Dragon Lord

by Dragon Lord (NCP) (lit)

  Closing her eyes, Raina smiled. “Go and look at them and come back and tell me.”

  She dropped into oblivion when the healer had finally stopped bothering her and went away. When she woke again the room was dim, as if darkness had fallen. Somewhere in the distance she heard the faint threads of music and many voices. For a while, she struggled with the realization that it had been midday the last she recalled and finally pressed her hands to her belly. It felt so strangely soft and flat.

  A light came on at her movement and she squinted at Simon, who’d been sleeping in a chair across from her. “Where are the babies?”

  “Sleeping--as you should be.”

  Disappointment filled her. “I only got to hold them a minute.”

  He pushed himself from the chair and sat on the bed beside her. “You have had little rest in weeks. Rest. They are being well attended, you may be sure. Each of them have a nurse for their needs and Audric is standing guard over them--when he is not making absurd faces and strange noises at them. I told him to stop frightening them.”

  Raina frowned, searching her memory. “Did he faint?”

  Simon chuckled, but quickly pretended to cough. “Nay, lady. He is a fearless draconian warrior! Why would you think that?”

  She thought it over. “He had a knot on his forehead the size of my fist.”

  He grinned. “I will let you ask Audric.” He hesitated. “Will it discomfort you for me to lie beside you?”

  Raina smiled. “I could sleep better.”

  Dragging his boots off, he climbed into the bed with her and settled beside her. “They are beautiful and I could not be more pleased or proud--of them or you.”

  “You said Devlyn was ugly,” she said accusingly.

  “He had been through a great trial. I have seen him. He is handsome now that he is not such a bloody mess. In truth, I did not get a very good look at first. I was trying not to disgrace myself as Audric did.”

  Raina chuckled, but then frowned. “What is all that noise?”

  Simon grinned at her. “They are celebrating the birth of the crown prince of Schalome--and our new princess. You need not concern yourself that you are welcome only because you will be my mate. They adore you as much as I do.”

  Raina sighed blissfully and snuggled next to him. “Do you adore me?”

  Simon slipped his arms around her and sighed contentedly. “With every fiber of being, beloved.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  One year later …

  Raina propped her head on her hand and watched Audric appreciatively through half closed eyes as he removed his clothing. Catching her gaze as he finished removing his trousers, he paused, studied her a moment and, his eyes gleaming with amusement, posed, flexing his muscles for her. A smile tugged her lips upward. “Mmm,” she murmured, “very, very nice. I especially like that muscle right there,” she added, pointing to the erect cock jutting from his belly.

  Grinning, he moved toward her. Placing a knee on the bed and one hand on her hip, he rolled her onto her back as he settled the bulk of his weight on his side on the bed and dragged her beneath him. “It likes you, also. Especially this little part of you right here,” he murmured, holding her gaze with his as he glided a hand over her belly and cupped her mound in his hand.

  Dragging one leg upward, she allowed it to drop to one side, giving him better access as he stroked a long digit along her dampness and found her sex, delving inside. “I like it when you let your fingers do the walking, too,” she murmured huskily as he stroked his finger slowly in and out along her passage.

  Lifting her arm, she settled her palm over the bulging muscle he’d been displaying for her moments earlier and tracked the contour upward and across his shoulder until she’d hooked her hand behind his head, drawing him down to her. Their lips met, clung briefly and parted. Again and again, he teased her and finally settled his mouth fully over hers and teased her with the stroke of his tongue in imitation of the steady movements of his finger inside of her.

  Heat blossomed, delightful tension building inside of her until she began to move restlessly against him, surging upward to meet his hand, sucking hungrily at his teasing tongue. He slipped between her thighs after a moment, replacing his finger with his cock, surging into her with maddeningly slow thrusts until he’d seated his engorged member fully inside of her. He went still then, curling his body over hers until he could capture her mouth beneath his in a kiss filled with far more hunger than before, a kiss that sent a fresh surge of heated need through her.

  She lifted her legs, wrapping them tightly around his waist and curling her hips into his, the muscles along her passage quaking with the delightful spread of fire through her veins. He wrenched his mouth from hers abruptly. Pushing himself upward on his arms, he watched her face as he began to move his hips rhythmically, stroking the walls of her sex in pleasurable, teasing caresses that made her breath hitch in her chest.

  Breathless, feeling the channeling of sensations focus inside her, feeling the tingling, almost electric charges jolting through her as her body gathered itself toward its peak, she dropped her feet to the bed and curled her hips to meet his thrusts, moaning her pleasure in the feel of his body inside hers.

  Audric began to move faster to accommodate her rising need and his own, shuddering as he struggled to pace himself with her, allowing his passion to take over as he felt her nearing her peak. The moment he felt her passage begin to quake around his member, felt her muscles clenching him, milking him, he yielded control to her, allowed her body to coax his seed from him. He curled around her as she came, covering her mouth to drink in her soft cries of pleasure, groaning his own into her mouth.

  He was gasping for breath when his body finally stopped convulsing in release. Weak and utterly content in the aftermath, he wanted nothing more than to stay just as he was, joined with her flesh to flesh. Instead, he gathered himself and rolled over, carrying her with him until she was draped bonelessly across his chest.

  “I pleasured you, beloved?” he asked after a bit, just to be sure, just because he liked hearing her tell him.

  “Mmmm,” she murmured lazily against his chest, the hum of her voice tickling him.

  “I may take that as a yes?”

  She chuckled. “You know you did.”

  “You are stingy with your compliments,” he complained without heat.

  She lifted her head. Folding her arms over his chest, she propped her chin on her hands and stared up at him, a half smile on her lips. “All that moaning and groaning wasn’t enough for you?” she asked teasingly.

  He folded his hands behind his head to stare down her. “I came with you. I thought my timing very nice.”

  She chuckled. “You almost always come with me,” she pointed out.

  “Because my timing is always very nice.”

  Laughing, she removed her hands and placed a kiss in the center of his chest before shifting upwards to nestle her face against his neck. “And it always pleases me no end,” she murmured.

  He stoked a hand along her back, caressingly, releasing a deep sigh of contentment. “I love you, Raina.”

  “I love you, Audric,” she murmured.

  He swallowed, the sound loud in her ears. She sensed tension in the prolonged silence. “If this does not happen as we had hoped, I will not be disappointed.”

  Raina said nothing for a moment. “You wouldn’t?”

  “Mayhap a little,” he conceded after a lengthy pause.

  Raina smiled against his throat. “Then you wouldn’t be disappointed if it did happen?”

  “I would be very happy if it did. I am only saying that I will still be happy, even if it does not.”

  Raina slipped off of him, but propped on her arm to study his face. “But you would be happier if it did?”

  He studied her face, frowning faintly. “I had thought Simon crazed when he suggested this, but I wanted it too badly to try very hard to dissuade him--even though I believed we would only e
nd up with all of us miserable more often than happy. But I am more content than I had ever believed possible and I do not want you to think that I am not, or that anything would change that.”

  She studied his face for a long moment and finally lifted a finger to draw little circles along his chest with it. “Then you’re saying you don’t actually need anything more to make you content with your life?”

  He caught her finger. “No more than you.”

  She released a deep sigh of feigned regret. “Then I suppose you won’t be nearly as excited about my news as I’d hoped.”

  He stared at her blankly for a moment and then sat up abruptly. “You are saying …?”

  Raina chuckled. Grasping his hand, she guided it downward and settled his palm over her belly. “I am saying, yes.”

  He studied his hand on her belly and then her face. Slowly, a smile dawned and then widened to a grin. “You are certain?”

  “Oh yeah! I’m sure.”

  Chuckling, he pushed her onto her back and kissed her soundly on the mouth. “You are…?” he asked when he’d broken the kiss.

  “I are,” she responded with a grin.

  He sighed shakily and stroked her belly. “I wonder if it will be a male child or a female?”

  “One or the other, for sure--if its both, I may murder you,” she added jokingly.

  “Gods! I hope not!” he said in sudden horror. “That would be ….” He stopped, grinning as he thought that over. “Simon would be very outdone. He has preened himself over producing two at once … very modestly, of course.”

  Raina eyed him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance--at both him and Simon. “Well, you’re just going to have to preen over one!” She considered that a moment and finally shrugged. “At a time.”

  He caught her face between his palms and kissed her again. “You may be certain that I will be so puffed up with pride that I will be insufferable.”

  * * * *

  Raina lay on her belly on a blanket beneath the shade of the open sided tent that had been erected on the beach for her use, dreamily studying Audric, Racquel, and Devlyn. Racquel and Devlyn were naked, and Audric the next thing to it--wearing a sort of breechcloth that was going to figure in her fantasies for a while. He was focused on trying to build a sandcastle for the babies, and they were focused on trying, by turns, to eat it, staggering around in drunken glee--delighted they’d gotten the knack of walking-- and racing on their stubby little legs for the waves crashing on the shore some distance away.

  For the most part, he kept their attention, but every now and then either Racquel or Devlyn would make a dash for the water and he’d spring up and chase them down.

  He was good with them and they adored him.

  They seemed a little confused about which man was daddy, but they adored both Simon and Audric, and Simon didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

  He had suggested, though, that he would be pleased when Audric had his own.

  A delicious shiver rippled through her.

  Audric had certainly been working very diligently on fathering one.

  As if he’d read her thoughts, he lifted his head just then and met her gaze. A slow smile curled her lips. He gave her one in return, his eyes taking on a speculative gleam.

  Simon had had a summer palace built for her on the shores of the sea to remind her of home and she and Audric and the babies had been here lazing in the sun for nearly two months while Simon was off working on a peace treaty with a neighboring kingdom that had thought a bit too hard about annexing a little corner of Simon’s realm.

  She sighed. She missed him. As much as she loved Audric, as much as she enjoyed the times they spent together, she always hungered for Simon.

  She supposed that was one of the reasons Simon had decided that she should take Audric as her consort. He’d known she would be lonely a lot of the time, away from her homeland and people, and he loved her enough to worry about it and to want to make certain she was happy and protected.

  And she was and she loved the palace he’d had built for her to remind her of home, and she still missed Simon.

  Sighing again, she got up and joined Audric and the babies. They’d been a little small at birth, but they were beginning to make up for it. Simon and Audric had both been a little outdone that she’d been determined to breast feed them herself. Women of high birth in Schalome did not feed their babies themselves. They had wet nurses for that purpose, to which she’d responded that she wasn’t native born, or high born, and she meant to feed her babies herself.

  She was glad she had, because it seemed to have given them a tremendous growth boost. Racquel had inherited her father’s hair and her eyes, and Devlyn her hair and his father’s eyes, but both of them looked just like Simon.

  It was no wonder he thought they were so beautiful, she thought with amusement.

  Her throat closed as the thought prompted the memory of the night Simon had told her how much Racquel reminded him of Tiera. His voice had cracked. He had never mentioned his lost daughter before, and not once since, but she understood. He couldn’t bear to speak of her.

  She was so glad she’d been able to fill some of the emptiness and ease some of his heartache.

  Maybe, she thought, that was the main reason he had decided to form the unconventional family they had. He’d had so much taken from him. He was so fearful of losing again. And he couldn’t be in two places at once. As jealous as he was of Audric, still, he needed constant reassurance that he wouldn’t lose her and the babies, and he knew that Audric protected her and his children when he couldn’t be with them.

  “This little one is the image of her mother,” Audric said, noticing Raina was watching with a half smile curling her lips as the baby dug her toes in the loose sand.

  She didn’t say anything. He was determined her daughter was going to be just like her no matter what she said. Instead, she smiled at him lovingly. “I wonder if little Audric will be the image of his father?” she asked musingly.

  He grinned at her, excitement gleaming in his eyes. “Do you think it will be a son?”

  Raina felt her throat tighten with love. “I hope so. Will you be disappointed if it’s a girl?”

  He shook his. “Not even a little--especially if she is the image of the woman I love.”

  He looked down at the twins, who were quite happily crawling all over him. “Did you hear this, little ones? Mommy will have you a … uh … hmm.”

  Raina laughed. “Another brother or sister? You’re not going to faint on me this time, are you? Because I expect you to be the cheering section.”

  He reddened. “I did not faint. It was only that I felt a little dizzy and decided to sit down to rest.”

  “Whatever you say, teddy bear!” Her eyes narrowed on his mouth. “What do you say we take the babies to the nanny and go back to my place to fool around? I’ve been having fantasies about this gorgeous draconian with tight little buns running around in a loincloth.”

  His eyes turned slumberous with desire. “This is someone I know?”

  She stood up, taking Devlyn and settling him on her hip. She gave Audric a look over her shoulder as she started down the beach. He got to his feet abruptly, brushed the sand off and snatched Racquel up, tossing her into the air. “Nap time, sweeting!” he said, smiling up at her as she laughed and tried to pull his nose off.

  He caught up to her in a moment, dropping an arm across her shoulders as they walked companionably along the beach that reminded Raina so much of the beach where she’d made love to Simon so long ago. She wondered if that was why he’d chosen this particular spot.

  She liked to think so.

  A man appeared on a dune ahead of them, staring toward the sea, his long, silky black hair fluttering in the breeze and Raina’s heart stilled in her chest. She felt Audric stiffen. He stopped. Raina looked up at him worriedly. He lifted his free hand and caressed her cheek. “Go to him. I can not begrudge him the company of his beloved Rainie. He has allow
ed me more than I ever dared hope for.”

  Raina smiled up at him and rose up on her tiptoes. Placing a hand on either cheek, she kissed him briefly on the lips. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Give me Dev before you dash off.”

  She kissed the babies and turned to look for Simon. He had walked down the dune and was coming toward them. Hiking the skirts of the long gown she wore up to her knees, she raced toward him, flinging herself into his open arms when she reached him hard enough he had to take a step back to catch his balance. “Simon! I’ve missed you so much!” she gasped, kissing him all over the face.

  He chuckled, lifting her up for a more satisfying kiss. When he set her on her feet again, he glanced down the beach at Audric, who’d turned away to climb the dunes.

  Returning his attention to Raina, he studied her face questioningly. “I hope that this trip has been as fruitful for you as mine was, beloved, for I must tell you these past months have been pure hell for me and I do not think that I can leave you for so long again.”

  Raina nuzzled her face against his chest, inhaling his scent with pure delight. “I think it was. I don’t want you to leave me for so again, either.”

  Some of the tension left him. “Think?”

  “I told Audric.”

  His eyes narrowed speculatively. “Seven months?”

  She shrugged. “More or less.”

  He tugged her down on to the sand, kissing her hungrily as he drew her into his arms. Raina was breathless by the time he dragged his lips from hers and began to refamiliarize himself with her throat and the upper slope of her breasts. Unfastening the first few buttons of her gown and freeing her breasts, he kept going. The heat of his mouth on her breasts and the rough caress of tongue completed her descent into mind drugging euphoria. “We aren’t going to do this here?” she gasped dizzily as he switched breasts. “Someone will see us. The guards are everywhere.”

  “Umm,” he murmured, suckling one turgid tip. “We have only seven months, more or less, and I must yield up my breasts to another. I will cover you with my body. No one will see anything more than my white ass bobbing in the sun, and they will have no interest in that.”