by Alisa Woods
He was in love with Erelah, and there was no helping it. His beast had bonded with her, and any acts with another woman would be fraught with guilt and self-loathing. So he gave over to the idea, sought physical release with his own hand, and resigned himself to his fate.
All of which meant he had literally no modern precedent for seduction.
And seducing the Queen of the Summer Court? That was outside any dragon’s experience, except for his great-grandfather ten generations back. Who happened to not survive long enough to advise anyone on his seduction techniques. So… not helpful except perhaps as a warning, which apparently, Leksander would not heed.
He shook his head at his folly and swiped open the WildLove app. No matter how empty the act, he should practice his skills on a human female before attempting to seduce a fae queen. And the elaborate dating game he had staged for Leonidas would take too long. Leksander quickly finished out his WildLove profile then swiped right on several choices. No blondes, thank you very much. No one with angelic blue eyes or softly curved cheeks or voluptuously full breasts—
His first answer pinged on his tablet.
The message was merely a hotel name and room. Direct. To the point. He should welcome this, yet… he couldn’t seem to force himself to reply. Perhaps he should just show up at the appointed time? Surely courtesy dictated that he respond to confirm. She was red-haired, green-eyed, slender and tall… and she wanted to “ride your beast until you forget you’re a man,” which she helpfully added after the room information. And, if he were honest, that was precisely what he was looking for.
Yet, he still hesitated.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to tap in a reply. I will be there.
It was a few hours hence, which gave him time to gather his wits… except another response, then two, pinged on the tablet. He set it on the desk and drew back. What had he gotten himself into?
Then an altogether different buzzing started up.
He took a moment to realize it was his phone.
Leonidas.
A quick glance at the time said he and Rosalyn must be near the end of their duties in receiving guests. Leksander’s thoughts leaped to many undesirable things that could have happened. Demon invasion. Attack by rival dragon clans. A visit from the Angels. It wasn’t as if those things hadn’t happened already.
He quickly answered. “Do you need something, my brother?”
“Hello, Leksander! My brother, I’m sorry to interrupt you!”
What? “What’s wrong?” His brother was speaking for someone else’s benefit. Leksander started toward the door of his lair.
“Just a small thing,” Leonidas said over the phone, a hedge in his voice.
Before Leksander even reached the threshold, he surged out with his fae senses to sweep the keep. The wards were down around the throne room and the side entrance to it, but they were protected from the rest of the keep by another set of wards. Which only meant Leksander’s fae senses ran smack into the barrier between here and there. “I’m on my way!” Leksander said quickly.
“That’s all right, brother. I understand if you’re busy.”
What? Leksander stopped just outside his lair. “Is it the fae?” Maybe Leonidas needed him to gather the rest of the House before storming the throne room. Even then, it would be a difficult fight. But how dare the fae make an incursion now? Was the treaty worth nothing?
“No, no, nothing like that.” Leonidas’s voice held concern, but not the kind that would send Leksander into a panic.
“My brother, I don’t understand.” He wavered between sending a general alarm through the House and just striding to the throne room himself to assess the situation. “Do you want me there now or should I bring more help?”
Leonidas sighed, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I have two angelings here. Erelah is one of them. I don’t know the other.”
Leksander froze in place. His heart wrenched in a way that caused him physical pain. “Why is she here?” he growled out. He specifically told her he would handle this on his own… and now she was bringing more interference from the angel realm?
“They have a box for you. It’s white and glowing, and I’m pretty sure it’s angel magic.”
Fuck. That wasn’t something he could turn down. “I’m on my way.” Leksander hung up the phone and strode angrily toward the throne room. Whatever she had brought—and whoever she had brought with her—Leksander would accept it and send her packing. It was a constant struggle to keep her out of his thoughts when she wasn’t present. If she was truly his friend, as she claimed to be, she would respect his wishes. And right now, his fervent wish was for her to wink back through the transdimensional door that led to her faction’s realm… and stay there.
He had other women to seduce—ones who might actually want to be with him.
When he burst through the throne room doors, all heads swung to him. His entrance was already dramatic, so he ignored the stares and whispers and just hurried down the middle of the long hall toward the front dais. Erelah was there, clad in some tight-fitting half-toga that ended in snug shorts instead of a draping skirt. Per usual, the white, nearly transparent fabric clung to and revealed her curves in a way that would be seductive… except for the innocence of any seductive intent on her face.
Which was shining with inexplicable delight as he approached.
Leksander ground his teeth and tore his gaze from her to the angeling standing at her side. Both of their wings were out, and they stood just in front of Leonidas and Rosalyn on their thrones. Baby Thorn nestled in Rosalyn’s arms. The angeling was a male, and as scantily dressed and ethereally beautiful as they all were. This one had short, white-blond hair and blue eyes that steadily watched Leksander as he approached. The angeling’s toga draped low on his hips and barely covered his chest, revealing a tattoo down his arm. Leksander frowned as he got closer and realized the tattoo was of a dragon. It was unusual for angelings to tamper with their bodies—something about being perfectly made by God—but for one to wear a dragon tattoo seemed doubly strange.
The angeling studied Leksander, just as he was sizing him up. The glowing box was cradled in the angeling’s hands.
Erelah’s excited voice drew him back. “Leksander, I’m sorry to interrupt you. Were you hunting for a mate already?”
It was all Leksander could do not to snarl. “I’m handling it. As I said.” Leonidas was wincing in his chair, and Rosalyn’s smile looked forced and painful. The entire keep was watching, and Erelah had to spill it out? That artless innocence he so often made excuses for or secretly thought was endearing felt like a slap in the face now.
“Of course, you are,” the male angeling said, smoothing over the painful awkwardness. He bowed deeply to Leksander then held up the box. “I am Tajael. Markos has sent me with a gift and message. I hope the House of Smoke will forgive our intrusion, but our realm has a great and abiding interest in all the princes finding their True Loves and renewing the treaty.”
Leksander eyed him. Tajael was unusually well-spoken for an angeling. “Of course, we welcome any gifts from the angels.” As if they had a choice. But Leksander was trying to bring decorum back to the situation.
“I’m so pleased to hear that.” Tajael stepped forward and presented the gift to him.
“Isn’t this supposed to be for the new prince?” Leksander really didn’t want to take the proffered box. Erelah looked stricken at his hesitation, which gave him such a disturbing reaction—a grim satisfaction at her concern mixed with a painful longing for her approval—that he resolved to just take the box and get this over with.
“Ah! The young prince.” Tajael smiled in an openly adoring way at the baby tucked in Rosalyn’s arms. “We’ve already bestowed our kisses upon the child.” He turned back, and his smile tempered to a smirk. “Not an easy feat with a child so strong with fae magic. But the child is basked in love and surrounded by the protection of the treaty. He’s not the one Markos is concerned
for.”
Leksander narrowed his eyes. “He needn’t be concerned.”
“Of course.” Tajael waved that away, giving the impression he fully believed Leksander would easily find a mate while simultaneously not giving an inch on the concerned position of the Angels.
Leksander regarded him anew. This angeling was skilled in human interactions and had some purpose for being here beyond delivery of the box. “What is this message you want to deliver?”
Erelah was keeping strangely quiet, eyes bright as she let Tajael take the lead.
“First, if I may, the blessing.” Again, he offered the box.
Leksander reluctantly took it. Erelah beamed with happiness, but it felt to him like he was holding a bomb. Technically, this was a life-giving bomb, not a life-destroying bomb, but power hummed through it and made the runes jump along his skin all the same.
“This blessing is yours to dispense, prince of the House of Smoke,” Tajael said in a suddenly formal voice. “Whosoever you deem in need of it—your mate, your child, or even someone tangential but necessary to the purpose of renewing the treaty.”
“Thank you,” he said stiffly. A blessing from Markos helped save Lucian’s mate Arabella when she was beset by demon poison, so Leksander would definitely use it if the occasion arose.
Erelah seemed unable to contain herself any longer. “Markos wants you to know that you may call upon him.” She seemed to think this was a great honor.
“All right.” Leksander wasn’t in the mood to fawn over Markos.
Tajael nodded his encouragement to them both. “Markos was clear about the threat the fae may pose to your mating, Leksander. He assured me that I may use any powers I have—and call upon him if necessary—to ensure they do not interfere in this crucial matter.”
“I appreciate that.” Leksander tried to sound like he meant it, which he did, but the turmoil in his chest with Erelah being here was still keeping his words tight.
“To that end, I hope you’ll allow me to remain nearby,” Tajael said, his smile dropping into solemnness. “Erelah as well, of course. But I’d be honored if you would let me serve as a Protector during this critical time.”
Leksander knew Markos’s faction were Protector class angels, but this was just… no. “That’s not necessary.”
“I certainly hope so,” Tajael said with a smile. “Yet, I would hate to take any chances with the young future-prince. Especially given how the fate of humanity depends on his successful birth.”
Leksander clamped his teeth together. This was quickly sounding like it was non-negotiable. “I have an appointment in the city, so perhaps later—”
Tajael clasped his hands together. “Splendid! I hear the demon hunting in the city is especially good right now.” He gave a small smile to Erelah. Her smile had vanished, and she was back to looking stricken.
“I’m meeting a potential mate.” Leksander let the words hang in the air and studied Erelah’s face for any sign of jealousy or alarm, but she was just dashing looks between him and this Tajael person, as if she were more concerned about being excluded from the demon-hunting than anything else.
“Already meeting a mate? Even better!” Tajael said with a broad smile. He gave a nod to Erelah. “We’ll clear out the neighborhood of demons and then stand guard for any more that might wander your way. At a respectful distance, of course.”
Erelah nodded her assent quickly enough. Behind her, Leonidas was wide-eyed, no doubt at the news he was meeting “a potential mate.” And if Rosalyn’s eyebrows hiked up any higher, they’d fall straight off her head.
Leksander turned back to Erelah. So… he would fuck a human woman while Erelah circled overhead on her angelic white wings? Not how he’d envisioned this going, but if any act could convince his heart it had no chance with an angeling, that would be it.
“Very well,” Leksander growled out, his words directed at Tajael. “We leave immediately.” And with that, he turned his back on the two angelings and their vibrating hum of angel power, not waiting to see if they would follow.
With all their angel powers, they could beat him to Seattle anyway.
The trip to the city by air was short, and mercifully, neither Tajael nor Erelah attempted to mindspeak with Leksander in dragon form. Perhaps Tajael didn’t know how. Maybe Erelah was having second thoughts about witnessing, even from a “respectful distance,” while Leksander made another woman writhe in pleasure. And oh how he would make her writhe!
But, by the time they arrived, Leksander was convinced by the serious and determined expression on Erelah’s face that his speculation was just that—a fantasy in which Erelah actually cared what he did with his cock and where he put it. He knew her too well. That look of tense excitement was for the demon kill. Perhaps also for “guarding” Leksander’s tryst, as Tajael put it, since that was a step forward in Leksander fulfilling the duty Erelah had been endlessly insisting he must. She was concerned for all of humanity… not a single human/dragon hybrid like himself. At least, no further than the duty which befell him.
His disappointment in that ran deep. It was still his heart that needed to be convinced of its foolishness… and this was a grand, if messy and disturbing, way to do it.
They circled over the hotel where Leksander’s WildLove date would arrive in about an hour, assuming she kept the appointment. He had no idea the hit rate on these things. It didn’t take long for a demon-infected human to enter the five-block radius they were patrolling. Erelah dove for it first while Leksander and Tajael were left to follow. By the time they landed, Erelah had already grabbed the young man—he couldn’t be over twenty—off the street, flew with him into an alley, landed amongst the dumpsters, and plunged her angel blade into his chest. All entirely cloaked, of course. The demon wail was ear-splitting, and the man’s cries were muffled by her hand, but they could still be heard.
“She’s exceptionally talented,” Tajael said in a conversational voice, standing next to Leksander with his nearly bare chest and angelic toga.
Leksander didn’t bother to answer. In fact, he ignored Tajael’s presence as much as possible, focusing on the way Erelah’s kill made her delicately pale skin flush, how she tipped her head back, eyes closed—that entrancing pose was precisely the one he used in all his best fantasies while bringing himself to climax in the cold loneliness of his lair. In an alternate world, Erelah would have that expression as he gave her an orgasm like no angel ever had. And perhaps that was entirely the problem—the pleasure she sought wasn’t the kind he could give.
The man she was saving went limp in her arms. Erelah yanked the blade free of his body and gathered him to her bosom like a lover.
“However, the best part is the kiss,” Tajael said by his side.
Leksander flicked a look at him. The angeling was studying Leksander’s face with an inscrutable expression. He schooled his face so what he was thinking wasn’t so brazen upon it. But it was hard to maintain his disinterested exterior when Erelah was giving an open-mouthed, erotic kiss to the human in her arms. She was breathing life into him—Leksander understood that intellectually—but the flush of pleasure through both was unmistakable. The man’s arousal scent flooded the alley, not to mention that he was now sporting an impressive erection. Erelah’s face was likewise rapturous.
With a jolt, Leksander realized that, all long, he’d been watching her engage in what was essentially her most erotic act… and not from a “respectful distance” but up close and personal, like some indecent voyeur. Except Erelah had no qualms about flaunting it in front of him.
He was now even more determined to repay that flaunting in kind.
She finished her kiss, and her rescued human stumbled away, a look of longing on his face. It struck Leksander again that this casual human that Erelah just met had already experienced more first-hand pleasure at her hands than he ever would. That, and the heavy-lidded expression on her face was so clearly a post-orgasmic haze. Leksander’s jealousy seethed so strong, he
could barely contain it to the low growl deep inside his chest.
“I claim the next one!” Tajael said brightly, unfurling his wings and lifting out of the alley. Erelah quickly followed, and Leksander trailed after them.
For the love of magic… he didn’t know if he could stand to watch that again. Erelah showing off all the pleasure Leksander could never touch would be the death of him.
By the time he caught up to Erelah and Tajael, the male angeling was already deep into giving his life kiss to an elderly woman. Leksander had to wonder at the prevalence of demons in the city. It seemed to be on a substantial upswing, something he only vaguely noticed when he was hunting with Erelah. Then, his thoughts had been too tormented and absorbed by his own dilemma—and trying to discern Erelah’s heart—to notice the demons themselves. But in the cool observation of Tajael rescuing yet another demon-infected human, Leksander had to wonder what this escalation meant for the House of Smoke as guardians of humanity—in their hometown of Seattle most especially. Had the demons raged out of control while they were away in France? Was the rightful pre-occupation of the dragon princes with the need to mate giving leeway to the Winter Court to continue their plans unnoticed… or at least without resistance?
Tajael released the woman. The flush of orgasm on the elderly woman’s face—she definitely enjoyed her life kiss from a handsome angeling in a nighttime alley—seemed to make her twenty years younger. Erelah stood nearby, an approving look on her face. Tajael stepped up to her and—
Leksander’s mouth dropped open.
He didn’t know what he expected, but Tajael grabbing hold of Erelah’s cheeks and planting an open-mouthed kiss on her was not fucking it.
A volcano of anger and jealousy and flat-out rage surged up in Leksander’s chest.
