by Milana Jacks
“Do you have more of it?”
“No.”
“What about your ankle?”
“It’ll heal.”
Knight drummed his fingers on the table. “How much is this medicine?”
I pursed my lips. A lot. “I can’t remember.” Cy benefits, including medicine or access to real doctors, didn’t touch the ground level, mostly because humans and level-one cyborgs didn’t count in the hierarchy of importance. We were disposable unless we acquired implants. Seven had refused an implant, and mine got rejected. I had tried about seven times. Two years ago, I’d given up trying and resolved to make something out of whatever God had given me.
Knight tsked a few times, then said, “You were gonna use the last of this medicine on me instead of on you when you know I heal faster than you.”
“I don’t know you heal faster.”
“I heal faster.”
“Like how fast? Because I’m done and healed in a day.”
“Faster than a day.”
“Well, aren’t you mighty.”
He shook his head and sniffed. Blood seeped from the wound on his shoulder and stained his white T-shirt. Annnnd so he removed it. Oh, the glorious man chest. The gods had been generous with this one. Knight handed me the T-shirt and gave me his shoulder.
Because Knight said nothing, I presumed he wanted me to tie it around his shoulder to stop the bleeding, and that was what I did.
Once I was done, he grunted and picked up my foot. He swiped up two fingers of salve and tried to push up my pants. I wore tight pants, and they wouldn’t budge.
“Take them off,” he said.
We locked eyes. I didn’t see any heat in his, but I felt heat spread over my cheeks. I didn’t wear panties, hadn’t worn them since I’d inherited the bird. Perhaps because the dove gig was still new to me, I found it embarrassing that Knight and I would sit here half-naked, never mind that it was for a medical purpose. Or perhaps it was because he turned me on, and the thought of sitting naked before him made me hot.
When I didn’t do as told, Knight inhaled and exhaled loudly. “I will stop repeating myself. Instead, I will take my new flogger to your ass.”
I glanced at the black bag on the table. “Promise?”
He chuckled.
Ping sounded in the room.
“What’s that?” he asked, seeming on alert.
“It’s the water heater.” I bit my lip. If I didn’t shower right now, I’d have to wait until morning. We didn’t have great provisions down here, and most people showered with cold water. Seven and I got a heater recently and, boy, we used it as often as it worked. “Do you want to freshen up?”
“Do you?”
“Yes, but I’ll wait until the thing heats up again.”
“So there is hot water for one, and you want me to use it.”
“Was that a question?”
Knight drummed his fingers on the table. He seemed irate. “Take off all your clothes, Clementine.”
Oh God. I chewed my lip. Arguing with Knight seemed pointless. He was a bit stubborn, so I got the towel and went into the tub, which sat right behind him, seeing as our apartment had one large space besides the bedrooms. Seven and I had installed the bath in the kitchen’s corner on top of the drain and got a curtain for some privacy.
I washed up and wrapped a towel around my hair and one around my body, then I sat back down, immediately feeling like new. “There’s still a tiny bit of hot water left,” I said. As soon I said it, I noticed Knight’s vacant gaze, as if a thought preoccupied his mind. I’d seen this gaze with my twin sister right before she changed into a dove. He wasn’t gonna go dragon on me, was he?
“Hey, Knight,” I said softly, hoping it would soothe his mighty beast.
“Shhhh.” Knight turned up his nose and wiggled it. Then he got up and sniffed the kitchen counters, the walls, the cupboards, the shower curtain. Okay, so maybe he didn’t need a dog. I waited to see if he’d get on all fours and sniff the floors. He didn’t, but he sat back down and pulled up his chair. “Come here.”
I leaned in.
He unwrapped the towel around my hair, and my wet hair dropped over my shoulders. He sniffed the towel, put it on the table, then sniffed my hair, my neck, my shoulders, and down between my breasts. He grabbed my arms and sniffed up their length too. When he snapped his head up, silver dragon eyes stared at me. Knight opened his mouth as if to speak again, but clamped his jaw tight and winced.
I waited for him to explain and leaned in some more. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you having trouble with your beast? Because, let me tell you, I can relate. It’s so very confusing to me, especially at times of…heightened stress. We are in a state of stress. With Arthur, you know. I’m worried about him up there surrounded by all those cyborgs.”
“I control my beast.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s with the dragon eyes, hm?”
“I appreciate you washing off the orchid scent.”
“I think you just told me I stank and now I don’t.”
“That’s not what I said.” He hooked a hand under my knee and picked it up.
I put my foot on his thigh, painfully aware it left my entire leg exposed. If he leaned to his side, he’d see between my legs. But he didn’t, because Knight was all work and no play.
The pain salve cooled off my ankle, and in a few hours, the swelling would subside. I’d sleep in my dove form so by tomorrow morning, I’d be all healed. Cool salve eased my ankle’s swelling almost immediately. I tugged my foot out of Knight’s big hands. He looked up, still with silver dragon eyes. I didn’t know what to do about this beast. He scared and excited me at the same time. There was something so hot about the fact Knight kept losing control of his beast, and I got to be the one who witnessed it. “Your dragon is back,” I said and pointed at my eyes to tell him how his had changed.
“I am the dragon,” Knight said in a voice not his own. This voice was bottom-of-the-well deep, and it echoed in the small room, repeating itself over and over again.
Okay, maybe I should be scared, because the next thing I knew, he picked me up and put me on the table, then ripped the towel off my body. Oh my God.
“Yeeeesss.” The sound of a rattlesnake shaking its tail came from inside Knight’s throat.
I covered my breasts and shivered.
Dragon eyes stared at me.
I have heard wolves growl in their human form. A little intimidating, but not too bad. When Knight growled with his deep rattling sound and with this echo thing, it was terrifying.
“Show me your body,” he said.
I leaned back on my hands.
This seemed to placate him. The growl turned into something different. A purr? Wishful thinking! Knight dragged his palms over my legs and inside my thighs, where he spread them wide. I put my heels on the table. Never in my life had I felt this exposed. Or this turned on as he sniffed between my legs. A grunt and nothing more. He pressed his lips on my belly while his palms landed on my breasts and squeezed. He took my nipples between his thumb and a finger and rolled. Oh boy, he rolled until I panted and lifted my ass, wishing he’d just lower his head and do something about my ache.
Knight took the cue and pressed a kiss on my mound first, then lower and lower while I wanted him to stick his tongue or his fingers inside me already. I lifted my ass again. This time, he put his hands under my ass and spread my pussy with his thumbs. He licked my asshole first, then moved his big thick tongue over my entrance and onto my clit, where he flicked my clit ring, sucked and tugged it between his teeth all the while moving my body against his face and his rough, unshaved jaw. I tried to remember his jaw had suffered a punch, so I didn’t grind against it, but it was hard to remember anything.
Knight’s face dove between my legs, the purring making my pussy vibrate, his mouth sucking my clit, and his tongue flicking it mercilessly. The pressure in my belly increased, and I fisted a hand in his
hair, pushing his face down. “Oh my God, so good.”
He pushed a thumb inside my ass.
I threw my head back and came on his tongue. My legs quivered, and I lay there on the table, unable to move, my fist full of Knight’s hair. I released him and put my palms over my belly when his hands landed on my hips and dragged me onto his lap. I yelped.
Knight kissed me, filled my mouth with his tongue and my own pussy’s taste while his cocks twitched under my ass. I threw my hands around his neck and gave as good as I could. He tasted of the sunlit sky, of the clean pure air poets wrote about, the kind of air we could find somewhere in no-man’s-land like the deserted islands of pre-Ice Age Earth. Exquisite and addictive. I sucked his tongue, wanting more of this taste. My hands roamed all over those bulging tattooed muscles I’d always wanted to touch, and when we separated, I locked my eyes with his dragon eyes.
The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped. Goose bumps rose over my skin.
When Knight exhaled a breath, I saw it.
I put my mouth over his and waited for more of him. He exhaled again, and I closed my eyes, marveling at this clean fresh air I never thought I’d experience.
I was born in the back of a taxicab. My mother died from birth complications. My older sister, Seven, then only eight years old, cut our cords. She named us Clare and Clementine. I was five minutes younger than my twin. The first breath I took stank just like every breath I’d ever taken in the habitat slums.
Until I met Knight. I wanted to take his breath away just as he’d taken mine months ago when I first met him.
I tried to live inside him. I tried to breathe him. And so I inhaled all the air he gave me until he collapsed.
6
Knight
I regained consciousness on the floor with a wide-eyed Clementine holding an iron bucket over me. She dumped water over my head.
I leapt up and wiped my face.
She picked up another bucket and angled it.
I lifted my hand. “That’s enough.” I shivered. Damn, it got cold in here fast.
“Oh, thank God,” she said and put the bucket on the floor. “Are you all right?”
“Maybe.” What the fuck happened? How the hell did I end up on the floor? Wait a second. I replayed the time after I smelled a familiar scent and remembered the scent drove me crazy. So crazy I had tongue-fucked a dove creature. “Fuuuck.” Arthur was my best friend and my brother. My dragon brother’s bird was therefore off-limits.
Needles pierced my skull. I pressed the heel of my hand on my temple as if it would ward off the raging headache. I stumbled, and Clementine tried to prop me up, but she was so small that I nearly trampled her. “Clementine.”
“What can I do?”
“Get a chair.” In a second, she pushed on my chest, and I plopped into a chair. I opened my good eye, my bad eye less swollen than it had been only minutes ago. Clementine stood before me naked. Her wet hair didn’t hide the small curves of her breasts and hips and that little metal hoop between her legs. I wanted to lick it again. Fuck me. I looked down at my pants. Angry erections. I was surprised my dicks hadn’t torn my jeans.
I should not have touched Clementine. I shouldn’t have kissed her. I ate her pussy, for Christ’s sake. And even that would’ve been excusable if I didn’t want to do it again. I wanted to take up permanent residence inside her pussy. The scent of a spirit inside the house sent me into a frenzy. It lodged itself inside my head, and my dragon surfaced and was nowhere near satisfied. He demanded I claim the spirit I’d sniffed out.
Except, I had no idea where this spirit was.
I also smelled arousal. Mine and Clementine’s. At least my pants stayed on. A wet spot on them told me she might’ve rubbed her pussy on it. And that was fine. I hadn’t fucked her. In fact, I passed out. Maybe Mother Nature came and thumped me over the head to beat some sense into me. It wouldn’t be the first time. My beast didn’t follow her rules. We had trouble with her authority over us. But even I had to stay away from dove creatures. Dragons did not fuck their birds or other people’s birds.
The scent of a spirit. I focused on it. I inhaled again, sorting out the scents in the room. Pussy. Clementine’s pussy all over my face. Clementine’s parted lips as she panted while I licked her. Clementine’s breasts as they jutted out when she threw her head back and screamed my name. I scrubbed my face. “I need a minute,” I said and concentrated on anything beside her naked body, her pussy, her in general. Arousal, blood, homemade soap, not orchid. The towel. I grabbed her towel from the table and sniffed. “Spirit.” I leapt out of the chair and inhaled deeply. “The scent is faint, but I know it.”
“Huh?”
“A spirit was here. Not too long ago, but long enough to lose the scent’s strength, and I would say she used this towel.”
“It’s a new towel. Nobody else has used it.”
“Oh, she used it.”
“Okay. What spirit? Do you mean a dragon’s spirit? Like Nentres’s Amy?”
“A mate to a dragon. Mm-hm.”
Clementine wrapped her arms around her body. “I didn’t realize spirits were dragon’s mates.”
“They are. Who is she?”
“I don’t know. Um, I’m gonna go get dressed.”
“Who has been here? Who touched this towel? A female. Human female. Maybe a virgin, maybe not. The jury is still out on that one.” Wait a second. I frowned, then winced. The pain from my healing eye shot up my temple. I couldn’t worry about pain now. I was on to something. What had Arthur said to me? My spirit lives here. I belong here.
Arthur’s spirit lived in my territory, and she had to have been in this house. Clementine might even be lying again. She might even know exactly who this female was and why Arthur hid her as if I’d try to…take her away from him. Yes! He’d decided a ploy with cyborgs would deter me enough so I couldn't find the real reason he stayed in Pittsburg. Mother Nature hadn’t said anything about creating a particular spirit for a particular dragon. She did not match us. We matched us. Arthur had found a spirit and never told me about her, fearing I would compete with him for her attention.
Clementine left for the bedrooms.
After Nentres and his spirit’s marriage ball, Amy had given me a message from Mother Nature that said I would find my spirit under my nose. Arthur had found the spirit first. Right under my nose, in my territory, in a city where I lived. He might’ve mated her, gained his elemental powers, and was hiding her from me until she moved with him to Ohio.
I believed he knew I would never touch his spirit, and he probably did know that, but his dragon beast was another story. The possessive, territorial nature of the dragon allowed for no competition. It explained his behavior. In the past, the beast Arthur now carried had fallen in love with a woman. The woman had left him for another man, and the beast went mad and destroyed the planet. The Ice Age had followed. Arthur would go mad thinking I would steal his spirit, believing history would repeat itself.
Clementine returned dressed in jeans and a black sweater, one blanket wrapped around her body and another in her hands. She wrapped it around my shoulders and sat down. “What do you want to do now? Can I help? I have nothing planned for the night, and Arthur’s not calling for me.”
Great. I loved this dove creature. When not lying for her dragon lord, she was polite and helpful, and…I should not have taken advantage of her. Not that I would apologize for eating her pussy. It was a fine pussy. Mmmm. Back to the spirit, Knight! “I need to find this spirit.”
“Sure. Um, what can I do?”
“Tell me who has touched this towel or who has been here in your house within the last week.”
“Let’s see.” Clementine searched the ceiling.
My gaze followed the curve of her neck. My gums swelled. I wanted to bite it. “How is your ache?” Ankle, I meant to say, but too late now.
Clementine snapped her gaze to me. “Which ache?”
I pointed to her ankle. “The one down ther
e.”
She blushed. “It’s all good now.”
“That’s nice to hear.” Lame, motherfucker. Lame.
“Ms. Angie was here,” Clementine said and played with the ends of her platinum hair. “Ms. Lawson too, and maybe little Sara. I think that’s it.”
“Tell me about those women.”
“Ms. Angie turned fifty-two last week, so she brought us the leftover cake from her party.”
I shook my head. A spirit would be young and ripe for carrying offspring. “Next.”
“Ms. Lawson and Sara live two doors down. We babysit Sara on the weekends.”
“How old is Sara?”
“Five.”
“I sure hope she’s not the one.” From what I understood after Lance’s brief encounter with Mother this summer, Mother Nature had gifted spirits around the same time she’d gifted us dragons. Sara seemed too young. I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t want to think about a five-year-old spirit. “How about Ms. Lawson?”
“She’s pretty.” Clementine smiled, picking at the end of the towel. “Young. I’d put her at late twenties.”
“Maybe. What else can you tell me?”
Clementine shrugged. “I could take you to their house so you can sniff.”
“In a minute. What is the relationship between Sara and Ms. Lawson?’
“They are mother and daughter.”
“Biological mother and daughter?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Unlikely. The spirit couldn’t conceive without the dragon. Who else?”
“No one else.”
A knock on the door. “Can I come in?”
“Yes!” Clementine shouted, and her sister Seven entered and closed the door behind her. A lightbulb went on in my head. Sometimes we missed things that were right under our noses. I presumed Arthur had met Seven before. I had met Seven today. Both Arthur and I had acquired some but not all access to our element. Seven was single, young, and spirited, with deep brown eyes and long brown hair she liked to pull back in a tight ponytail. A dominant female spirit. Not to my taste, but maybe to Arthur’s. Seven fit the bill. If Clementine ever lied, pretended as if she didn’t know anything, she would lie for her sister and most definitely for Arthur. I couldn’t forget she’d lie to protect the important people in her life.
