Dragon in the Blood (Vale of Stars Book 2)

by Juliette Cross

  “No, Valla. Look at me.” He’d sheathed himself deep inside me and stilled.

  Looking at me with man in one eye and beast in the other, he lowered his mouth, hovering just out of reach. “My sweet Valla.”

  Then he molded his mouth to mine and poured the elixir of soulfire into a steaming kiss. I moaned, wanting to break free to catch my breath, but not wanting to stop the sheer ecstasy sliding down my throat and rushing like a river of electric fire through my veins. As he rocked his hips and showed me the power behind the man, he kissed me long and deep. I gripped the arch of his one wing hard and clawed his back with my other hand, knowing I would make a mark. But he only groaned with pleasure, never letting our mouths break, showing me the burning torture he’d endured waiting for me.

  Even when I came, he swallowed my scream, letting me ride out my orgasm to completion before he broke for air. Both of us panting, I knew he hadn’t come. He wasn’t done. My body limp while endorphins and soulfire coursed through me at an alarming rate, he pulled out of me and rolled me gently over, lifting my hips till my knees propped me on the bed. My torso was still flat as I panted for air.

  “I like this gown,” was all he said as he lifted the bottom of it and splayed one palm across my ass. His other hand slid up my spine before he gripped the arch of my right wing where the bone was thickest. Then he pushed inside me, and all I could do was clench my fists in the sheets and hold on for the ride. If ever I doubted his dominance, there was no question now.

  The man who owned me, body and soul, was magnificent and powerful and alpha to the fucking core. And I loved it. I loved the feel of him pounding me into this wafer-thin mattress but also the feel of him when I rode on top and he let me take the reins. I loved it when he got scowly and bossy, even if I pretended I didn’t. I loved it when he smiled that wicked smile and said my name with dirty things on his mind.

  I loved all of him.

  This is what I was thinking as he gripped my wing and hip hard and ground in deep as he came, pulsing with a guttural groan inside me. I smiled into the pillow.

  He shivered as he pulled out of me and fell to the mattress, panting harder than I was a few minutes before.

  “I see that your week away didn’t diminish your stamina,” I teased.

  He laughed. “If I’d known that’s all it would take.” He paused to exhale a lungful of air. “I would’ve let Madera beat me into a coma and saved myself some grief and pain.”

  I hauled back and punched him on the arm.

  “Ow. Careful, love. I’m still not back to full strength.”

  “Liar. I felt your full strength well enough just now.”

  “Mmm. Want to feel it again?”

  “Already?!”

  He grinned. “No. I need a rest.”

  I settled with my head on his chest and breathed in the wonderful smell of him, listening to his heart beat, rather quickly I might add. He combed his fingers through my hair as we both said nothing for a while. Just lay there…feeling.

  “That place in your dreams. With the flowers and the evergold. Was it real?”

  He caressed a lazy hand over my hip. “Yes. It’s a favorite place of mine in the Feygreir Mountains where our clan comes from.”

  “Will you take me there one day?”

  “I intend to marry you there.”

  “Marry me?” I laughed and shimmied onto his chest, resting my chin on my hands. “Isn’t that a human ceremony?”

  “Yes. But it’s a good one. It’s a public statement of a couple’s love. And I plan to tell the whole world that you are mine, and mine alone.”

  “Good. And I plan on telling the whole world the same thing about you. Starting with Madera. Or maybe Isadore.”

  His wicked smile made my stomach flip-flop, but his tender smile…well, that one made my heart melt and pool right into his hands. Like now.

  “They never stood a chance against you, Valla. No one ever did.”

  I gripped his shoulders and scooted higher, then pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Soulfire lingered, sliding down my throat in a sweet caress. Then a sudden stabbing pain pricked me on the inside. We both gasped as an internal snick locked us together, our hearts beating in rhythm for the first time. Just as it would for eternity.

  I settled my lips against his, breathing his essence in and out, both of us unmoving, soundlessly grasping the vastness of what it meant to be heartbound. I would never fear another woman in his presence. And he would never need to fear another man in mine.

  Then Conn pulled away, something catching his eye over my shoulder. That broody scowl found its way back to his forehead.

  “What? What is it?”

  He reached out and touched where he’d gripped my wing earlier. I craned my neck to look over my shoulder.

  “No way.” I peered closer. “Already?”

  There were four distinct lines where his fingers had gripped me—no longer the blue-black of my wings, but faded to rust-red.

  “I’m sorry,” he said with sincere disappointment in his voice. “I’d hoped the change would occur later. After you’d gotten used to the idea. You know, the whole dominance thing.”

  I laughed heartily. “Well, I’m not sorry. Now, there will be no question that we belong together.”

  The tender smile captured my heart again and caged it with gentle hands.

  He kissed me. “Always, love.”

  “Yes, my firedancer. Always.”

  EPILOGUE

  “P ush, Priestess! Now. The top of his head is crowning.”

  The human midwife gripped my knees hard and pressed them up as the next contraction ripped through my body, rippling up my back with mind-numbing pain. Thunder rolled with violence, rattling the panes and shaking my home atop the mountain.

  I screamed. And pushed.

  Lightning splintered the sky, crashing with a resounding crack.

  “Yes. That’s it. Keep go—”

  She gasped in shock and backed away, just as I felt the relief of pressure, my baby’s body sliding free of mine. The midwife stood at the edge of the bed and stared. I reached down to find the slick mass, squirming but making no sound.

  “Give him to me,” I gasped, unable to hold myself up and grasp hold. “Woman, I will kill you where you stand and your entire family if you do not do as you swore and care for my child.”

  Swallowing hard, her eyes grew wider. “I didn’t know he would be—”

  “Give him…to me.”

  A subtle echoing hiss entered my voice. A sound I’d heard only once. On that cold moonlit night in a grove beneath Brilla’s Crag so many months ago. Hellsgard had made this same sound with his voice when he spoke of promises to keep.

  The midwife moved forward, licking her lips, hands shaking. She grabbed the warm cloth from the basin, scooped my child into her trembling hands, and placed the bundle on my bosom.

  I wept with joy and cradled him close, then wiped the birthing blood from his body. Shining red scales glistened by the candlelight. His eyes, crimson with serpentine slits, gazed up at me. His snout opened with a yawn, small newborn, jagged teeth already present.

  The rain finally began to fall, pouring in a torrent across the mountaintop.

  “There, there, my son,” I said, tears streaming. “I’ve been waiting for you a long, long time.”

  The midwife edged closer in wonder now, instead of the fear I had seen before.

  “How? How is this possible?”

  Her mind was too small to comprehend the magnitude of what I’d created, of what had come from my own womb, my own flesh and blood.

  “Behold, woman. The first dragon born in thousands of years. A Bloodback dragon. He is my son and your future king.”

  My son nuzzled my breast. I pulled open my gown and let him suckle for the first time, his tiny claw clinging to my full breast. I smiled at the sensation of my milk letting down, nourishing my sweet son. I gazed my fill as the rain continued to pour.

  “You were born in dr
agon form, my son. I wonder what you will look like in man form.”

  As if he heard me, he shifted with a cry, the scales receding, the tiny claws shrinking, the snout transforming into a smaller form, yet no less beautiful. He cried, fat tears welling and falling.

  “There, there, my son. You will get used to the pain of shifting until you never feel it at all.”

  He wailed again. So I sang to him.

  “Come away, come away, come away, my dear,

  the world will ne’er be kind, I fear…”

  He quieted and peered from big, blood-red eyes, which hadn’t changed when he shifted. A true sign of power and strength. He nuzzled my breast and fed once again as I rocked and sang his lullaby.

  “When pain and sorrow hurts you too near,

  then come away…come away…back home.”

  READY FOR MORE MORGONS?

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of the first in Juliette’s Nightwing Series, Soulfire.

  PROLOGUE

  Thousands of years ago, Radomis, the dragon king of the North, took flight on the last full moon of winter. Beating great, black wings, he soared away from his mountainous kingdom, lured by some unknown force to the sultry lands in the west where humans dwelled. Dragons and humans had always lived apart.

  On this same night, Princess Morga honored the fertility rite of bathing under the full moon the night before her wedding. As she stepped from the natural steaming pool, rivulets of water glistened over milk-pale skin, ebony hair slicked over her breasts and down her back. The dragon king saw her. Instant desire ensnared his beastly heart. He descended.

  Shifting into human form, a man of might and beauty, he murdered her guards and handmaidens. Horrified, Morga could do nothing when the dragon king took her in his arms, hard lust in cold eyes. The moment his tongue licked into her mouth, she felt the burning of soulfire—the dragon elixir meant for his one and only mate. Golden heat melted through blood and bone, filling her with euphoric pleasure, bonding her to him forever.

  Radomis took her on the ground among bloody bodies and moon-shadows, intent to sate his hunger. One night would never be enough. Shifting into dragon form, he carried her in his claws back to his kingdom. She would be his queen, trapped in a gilded cage of opulence as the object of his endless desire.

  From their union, a child was born—an abomination. A human body with dragon wings and dragon strength. The boy, Larkos, was outcast among dragonkind, including his father. Only Morga showed him any love.

  When Larkos reached manhood, he wielded his rage with an avenging sword, tracking and killing all of dragonkind. Even in beast form, his father could not match him, finally falling to the forgotten son’s sword. What Larkos did not know was that soulfire bonded his loving mother to the beast in such a way that when his dragon-heart stopped beating, so did hers.

  This is the tale I’d been told when my body began changing from child to woman, a warning for young girls to beware of Morgon men.

  “Never stray from your own kind, Jessen,” my mother would say, “or you could end up like Princess Morga, a slave and outcast to be abhorred.”

  The problem was, I’d never been a very obedient daughter. Never the one to do exactly as I was told. And fairy tales have no meaning when the stars align and Fortune spins her wheel, weaving her own story for your heart.

  CHAPTER 1

  I swung one leather-clad leg over the balcony railing and froze. Straddling the stone balustrade, I gazed upward, willing my heart to still. A crescent moon cut a half-smile in the starry night as if mocking my rebellion. Or perhaps encouraging it.

  Don’t look down.

  A smudge of cloud blurred over the moon, nudging me into the darkness. Deep breath in, I swung the other leg over and shimmied toward the ivy trellis. My long legs helped me maintain balance on the stone balcony, making it easier to climb down. Of course, I had to have the villa suite on the top floor—an obscene luxury for a college student. Only the best, my father would say. I knew the truth. He tucked me away in an ivory tower, complete with armed guards, imprisoning me to watch my every move. It had nothing to do with protection. Not mine, anyway.

  My maroon silk blouse snagged on a tendril of ivy. I slipped it loose and dropped the final few feet to the grass below. I peeked around a manicured shrub toward the front of the complex. One of the guards leaned against the entrance, nearly dozing. Smiling to myself, I crept across the shadowed lawn to the side street.

  I jumped into the sleek, black coupe waiting at the curb and turned to Sorcha. “Let’s go.”

  She grinned and tore off into the night, away from Cade Heights.

  “I don’t get it.” Ella leaned forward from the back seat. “Why can’t you just walk out the front door like everyone else, Jessen? There’s no curfew or anything.”

  I flipped down the compact mirror above the passenger seat, checking my hair. I plucked a leaf from the black waves falling past my chest. “Ella, have you actually met my father?” I wiped away a streak of dark liner from below one eye. “Sorcha, where’s your eye shadow?”

  “Check the glove compartment.”

  I touched-up the tawny shade of color on the outside corners and smeared a glossy cream on the bottom lids, setting off my light brown eyes. Pleased my hair and makeup looked fresh, and not like someone who just crawled down an ivy trellis, I flipped the mirror shut.

  “Yes, I’ve met your father. You know I have.” Ella didn’t get the concept of rhetorical questions. Her glazed look, as always, made her pretty features more child-like. “So?”

  “So!” Sorcha careened around the next corner, veering deeper into the city. “That man could suffocate a person with a glance.”

  I sighed. “Forget about him. Don’t you ladies want to know our destination tonight?”

  “Oooo, I do love it when you’re sneaky, Jess. So what’s the big secret? Why am I decked out in my highest-heeled boots and shortest skirt?”

  I pulled the glossy flier from my back pocket and handed it over.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m talkin’ about, baby.” Sorcha turned down a side street, heading for the farthest edge of the Gladium Province.

  “What is this?” Ella snatched the paper from Sorcha’s hand. “We can’t go there. It’s a Morgon club, Jessen! We’re not allowed.”

  “Oh, Ella. Relax.” I snatched the flier back and pointed at the headline. “Do you see who’s playing tonight? We have to go. For moral support.”

  “Yeah, for moral support,” agreed Sorcha with a mischievous grin, tossing her dark red locks over one shoulder. “And to play with a little fire.”

  I laughed. Ella didn’t.

  “You two are crazy. Out-of-your-minds crazy. I don’t care if Jed’s band is playing. He knows we’re not allowed on that end of town, much less in one of their clubs.”

  “Calm down.” I twisted in my seat. Ella looked like a wide-eyed doe frozen in the headlights. “First of all, that’s not true. It’s not illegal to go to a Morgon club.”

  Ella needed a refresher course on desegregation laws, and how it was illegal for either race to bar anyone from a public place. Of course, my father might let a Morgon come into his place of business, but he’d never let one step foot in his house. Not unless there was money riding on it. Unlawful or not. Ella’s parents also fell into his line of thinking.

  “Look. Other humans go all the time. Jed told me. I mean, why the hell would they hire a human band to play if it were against the law? Times are changing.” I wanted to believe it was true, whether or not my father was stuck in the dark ages of bigotry and discrimination.

  Ella heaved a small sigh, voice almost a whisper. “But, my mom, she told me never to go to their side of the city.” I glanced over my shoulder. She twisted a blond curl around her index finger, a sure sign of distress for my timid friend. “It’s dangerous, Jessen. Your dad would kill you.”

  “Hence, the very reason I snuck out of my apartment rather than let his henchmen tail me all night long,
as usual.”

  Sorcha zoomed into the Morgon district, the buildings transformed to suit the dragon-hybrid race—sharper, wider, taller, like mountains made of glass and steel.

  “I don’t approve,” protested Ella.

  Sorcha squeezed her car into a parking spot on a street where glittering clubs lined the block, then popped open her purse and applied a fresh coat of cherry-red lipstick in the rearview mirror.

  I gave Ella my reassuring expression while Sorcha primped. “I know. Don’t worry. Jed wouldn’t invite us if he wasn’t sure it was safe. Now, come on. Let’s have some fun.”

  “Wait!” Sorcha passed me the lipstick. “You look good in this.”

  I applied and handed it back. “Better?”

  “Luscious.” She winked. “Look out Morgon men.”

  We walked the block in silence, taking in the towering sight of Acropolis at the end. At least ten stories of Gothic stone with wing-like buttresses and spires stabbing into the darkness above. Grotesque gargoyles glared down. The stone creatures drew my eye with their long limbs, sharp claws, wings spread wide, and gaping mouths, tongues lolling. Was this some kind of subliminal warning to beware of winged beasts?

  Sorcha glanced up at one particular fiendish gargoyle, seeming as if it would leap off its pedestal at any moment. “Mmm. I’m feeling like a damsel in distress. How about you, Jess?”

  “Um, isn’t this owned by the Nightwing clan?” asked Ella, sandwiched between us.

  “Yep,” I replied.

  Sorcha added more sway to her walk. “Awesome.”

  Though the exterior reeked of an ancient time, an electric blue sign burned above a black door—Tonight: Red Dream. My heart skittered at the sight of the man checking IDs. I’d never seen a Morgon this close. We’d had a guest speaker in my Multicultural Literature class, but the Morgon woman, a poet, stood on the stage a good distance from the audience.