Playing With Fire: Dragons Of The Darkblood Secret Society

by Meg Ripley

  “I feel it,” Keira said, her voice low, almost purring. “But we—should we…”

  “Absolutely,” Raul told her. He touched her everywhere, forgetting the pain from his wounds, forgetting everything but the desire—the need—to take Keira. “We absolutely should. You need to make good on what you told your Alpha, don’t you?” He rocked his hips against hers; Raul shuddered at the feeling of Keira’s soaking wet labia brushing against his erection. “Submit to me, Keira. Let me take you.”

  For a moment, Keira lie beneath him, tense and uncertain, even with the arousal pheromones radiating from her body filling his nose. Then she relaxed against him, her pupils dilating, her heart fluttering at the pulse point in her neck. “Neither of our clans is going to be happy with us.”

  Raul leaned in and claimed Keira’s lips with his own, kissing her hungrily. He nipped and nibbled at her bottom lip, growling lowly as his hands trailed all over her body. Keira’s arousal intensified moment by moment, and Raul felt his own desire rising to meet it. In moments, the air was thick with their pheromones, and Raul could barely hold himself back from thrusting into her just as she was, lying underneath him, her soaking wet folds tantalizingly close.

  “Say it,” Raul said, pulling back enough to look down into Keira’s eyes. “Say it, you know you want to.” Keira panted, her hips twisting and shifting underneath him, her body pressed against his, and Raul clenched his teeth to hold the animal part of his consciousness at bay.

  “Take me as your mate,” Keira said, her voice tight with desire. “I submit to you.”

  Raul lifted himself off of Keira’s body, his hands trembling slightly from pent-up desire. He kissed her throat, her breasts, nuzzling against Keira and marking her all over with his scent. He kissed a path down from her full, lush breasts and along her abdomen, breathing in her heady aroma, growling low in his throat, the urge for possession coiling the muscles in his body, driving out some of his most human impulses.

  He spread her legs wide at the hip, and Raul nipped sharply at Keira’s inner thigh. You have to do this right, he told himself, taking a quick, deep breath. It wasn’t enough to mouth her, to deliver the marking bite; he had to bring Keira to a height of pleasure that she hadn’t experienced with any other partner. He had to make her truly and completely submit to him, give into him, bond with him.

  Raul buried his face against Keira’s soaking wet pussy, nuzzling his lips and cheeks against her, his tongue darting out to taste her fluids. He sucked and licked, devouring her, drinking down Keira’s arousal as if it were honey. Keira’s body came to life underneath him, electric; her hands closed on his head, on his shoulders, her fingers tangling in his hair, and Raul smiled to himself as he heard her moaning out, the sound cut through with her distinctive panther growling purr.

  Raul teased Keira relentlessly, worshipping her with his lips and tongue. Spurred by instinct, he brought her to the edge of orgasm again and again, flicking his rough-edge tongue against her clitoris and then darting down to the well of her pussy, sucking and licking along her inner labia as Keira pitched and arched in reaction. Raul could feel, could sense Keira’s pleasure mounting, the tension building between her hips as he worshipped her.

  When he knew that Keira couldn’t take even a moment more of teasing, Raul pulled back, licking his lips clean of all traces of her fluids, and quickly reached underneath her to flip her onto her stomach. Keira growled and purred, lifting her hips, rising up onto her elbows and knees on the grass, presenting her body to him, submitting to his dominance.

  Animal instinct, coiled deep inside of Raul’s body and mind, sprung free, and he covered her body with his own, lining his hips up with the curve of Keira’s ass. She spread her legs wider, and Raul reached down between their bodies, guiding the tip of his cock up against her soaking wet folds. He thrust into her all at once, filling her up in a single movement, and Keira cried out in pleasure, pushing her hips back to take him deeper.

  Raul began moving immediately, thrusting deeper and deeper inside of Keira’s body. He held her hip with one hand and balanced himself on the other, pressing his face between her shoulders, growling and moaning as his own pleasure mounted. He held himself back, feeling Keira’s body, reading her reactions as they moved together as one. He knew she was getting closer and closer to orgasm; he knew that if he was going to take her as his mate—really take her, truly mark her—he had to do the right thing at precisely the right moment. Raul kissed along Keira’s spine, lapping the sweat from her skin, feeling the ripple of her inner muscles tightening in convulsive spasms around his achingly hard cock.

  Raul knew the precise moment when Keira reached her orgasm; he groaned, bringing his mouth up to the nape of Keira’s neck, struggling to maintain his self-control as her body tightened around him. She gave into the orgasm, moaning and purring, and Raul continued to thrust hard and fast into her, riding the wave of her climax for several moments. Finally—when he felt the panther underneath him reach the peak of her orgasm—Raul opened his mouth, sinking his teeth in the nape of her neck carefully. Keira cried out, shuddering against him, and Raul tasted her blood on his tongue.

  It was too much for Raul to hold back any longer; he released Keira’s neck and threw his head back as wave after wave of pleasure washed through him in crackling jolts. He howled, proclaiming his ownership, his mastery of the woman he had taken, to the world at large, the call of a wolf claiming his mate. For several moments that felt like an eternity, Raul howled again and again as his climax continued, his cock twitching as his come flooded out of his body and into hers. When the last of the spasms began to abate, he collapsed against her, panting and gasping for breath, pleasure still dancing along his nerves throughout his body. For better or worse, she is fully mine now, he thought idly, as the haze of his pleasure wiped out the last of his ability to think.

  ****

  Keira came back to herself bit by bit, aware of the lingering ache in her neck, the full, tender feeling along her labia, the faint pain deep down between her hips. She smiled to herself, fidgeting slightly underneath Raul’s body, and felt him slide off of her with a groan, sinking onto the grass where their battle had brought them. You actually let a man take you. You let a wolf take you. It was beyond Keira’s ability to believe; she had known that she would eventually take a mate, but from her first awakenings to sexual desire, she had always thought that it would be a panther—one of her own kind, someone she could trust.

  “How’s your neck?” Keira shivered at the feeling of Raul’s fingertips tracing the place where he’d marked her with his teeth; she felt a thrill of pleasure, a deep, animal impulse that she couldn’t reason away or suppress.

  “It hurts like hell,” Keira replied. She turned her head to look at Raul with a smile. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.”

  “We reek of each other,” Raul informed her. “When we go to the elementals, they’re going to know right away that we’re mated.”

  “They’ll know, the panthers will know, the wolves will know,” Keira shrugged. “We’ll be lucky if they aren’t all fighting over who gets to put us to death first.”

  “The elementals won’t want to,” Raul told her firmly. “They’ll want us to unite the two clans, make the peace.”

  “Convenient,” Keira said, smiling wryly. “Seeing as how that’s what we’re trying to do.”

  “I personally am not a fan of dying for that,” Raul told her. He reached out, and Keira didn’t even try to fight the feeling of comfort and contentment that rose inside of her that came along with his tight embrace, the sensation of his arms coiled around her waist, his body pressed to hers. “We need to take a shower and get dressed, and then we need to meet with the elementals.”

  “That would be the logical next step,” Keira agreed. “But for right now I’m kind of happy just lying here.” Raul chuckled, brushing a lock of hair out of her face and leaning in to kiss her lightly on the forehead.

  “You wanted this, ri
ght?” Raul pulled back and met her gaze, looking down at her intently. “I could feel it in you, but I want to hear you say it.”

  “Against my better judgment, yes,” Keira said. She could feel her nerves still tingling, and a more concerning phenomena: she had a sense of Raul’s emotions, dancing just out of the reach of her mind, a shadow-suggestion that was both like and unlike the connection she felt with her clan-mates. “I definitely wanted to screw your brains out—or have you screw mine out. And I wanted to be your mate.”

  “You really wanted it,” Raul said again, his voice uncertain.

  “You’re the only one I’ve met so far who’s been able to pin me,” Keira admitted. “Even if you were tricky about it.”

  “We were both tricky,” Raul countered. His lips slid against her cheek, along her throat, and Raul pulled her around. Keira let her body be manipulated, snuggling closer to the wolf, closing her eyes as the movement sent jolts of sensation from the bite at her neck, the deep ache in her hips, the parts of her body that had received the most attention from Raul. “Next time we spar I’ll let you win.” Keira growled, glaring at him.

  “Do not even say you would ever let me win,” she told him, springing free of his embrace and using her momentum to shove Raul onto his back. “If I best you it’s going to because I’m better,” Keira insisted.

  “If you best me,” Raul countered. His hands fell to her hips and he grinned up at her. “Give me a chance to recover and wait for the dust to clear on this mess we’re in, and we’ll have a rematch.” Keira looked down at him for a long moment, considering. She had let him take her as his mate; she had let him mark her. She was committed to him. Their bond would only increase in time. The tendrils of feeling that she was receiving from Raul’s contented, satisfied mind would deepen, and she would be as aware of him as she was of any of the members of her clan.

  “Can you…feel me?” Keira felt the heat in her cheeks as she blushed.

  “Oh yeah,” Raul said, his voice rippling with amusement and desire. “I can feel every inch of you.” Keira rolled her eyes and swatted at him, half-wishing she had her paws instead of normal human hands.

  “You know what I mean,” she said sharply. “Can you…feel my mind?”

  “A little,” Raul said, nodding slowly.

  “It’s going to get more intense every time we have sex, and the longer we spend time together,” Keira said, thinking out loud.

  “That does sort of come with the territory of mating,” Raul pointed out. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  “I’m okay with it,” Keira said, nodding quickly. “It’s just weird is all.” Raul kissed her on the lips.

  “Let’s go inside, have something to eat, and get a shower,” Raul suggested. “You can contemplate all you want about how much of a comedown in prestige you’re suffering while we’re away from the mosquitoes.” Keira laughed and sat up; the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, and Raul did have a point. If they remained outside, lounging in the grass, they’d be attacked by droves of mosquitoes.

  She stood and offered Raul her hand; Keira was both surprised and not surprised that he didn’t balk, but merely accepted her assistance, pulling himself up and then immediately wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her close. “I can’t wait to take you again,” Raul murmured in her ear.

  “You have to earn it,” Keira told him tartly. “I want to be on top next time.”

  “I could go with that,” Raul said, grinning. They went into the safe house together, and Keira checked in the kitchen; there was plenty of food for both of them, even as ravenous as they both were in the aftermath of their mating. “We’ll go to the elementals first thing in the morning,” Raul suggested. “For now, I want to do everything I can to solidify our bond, to cement the fact that we’re mates.” Keira looked at him sharply.

  “You think they’re going to try and separate us,” she said; there was no need to specify whom ‘they’ were.

  “Pretty sure,” Raul said with a nod. “Either your Alpha or mine.”

  “You said Reginald tried to ambush you before—before my people came into the battle,” Keira said, remembering the details that Raul had recited when she’d cleaned his wounds earlier in the day. “Where did he go?” Raul shrugged.

  “No idea,” Raul said. “By the time the skirmish ended, he’d disappeared. I suspected he went home injured, but there’s no way—right now—to know for sure.”

  “We need to watch out for him,” Keira said.

  “We’ll worry about that tomorrow,” Raul told her. “Tonight is just for us.” Keira looked at him intently for a moment and then nodded. She could feel the tendrils of Raul’s thoughts worming their way into her mind, working their way deeper. She had done something absolutely irrevocable in letting him take her, letting him mark her as his mate. Raul took her hand and led her towards the bathroom, and Keira let herself be led, trying to decide which of their clans was more likely to pose the most immediate threat. Keira knew instinctively that she and Raul would be making love throughout the night—but she wasn’t certain, given how much the situation surrounding them weighed on her, just how thoroughly she would be able to give herself to Raul. We need to find allies, she thought as she stepped into the shower, ducking into Raul’s ready embrace as the water sluiced down from the showerhead. We need to get some people on both sides who can keep Harold and Reginald both off of us. She told herself that she would broach the topic with Raul later; for the time being, she wanted to just enjoy him.

  ****

  Raul woke with a start, at first uncertain what had awakened him. His preternaturally acute vision made the darkness in the bedroom of the flophouse almost insignificant; as he looked around, he saw that there was no one else in the room—just him and Keira. She stirred next to him, and Raul felt the strange, tingling sensation of thoughts that didn’t belong to him—or to the pack—swirling to life in his mind. They were little more than fleeting, sleepy impressions, nothing substantial enough to truly “read,” but he knew them immediately for Keira’s waking thoughts. Something—not him—had pulled her out of sleep as well.

  At once, Raul was out of the bed, moving to the window. Keira was no more than a step behind him, and Raul forced himself to focus on the task at hand—finding out what had awakened them both—rather than the way the moonlight through the window silvered her skin, highlighting the curves of her voluptuous body. “Did you hear something?” He kept his voice to a whisper so low it was almost a breath.

  “I felt something,” Keira replied, sounding almost confused. “Like some kind of twitch.” Raul nodded.

  “Same for me,” he said. He looked out through the window into the darkness; the moon had already set for the night, and there wasn’t much light from the stars, or from the house, to pick out details. “Let’s get this open,” he suggested. Next to him, Keira nodded. Raul opened the window just a crack and knelt down, sniffing to try and catch any trace of scent. Rabbit, deer, beaver, opossum… wolf. Wolf? Panther. His heart started beating faster in his chest. “We’ve been found,” he said to Keira, his mind shifting into a blur of animal reaction and military training.

  “No one’s attacked yet,” Keira said quietly. She shut the window quickly but quietly. As if on cue, a howl cut through the air; the next instant, Raul heard glass breaking.

  “Get back!” he whispered hoarsely to Keira. Raul’s years of training slipped into place, keeping a slight rein on animal instincts that welled up. You have to protect her. Raul stepped out in front of Keira as they both left the bedroom, headed into the living room where the window had been shattered. A wolf and a panther dove through the jagged opening, both narrowly missing injury, and Raul pushed Keira behind him, ignoring her angry growl. He glanced quickly around the room and found a silver-edged knife he’d brought with him as a precaution, laying on the table. Raul grabbed the hilt as more wolves and panthers darted through the broken window; one—he recognized Mike from the Pack, injured but
apparently healing quickly—transformed back into his human form and darted to the door, opening it.

  As soon as the door was open, chaos descended, and Raul fell into trained instincts, keeping one eye on Keira at all times as he tried to sort through the members of his Pack and the members of the panther clan that had come to attack the house. Raul kept the knife in his hand, slashing and stabbing with it, in the defensive crouch that his training made second nature. He couldn’t tell if the panthers and wolves were working together or fighting each other—and he wasn’t sure, in the few moments that he could spare from reacting to the conflict unfolding in the living room, whether the two groups knew for sure themselves. One moment, panthers and wolves attacked each other, growling and snarling; the next, both groups pushed forward, one of each kind attacking him, trying to get past him to Keira, who had changed into her own panther form at some point in the melee.

  Raul threw himself into the battle; for the moment, he ceased to see the people coming into the flophouse as friend or foe, or to even attempt to discover what the motivations of the combatants were. He tried to keep Keira in the corner of his vision as he attacked and defended at the same time, using the maneuvers drilled into him in Basic. Don’t treat the wolves any differently from the panthers. They’re both invading—they’re all enemies. The air was a dizzying combination of the sounds of growling, barking, shouts, shrieks, and groans, along with the smells of more than a dozen panthers and wolves, blood and—Raul caught the scent of smoke and decided to worry about that later.

  “Get him with the silver!” Raul heard someone—he wasn’t sure who—call the command, and then searing, sizzling pain wrapped around him, touching his bare skin everywhere. He howled, the silver net around him sapping his strength in instants. Raul felt his knees go weak, felt himself tumbling forward, gloved hands grabbing at him even as he snarled and twisted, trying to get free of the net. He tried to bite—but his teeth met the silver and electric agony shot through his skull.