by Ophelia Bell
“Do it,” she pleaded.
Nikhil shook his head, his brow furrowed and a twinge of the fear she’d sensed in him earlier bleeding through his aura.
“Not until you’re well, my love.”
“I’m well enough now! Just be more careful this time. I need it, and you want it. Please, Nikhil.”
When his palm rested hot against her throat again, she almost came in that instant. Not a single ounce of pain was delivered—only his thick cock driving into her and his touch on her skin, his massive form hovering over her smaller body while he fucked her. He wasn’t even pressing hard against her throat yet, only resting with the warm pad of his palm against the base of her throat and his fingers and thumb spanning either side.
Nikhil groaned and looked down between them, obviously aware of the change in friction due to the flow of her juices coating his thrusting cock.
When he pressed his hand tighter against her throat, she bucked harder, wanting him deep enough to hurt. He gave her his cock with ever deepening thrusts.
She could sense the boundaries of his self-control being challenged, but he held off, testing her limits bit by bit. He pressed his palm harder and her world went a little darker, her body wanting to struggle against him now. With a smile and an adoring look from her, he began thrusting more frantically into her until her body began its delicious ascent toward climax. At the same time, he squeezed hard against her throat, his eyes wide and wild with need.
“Yes,” she mouthed to him, lacking actual breath to speak.
“I love you, Belah,” he said, just before his mouth crashed against hers, his tongue plunging deep. He kept his hand against her throat while he kissed her, and she soaked in his climax while her own barreled over her.
Her world went abruptly dark with one more slight press of his palm against her throat—all her worries disappeared again, her overworked brain ceasing to exist, and there was nothing left but sheer sensation. Then his body pressed hot and hard over hers, his large hands on her throat and his glorious cock filling her. Her heart pounded harder than it ever had and her body thrummed from the magic flowing through her. His own energy crashed into hers, flooding her senses enough to make the darkness explode into a wild cacophony of light.
Just when she thought she’d smother completely, he released his hold on her and she felt him breathe, straight into her mouth, the hot gust of his life filling her aching, empty lungs.
Belah gasped and opened her eyes. Nikhil’s dark, expectant gaze met hers and immediately turned triumphant. She grinned up at him with giddy excitement. His expression shifted toward cocky self-congratulation and he kissed her again.
“Was that the right way to do it, then?” he asked, pulling out of her and moving to her side. He pulled her back against his chest and let his fingers slide over her throat.
Her own fingers drifted up to tangle with his where they rested against her skin. She swallowed once, testing the soreness that lingered. When she spoke again, she sounded husky.
“That was perfect.”
He said nothing more, only nuzzling at the back of her neck and letting his hand fall to cup her breast.
Her own hand remained at her throat, marveling at how she had never understood what power a single breath could have—or lack of it, in her case. She knew the power of her own breath, but only as an external influence. How the air inside her lungs could control her pleasure so perfectly, she could never have imagined. Yet he had shown her this part of her, had awakened in her a new need that only he could fulfill.
Soon, his breathing grew steady and even, his aura waning into the comforting, contented glow he normally had during the sleep that followed their lovemaking.
Belah remained awake and thoughtful.
Sometime during the night when the candles were growing low, he roused again, his aura flickering to life with his consciousness an instant before his body. Nikhil was an anomaly of a human in this sense—most took several moments to fully waken to the point of action after their auras signaled consciousness. His alertness was another reminder of the role he had filled for her for so long before she’d taken him to her bed. He was a warrior, and would fight and die for her. He would kill for her, too, but would her particular need for death be too much for him?
She could never die, truly, but now she knew he could give her a semblance of death with the squeeze of his hand around her throat. The same way he could drive her to the brink of insanity with pleasure, he could send her over into a much deeper abyss—one she had craved for centuries.
Beside her, he raised a hand and brushed a dark strand of hair off her cheek, letting his hand trail down her neck and over her breast. He left his hand resting over the full mound. The warmth of it comforted her, but the curious crackle of his aura signaled that he had something complicated to say to her.
“Belah, tell me what he did to you to make you so sad.”
She closed her eyes, wishing she didn’t have to have this conversation, but he was hers. He owned her heart, knew all her secrets, and was still strong enough to stay. This man would never betray her. So he deserved the truth. All of it.
“We were both complicit, Nikhil. My brother and I have always been close, from birth. When we were born, humanity wasn’t as complex and plentiful as it is now, yet we were expected to procreate with this lower race. We were too young then… too young to understand our own powers and the hold they had over us. It’s our nature to crave the contact of someone like us. Our brothers and sisters were more forgiving of human foibles, I suppose. Ked and I… we always ached for something deeper.”
When she trailed off, he didn’t move a muscle and she forced herself to avoid eavesdropping on his emotions. She’d become adept at it after loving him for so long now… she preferred his new games to be a surprise. She might have laughed at the irony—that she knew all the secrets of every one of her subjects, none of whom mattered much to her beyond her overarching protection of them. But he was too sacred to her to delve that deep into.
She still couldn’t mistake his clenching jaw and his very apparent restraint when he said, “You found comfort together.”
Belah took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and continued. “The humans we’d mated were so primitive then. All we could gain from them was pleasure and offspring. I did my part, as did my brothers and sisters. My soul hurt every time I mated a man who couldn’t really know me. He could only worship me and let me fuck him into rapture. Two of them actually died. The others didn’t survive long after. Humans were supposed to be our chosen mates. How could they be so perfect if they expired in spite of me mating them?”
Nikhil relaxed and pulled her close against his side. “Did you want these men? These… mates?”
Belah could remember each one in vivid detail. They were all ideal specimens of human male virility. “I wanted every single one. They were all perfect, but as soon as I marked them, they changed. They became tools to breed with—no more present than the toys in my box. Two of them expired mere moments after impregnating me. I have no idea why, either… They just… died. The other four I mated over the next few centuries lasted longer, but were little more than slaves. I didn’t want them after they lost their minds to me. This is why I won’t mark you, Nikhil. I could have a lower dragon mark you—one with less power than I have—and you might keep your mind, but I won’t share you with another, either.”
He said nothing, and that lack of response made her skin prickle. She held her breath and closed her eyes, simply soaking in his warmth and wishing the chasm she felt drifting wider between them didn’t really exist. When he finally spoke again, she heaved a sigh of relief.
“You could enslave me… a willing subject. Yet you don’t. To preserve my sanity?” He pulled her tighter and lifted her chin with one finger, forcing her to look at him. “I am yours, ‘Iilahatan. You have marked me already. My soul is permanent
ly seared by my love for you. My only wish is to become your mate in the eyes of the gods and our people… I am already yours in my own heart.”
Belah closed her eyes and struggled to hold back tears. Craving closer contact, she shifted to straddle his lap and pressed her lips against his. With a low moan he opened for her and she pushed a breath into him, hoping yet again that her magic was all he needed to remain sane. She would breathe for him for an eternity, if she had to. Or at least as long as he lived… he might have an extended life span as her lover, but without being marked by her, he would eventually die. But her mark carried a much more volatile threat… if it didn’t kill him outright, it would definitely leave him a broken man.
She would give him what he wished for, though. In the eyes of the gods and their people, all they needed was a wedding. And this wedding would be the most spectacular event in several centuries.
“Marry me,” she said when she finally pulled away from their kiss.
He studied her for a second, his brows drawing together while her eyes darted back and forth, anxiously hoping to glean some hint of his mood from his eyes or his aura. Slowly, a smile spread across his face and his aura brightened. “Absolutely.”
Chapter Fifteen
When Belah awoke the next morning, it was to the familiar tingling of Nikhil’s aura when he was fully aroused, yet she didn’t feel his physical contact otherwise. She slowly turned to face his side of the bed and found him lying naked with his head propped on one hand, the other slowly sliding up and down along his thick, engorged cock.
“Mmm, my plan worked,” he rumbled.
“Plan?” Belah inquired, quirking her lips at him.
“You have this uncanny ability to sense when I’m at the edge. As if your instincts require that you never miss an ounce of my pleasure when I come for you.”
“Hmm, looks to me like you were coming for yourself just now. It’s a good thing I woke up.”
She stretched a hand out to him and brushed the back of a finger along the underside of his cock, gathering the droplet of his juices that trickled down the smooth, hot skin. The musky scent of him intoxicated her and her own arousal grew when she delicately licked his essence off her finger. The salty-sweet tang hit her tongue with an explosion of essence and she closed her eyes to savor his flavor.
He let out a harsh growl when she slid her finger into her mouth. His aura brightened, as she expected it would, but the quality of its power shifted on the spectrum, a dark sheen surrounding it.
Nikhil’s eyes flashed with the wildness she had come to love in him, but the accompanying shift in his aura troubled her. Leaning close, she pressed her lips against his and prepared to send a breath of her magic into his lungs, but abruptly found herself thrown back and pinned to the bed, Nikhil hovering over her with an angry look.
“What is that, little beast? When you breathe into me. Whatever you do leaves my mind numb. If we are to be married, you must not keep secrets.”
Belah knew her confession from the night before would only go so far to satisfy his curiosity about her and her race. With just as sudden a movement, she wrested herself from his grip and flipped him off her as easily as if he weighed no more than her pillow. Straddling his hips, she let her talons and horns manifest while she held him down.
“Remember this secret, my love? There are aspects of being that are … complicated. Remember what I told you last night about my former mates?”
Nikhil glared up at her, but didn’t fight her powerful hold on him. In fact, he grew distinctly more aroused in spite of his very obvious irritation at being overpowered. “I remember,” he growled. “You are sparing my free will, which honors me.”
“There is more than that. You have always been a particularly blessed man. No doubt your mother has spun the tales of your conception with you. You are a legend among the armies of the delta and your reputation extends beyond into the far kingdoms, even outside my own rule.” She studied him, waiting to gauge his response to her statement.
His brows drew together in confusion. “My mother’s stories were just fantasy—encouraging for a fatherless young man like me, but I stopped believing I had any kind of divine status the first time I took an injury in battle. You see my scars—if my mother’s tales that I was begotten of a god were true, would I have such things? Before you came to me, death hovered over me, itching to snatch me into the underworld. I hoped that her stories at least meant I would be honored after my death and allowed to sit by the side of Osiris. If I owe any deity for my life, it is you, ‘Iilahatan.” His gaze softened and grew heated with lust again as he tilted his hips up, his shaft sliding against her naked flesh between them.
Nikhil’s warmth and hardness distracted her, but she owed him this truth as much as he’d deserved to understand her reasons for not marking him.
“She was partly right,” she said, pressing her hips down harder onto his to halt his movements. “You are not the son of a god. Your father was the commander who was wed to your mother. You were conceived mere days before your father died. To honor his memory, one of my kind graced your mother with his presence in the night and gave you the Blessing you bear to this day, since before you were even born. Your mother simply believed that the dragon who made love to her that night was who put you in her belly, but you weren’t his get. He only blessed you with his magic. The blessing itself is an infusion of the dragon’s essence that ensures you are protected by my kind. It means you were always intended as a dragon’s mate. My mate.” She closed her eyes, tamping down the guilt over not revealing that the dragon in question had been her own brother, and steeling herself for the additional bad news she had to deliver.
“This is a good thing, is it not?” He had relaxed beneath her and she released her grip on his wrists.
“It is, normally. But our magic requires balance. A Blessing must be offset by a mark. Any dragon magic, in enough concentration needs a mark to balance it eventually.”
“Or… what?”
The question she hated most to answer. “Or you lose your mind. This is why I rarely share my Nirvana with my pets. I have no intention of ever marking them.”
Nikhil stared at her placidly for a moment before his eyes narrowed. In a completely reasonable tone, he said, “So, to be with you, my choices are either losing my free will or losing my mind entirely. Did you ever consider asking me to choose?”
Belah’s stomach chilled at the distance present in his question.
“Nikhil, you not being marked by me is one of the worst offenses of a dragon. You know what I am. You know all my secrets. Our marks are the way we tie our mates to us. I am trusting you by not marking you. You could still tell all my secrets to an enemy.”
His fingers twitched distractedly against her thighs and she noticed that his cock had softened.
He pushed her off and rolled away, coming to rest on his side, facing her. “I’ve always been loyal to you, why do you think I would betray you, even if my mind failed somehow?”
Belah closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She hated his question because she hated her answer to it.
“It isn’t about loyalty. It’s about caution. You see us as gods. That is accidental, by the way, but we seek to maintain order through whatever means we can. You are not like the others. Not even my pets.” She reached out and brushed at his overgrown scruff. He’d already seen her through death and still needed rest.
“I won’t betray you,” he said, and her heart broke at the plea in his tone.
“I know. My breath is the only way I have to keep that threat at bay. My power affects your mind. I could use it to control you if I chose to, but I only use it in its most benign state—to try to lend some balance to the inundation of magic you get from my body when we make love, and the magic you already carry from your Blessing.”
“Is there no other way?” he asked, looking agitated.
“There is nothing more I can do, my love,” she said, stroking his cheek. “I would gladly marry you today, but…”
But the wedding of someone as important as an empress required far too much planning and preparation. The public declaration—in front of the gods and her people—was the thing Nikhil wanted most. So she needed to make sure both the gods and the people were in attendance.
“You are a goddess. I want the entire world and all the gods to see how much I love you.”
Belah gave him a rueful smile. His priority was making their love public. Hers was so much more. Belah needed to do everything she could to ensure he lived as long as possible, sane and happy by her side. Her breath may well keep him sane for the rest of his natural life, and so prolonging his life even more should be her focus. Unless she marked him, her own life-giving magic would be transient—what she gave him each day faded, the energy of their lovemaking losing effectiveness over the erosion of time.
“There is more at stake with this, Nikhil,” she said, trying to ignore the light nips of his teeth on her skin—his renewed attention distracted her from the truth she needed to share.
“I’m not a fool, Belah,” he said. “You’re hiding something.” He gave the side of her breast a hard bite that made her gasp and her juices flow hotly between her thighs. Sweet Mother, he knew how to get her going.
“I have an idea,” she said, trying to decide how much of her idea she should share. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t spent wakeful nights considering every possibility.
She’d considered making a request of her siblings to combine their energy and bestow him with a gift of their power. It would be akin to the blessing he was given inside his mother’s womb, only more powerful, yet would not carry the shackling magic of a mark that would irrevocably bind him to her like a slave. Again, she wished she were not immortal—that her mark didn’t carry that curse with it. Any dragon but she and her siblings could mark him without that risk to his free will. And when the time came to die, they would have been able to leave this life together.
