by Amelia Jade
It wasn’t long before Blaine began to move against her, sliding himself so far away until she felt empty and looked up at him insistently, telling him he needed to give it to her again.
Every time he hesitated, but she won out and his wonderful cock pushed deep inside of her again. Her hands began to play with her breasts of their own accord as Blaine kept himself hovering above her. His eyes focused on the ways she touched herself, but he never stopped what he was doing.
Cassi’s voice grew ragged and hoarse as she continued to cry out, eventually begging him to go faster, and harder. She needed him now, her primitive urges rising up, demanding that he take her as his own.
Blaine rose to the challenge, taking her legs and rotating her around until she presented him with her ass, her head buried in the edge of the couch.
Strong, warm hands grabbed her hips and pulled her back against him, impaling her on his long shaft. Cassi shuddered at the new sensations of a different position, and knew instantly that she was going to come a second time.
“Harder,” she snarled as he started off slow. Her hips thrust backward, forcing him deep inside of her.
Blaine didn’t need much more coercing. His fingers tightened on her sides and held her still as he thrust hard, his hips making her ass shake as he fucked her harder and harder, relentlessly slamming into her from behind even as Cassi held on for dear life, her cries bouncing off the walls, filling the apartment.
Without warning his cock seemed to swell in size. Cassi cried out, feeling as if she were about to be ripped apart. Blaine groaned loudly, pulling her in even harder, and that was all it took.
She saw white as the strongest climax she’d ever experienced ripped through her body, triggered by the burst of warmth that shot deep inside of her as Blaine came. Jets of hot liquid filled her up even as her walls tightened around him, draining him of everything as she came as well, unable to move in his grip.
They collapsed onto the couch, barely fitting even curled up as they were, Blaine still deep inside of her as they came down slowly from their highs together.
“Holy shit,” he gasped from behind her, his hot breath washing over her neck, making her shiver with delight at his closeness.
Cassi didn’t have the energy to respond verbally. All she could do was move her hips slightly in agreement, hoping he got the point.
Her eyebrows flew open in surprise at his response to that. His cock began to twitch, rapidly hardening once again.
Oh my. I wonder if…
She squeezed tight around him again, and felt the response.
“Already?” she forced out, even as he began to grind into her from behind.
But she wasn’t objecting.
No, not at all…
Fuccckkkkkkkkk.
Chapter Nine
Cassian
She pushed the door open, forcing a blank look over her face.
It was tough, after the night she had shared with Blaine, but sometimes appearances had to be met.
“Miss Karkasy,” one of the staffers said as he came to inspect the noise at the door. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” she said sharply, though she didn’t—quite—snap at him. “Is anyone else up?”
The staffer, she didn’t know his name, nodded hurriedly. “Yes, Taurin urged everyone to go in early today.”
“Great. Working while it’s still dark out,” she muttered.
Fall was beginning to give way to winter, slowly but surely, and the days were growing shorter and shorter. It was still dark out, and would be for another hour at least. If they were headed in to begin work early, that meant it would be dark when she went to work, and likely dark when she got out.
Swell.
Cassi headed up to the rooms that had been assigned to her on the second floor and began to get ready. As she washed, she couldn’t help but recall the way Blaine had touched her the night before as he cleaned her following their second—or had it been the third?—round of lovemaking.
He had such a way with skin, a need to always be in contact with her, to touch her and explore every inch of her. It made Cassi shiver even under the scalding water flowing over her.
A smile set itself on her face as she pictured him that morning. Bleary-eyed and not fully aware of his surroundings, he’d still been more than happy to kiss her goodbye. Her face tingled with the memory of his facial hair tickling her skin.
“Let’s go, Cassi,” a voice called from outside her door several minutes later as she was getting dressed.
It was Maurille, one of the senior members of her team to come along. He was also the only one she respected, and thus the single member who could call her Cassi without getting their head torn off.
“Yeah, almost ready,” she replied, tugging on a black skirt and her white top. This time she threw a vest over it as well, to change up her appearance.
The smile slipped from her face as she descended the stairs, the room below still lit by artificial light, because only darkness streamed in from the windows.
Breakfast was a quick thing, and then they were out the door. Funnily enough, Taurin did not join them. Not that he had any reason to, but he hadn’t been around to eat either. A quick questioning found that he had not even risen, despite telling the legal team to go in early, to get that extra leg up.
Fucking typical. What an ass.
“I think I’m going to stretch my legs today,” Maurille said as they approached the pair of circles in the yard.
“Fabulous idea,” Cassi said without hesitation, altering her course to follow the cobblestones out of the Fenris Consulate and into the streets beyond.
The rest of the team followed suit, knowing they should do as she did. Cassi would not take it lightly if they decided to shift and go on ahead, arriving before she did. That was an unacceptable action, as she would lose face over it.
As she turned the corner onto the street, Cassi saw a light flick on in the second story of the Consulate. Figures, Taurin is probably just now waking up. What an asshole.
So they walked, the streets nearly empty, save for the odd passerby, who often stayed to themselves and even went so far as to cross the street to avoid them.
A left took them onto a somewhat narrower, and completely deserted street. Only slightly bigger than an alley, the road cut off a significant amount of time from their trip, making it so they did not have to go out and around the blocks of buildings in the way.
“So are we still going with the same plan for his defense plea?” Maurille asked, his voice pitched low and only to Cassi, not inviting conversation from the others.
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “I think trying to argue that he was not in his right mind is the only real hope we have. They have evidence to prove that it was physically him who did it. So we have to convince them that it wasn’t the Garviel we know who acted. That something affected him and caused him to see things alternatively to the real world.”
Maurille made a thoughtful noise. She knew he disagreed with the plan, and this was his own private way of trying to get her to change her mind, without outright questioning her authority. It was that tact that made her respect him. He would do as she commanded, but he wasn’t about to just step aside and follow her like a blind dog.
“What do you think—”
Something entered Cassi’s mind even as Maurille began to speak.
Something’s wrong.
A noise caught her attention. The road was empty though; nobody but her team was there.
It’s not coming from the road.
It was coming from the—
“COVER!” she roared and dove out of the way.
She hit the ground and rolled from the middle of the street a split second before the buildings were illuminated in red-orange shadow as a massive gout of flame struck the cobblestones from above. It had come from behind them, and the rear pair of her team, Korban and Jameson, barely threw themselves clear in time.
Maurille, who had been in mid-sentence, his attention completely focused elsewhere, didn’t react swiftly enough. The shockwave of the fire hitting the cobblestones and reflecting back up reached him while he was still in the air and tossed him aside like a ragdoll, where he bounced off a building façade and back into the line of fire.
“Maurille!” she screamed as the flame washed over him, completely engulfing the shifter.
And then it was gone, the attacking dragon winging away with powerful wingbeats, disappearing into the night sky before she or any of her team could even consider going after it.
Even if she’d been ready to go, she couldn’t leave Maurille. Rising up from her prone position, she ignored the heat radiating up from the cobblestones and ran to his side.
He was lying there, grimacing and trying not to cough.
“Maurille, are you okay?” she asked, belatedly remembering that he too was a Fire Dragon, and thus nearly immune to the effects of Dragonfire.
“Mostly,” he said, grimacing. He picked himself up gingerly, his clothes no more than ashes as they fell away from him, leaving him naked.
Modesty wasn’t a huge part of shifter culture, and so he wasn’t embarrassed by his nudity, though several of the people who had come out of their houses to see what was going on covered their eyes, or the eyes of a small child.
“You!” Cassi shouted as one particularly calm person stepped forward from a house. “Summon the Guardians.”
“I am a Guardian,” he said, stepping into the light now provided as one of the nearby buildings burned. “The others have been summoned as well.”
“My house is burning! Someone, please, do something!”
Shit.
“Will they get here soon enough to do something about that?” Cassi asked the Guardian.
He shook his head. “Unlikely.”
“Dammit.” She looked around, and then jogged toward the house.
This wasn’t something she’d wanted to give away that she could do, but the alternative was to let the poor woman and her family watch as their house burned.
“Back up!” she commanded as people came closer.
Cassi knelt on one knee, fists on the ground on either side of her, eyes closed. Her consciousness reached deep into the core of her being, and found the ball of cold, of ice at a temperature lower than most things on the planet.
She put an imaginary hand on it. Then a second, gripping the glowing orb with both hands. It started in her fingers, a numbing sensation as she allowed the cold to enter her. It swept up her arms, but she used a mental block to stop it there. The cold built, and built, until her arms were frozen solid.
“Cassi. Cassi are you okay?” Maurille was standing next to her.
Her eyes snapped open, the orbs as icy blue as ever, the color spreading, until her entire eye glowed with a blue so brilliant it was nearly white.
Focusing, she took cold that was in her arms and sent it into the cobblestone below her, releasing the built-up pressure in a wave.
Ice flowed out from where her fingertips touched the stones. Like someone spilling a drink, it rushed across the distance between her and the house, reaching the walls and climbing up them, instantly freezing everything it touched.
Including the fire, which was promptly snuffed out as the cold overwhelmed it.
When the last flame extinguished itself, she withdrew the hands from the orb within her mind, and allowed the last of the cold to flow out of her and into the cobblestones, cooling them down quickly as well.
Feeling returned to her arms in a rush of pain, pins and needles shooting up and down her limbs in a wave of agony.
“Thank you!” the woman said, wrapping her up in a hug that bore the namesake of her shifter.
“You are welcome,” she said, standing unsteadily.
Maurille was there to steady her, but she waved him off.
Overhead something winged close and she prepared to change.
“That is a friend,” the unnamed Guardian said as a massive blue dragon cruised by at low altitude, its head looking upward, focused on the skies around it.
Behind her came a cacophony as something came down the cobblestone street.
Seconds later a pair of wolves emerged, followed by two hard-charging bears. They shifted as they neared, resolving themselves into a quartet of grim-faced men, all of whom bore the metallic badge with a G on it, announcing themselves as Guardians.
“Is everyone okay? Does anyone need medical attention?” one of them asked immediately as they fanned out.
“No,” Maurille said. “But I could use some clothes.”
“I’ll get a towel,” one of the residents who had watched said, ducking back inside and emerging moments later with a large towel for him to wrap around himself.
Boots clicked on the cobblestone behind her, and Cassi could hear the slightly hushed sound from the crowd. Someone important had just approached.
She turned slowly, a sliver of fear piercing her stomach, but it evaporated quickly as she looked up into a pair of far too familiar green eyes.
“Blaine!’ she exclaimed, and went to hug him.
A warning flared in his eyes though, and she caught herself in time, making her arms cross in front of her instead of reaching up to hug him.
“What happened here?” he asked, his voice calm but commanding.
This was Guardian Blaine, she realized, the man he was when dealing with official business. So she too, would be the same. Cassi was a graduate of the Fenris equivalent to Top Scale Academy, the place they had termed Hawk’s Nest. That, and several decades of service as a Ward of Fenris, the equivalent to being a Guardian, had taught her how to act.
“We were attacked. Fire Dragon. One pass, from our rear to our front,” she said in quick, brief sentences, pointing out the angle of attack. “One minor injury, with the biggest casualty being his clothing, and our eyes, for having to see him without,” she added as Maurille came closer.
“Ouch,” he muttered, but didn’t comment further. Her team knew when to step back and let Cassi do what needed to be done. This, Maurille had decided, was obviously one of those times.
“Only one pass and then the dragon disappeared,” Blaine said aloud to himself.
Cassi could see his eyes focus on the ice-encrusted house. His eyebrows rose fractionally in surprise, and she could see him fighting himself not to look back over at her.
It would appear he hadn’t believed her capable of such a thing either. It was a very useful skill, and one that often took Frost Dragon shifters another century or two to learn, from what she’d been told by the dragon who had taught her the trick.
Oh well. It’s a good thing to always keep him on his toes I guess.
“Let’s get you to the Administrative Building,” he said at last. “Then we can deal with this some more.”
***
Blaine
As he’d suspected, the jury had agreed to dismiss the trial for the day, despite Cassi’s protests that they wanted to move ahead. Blaine understood her desire to get it over with, but this was not something that could be overlooked.
She and her team were technically ambassadors from Fenris. They had been attacked while on Cadian soil. Already he knew that Taurin, their leader, was raising hell about it. Others would likely rattle their swords, he was sure, but Blaine doubted one attack like that would be enough to provoke Fenris into full-out war.
Especially since nobody died. He counted his lucky stars that the only member of their team to get hit had been a Fire Dragon as well. The odds of that happening were extremely high, but they’d gotten lucky that time.
He wondered who would have attacked them, and why.
“This is more like the reaction I expected,” Cassi said from across the table.
They sat in the cafeteria of the Administrative Building.
“What?” he asked, looking at her intently, eyes narrowing.
“The sneak attack on outsiders, especially anyone from Fenri
s. That’s what I expected coming in here.”
“Uh, okay?” Blaine wasn’t sure what to say. “Why would you expect that from us?”
Because, that’s what Cadians do. They dislike us, and have no issues trying to kill us.”
Blaine shook his head, not quite sure he could believe what he was hearing. “I’m not going to argue that everyone in Cadia is a saint. I think we both know that isn’t true. But this is the first attack on a visiting non-Cadian ambassador that I can think of,” he said. “We actually take this sort of thing very seriously. More so because whoever it was used their dragon breath to attack. That is not allowed in Cadia.”
He saw Cassi’s eyes lose focus. She was probably remembering their flight the other day, where he’d told her not to use her breath in Cadia unless attacked.
“Perhaps,” she said at last, but he could tell she didn’t believe him. “So why would she do it then?”
“She?”
“Oh come on. You know who it was,” Cassi said, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, a Fire Dragon attacks the people here to defend a Fenris shifter who tried to kidnap a Fire Dragon, and you don’t think for even a second that Rhynne had something to do with this?”
“No,” he said icily, “I don’t think she had a damn thing to do with this.”
Cassi’s eyes snapped up, blazing with cold fire as she reacted to his tone.
“Rhynne Nova is a good person. This is not the type of thing she would stoop to.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“Yes, I can,” he replied testily, angered by her insolent tone.
“How?”
“Because she’s six months pregnant. She was three months along when he tried to kidnap her. You know as well as I do that she wouldn’t risk her offspring like that.”
Cassi subsided, her unhappy silence confirming to him that she agreed with his statement.
“In addition, Cassian,” he said, using her full name for effect, “Rhynne happens to be an extremely good friend of mine. I’d appreciate it if you showed her some respect. She didn’t ask for Garviel to attack her without provocation and attempt to kidnap her and force her to be his mate. She’s not going to respond in kind, however. Of that, you have my guarantee.”
