That doesn’t matter.” It was though he had poked and poked her, and finally she had lashed out. But he hadn’t really goaded her. She was doing it to herself. This was who she was. For once, why not revel in it?
But it was wrong to do it. She wasn’t normal, and she had spent her whole life fighting to behave as though she was. She could not just let go now and fly around the moors as though she had been wrong all her life, and in a few mere days, he had come into her life and brought in things that were right.
Everything she had done with him was wrong, by the eyes of Society, the eyes of her world. Greystone was wrong about this, too. But correct about one thing. She was afraid.
Lucy had never willingly shifted before. Even in her adolescence, she had never done so. Father had taught her what she was when she was a child. He’d warned her she would begin to shift when she began to transform into a woman. She had not been afraid, really, the very first time it happened, since she knew what it was. But she had fought it even then.
She’d never thought it was dangerous to keep tight control over her body’s need to change to dragon form; she’d thought it was for the best.
If resisting her shape-shifting would ultimately kill her, wouldn’t Father have told her?
Lucy took a deep breath. It was true that it was a constant battle. It was like wearing a full corset, and lacing it as tightly as possible. She was trying to hold everything in, and half the time it did feel like she would burst.
She bit her lip, let it start, but then she stopped before she changed. Suddenly, she did not want to do this alone. “Can’t you shift shape and fly? Vampires can turn into bats, can’t they?”
“I can’t,” the duke said, and even though she was yards away, she heard him distinctly. “I’m a vampire who cannot do any of the fun things. But you do it—I want to watch you.”
She could do this. How could she be so afraid of it? Perhaps he was correct. Perhaps it was her fear of what she really was that could hurt her.
The duke came over to her. Slowly, carefully, he took off her clothing. Her heartbeat raced as his hands moved over her. Soon she was naked on the hill.
Naked. Out in the open. Where anyone could see. Except they were alone here. The carriage was so far away, surely the servants couldn’t see her. And the duke stood between her and the sight line of their vehicle. He would have to do so, otherwise the servants might see her transform.
She was going to do it. Her heart thundered, but she was going to try.
Lucy closed her eyes, and in the magical way she never understood, she began the change.
Heat began to gather around her heart. The warmth flowed through her blood, slowly leaching everywhere under her skin. Here was the point where she should start to fight. Gritting her teeth hard, she fought against herself. Instead of trying to will the change to stop, she stopped her body from battling. She let herself change.
It was a strange feeling, as though her body was being wobbled apart. It didn’t feel bad, but it felt like she was losing control of her limbs. The wobbling made them longer, as though giants were stretching her. Her body grew—or rather, the ground got farther away. It happened so quickly, she only knew she had become a dragon by the way she tingled and the way the jutting granite rock and waving grass receded in a swift blur. She stretched. The sound that rumbled from her throat was a little-used roar.
Her arms were longer and tipped with claws that glowed blue-white in the moonlight. Scales glittered, catching the light, and they looked blue and green and silver all at the same time. Her legs were strong, muscled. Her body was slender and her face had changed completely. She now had a muzzle, a snaking tongue, and large, heavy-lidded eyes with long, curling eyelashes.
She had wings on her back—large wings that spanned ten feet across, and were made of gossamer-thin, shimmering panels of skin stretched on a bone-like structure. She gave her wings a flick, feeling the way they stirred the air. Her tail lifted behind her. It was a beautiful thing, long and sinuous, and the spine of it was marked with diamond-shaped scales that stood upright in a line. The end held a flat, silvery, arrow-shaped piece that glinted when she moved her tail.
Female dragons could use their tales to draw a mate. They used their tails for playful flirting the way human ladies plied their fans in the ballroom. Though Lucy couldn’t—she’d never learned. She had never spent much time as a dragon.
But here, in the velvety dark and the amazing stillness of the moors, she felt like stretching out. She let her tail drift through the air, drawing patterns in the dark with the reflectivity of her scales.
Then, her dragon’s heart beating swiftly, she looked to the duke.
He was watching her, a soft smile on his mouth. “You are beautiful,” he said. “I would like to see you fly.”
“All right,” she whispered, but as a dragon, she could not speak in English. She used a language of whispers and snorts that was more musical that it sounded.
“And breathe fire.”
She tipped up her muzzle and let out one small lick of flame. Breathing fire was dangerous, and it drained her of energy quickly. If a dragon breathed too much fire, the dragon could die—a dragon could deplete its life force without even realizing it was doing it.
Lucy gave her wings a flap. Never had she had so much open space in which to do it. She lifted them high, feeling the strain of new, different muscles. Then she pushed the wings down, so she rose gracefully from the ground. With beat after beat, she soared up into the cool, clear night sky. She cut cleanly through the velvety dark. Flying felt different. Flying over the moors felt utte
rly new.
She didn’t feel guilty for letting herself become a dragon. Instead, her heart pattered in excitement. This was ...
“It is fun,” she cried out, though her sounds were soft growls, not words. Lucy twirled in the air, then swooped down and lifted to the sky. She flapped hard, pretended she was reaching for the stars, then she dove down, spinning like a barrel.
A new sound rumbled up. One she had never made as a dragon, and she had no idea what it would sound like.
It was laughter, and it tinkled like the light tap of a fork against glass.
Sinjin had never seen any creature look so happy and act so playfully. It was true that vampires were rarely playful in any place but bed. And he had never seen werewolves or shape-shifting dragons except in the midst of a fight, where they were struggling to survive, not having fun. In fact, he had never seen any shape-shifting creature when it wasn’t trying to kill him.
He had never seen one while it was playing with its power like a happy child.
Lady Lucy as a dragon was very much like Lucy as a woman: strikingly beautiful. Her scales were dark green and they shimmered. When the moonlight played on them, the light rippled like silver waves on a dark blue-green sea.
He had always hated the sight of a dragon’s muzzle and teeth. Anytime he saw a dragon’s mouth, it was snapping at him, trying to rip him apart. But Lady Lucy’s teeth were not large, and her mouth had a gentle curve that made it look as though she was smiling. Her tongue, which snaked out swiftly, was soft and pink. Her little line of flame had been a brilliant gold color.
And she had beautiful eyes. They were the same fascinating indigo as her human eyes.
She was whirling and twirling in the air, and making a soft, musical sound.
Her happiness made him smile. Yet he was supposed to look at her like this and hate her.
He had to.
For James’s sake.
But she was playfully dancing in the air, obviously filled with delight. She would race up toward the twinkling stars, her tail streaming straight behind her, her wings sparkling with silver moonlight as they flapped. Then she plummeted toward the ground, so fast Sinjin didn’t think she would be able to stop. His heart plunged into his gut with the fear she would hurt herself.
Instinctively, he ran forward to catch her, but she made a graceful arc with one beat of her wings. He laughed along with her tinkling sounds when she swooped up to the sky again. He watched in amazement as she played in the air the way he used to play in water when he’d been a boy. When he had been young and innocent, long before he’d learned about his duty as a dragon slayer. Before he’d lost his family and before he’d lost his heart.
How could he kill her? How?
How could he hurt a woman who amazed him at every turn? Who he was beginning to realize was the most remarkable woman he’d ever had in his bed.
He wished he could rescue James, then haul Lucy back to his bed and keep her there, and never let her go.
But he couldn’t. His damned prince had made that perfectly clear.
She felt glorious, happy, powerful, alive.
Lucy landed on the soft grass of the hill, and she shifted back. She trembled and wriggled as her body shrank in size and her bones and muscles reshaped. In a heartbeat, she was in human shape again. She stood in the middle of the vast empty field, naked.
It was exhilarating. She had flown. Lucy felt as though she could have soared high enough to touch stars. Wildness—it was like it had taken root in her soul and was growing like a weed. She wanted to tend to this wildness, she wanted it to blossom.
She wanted to be wilder.
“You said you needed me to keep making love to you or you would lose control of your urge to feed.”
The duke’s gaze traveled over to her in a slow sweep from her head to her bare toes. He licked his lips. “Yes, I did.”
She eyed her pile of clothing. The Lucy of a few days ago would have run to them to put them on. Instead, she twirled, enjoying the feel of bracing air on every inch of her skin.
“Then we should make love again. Now. Out here.”
11
Thank You
The duke dropped to his knees on the trampled, damp grass, and he placed his hand on her hips, drawing her cunny to his mouth. He blew a soft breath over her curls, making Lucy quiver, then murmured, “Come here, love. I want to taste your sweet pussy.”
Lucy blushed. Cupping her bottom, Greystone lifted her, and moved her so she straddled his face. He pulled her down so she was sitting on his mouth.
Then he did the most wicked, exciting things to her with his lips and his tongue, while his hands tugged her bottom’s cheeks lightly apart. The sensation of having her anus gently pulled was arousing. The hot thrusts of his tongue into her, the intense, hungry way he devoured her made Lucy sway on her feet.
She clutched his head to stay steady. Her feet had sunk into the soft mud beneath the grass. He licked her clit with fast strokes. She’d intended to stay quiet—the moors might be almost empty of inhabitants here, but they were still outside. But when he did that to her—when his tongue flicked faster than a bow over a fiddle’s string—she had to scream.
Above her, the heavens were vast and dark and dotted with jewel-like stars. Her cries of pleasure seemed to slice through the air, rising as high as she had done when she flew.
Her hands gripped his hair desperately. Having shifted shape seemed to leave her skin terribly sensitive. It wasn’t just the brush of his breath, the wild flicking of his tongue that overwhelmed her. She felt everything so intensely. The whisper of cold air. The swirls of breezes. The clutch of his fingers in the cheeks of her bum. The tug at her puckered anus—
Oh. Oooh. “Your Grace! Your Grace! Oh, Your Grace!” Incoherent, mad screams tumbled from the lips. The orgasm streaked through her like a shooting star. She fell forward, he lifted, grabbed her, and fell to the damp earth, planting her on top of him. His thick, erect cock slid up inside her clutching, pulsing quim—her pussy, he’d called it. It ignited another, even stronger climax. She pressed her fists to his chest to brace herself.
Then he began driving up into her. While she was still coming. One climax flooded into the next and Lucy had orgasm after orgasm on top of him, while he thrust into her. Her fists flailed on him as her muscles went tight. Her head thrashed to and fro. Her screams could probably be heard all the way at Plymouth.
Laughing harshly, he surged up, his hips hard and insistent against hers. While she writhed on him, he bucked underneath her. Then he fell back, gasping down ragged breaths.
His arms settled around her and she collapsed on his chest.
Together they took in heaving breaths.
Then he laughed again. “While you were coming, you kept calling me ‘Your Grace.’ ”
Dazedly, she lifted, propped her chin on his broad chest muscles. “You are a duke.”
“Call me Sinjin, love. After this, nothing else will do.” He gave her one last, long stroke down her back with his hands, then he lifted her. His cock flopped against his belly. He sat up, deposited her on his lap. “We should keep traveling, Lady Lucy.”
“Just—just Lucy.”
“Ah, there is nothing ‘just Lucy’ about you.” He scooped her up by her bottom, then got to his feet and set her gently on hers. Amazing her, as he always did, with his strength.
Lucy suddenly felt the cold of the night air. She shivered.
Sinjin left her and went to the jumble of her clothes that lay on the grass, flattening it. He brought her shift, ghostly white in the moonlight and twirling like a phantom in the breeze. From behind her, he drew it over her head. She let the hem fall over her hips as he fetched her stays. She was pulling them on when he said, in his voice gruff and deep, “Lucy, love, we cannot drive up to the house and demand my nephew. Whoever is looking after him won’t turn him over to me. I don’t want to put you into trouble with your family, or your family’s servants.”
She frowned as he
helped her put on her dress. Then he put her cloak on her shoulders. It was cold, from having been in the night air, but that wasn’t what caused the chill around her heart. It was anger over what her family had done. And the realization that she was—for the first time—acting in complete defiance of her family.
“That’s true,” she said. “It would be best if I go to the house first. I can find James, and I can get him out of the house, without anyone knowing... .”
It meant betraying her family, her clan. But she heard Sinjin’s harsh breaths behind her. When he spoke of his nephew, he breathed that way—as though he was trying to tamp down fear and panic.
She turned and laid her hand on his forearm. It was rock-hard with tension. “Don’t worry, I will bring him home to you.” Then softly, she asked, “What happened to your nephew’s mother and father?”
He jerked his head up. She saw he had retrieved his hat, which had fallen when he’d dropped to his knees to lick her pussy. He jammed his hat upon his head. “Why do you ask? Why should anything have happened to them?” His voice was a raw rasp.
It was true. She didn’t know anything had. She just sensed so much grief in Sinjin. “I assumed you are hunting for him because he is in your care.”
“He is. You are correct about that. My sister died two years ago, when the boy was three.”
“I am so sorry.” She felt guilty—it was obviously hurting him to talk about it, but she could not stop her curiosity. “And the boy’s father?”
“That was why my sister died. He went first. She didn’t want to survive without him. And that’s enough, Lucy. I have no intention of telling you more. I am the only family James has. That’s all that matters.”
She knew she deserved to be chastised, because it was not her business. But they had been intimate and she was going to take a huge risk for him. It hurt that he did not want to talk to her. That he wouldn’t tell her more.
