Dragon Guardian

by Ophelia Bell

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Deeper, please.”

  He pushed harder, his head already buzzing with the acute pleasure of only his tip being encompassed by the perfect, tight hold she had on him.

  She pushed back with a pleading whimper of more and he sank even deeper. Nearly halfway to the hilt and he was already uncertain whether he could even last long enough for the first stroke. His cock pulsed inside the exquisite tightness of her sheath.

  “Fuck me,” she gritted.

  With a half-groaned apology for his failure at restraint, he bucked his hips hard, shoving his entire length deep into her.

  Vrishti screamed, and for a second he panicked, pulling out swiftly to be sure he hadn’t hurt her, but just as he was about to remove the tip of his cock, she pushed back onto him hard, her channel taking him fully and easily again.

  “Yes!” she yelled. “Don’t stop! Oh, please, don’t stop.”

  Aodh dug his claws in and unfurled his wings for balance so he could take her the way she begged for it. He lifted one big talon and clutched at her shoulder, holding her tight so he could drive into her deeper, harder.

  With each solid, piercing thrust she cried out, her ecstasy building higher until he saw nothing beyond the brilliant fertile green of her powerful aura. Her muscles tightened around him like a vise, and that was the end of his restraint. He roared, secretly elated at the look of envy he saw on Neph’s face across the pool as he spilled his orgasm into her in a hot flood. Vrishti let out a strangled cry and another flood of her own power gushed from inside her, coating his cock with both their juices and filling his well to the brim with potent magic.

  She panted and moaned weakly under him, but protested when he started to pull out of her.

  “Please, not yet. I feel it coming on again already. I need more. Fuck me harder. Deeper!”

  With a groan, Aodh pushed deep again, happy to accommodate her but sensing her flagging energy. She was a slave to her need now, but he would happily stay buried inside her until the waves of her estrous finally subsided.

  “Let us mark each other, Vrishti. Let me put a baby in you to make it stop.”

  “No, please don’t. You and Neph … Need you both together. Happy. Please.” Her words came in between halting, breathless pauses as her core constricted around his cock. He glanced at the satyr, who still waited, though not entirely patient. Neph’s fingers clutched the edge of the pool, knuckles white with tension that was evident in the tight flex of his forearms and chest. His magnificent cock was hard and weeping from the tip.

  She needed more … needed them both. He knew what he needed to do, but hated the idea of appearing too eager for a reconciliation. Finally, he told himself this was all for her. He still had unfinished business with the satyr, but that could wait.

  Hooking one big claw beneath her, Aodh gently lifted her and tilted back onto his haunches at the same time.

  “Lean back into me, love,” he rumbled as he pulled her up and onto his still stiff and throbbing cock. She was almost boneless from fatigue, but her core still tightened deliciously around him, and she let her thighs splay wide across his bent legs as she slipped her arms up and around his big neck to hold on. He bent his head over her shoulder, easily reaching between her thighs with his long tongue for an indulgent taste of her where they were still joined. This was the best part of sex in dragon form—he didn’t have nearly as much flexibility or reach as a man.

  He held one forearm across her midsection for stability and hooked the other beneath one of her knees for leverage as he began pumping his hips up into her again. She moaned out a pleasured “yes, oh, Aodh, yes” as she let him fuck her.

  Then he darted his gaze across the pool and shot Neph a quick message. “She needs us both to bring her down from this. Come do your part. For her.”

  Neph’s gaze instantly heated, the look sparking an almost painfully enticing memory of how they’d once been together. Aodh forced himself to tamp that down and refocus on Vrishti’s pleasure. In his periphery, he was aware of Neph swimming across the wide pool and hopping out on the near side. His big satyr body dripped with steaming water as his hooved footsteps reverberated across the stone floor. He was nearly as tall as Aodh in his primal form, his cock almost as big. When he stepped between the dragon’s thighs, he was careful not to touch Aodh’s skin. Instead he cupped Vrishti’s cheek reverently in one palm.

  “I’m here, kitten. Do you want me inside you, too?”

  “Oh, Neph. Please, yes, I need you so much.”

  Their exchange sent a sharp spike through Aodh’s heart. What had he missed between these two? Could he even compete with the level of love clearly present in those few words? With an ache in his chest, he pressed his snout to her neck and closed his eyes, choosing to drown himself in the scent and feel of her that surrounded him. She was here. That she had come for him—no matter how she’d done it—had to count for something.

  A moment later she let out a hitching moan and the sensation of hard, hot flesh pressed against the base of his cock. Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he leveraged her up along his length to position her for the next part. His entire body came alive when Neph pressed his hard length against Aodh’s erection and wrapped his hand around their bases. In another lifetime this would have been a prelude to Neph stroking them both off, but he didn’t move his hand. He only held them tight together while Aodh slowly settled Vrishti back down onto both their hard cocks.

  “Tell me if you can’t take us, kitten,” Neph said. “We’ll stop the second you say so.”

  “Oh, god, please don’t stop,” she moaned as her tight, ready flesh encompassed both their cockheads, squeezing Neph impossibly close to him.

  Aodh eased her down onto them with tortuous slowness, each increment forcing his cock tighter and tighter against Neph’s, every second throwing him back to a time when he had let himself get lost to the love and pleasure they had shared. They were both so big, he didn’t know how she managed to not scream from the agony of how fully they stretched her, but her aura swelled again not from pain, but from pleasure every bit as exquisite as the shivers that raced down his scales all the way to the tip of his tail.

  When she encompassed them both fully, Aodh’s reflexes took over and the old rhythm he and Neph once had seemed to come naturally again. They fucked her together in perfectly synchronized motions as though they were one being.

  Vrishti kept one arm hooked around Aodh’s head, but removed the other. When he opened his eyes, she had her hand tightly gripping one of Neph’s horns and holding on while the satyr tongued her perfect breasts, the full orbs bouncing with the force of their unified thrusts.

  Her aura swelled again to a bright green glow, and within moments she let out a hoarse cry of ecstasy, her core tightening around them so completely he couldn’t help but feel the sudden rush of Neph’s orgasm shooting up the length of his cock. The sensation pushed him to his own Nirvana, and he shot his essence deep inside her to mix with his old lover’s.

  At the last second, he raised his head and his eyes locked with Neph’s. What he saw was cautious hope, and perhaps even a question that hovered at the edge of the barely existent barrier between their minds.

  But Aodh didn’t have an answer. Not yet.

  “I don’t know if I can forgive you,” he said and he pulled out of Vrishti and slipped away, leaving her wrapped in Neph’s embrace.

  Chapter Thirty

  Vrishti

  Aodh’s abrupt departure left Vrishti cold and empty. She clung to Neph, whose shape diminished in her arms, the shrinking of his form back to human size reflecting the sense of defeat that flooded the room as potently as the scent of their lovemaking had only a moment earlier.

  Still struggling to regain her senses, she couldn’t help but notice the pain that crossed Neph’s face in a sharp grimace as he watched Aodh leave. The desperate longing and l
oss was so palpable through their shared mental link that Vrishti felt almost as if it were her own. Tears sprang to her eyes and she wrapped her arms around his neck and held tight.

  “We just got here. Don’t give up on him yet,” she whispered.

  Neph tightened his hold on her almost desperately, burying his face against her shoulder, his emotion barely contained in soft, hitching breaths that she knew were not remnants of their strenuous fucking, but something far deeper at work. He finally inhaled and shifted his hips, his flaccid cock slipping out of her allowing the remaining flood of their shared essences to course down her thighs.

  He cupped her face in his hands and gazed into her eyes. “You both are my life now. I will endure whatever I must to make things right.”

  His gaze shifted over her shoulder and she turned her head to see Aodh, now also back in his human form, pacing on the far side of the room beyond the detailed statues of herself and Neph. She swallowed the shock at the imagery of those two likenesses, which perfectly embodied how she pictured herself when he was aroused and ready to fuck. But it was a far cry from how she felt now, and the monuments to their fertility only irritated her.

  “Stay here,” she said, giving Neph’s hand a squeeze. He returned her comforting glance with a tight nod before she dove into the pool in a smooth arc and swam across to the other side.

  The air in the cavernous room was cool and slightly damp farther away from the pool, but smelled distinctly of Aodh. She was struck with the realization that Neph really had gotten all the details just right when he’d assumed his former lover’s shape for her sake. That had to count for something, but she wasn’t sure how she could convey that to the man she walked toward now.

  Everything about Aodh was exactly as Neph had shown her, and the sight of him naked and in the flesh took her breath away. He didn’t seem to hear her as she approached. His fists continued clenching and unclenching, tightening the muscles of his arms and shoulders as he walked. He was naked, his otherworldly pale skin glowing in the ambient light of the room, his flexing buttocks a mesmerizing sight as he stalked in the opposite direction. When he turned and saw her, he stopped and stared, his eyes widening in surprise, then horror.

  “Sweet Mother, Vrishti. I’m sorry. I didn’t want our first time to be like that.”

  She shook her head, causing the wet tendrils of her hair to stream more water down her back. She grabbed the sodden tangle and wrung it out as she walked closer to him with a tentative smile.

  “We needed each other. It’s all right. You’re awake, and I’m … sated, for the time being. That was …” She tucked her lower lip between her teeth and glanced back across the pool where Neph patiently waited, yet again relegated to his own corner, it seemed. She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she sighed. “It doesn’t matter how amazing it was to me. It clearly wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be for the two of you.”

  Aodh pressed his lips into a tight line. “It isn’t that. Making love with both of you could never be unpleasant. I just had a different idea of how making love with you the first time would go … and it was nothing like that.” His face twisted in a half-grimace and he shook his head as though trying to dispel the image.

  Vrishti frowned, reminded of the conversation she and Neph had had about the relative significance of her sexual status to the dragon. “What? Did you think I’d be chastely saving myself for you all this time? My estrous could have happened at any point during the last month in the Sanctuary. It could’ve been your brother who took care of me, do you realize that? At least he was available.”

  Aodh’s mouth fell open and he shut it again, his jaw clenching. “A month. That’s all it’s been for you.” His eyes flashed with white fire and he shook his head. “I’ve been waiting here for four hundred years since Nyx banished me from the Haven and stuck me in this fucking prison. All I could think of was you—thoughts of you kept me sane here.

  “I don’t care who touched you before me. If Gavra had been there for you when you needed it, I’d thank him. Hell, I’m grateful Neph was there for you. What I can’t fucking deal with is his goddamn ‘woe is me’ attitude now that he’s here. He fucking owes me for what happened. He left me hanging after the shit went down with Meri, and then his sister pulls this bullshit. If he wants anything from me, he needs to fucking man up.”

  His voice gradually rose in volume as he ranted until finally he put his hands on his hips and turned to yell across the room. “Do you hear me, you son of a bitch? Grow a fucking pair and finish what you fucking started!”

  Vrishti blanched at the sudden outburst of rage. “I’m sorry,” she said meekly.

  Aodh sighed and closed the distance between them. He lifted his hands to cup her face, stroking her cheeks reverently. “You being here is more than I hoped for. I knew he had the power to come, but I had no idea he would bring you with him. You’ve done nothing wrong. He and I just have old bullshit to deal with, and I didn’t expect you’d wind up stuck in the middle of it. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “He still loves you,” she whispered, staring up into his eyes, her entire body thrumming from the warmth of his touch, now that they were face to face and she was self-possessed enough to be aware of more than her own needs.

  “It’s true,” Neph said, his voice coming from behind her now. Close behind her like he’d simply appeared out of thin air. Her heart pounded at the proximity of them both, and she silently hoped her body wouldn’t distract her from this conversation with another wave of her fucking hormones. Arousal was inevitable, though, she supposed.

  Aodh’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared. He ignored Neph at first, his fingertips tightening at the base of her skull. “You say something if you need us again, all right? Your needs are more important than this.” Then he shot a glare over her shoulder that could start fires.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Neph

  If looks could kill, Neph was distinctly grateful he was immortal. He inhaled slowly, bracing himself for the long overdue conversation. As the air passed through his nostrils, he caught the distinct and unmistakable scent of Vrishti’s fresh arousal. By Gaia’s grace, she was the perfect match for them both if she responded to their mere presence this way.

  But as she stepped to the side to let Aodh pass, Neph couldn’t miss the worried crease of her brow. He’d heard her whispered plea to the dragon from across the room and loved her for it, even though he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  “We’re doing this now,” Aodh said. “I’m ready to get the fuck out of here, but I need to know we have an understanding first.”

  “Anything you need,” Neph said with a nod.

  “What I fucking need is for you to admit the truth. Tell me you were wrong.”

  “I lied to you. I never stopped loving you, but I wasn’t wrong to send you away and I think you know that.”

  Aodh’s eyes flashed and he bared his teeth, taking another step forward to stick his finger in Neph’s face. “Bullshit. That’s your sister talking. She was the one who couldn’t stand the sight of me. She thought I’d corrupted her precious twin and would do the same to her son. I guess the joke was on her when Fate sent my sister to be your nephew’s mate.”

  “I wanted to keep you there, believe me,” Neph said. “I didn’t give a fuck about what she thought, because I think part of me knew even then that we belonged together, despite our fucking laws. That’s why I was willing to entertain the idea of a third … so we could …”

  “Bullshit!” Aodh roared. “You were stalling! Keeping me distracted with false hope. Meri was never right for us, but at least she showed me what a fucking coward you were. If you loved me half as much as you say you do, we’d have blood-melded without her and none of this would have happened.”

  Neph jerked back as though struck, his ready response dying in his throat and leaving him mute with the weight of Aodh’s
words crushing him.

  “That’s what you wanted?” he rasped. A rush of heat flooded him when the clarity dawned. How had he never seen it? The pair of them had been Nyx’s and Nereus’s only witnesses to their blood melding, so there could be no argument from any of the other immortal leaders whether the female Dionarch’s union to her beloved satyr was legitimate.

  Aodh’s wild anger diminished, his eyes now filled with hurt. “Instead you left me half-marked. My soul tainted by my mistake with Meri, and your blood a reminder of what I’d done wrong. Damn you for that.”

  Neph snapped his hand to the back of Aodh’s neck and yanked him close, crushing the dragon’s mouth with his own. Aodh growled a protest, digging his fingertips into Neph’s shoulders. His teeth remained clenched at first until Neph swept his tongue against his lower lip. Aodh let out a groan and opened, but didn’t wholly surrender the way he once would have. He fought for dominance as though to prove a point, though Neph had no idea what it was.

  In that kiss, he was reminded of the desperation of their old love, how filled with craving for a thing they didn’t believe they could ever have, and didn’t dare take it for themselves lest risk the wrath of the very gods.

  Aodh gripped Neph’s shoulder, slid his hand to the back of his neck, and held them tight together while he returned the assault with nips and tugs of his teeth against Neph’s mouth. Their tongues plunged past each other, tangling deep. The unspent anger was reflected in the way he tightened the grip of his other hand on Neph’s hip and pulled them flush, their cocks stiffening against each other as they kissed.

  When the bite of the dragon’s teeth turned vicious, Neph didn’t stop, instead returning the onslaught more ferociously himself, and when Aodh’s teeth drew blood, Neph relished the pain, letting out an exultant chuckle and squeezing his fingers tighter at the base of Aodh’s skull.

  He summoned his primal power to return the favor, his body aching for it now that his own blood had been spilled for the second time into his lover’s mouth. He bit down on Aodh’s lower lip, simply sucking at first and enjoying the erotic groan the dragon emitted and the way his hot erection surged against his hip. Then he bit down hard, forcing all his magic into the need he had for this to work, for his teeth to pierce Aodh’s impenetrable skin so he could grant the dragon that one wish—something he’d wanted himself since the very start.