by Jane Jamison
She frowned, not understanding Jax. “So you saw it? You saw the dragon?”
Jax took hold of her arms, forcing her to stop searching and look at him. “Colby, you saw Rick change into a dragon, right?”
She paused, realization starting to dawn. Could she accept what he was about to tell her? “Y–yes.”
“The green dragon? The one that brought you back to the ranch?” Darton inclined his head slightly toward Jax. “That was him.”
It was insane, yet in her heart, she knew he was telling her the truth. But knowing and believing were different things. “No. It can’t be.”
“You saw Rick change.” Ed’s tone was calm, yet firm. “And the green dragon was Jax. Is Jax.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening as she finally and truly believed. “Oh my God. You can change into a dragon.” Reaching out, she tentatively touched her fingertips to Jax’s chest.
“I can. I’m called a shape-shifter. That’s someone who can transform his body into an animal. For me, it’s a dragon.”
“We’re dragons, too,” added Darton.
She looked at them as though seeing them for the first time. “You’re all dragons?”
“That’s right.” A worried expression filled Ed’s face. “Darton’s a black dragon and I’m a blue one. But don’t worry about the specifics right now. You’ve got enough to grasp already.”
She felt her knees weaken a moment before Ed and Darton grabbed her by the arms and helped her back to the steps. Gently, they lowered her to the top step.
“Are you okay, babe?”
Was she? How could anyone be okay after finding out that the men she loved could change into dragons? Even after what she’d seen, she couldn’t believe it. “Honestly, I don’t know.” She studied their faces. “So all three of you can transform into dragons? All of you?”
“That’s right, honey.” Darton held her hand. “Some shape-shifters can change into other kinds of animals like wolves or cats, but we change into dragons.”
She shook her head, almost expecting her weary mind to rattle in her skull. “This is… I mean…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything yet. We know it’s a lot to take in.”
“Are there more of you?” She laughed, surprised she could do so. “Of course there are. I saw a lot of shimmers in the sky. Those were other dragons, weren’t they?”
“Yeah.” Jax sat down on the step above her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Most of the people in Brimstone are dragons.”
She couldn’t speak. “My attorney, the ladies at the funeral?”
“Them and more,” answered Darton.
“The thing we need you to remember, babe, is how much we love you. Reading your note earlier just about killed us.” Ed knelt in front of her. The unique silver eyes she’d come to love were dotted with flecks of red.
“Your eyes. Is that why they have red in them? The dragons’ eyes were all red.”
“Our eyes turn red when we’re in our dragon bodies.” Jax caressed the back of her neck.
Tension rolled out of her at his touch. I have a man who can turn into a dragon rubbing my neck. Could things get any crazier?
“We love you, honey. We want you to stay with us and be our wife, our mate. We don’t ever want to be without you.”
The words she’d longed to hear jumbled in her mind with images of the dragons. She loved them, too. Yet one fact remained. “Nothing’s changed. If anything, it’s worse. Rick won’t stop at anything to get the ranch. I couldn’t stand it if he hurt you. Not for a piece of land. Not for anything.”
“He’s not going to hurt anyone ever again.”
“Why, Darton?” asked Jax.
“After you left, Rick tried to fight off the other dragons, our friends who showed up when we needed them.” Darton glanced at Ed, a bleak expression marring his handsome features. “When we tried to make him land, he fought back and lost control. Honey, Rick’s dead.”
She hadn’t liked the man, yet even when he’d done his best to hurt her, she hadn’t wanted him dead. “I’m sorry. Really.”
“We know, and we are, too, but it was his choice to fight.” Jax’s tone was hard with an edge.
She closed her eyes, letting everything they’d told her sink in.
“Do you want to go inside and lie down?”
“I think I’d better.”
“Sure thing, but there’s something we need to show you first.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“It won’t take a sec.” Ed slid his arm around her.
“Okay, as long as it’s fast.”
Slowly, with their help, she made her way inside and up the stairs. Instead of taking her to her bedroom, they kept hold of her, moving her forward to the hidden pull-down ladder into the attic. She stared upward, yet the room above her wasn’t dark. Light bounced off the walls.
“You cleaned it out. Is that what you wanted to show me?”
“Not exactly.” Darton urged her up the stairs.
She sighed, wanting to complain, but went ahead and climbed the ladder. At the top of the steps, she paused before going into the attic. They’d cleaned out her father’s things, all right, but they hadn’t let the room empty.
“Go on, babe.”
She stepped into the room. “This is beautiful.” Candles rested on shelving and along the top of the wide headboard of the aged wooden bed. The bedding beckoned to her with it billowy softness and multiple pillows sitting in a row. The sheets were a pale blue and turned down as though waiting for her arrival. The dark room had been transformed with whitewashed walls and a bearskin rug softening the hardwoods. Two crystal lamps rested on nightstands on each side of the bed. The room had gone from a dark sex chamber into a romantic setting, perfect for lovers.
Suddenly, her weariness was gone. In its place was the yearning she always felt for them. She moved toward the bed, and as she did, she removed her clothes, one item at a time. Now at the side of the bed, she turned to face them, the light from the candles flickering against her skin.
“I thought you needed to rest.” Darton may have asked the question, but he was already taking off his shirt.
“I’m fine.”
“So the room doesn’t freak you out anymore?” asked Jax.
“Nope.” She glanced around again. “This isn’t the room it was before. This is my room now. Our room.”
“And this is your time. Leave it all to us. You don’t have to do a thing. Just lie back and enjoy.”
She got on top of the bed and stretched out. She sighed at the luxuriousness of the sheets. “How did you guys do all this without my knowing?”
“We had a helper.” Jax shoved his jeans off, his shirt and boots already discarded. “Once we figured out what we wanted, we asked Melly to help.”
“Melly’s still here? In Brimstone?”
“Yeah. She’s staying with Mrs. Ratlin. I think they’re about to kill each other, though, so we’ll have to figure out another place for her to stay. Or here, if that’s what you want,” Darton said, his muscles tensing as he crawled onto the bed. He lay down next to her and captured her breast with his mouth.
She arched, the power of her lust storming through her. “I need you. Please, show me you love me.” They’d already shown her how much they cared, but she wanted to feel it, to feel them against her skin.
Ed took to her other side and eased her onto her side. He nibbled along her shoulder, playfully biting her. “We love you, Colby. Forever.”
“I love you, too.”
“Don’t go forgetting about me, snookums.”
She grinned as Jax lifted her leg and placed his face against her pussy. He wiped her mirth away with his quick lick, her clit setting up a throbbing rhythm.
Their hands flowed over her body as their words of love flowed over her ears. Surrounded by her men, the air grew denser as though steam enveloped them. Was it because they were dragons?
Jax suck
ed on her, his fingers plunging into her pussy as he tormented her clit. Heat, hotter than anything she’d ever experience struck her, and she had to look down, sure that she was on fire. When she saw the small flicker of flame dancing from his mouth across her mons, his grin telling her she wasn’t imagining anything, she gasped but didn’t pull away.
“Set me on fire,” she whispered.
Darton got to his knees and offered her his cock. When she hesitated, he chuckled. “Don’t worry. We breathe fire out of our mouths, not out of our cocks.”
She giggled, then drew him in, enveloping his huge cock. Although she tried, she couldn’t fit all of him inside her mouth. Instead, she wrapped her tongue around and around him, sucking on his length, determined to draw his seed from him.
I want all of their cum.
Ed moved her butt cheeks apart, his cock putting pressure against her tight hole. “This won’t hurt, babe.”
“I know.” Again, she had to wonder. Was it a dragon thing?
“I can make it really hot, though.”
Could they burn her up from the inside out? Instead of fearing the answer, she wanted to find out. She stopped sucking on Darton’s cock long enough to answer. “Burn me, baby.”
The men paused then came back at her, harder, faster. Ed kept her butt cheeks apart and pushed his cock inside her. He bit down on her neck then kissed his way over to her ear.
“Damn, but we want you. You’re ours. Tell us you’re ours.”
She didn’t answer. Not with words. Instead, she hollowed her cheeks and drew in Darton’s cock, determined to drag every bit of pleasure from him. He moaned and worked his hips back and forth.
Reaching down, she tugged on Jax’s hair, urging him to replace his mouth and tongue with his cock. He growled and moved to his knees, wrapping her leg around his waist.
“Ours.”
She looked at him just in time to see his eyes flash red and a small flicker of fire dart out from between his mouth. He gritted his teeth, took hold of his cock, and plunged it deep inside her.
The men she loved filled her, not only with their cocks but also with the flame of their love. A heat swallowed her as though they had wrapped her in heated blanket. Her body grew wet as small flames danced along her skin. She wasn’t afraid, instead, enthralled. The flames were hot against her perspiring skin but didn’t burn her.
Darton tunneled his fingers through her hair and gazed down at her with fire-red eyes. “I’m going to blow.”
She sucked harder, giving him her answer. His eyes widened as he turned his stream free. She tried, as she’d tried to take his length, but it was impossible to drink all of him.
“Now.” Jax rammed into her again, pushing her body toward the headboard. His massive chest rippled with each thrust. Then, all of a sudden, he stilled, looked at her with passion pouring from his eyes, and roared. His cum shot into her, hot and hard.
Ed brushed her hair aside and nibbled on her neck. “I love biting you. You taste amazing. Sweet.”
“Then bite me.”
He plunged his cock into her asshole again, biting harder on the curve of her shoulder. One more thrust came before he pulled out and shot his hot cum along her spine.
The turmoil inside her burned, not only with her rising release but also with the feel of their searing cum on her body. She was burning alive, caught in the furnace of their lovemaking. Her climax struck her, and she screamed, her hands reaching for them.
* * * *
Colby woke up, feeling their stares on her. She didn’t mind. The fact that they wanted to be near her made her feel safe and protected.
“Are you awake?”
“Yes.” She smiled at Jax’s whispered question then pulled the covers down. Sitting up, she motioned for the men standing in the doorway to come and sit on her bed. “Can we talk?”
“Only if you promise that you’re not kicking us to the curb,” said Jax. From his worried expression, he was only half-kidding.
“I promise as long as you promise not to burn me.”
“Why would we do that?” asked a stunned Ed.
“I think she’s making a joke, man,” added Darton.
“Oh. Good.”
They gathered around her bed but didn’t attempt to sit down. It was just as well, considering she might not be able to keep her hands off them. Dragons or not, they were still the hot men she’d grown to care for more than anything else.
“I have a few questions.” She fingered the hem of the sheet.
“Only a few?” Ed shoved his fingers into his front pockets, looking for all the world like a young boy called into the principal’s office.
“For now.” She tugged the sheet higher. “I’ll want to ask more later, but let’s just hit the highlights right now, okay?”
“Shoot. We’re open books.”
She eyed Darton. “You weren’t before. You three hid one hell of a secret.” She looked around her. “More than one secret.”
They shifted on their feet with Ed running his hands through his hair. “We wanted to tell you, but finding the right time is tough. I mean, what did you expect us to do? Introduce ourselves at your father’s funeral and then tell you we can breathe fire? Things moved a lot faster than any of us figured they would.”
“True.” She’d been there only a few days, and in that short time, her entire world had changed.
“Ask.” Jax crossed his arms, his green eyes settling on her, his expression tense.
“Your eyes change red when you’re close to becoming a dragon.”
“Yes. It happens when the dragon inside us wants to be let out.” Ed spread his feet farther apart as though getting ready to battle. “It’s difficult to explain, but it’s like there are two different entities inside us, yet joined into one. As men, we control our dragon. That’s why you can trust us not to hurt you, no matter what body we’re in.”
“And you can fly and shoot fire out of your mouths.” She was stating the obvious, things she already knew to lead up to more questions. “Why couldn’t I see you in the air? I saw some kind of shimmering, and when I looked really hard, I could see the outline of your body but not a solid form. At least, not until Jax flew me home.”
“We have the ability to cloak our bodies. It helps us to stay hidden whenever we’re flying. If we didn’t, it wouldn’t take long before someone would see us, snap a video, and out us to the world.”
“Are there other dragons beside those in Brimstone?” The more questions she asked, the more comfortable she became with the realization that an entirely different world existed.
“There are many different kinds of dragons living around the world. Most of them are part of four ruling dragon clans. There are Talasium dragons like me and Emeralian dragons like Jax. We all have our own distinct physical, mental, and social characteristics, but we’re all still shape-shifters.”
“And you, Darton? Which kind of dragon are you?”
“I’m a rare one.”
Had he stuck out his chest?
“I’m a hybrid. My mother was a Red Verian dragon, and my father was a Black Dradian dragon like Rick.”
Would she ever understand everything? Would they want her to? She swallowed, uneasy about asking the next question, yet she had to. “And you want me to be your mate?”
They came to her side then with Jax at the bottom of the bed. “More than anything. You’re our mate, whether or not you want that. As far as we’re concerned, we’ve already given up our immortality because we’ve already fallen in love with you.”
“What? Your immortality?”
Darton shot his friend a glare. “Dragons are immortal. Or at least they are until they find a mate. Then they start aging like humans do.”
“How old are you?” They were in their thirties as far as she knew.
“I’m eight hundred and fifty years young,” added Darton. “But as a human, I stick with thirty-five.”
“Amazing.” Still trying to understand it all, she turne
d to Ed and Jax. “And you two?”
Ed pointed to Jax. “He’s a thousand as the oldest, and I’m nine hundred, but we say we’re forty and thirty-seven.”
“So you’ll never die?” What would it be like to live forever? To grow old when friends and family passed away?
“We will now. Like I said, we’re immortal until we fall in love and take a mate. Once we fell for you, we started the aging process. Don’t worry, though. We won’t turn into fossils overnight.”
“I can’t ask you to give up immortality. Isn’t there a way around it?” How could they love her knowing what loving her would take from them?
“Nope.” Ed smiled. “The aging has already started, and we can’t stop the biological clock now. Even if you don’t stay with us, we’ll still continue to age.”
“That sucks.”
Jax laughed at the way she’d put it. “Not really. You’re human, and you’ll stay human. Unlike a lot of other kinds of shape-shifters, dragons are born, not changed. You’ll keep growing older and one day die, so why would we want to keep living without you?”
“Dragons are born?”
“That’s right,” answered Ed. “Are you disappointed that we can’t change you?”
“No. After yesterday, I’m just as glad to keep my feet on the ground, thank you very much.” She thought about it again. “If dragons are born, does that mean I can get pregnant with dragon babies?”
“Yeah, you can. Or a human baby.” Darton shrugged. “Or even a hybrid, a half-human, half-dragon baby.” He glanced worriedly at the other two men. “You don’t have to have our babies, you know. Protection works with us, too.”
“Let’s decide about children later.” Her head already swam with everything she’d learned, but there was one thing she still needed to know. “About the ranch…”
“What about it? We’ll still work on it and get it back in the black.” Ed ran his hand over her leg. “If you still want us to.”
“I’ve gone through a lot to keep it, but I think I need to let it go.”
“What? You want to sell it now?”
“Not sell, Jax.” She reached out and took his hand. “If I’m going to be your mate, then it’s only fair that the ranch is more than only mine. It’s all of ours. Your land butts up to mine, right?”
