Guilt twinged at her. He continued, contempt clear in his voice. “There are many hazards outside our castles. Women go where they will, and the elements, the hardships and those men among us who are not honorable often kill them. Brigands and thieves.” He chuckled. “Then again, there are just as many women who are brigands and thieves. A law was almost put into effect a few years back that would curtail many freedoms for women. It was voted down. Women weren’t willing to give up their status in order to be safer.”
Startled that what she’d read about women in the texts appeared true, she said, “And yet you felt compelled to order me to stay in the tower room.”
His mouth hardened into a grim line. “Damn it, Ketera. You aren’t from here and you don’t understand everything you need to know to survive. Allowing you freedom at this point is throwing your life away. The dragon could have killed you.”
“It didn’t.”
“Wait. You didn’t leave because you wanted to see the dragon. You thought you would escape the castle.”
She would not admit it. “Put me down. I won’t try to run now.”
To her surprise he dumped her quickly onto her feet. His big hand latched around her right biceps as they marched along.
Silence gathered for a moment as they continued through the crowd. Finally he said, “You did a good thing in saving that child. You showed bravery beyond most men.”
Her lips quirked in a reluctant smile. Receiving a compliment from him, she imagined, was hard-earned. “Thank you. I didn’t think. I just did it.”
“Is that a problem you have? Impulsive nature?”
“My father said as much.”
She caught his quick grin. It disappeared just as fast. “Maybe some arrogance?”
“What?”
“You think you know so much about Dragonia, but how could you? You judge us based on your own culture, on what you assume is right and wrong. You condemn before you understand why we are the way we are.”
Shame threatened, but so did defensive instincts. “I’ve always prided myself on open-minded discourse. So few of my people do. It’s caused me no end of trouble.”
“You’re scorned where you live?”
“Not exactly. I’m left…alone.”
That loneliness still resided in her heart, growing deeper with every second when she thought about her father so far away in Magonia.
“Why are you alone?” he asked.
What could she admit without sounding the fool? “Men do not want wives who think. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Besides, I do not want a husband. I don’t like…”
“What?”
“Wifely duties.” The words held scorn and sounded dirty in her mouth. “Men do nothing but paw.”
“You didn’t mind my pawing.”
“Sex for pleasure is a sin. That’s what the scribes tell us.”
He chuckled, the sound dark and carnal and filled with complete disbelief. “Then you believe what you and I did this morning was a sin?” His voice went husky. “There is so much more we could do together. I could make you scream with pleasure you have never—”
“Don’t!” She put her palms over her ears. “I do not want to know. Such beastly need is sin.”
He snorted loudly. “What fool taught you that?”
“It’s written in the Chronicles of Magon.”
“Your god.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head and continued into the tower. He urged her to climb the steps ahead. “You’re complaining about suppression of women and yet your people tell you women should remain sexually restrained. I don’t think you’re any better than we are.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t say a thing. How could she argue with logic that sound? Defense still came to the surface. “You don’t know me. You have no idea what my education is and what I understand about your people.”
He threw her an exasperated look and started to strip. “Enlighten me.”
She looked away immediately as he peeled off his clothes.
She stopped and considered if she could enlighten him. No. If he knew too much about why she’d been on that ship—
Better to leave things as is for now, and she’d take the opportunity to escape when it came. Perhaps tonight when he slept.
He pulled off his breastplate and tunic in quick order. “Come. Undress and bathe. It will soothe your muscles.”
His chest gleamed with sweat. His hair hung limp and wet around his shoulders. He undid the tie around his waist and dropped the garment to the floor.
Ketera could not believe her eyes. Though she’d seen part of him naked, his blatant display shocked her. She looked away again, but those several seconds of bare skin imbedded in her mind like a brand.
Wide, hard shoulders. Strong chest. Powerful arms. Stomach rippling with muscles. That secret bulge she’d never seen naked on any man before…lying between his thighs. While she had responded to his masculinity when she’d seen him earlier, there was nothing more disturbing than seeing all of it exposed. His long, thick cock was nestled in dark hair and was semi-erect.
She couldn’t resist another look to confirm if what she saw was real.
Oh my. Yes. As she watched, his cock grew longer, harder and rose upward toward his stomach. The head grew rosy with color. Something primal unwound inside her, a furling of sweet, hot need she couldn’t resist. Her gaze snapped to his, and that red gleam was back, the intensity of his stare so overwhelming she trembled with longing. Suddenly a strange and sensual awareness seemed to surround them. She could hear his breathing quickening, see his chest rising and falling more deeply. She sensed struggle within him.
“Don’t look at me like that.” His voice roughened. “After a dragon fight, a Daryk One is hot to fuck.”
“Fuck?” She almost gasped the word.
He stood close, his hands clenched into fists as if he feared he might snatch her against him. “You have never heard the word?”
She swallowed hard, her heartbeat picking up the pace. “Yes, I have heard it.”
He lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “I am tired, and if I fuck a woman it revives my energy, reaffirms my life power.”
“Oh.” Her voice wobbled, her throat dry and tight. “Do you always have a woman after a dragon fight?”
“Often enough.” He licked his lips, and the sight of it reminded Ketera of his tongue stroking over hers. Her lower body clenched in reaction. “Any other woman would succumb right now. Beg me to take her.”
His arrogance did not surprise her. Her reaction to it did.
Her nipples tightened, brushing against fabric with unbearable sensitivity. Her mouth watered as the secret place between her legs grew moist and ached for more.
Dane’s nostril’s flared. “I can smell you.”
“Smell me?”
“Your need. You want me.”
He stalked toward her, and she back against the wall, startled. “What are you doing?”
“I will not take you against your will, but I will take from you what you’ll give.”
Still confused, she did not expect his next move. He scooped her into his embrace and his mouth came down upon hers. With a swiftness she didn’t resist, his tongue took her mouth. Instantly the heat inside her grew like a fire in a forest, leaping forward. Her tongue answered his, stroking his with abandon. She writhed in his hold, half afraid, half maddened with a need to reach that same plateau she’d found in his bed.
With a growl, he tore his mouth from hers. He threw his head back and a feral growl issued from his throat. When he looked back at her, Ketera hovered on the edge of a new revelation. His passion was enough to see them through to the next step. If she would take the next step. Before she could sort the confusion in her mind, he slipped down along her body. With a low moan, he drew her pants down her legs. She gasped, and when his tongue found the top of her slit, she gasped again.
She almost pulled back. Almost stepped away from temptation.
>
Her body didn’t listen, weeping the moisture of sin-filled desire he’d drawn from her once before.
Dane did not part her legs. He buried his face in her curls, and his tongue flicked out in a swift stroke over her bud.
“Dane!” She couldn’t prevent the cry, her back arching as she threw back her head and fell into a mind-melting pleasure. “Please—I—”
“Give me this one thing. I’ll take only this little bit.” His tongue lashed again, flicking with a single burning stroke over the bud.
He feasted, each lick a languorous taste. Mindless, she opened her legs wider, her fingers sliding through his silky hair. Fluttering his tongue rapidly over her bud, he ate at her like a man starved, a desire out of control.
As if her mind was possessed, taken over by a strange demon, she was unable to control the escalating pleasure.
His breath came faster, each hot puff heating her skin and adding to the fire. Finally the rising excitement inside her hit a high and she fell into it. Writhing, she leaned back against the wall. Her hips pressed forward, forcing his mouth deeper between her legs. His tongue stabbed into her channel, lapping at her in a ravenous fashion that heightened her arousal so acutely, she could not take it any longer. Here was a beast, the kind of man who took and yet gave so much back she was filled with it, her mind torn apart by his seduction.
His thumb brushed over her bud as the soft, relentless flutter of his tongue inside her broke her apart.
Ketera shook, her breathless cry a mere whisper.
She couldn’t speak, awash in enormous pleasure so acute it felt as if she had imbibed in forbidden drink. She quaked with it, trembled so hard tears leaked down her face.
Shame followed close behind, acknowledgement of her weakness spreading through her almost before ecstasy faded.
As he released her, she slid down along the wall. She looked up at him, breathing hard and a flush spreading across her neck and face in a hot reminder of what had just transpired. Dane’s eyes remained afire and his cock was fully erect. Admiration for the male animal washed through her, something she had never truly felt before. She ached somewhere around her heart. What would happen next?
Uncertainty and sanity forced her speak. “No.”
Awash in red, his eyes did not calm. “I could ask you to take my cock in your mouth, to suck me until I burst down your throat. But it would not be an honorable request when you are filled with doubt.” He drew in a deep breath and his chest heaved. “But I will not take from you what is not freely given.”
“But I—” She drew herself into a standing position, averting her eyes from his body. “You already have taken from me.”
He reached out and cupped her chin, turned her gaze to his. The red fire had diminished to a mere glitter. “I took nothing. If you had said no, I would have stayed away from you. Your body wants me, no matter what your mind and ridiculous teachings tell you.”
Angered and embarrassed, she jerked away from his touch. “You unspeakably arrogant boor.”
He laughed, but the mirth was absent from his eyes. “Few people, men or women, are brave enough to call me such. It will do you no good, you know. It makes me want you even more.”
When she stayed silent, he shrugged. “Never you mind.” His gaze cut away from hers. He strode back to the table. “The cut on your head needs cleaning. Strip and wash in the bathing room.” He gestured toward the small room. “I’ll wash too. The moat is dirty and holds disease.”
He grabbed a linen towel off one shelf and rubbed along his body until he was dried. She witnessed all of this out of her peripheral vision.
He reached into a cupboard and brought out a long tunic of a stunning blue. He slipped it over his shoulders and it fell to mid-calf. Once more he dug around in the cabinet and came out with a sash he tied around his waist. He found trousers and slipped into them and retrieved a pair of boots for his big feet. Now that he was covered, she took a chance and looked at him again.
When he turned around, his face retained a hard demeanor that she couldn’t help but fear. The intense blue tunic was cut low in the front and sleeveless, revealing part of his strong chest and sinewy arms. Even without armor, he presented invincibility. After all, he’d killed a beast far larger than himself. Reluctant admiration filled her.
His face was carved with a deep frown. “Hells and damnations. You took my old pack, didn’t you? Where is it?”
She shrugged. “I think I dropped it while dragon slaying.”
He laughed, full-throated and rich. It sent pleasant vibrations up her spine and tingled in her stomach. “I’ll be back soon.” He nodded toward the huge tub on one side of the bathing room. “Take a bath. There is a spigot that allows some warm water to come out.” He put his hands on his hips. “I’m warning you again not to leave this place. You’ll be safe here. No one dares enter a Daryk One’s abode without permission. Now promise me you won’t leave.”
When she stared at him and didn’t answer, he shook his head and reached for a key ring hanging near the door. “Very well then.”
She stood as he opened the door and walked through. When the door clanked shut and the key engaged in the lock, she ran for the door.
She pounded on the heavy wood with her palms. “Hey! Wait! Don’t lock me in here!”
But he’d already gone.
* * * * *
Ketera drifted into her dreams, sailing toward a memory of not so long ago.
Ketera stood at the railing of the sailing ship, watching the unusual storm grow stronger over the last half-hour. Her newfound friends Mia Griffi and Xandra Shorenus also gripped the railing, their faces etched with clear anxiety. Angry clouds roiled on the horizon and the sea tossed and pitched in ever-increasing agitation. Though she’d been on sailing vessels before she’d never been through a storm at sea, and the vulnerability she felt scared her on a deep level she’d never reached before this moment. Top that off with her father’s imprisonment, and her reserves promised to come crashing down any time.
“Those clouds,” Mia said as her long black hair whipped about her head in the frenzied wind. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”
Xandra’s blue eyes filled with anxiety. She pushed one hand through her mussed red-blonde hair that trailed around her shoulders. It wisped about her heart-shaped face in the rising humidity. “We don’t have this much water where I live.”
Ketera tried to smile at Xandra’s half joke about living at the mines in Opali where the hottest, driest part of Magonia could kill a person if they stayed outside too long during the day. Ketera knew it had taken significant courage for Xandra to escape the mining city. She wouldn’t tell her or Mia everything about why she’d fled Opali at first, but she hinted at a bad relationship and an upcoming marriage she didn’t want. At first Ketera and Mia had expressed surprise. After all, marriage was marriage. It was necessary at some point. Whether one wanted marriage or not didn’t matter. Xandra confided she couldn’t quite stomach betrothal and marriage to a man older than her father. She didn’t say it, but Ketera knew she meant marital relations. Again, sex meant begetting children as was expected.
Then Ketera had remembered what she’d read about the Dragonians in her father’s texts. The illicit, unusual descriptions that suggested Dragonian people engaged in sex outside marriage and found pleasure in it. Sinful pleasure. When she’d read the texts and the descriptions of acts she couldn’t even imagine, her heart had pounded and strange needs moved through her.
Mia remained equally reserved about her background, mentioning only that she’d left scribe school for personal reasons. Mia seemed spring-wired most of the time and perhaps paranoid.
Then Ketera and Mia had seen Xandra with a tall, imposing older man who spoke harshly to her. When they asked Xandra about it, she confessed that the man was Taris Elian, the betrothed she’d escaped from in Opali. He’d caught up with her on this ship and was taking her back to Opali. Xandra told the women she’d escape him again, somehow
. Some way.
Ketera hadn’t said a thing about the bag she kept so close to her side and the precious texts within it. Still, over the long days of this trip, she felt closer to these relative strangers than she had to anyone else outside her father. The loneliness in her heart had eased somewhat, and though she might never see these ladies again after they docked in Aramandi, she wished them well.
Ketera tried to hide her growing unease. “It’s just a storm. Nothing else.”
Then, before they could move away from the railing, they saw the wave. It rose out of the water like a beast with a mind of its own, rushing from nowhere and rolling toward them at incredible speed.
“By the god,” Mia whispered, her voice barely audible as the water sped toward the large ship.
Crawling, terrible dread came first. Then a heart-stopping terror so profound Ketera couldn’t speak, her feet rooted to the deck as the realization of what would happen splintered her ability to act.
A warning horn went off somewhere on the ship as the captain spit out orders to his hands. But it was too late.
“Mia! Xandra!”
She reached out for them and they for her, but in a blink they were torn from each other’s grasps.
The wave engulfed them in rolling, choking blackness.
Chapter Three
Ketera awakened with a gasp, the nightmare’s terror firmly lodged in her throat. She was breathing hard, her heart pounding. She looked around frantically. She wasn’t on the ship, but safe in Dane’s room.
Safe. A relative term she’d learn not so long ago.
The scrumptious scent of roasted meat distracted her as her stomach growled. Her right arm went out automatically, but the bed was empty. Good. She didn’t want the reminder that she slept in the same bed with Dane last night. Apparently he’d come into the room late, after she’d already fallen asleep. Damnation. She’d planned an escape after he’d fallen asleep, but her exhaustion had overwhelmed her. She needed a better plan to get out of there.
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