Laughing and smiling, Sera did it after a few minutes of trying. While she still wasn’t as accomplished at it or nearly as graceful as he was, she was quite pleased with her efforts. It wasn’t bad for a first try.
Max shook his head at her giddy excitement. “I can’t believe you’ve never done this before. Were you never curious?”
It wasn’t as simple as that. “I’ve never been shocked. And … I fought the urge to shift anytime it came over me. My aunt, Keria, always said we should never give in to the animal inside us. That we should fear it taking us over and ruling us.”
“And now?”
She changed back to being human. “I should never have feared you. I’m sorry, Maxis.” Completely naked, she did what she’d never done before. She embraced his dragon form.
Closing his eyes, Max savored the sensation of her warm, feminine flesh against his scales. Damn, it made him so hard that for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
“Um, I do have one question.”
He opened his eyes to look down at her. “That is?”
“How do I get my clothes back?”
Laughing, he returned to being a man so that he could gather her into his arms, and press the part of him that was most desperate for her against her hip. “Are you sure you want them?”
Seraphina sucked her breath in sharply as he ran his hands over her bare skin and nibbled the flesh of her neck. “Not if you’re going to do that.”
And then he stepped away and released her, and started that circling thing he did that always made her so dizzy and hot. It was a combination of his scent and the sizzling way he looked at her. Like he was going to devour her, to savor every inch of her body. Which he invariably did. With a thoroughness that was inhuman and intoxicating.
And that particular combination of wild beast and sexy man was deadly.
“Max…”
He dipped down low in front of her and came up for an incredibly sweet, passionate kiss as he lifted her from her feet and held her flush to his hard, muscled body. She wrapped her legs around his waist while he lowered them to the ground so that he could deepen his kiss. Leaning her head back, she moaned at how good his mouth felt on her throat. How incredible it was to have all the hard strength pressing down on her again.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she breathed as she explored the wealth of his satiny skin with her hands.
“And I, you.” He cupped her face to stare down at her eyes. “When I heard what Zeus had done to your tribe, I want you to know that I went after you, to free you.”
She blinked in disbelief. “What?”
He nodded. “I tried to barter for your release. I’m so sorry I failed you.”
How could he apologize to her after what they’d done to him? After what she’d allowed them to do? “Are you the one who placed my stone under a shelter?”
Heat stained his cheeks as he gave her a bashful stare. “Since I couldn’t free you, I wanted you protected. Zeus had forbidden that any of the stones be removed from where he’d placed them. He would have splintered you. So I built the shelter over you to keep your stone from harm. I would have done the same for the children, too, had I known.”
She stared up at him in wonder. “You can’t help it, can you?”
“What?”
“Looking after me.”
He took her hand into his and kissed her marked palm. “You are my dragonswan. My Strah Draga. It is my honor to care for you.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Shaking his head, he nuzzled her neck. “No.” His hot breath scorched her skin and sent chills over her entire body. “You are my heart, Seraphina. And leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
She sank her hand in his hair and cradled his head against her as love for him flooded her. “I’m so sorry, Max.”
He kissed her lips and pulled back to offer her a sad smile. “It’s all right. I was born cursed. Even now, I know I won’t be able to keep you with me.”
“You’ve said that before, but you never explained it. How were you cursed?”
He ran his fingers through her hair as sadness darkened his eyes. “My mother conceived me to steal from my father. When I refused to allow her to use me, she cursed me for it. It’s why Illarion was captured as a young dragon and had his throat cut. It was done to punish me. I’m not allowed to have happiness, as others.”
“Oh, akribos … it wasn’t your mother’s curse that separated us. It was my stupidity. My selfishness. But I promise, I won’t let anything else come between us again.”
Max wanted to believe that. He really did. Yet even as she said those words, he knew that some things were much easier said than done.
And no matter the intent or heartfelt emotion, not all promises could be kept. The gods were bitter bitches who often made liars of man and beast. And mercy had never been shown to him or his species.
He’d been so hurt that he couldn’t allow himself to believe in anything anymore. He knew better.
But at least he had her for a little while. And he vowed to savor what little time they were granted.
Closing his eyes, he dipped his lips to hers and breathed her in. Her body was so incredibly soft and warm. So sweet. He’d forgotten how good it felt to be held. How much he loved the sensation of her limbs sliding against his as she nipped his lips and chin. She’d always been a woman of incredible appetites. Most men would have been terrified of the way she didn’t hold herself back.
He’d always loved that most about her. It was nothing for her to come home and playfully flip him to the ground so that she could straddle him. Sometimes she’d stalked him through the woods whenever he went to bathe. As soon as he’d stripped his clothes, she’d pounced like a predator, raining kisses and caresses all over his body.
Even now, she rolled him to his back so that she could lave and taste his chest and abdomen. She lived to be the more aggressive one in bed. It was as if she had something to prove to them both. And he was man enough to give her the lead and lay back and enjoy her play. To let her have her way with his body.
He hissed as she bit his ribs, then went lower to lick and tease his hip bone while her hand cupped his sac and gently massaged him to the point he could barely restrain himself.
“Sera?” He pulled her hand away as he panted with pleasure. “It’s been far too long for you to do that. I fear my control isn’t what it used to be.”
A small pout tempted him even more. “Then I shall have to get you back into fighting shape.” Her wicked little grin enchanted him until she leaned down to take him into her mouth.
“Oh dear gods,” he gasped as everything spun. For a full minute, he was sure he’d explode as her mouth worked its magic on his body. But then just as he was about to lose all control, she gave one long lick to him and crawled up his body until she could smile down at him.
Max sank his hands into the wealth of red curls as they cascaded over her pale shoulders and concealed her plump, full breasts. “My Seramia.”
Seraphina cherished the endearment that she’d missed more than she’d realized. “My precious dragon.” Leaning forward, she kissed those incredible lips before she slid herself onto him.
They moaned in unison. Biting her lip, she took a moment to savor the large, thick fullness of him inside her. No one had ever felt the way he did. Not because he was a dragon, but because she loved him. And as he slowly lifted his hips to thrust against her, she trembled. “I want you to know that I never broke faith with you, Maxis. Since the day we were mated, I’ve never taken another lover.”
“Why?”
“I just couldn’t. No matter how bad it was during my cycle, I didn’t want anyone else. I’d look at other men and they weren’t you.”
The smile on his face warmed her thoroughly. “Thank you.”
Taking his hands, she led them to her breasts as she leaned back and rode him the way she’d dreamed of doing every night since he’d been gone. He filled her completely
. And there for a minute, she forgot about everything else. About all the years that had divided them.
Max surrendered himself to her completely. But then he’d always done that. She had a way of reaching past any and all defenses he put up. It was why he’d been forced to leave her. Because she was the one thing he couldn’t say no to.
Ever.
She was his sanctuary.
And his worst hell. For her, there was nothing he wouldn’t do. Even consign himself to death.
When she came in his arms, he held her close and joined her there in that perfect peace. And as they panted, he felt his heartbeat speed up as the thirio rose in his blood. It was an animalistic need to combine his life force with hers so that he wouldn’t be forced to live without her again. It was something all unbonded Were-Hunters felt whenever they had sex with their mates.
He’d made the mistake once of asking her to bond with him. And while her words of declination had been kind, the look of absolute horror in her hazel eyes was forever seared in his heart. It had shriveled a part of his soul to see that harsh reaction.
That rejection.
So he held her in his arms and didn’t bother repeating that nightmare.
Seraphina listened to the fierce pounding of Max’s heart beneath her chin as she traced circles over his chest and around his nipple. Her own heartbeat was trying to synchronize to his. To bond with it. She could even feel her teeth elongate for the ceremony that would fully unite them.
In life and death.
And in her mind, she remembered when Max had first asked her to. It’d been right after they’d been mated. After she’d tossed the knife away and accepted him.
His unexpected request had shocked her.
Now …
“Would you bond with me, Maxis?”
He went completely still and turned rigid around her. “Pardon?”
Lifting herself up, she looked down at him. “Can we bond?”
A light scowl drew his brows together as he brushed the hair back from her face. “There is nothing on this earth I’d like more.…”
“Then why do I sense a but in your tone of voice?”
“You know the but. I’m under a death warrant, with pretty much every Were-Hunter in existence gunning for me. And we have two dragonets who need their mother to watch over them. I can’t risk the chance that I fall and take you with me to the grave.”
“I won’t let them have you.”
He tightened his arms around her. “And that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you. But I can’t accept a bond with you right now.”
Wishing for things to be different, Seraphina laid her head on his chest and touched the mark on his leg. “How do we stop the demons who want you?”
“That is the question, my lady, that I wish desperately I had an answer for.”
Suddenly, a fierce screeching cry sounded from the forest around them.
Sera pulled back. “What is that?”
Max sat up immediately. “It’s a Bane-Cry. Illarion’s under attack.”
12
Max returned to Sanctuary to find all manner of hell breaking loose. Rémi was holed up in Peltier House with his brother Cherif, Carson, and the children and pregnant females, along with the Howlers and a contingency of Arcadians and Katagaria ready to lay down their lives for Aimee and the others.
As he came down the stairs from his attic with Sera behind him, he met Rémi in the hallway outside Aimee’s bedroom. No doubt Rémi had taken that post to make sure no one came near his sister and threatened her while she rested.
Max paused in front of him. “What’s going on? I heard my brother call.”
With his familiar sneer in place, Rémi jerked his chin toward the stairs that led down to the main part of the house. “Illarion’s with the others in the bar. We’re holding the fort here. The Amazons returned with the Kattalakis Arcadian wolves who want your ass on a platter. You should probably stay here while Dev and the others deal. Personally wish they’d have let me get an ounce of wolf flesh. Since I can’t have Fang for taking my sister, I’d settle for his cousins.”
In spite of the fact that most shifters and people didn’t like Rémi due to his acerbic personality, Max strangely did. They’d always seen eye to eye with their basic philosophy. When in doubt, kill them all and let the gods sort it out.
Rémi glanced past Max’s shoulder to Sera. “You want me to guard your dragonswan while you see to them?”
Max turned slightly to smile at the perturbed expression on her beautiful face. “Um … no.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “I think I’ll unleash her on them. She’s far more fierce than I am.”
Rémi came as close to a smile as the bear could. At least until his nephew Jake came out of the nursery with a small, sleepy toddler in his arms.
“Hey Uncle Rémi, you think it’s safe to grab some milk from the kitchen? I don’t want to wake my mom and we’re out. I tried to get Aubie to go back to sleep without it, but he’s not listening to me.”
Max didn’t miss the familiar deep pain that flashed across Rémi’s blue eyes at the sight of Jake and Aubert. They were the sons of his identical twin Quinn and his mate Becca—the bearswan Rémi was still desperately in love with and had wanted to be mated to. But the Fates had been even more unkind to him than they’d been to Max and Sera.
Masking the pain, Rémi brushed his hand over Aubert’s dark hair to soothe the fussing boy who wanted his milk. “I’ll get it. You two stay here where it’s safest.”
“Okay. I’ll go change him.” Jake headed back to the nursery while his little brother whined in protest.
“Aubie want milk!”
As they walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, toward the bar, they could hear the angry shouts that strangely reminded him of Aubert’s childish cries.
Rémi bit his lip as he mumbled under his breath at how much he wanted to fight. “Bust some ass for me, Max,” he said in a louder tone, before grabbing the milk and heading back toward his nephews.
As Max started for the swinging doors, Sera took his arm. “Run with me?”
He smiled at her unexpected offer. “Now you see my way of thinking?”
“I do.”
“My lady’s timing stinks.” Max took a moment to pull her into his arms and kiss her forehead. “Nothing would mean more to me. But I can’t do that to the Peltiers and my brother. Not after everything they’ve done for me over the years.”
“And that’s why I love and hate you.”
Snorting at her strange sense of humor, he released her and slid through the swinging door to see what was happening out in the bar.
Fang, Vane, Dev, Illarion, and the wolves and bears were in the bar, ready to war against every member of Seraphina’s tribe. Thankfully, the bar was still closed to humans or this would have been an even worse situation.
“I demand you hand over the Dragonbane! He attacked our patria, killed our members, and—”
“Cry to your mama, bitch, I don’t care.” Fang flipped the Arcadian wolf off.
“Fang!” Vane put himself between his brother and the other wolf. “Not helping!”
Dev laughed. “Maybe not, but he’s highly entertaining and helping lift my mood immensely.”
Samia smacked her husband in the stomach. “Stay out of this. If we wanted to blow the bar up, again, we’d have brought Rémi out here.”
Sera brushed past Max to address the group. “This isn’t about the Dragonbane. It’s about Nala’s pact with a demon.”
“Hold your tongue.” Nala glared at her.
“No. Not in this. I won’t watch you destroy my mate again.”
“Seraphina…”
But Sera wasn’t having any part of this. “I will renounce my allegiance to the tribe before I allow you to take him.” She pulled her sword from its sheath. “You want Maxis … you have to come through me.”
Illarion moved to stand at her back.
Completely stunned, M
ax was frozen to the spot. He honestly couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was it even real?
Sera was defending him?
Fang took up the position on the left-hand side of Sera’s body. “As you can see, we like our Dragonbane. He goes really well with the furniture.”
Sarcastic applause sounded, breaking the tension. “Nice.” From the rear of the Arcadians, a demon stepped forward. He wasn’t Kessar, but there was something remotely familiar about him. Max tried to remember where he’d seen him before.
Definitely gallu. The stench was unmistakable.
The demon stopped in front of Fang and raked him with a sneer. “However, you’re all forgetting something. While you are bound by the laws of your Omegrion, we are not. Do you really want me to unleash my warriors here? How long do you think you and your animals will stand?”
Fang didn’t miss a beat. “Long enough to mount your head to my wall.”
The demon opened his mouth to speak, then began a strange gurgling noise.
Sera and Illarion stepped back. As did Nala. Max closed the distance between them to protect his family.
Quicker than he could blink, Dev grabbed a mop bucket and had it in front of the demon in time to catch him as he unloaded the contents of his stomach. Grimacing and cursing, he glanced over to Sam. “Yeah, you raise as many nieces and nephews as I have and run a bar, you learn that attractive I-ate-too-much sound, so-grab-a-bucket-uncle-I-gotta-hurl.” Making an even worse face, he turned back toward the demon. “You through? ’Cause dude, this is some nasty stuff you got going on. And I really hope this shit ain’t contagious.”
Instead, the demon fell to his knees in agony. He was in so much pain, he couldn’t talk.
Dev set the bucket aside as they all stared at the demon in stunned silence. “Anyone know a demon doctor?”
“What’s wrong with him?” Nala asked.
Fury shrugged. “I’m thinking his last victim didn’t go down right. Who’d you eat?”
Dev snorted sarcastically. “Judging by the contents of the bucket, I’d say a Muppet. Looks like Kermit.”
Dragonbane_[AN_SK] Page 14
