by Lucas, Naomi
Waters, I hate my sister more than ever at that moment. Leith doesn’t deserve this.
“Aida!” My name bellowed on the wind makes me stiffen.
“What’s that?” Leith startles, pivoting to the voice. “The dragon?”
I notice the mermaids both look in the direction my name came from. One of them says, “Dragon?” Their gazes narrow, their tails drop back into the water.
Leith turns to me and gets his answer.
“Is he the one who hurt you?” he asks, voice darkening, pulling a dagger out from a sheath at his hips.
“No, he didn’t hurt me,” I tell him. “But I’ve got to go.” I hand the basket back. “Thank you for this, but I won’t need them.” I turn to leave.
Leith grabs my arm. “Aida, what’s wrong? Where are you going?”
“What do you mean ‘dragon?’” one of the mermaids calls out to us.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m going to Shell Rock for a while.” I tug my arm out of his grip. It’s much easier than I expect, already used to Zaeyr’s strength. Stop thinking of him! My pulse races. Every moment I remain, he gets closer. I back up, prepare to run anew—
When Leith grabs me by the shoulders and kisses me.
I drop my satchel.
His lips move across mine.
Stunned, again, I do nothing but reel. My body grows cold when his tongue tries to dip between my lips.
This is wrong. So wrong. I push him away.
“I always thought you and I would be mated,” he whispers. “I always dreamed it’d be you.”
I shake my head.
He continues babbling, but he’s drowned out when my name roars through the air, closer now than ever. “Aida!” Zaeyr yells. But Leith reaches for me again and I step back. The grey morning clouds overhead break and a streak of dappling sunlight hits us.
“I can protect you from him,” Leith tells me, trying to catch me.
The blood-red glow of the comet pierces through the sunlight.
Zaeyr roars, and it sounds like all the thunder in the world booming at once. It shoots straight to my soul. My body floods with heat; my sex gushes. Fear and want rip through me.
I snatch my bag off the ground and turn away.
“Aida!” Both Leith and Zaeyr yell as I flee.
14
The Chase
I don’t know how long I’ve been running, but I don’t stop. I only hope the river is close. When the clouds dissipate, the land turns red and gold. The beach becomes rocks, and I’m forced into the jungle. Energized by adrenaline, I keep going, rushing by lounging crocodiles and through barely-formed spiderwebs.
Every time I consider stopping, I hear feet pounding behind me, the sounds of panting and snarling.
Zaeyr is close. Nerves zinging, I’m the prey.
My heart races, my body strains, and I surge forward, and though part of me wants to be caught by him, the hurt inside me prevents me from stopping.
“Aida!” he shouts my name again and again like a beast. It doesn’t sound human.
Sweat pours down my flesh.
And then the jungle river emerges. The brackish estuary appears. Like a beacon, my pace grows faster, seeing my goal.
If I can just get across it I can lose him. Lose him and think.
Shell Rock is only several hard hours past the river mouth.
As I get closer, so does Zaeyr. Keeping my eyes trained on the water, I see Elae and Jye waiting in the river ahead. I don’t have time to question and throw my spear to the side, diving in, ignoring the bestial growl right behind me; the faint touch of fingers slipping through my hair.
The mermaids grab me and, to my excitement, swim me across the large gape. I’m at the other side within minutes reaching for the shore. But they don’t let me go.
“Thank you,” I say, trying to pull away. Their hold on me tightens. “What are you doing?”
“We need the dragon,” Jye hisses.
“Why?”
“To pay for his crimes.”
Crimes?
Hearing a splash behind us, I twist to see Zaeyr closing the distance. He’s fast. So fast in the water. My mouth falls.
Makes sense. His tail lashes behind him like a propeller.
Elae drops her hold on me and lifts a three-pronged weapon, aiming it in Zaeyr’s direction. He stops when he sees it, though his gaze goes straight for me.
His piercingly light eyes are filled with hunger. A haunting, raw, feverish look that pins me to the spot. His usually pale skin is pink with exertion, blue veins pop from his skin, and everything above water is stiff; his horns are straighter than usual.
I sense his savagery as fresh heat jolts between us.
He surges forward despite the weapon, and Elae screams, “Halt dragon! We will give her to you unharmed if you behave!”
“No,” I stammer, pulling back. Jye holds me firm.
Zaeyr pauses as the prongs of Elae’s triton stab at his chest. My heart stops.
“What do you want, fish?” he snaps. He looks crazy and restless.
If he gets to me, if the mermaids hand me over, I’m doomed.
“You were once the king of the gulf, the Mermaid’s Gulf,” Elae accuses.
“What of it?”
Elae snarls as if she got her answer. “We have honored you with jewels and gifts for centuries, but you destroyed our home!”
Zaeyr cants his head, his hair falling into his face. It’s as if he’s just now realizing the mermaids are here at all. I tug again, trying to escape Jye’s grip.
“Your home?” he spits. “My home. You were allowed to live in my domain, to be protected by my presence. I have kept the beasts of the open ocean from your waters. It is because of me you prospered with peace. And what did you do to repay me? Jewels and shells to pretty up my caves? When they were already mine to begin with? No, you repay me by trapping me when I roused. To bury me alive!”
Startled, I stop fighting Jye to glance between the mermaids.
“Roused, dragon king? You did not merely rouse—you trembled the seafloor and frightened all that dwelled away! Our homes crashed down around us. So the conchs blared, calling us forth, and we thought the red comet’s glow had touched you and sought to stop it, to allow you to slumber,” Elae says, pushing the tips of her weapon harder to Zaeyr’s chest.
“Stop!” I yell when I see a trickle of blood.
Their eyes snap to mine. Zaeyr takes that moment to swipe Elae’s weapon from her hand. He grabs her tail as she flips, darting under the water.
Jye releases me and rushes forward but stops when Zaeyr raises Elae’s weapon and points it at her.
I scurry onto the beach.
“You seek vengeance against me now!” Zaeyr screams, curdling my blood, making the mermaids cower. “If you had let me answer the femdragon and not closed off my cave, your precious home and mine would still exist. You brought this upon yourself!”
The mermaids duck their heads.
“Tell your kindred, if they want to live, to leave me be and accept the blame for their actions and yours. You will no longer have a dragon to contend with under your home, and for that, you should be very afraid. I have shown you mercy today. Remember this. I will not show it again.” He throws Elae’s tail away and she vanishes under the water. Jye follows.
His glowing gaze meets mine and I swallow. He takes a step toward me, and I jolt back. His body is awash in the red comet glow, and it makes him look monstrous, untamed.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him under the comet’s light. He’s the same but somehow different… frighteningly so. Like the comet’s glow has pierced through his flesh and taken over, birthing a creature not of this tropical world.
And the red… The bright, potent red is like hot lava, steamed water, glowing ruby embers between us. A burning sensation surges through me, wrapping around my limbs.
“Do not run from me, Aida,” he warns. My spine stiffens. “I will eventually catch you. There is no place on Venys yo
u can go where our bond will not connect us.”
“You do not know my tenacity,” I whisper. “Or how far I will go to keep my pride.”
His brow furrows but he steps closer. Moving back, my hands fist in the sand at my sides.
“Mate—”
“Do not call me that!” I yell, rising to my feet.
The wrinkles of his brow deepen. I don’t like the sudden concern on his face. “You are my mate,” he says.
“In my culture, a mate does not touch another for release! And to do so right next to me? How dare you. How dare you! And with my sister no less.”
Concern eases his brow. “Is that why you ran?” his voice lowers.
Opening my hands, I let the sand I collected drop. I want to run; I want him to come after me. I want him to hurt for the hurt I feel.
But most of all I want him to understand. Understand that I am worth everything, that I won’t accept betrayal, that if he seeks to punish me in such a way, I will fight him every day for the rest of my life and make my punishment his.
“Yes, that’s why I ran.” I inhale.
“Your sister… she—”
“I don’t want to hear it, please.” I shake my head. “She’s right you know. She is the elder’s chosen. Not me. But if you want her, you have to share her, for she’s already mated.”
The darkness in his eyes returns, and it all but stabs me in the gut.
Taking another step back, I continue, gulping down my pain, “Delina will make you happy.”
Unable to wait for an answer, I turn and run, my hurt doubling at mentioning my sister, at giving up so easily. Zaeyr shouts my name but it only gives me the strength to speed up. Ahead the beach turns to rocks. The isles in the water that signal Shell Rock and the lagoon are not much farther away.
It’s impossible to get to Shell Rock remaining on the beach—where the rocks became steep and jagged. The only two routes from here are by raft or by a secret path up into the jungle which leads to a hidden ladder down into Shell Rock’s lagoon. There will be apes and cats but…
I make for the jungle.
If I can just get there, if I can just get to Issa… she’ll know what to do—
Right when I reach the trees, I’m grabbed from behind and thrown to the sand. Zaeyr’s saltwater scent floods my nostrils as I gasp from shock.
He presses himself against my back before I can rise. His hands push my hair aside, and his hot mouth covers the back of my neck, opening wide, clamping his teeth on me. Digging my fingers into the sand, a fierce moan escapes my lips. His hips grind hard against my butt.
Arching up, heat ripples through me, pooling between my legs. My body reacts deliciously to his dominance.
It’s primal, rabid. Right.
It eclipses all other thoughts. For once, I’m not the strongest, not with Zaeyr. I can believe it’s someone else and not me. Him.
I can let go.
“Zaeyr,” I whimper.
His teeth dig into my nape. He reaches around to cup my brow to keep my face from the sand, pressing on me from both ends.
I stop fighting, giving into his dominion. He gnaws on my nape, unaware that I’m not responding, pinning me with his hips.
His teeth leave my flesh, though his soft lips remain. “No more fight in you, human? Have I won?” he rasps. “I told you I would catch you.”
My skin prickles. My mouth clamps shut.
He lifts off me, tosses me onto my back. His tail wraps around my right leg. “Where is my huntress?” he snaps.
“Gone,” I gripe.
He sneers. His horns sparkle in the comet’s glow.
“Punish me if you will, take me, but I won’t give you the adoration you could so easily get from Delina.”
“I do not want your sister!”
“Then why were you atop her?” I shout. “Why was she half-naked?”
Several birds squawk and fly into the sky.
“She undressed. I only touched her when she reached for me and put her wretched hands on me. I was shoving her away.”
I want to believe him, I really do.
“Do you think I would so easily leave my mate after our first rutting, when she is seeded and in distress? That I’d leave my mate for another? Dragons do not deny their chosen. It is sacred! I have won you, mounted you, taken away your human innocence, and you think that would mean nothing to me?” He grasps my hair and forces me to look at him when I try to turn away. “You could be carrying my child right now, Aida!” he bellows. “I will not have another, ever, not now that our souls are interwoven.”
His eyes brighten, and mine begin to water staring at them. “And if we weren’t interwoven?” I whisper.
“I had the choice to deny you. I did not. I could leave, still leave, allow fate to take its course on our lives, but I will not. I could find relief, eventually, from this mating heat,” he pants. “But I chose to stay, to deny your ridiculous human ways, and give my seed to you.”
“The beach,” I gulp. “I wanted to touch you, needed to touch you.”
Zaeyr twists his head to the side, staring down at me. Even now, I see his control splitting, the strain of his muscles, his cock near-breaking through the loincloth wrapped around his waist. His words fill me with hope. I won’t deny him.
But the beach… Did he feel what I did?
“I wanted you to touch me, human,” he says.
I inhale sharply.
“I had never seen so much courage. You with your weak spear, standing up to me—an alpha dragon—when I could destroy you so easily. Could destroy this whole coast with nothing but a whim.”
Reaching up, I cup his head and lick my lips. He’s everything I ever wanted and more.
He’s given me a gift I didn’t know I wanted—or needed.
My heart constricts. It squeezes in a way that sends more than warmth rushing through me. More emotion than I’ve let myself feel since before I can remember. I blink back tears.
I wasn’t going to cry for him. I don’t know now. It’s suddenly hard to breathe.
“Do you understand, Aida?” he asks before letting me pull his lips toward mine.
“Yes,” I choke. “Kiss me, Zaeyr, before you make me mad again!” I beg, pressing my lips to his.
15
Submission
Aida rubs her lips on mine, taking the last of my control away. I set her back down on the sand and slam my body over hers as she gives me her softness, her submission.
My draconid instincts shout in triumph. But then her tongue dabs out and forces its way into my mouth. Following her strangely enticing human ways, I push my own against hers. Her mewls fill my mouth, and I feast on them, liking this kissing a little too much.
Now that I know why she ran, my frenzy easies, my worries for her safety coming to an end now that she is under me.
Touching Delina? The thought makes me recoil. Aida’s sister was not the one who stood up to me on the beach, nor cared for me through the night, nor pulled me to safety during the storm.
Even so, if Aida did not exist, I still would not take Delina to mount. She smelled of another. And her childish human wiles—so easy to see through—were deeply unpleasant.
Aida moans. Her lips caressing mine, obliterates all other thoughts.
My painfully tight shaft, bulges with seed, some of it leaking from my cock’s tip. I cannot hold it in any longer. Thoughts of getting it inside her and penetrating her deep, tight sheath consume me.
But as my tongue plunders her sweet mouth, I taste something unusual, something not of her upon her lips. Another? I do not know.
Savagery pummels me. Growling into her, I replace the taste with my own, gnawing, biting, nibbling, licking, until it is obliterated and gone. No taste but hers will I hunger for! No taste but my own should ever reach her lips.
When the wrong taste is gone, rising over her, I lift and carry her to the crystalline ocean.
She whines and rubs herself against me. When we are in the turquoise
waters that are like a home to me, I dip her body in and soak her with my old territory, knowing she will rule beside me, despite my new form.
“Zaeyr?” she gasps my name, drenched, her eyes searching me curiously. Trickles of water sluice down her curves. My mouth begs me to follow them with my tongue.
“Mine,” I rasp. It is all I can say.
Spinning her around, I rip her skirts up and expose her pink human sex. Like a flower, I note, dipping my fingers into her. Like a delicate flower made for one thing only.
My stem. My thick stem to stab it, ruin it, control it.
Take care of it—for all the years to come.
She shrieks my name when I find her nub and pinch it between my fingers. Essense pools from her deep, where another one of my fingers explores and stretches her. Her arousal hits my nostrils like lightning. My gaze zeroes in.
Her tiny sheath flutters tight around my finger. I like seeing it deep inside her. I like the noises she makes when I play and pump it, touching her everywhere inside.
Grabbing her wet hair, I jerk her head to the side, all the while stroking her still. “Ready?” I rasp.
If she says no, I do not know what I will do. I am pent up. The comet’s aura quickens and sizzles my blood. It takes an immense effort to maintain my control when all I want to do is lose myself in rutting her.
I am afraid I will take her even if she says no.
She nods, swallows. My gaze follows her throat.
Unable to wait any longer, I push her forward onto her hands and knees in the shallow water, lining my prick where my fingers play. Pulling them out, angling my hips, I ram hard into her.
I roar to the sky as she takes all of me, my knot to my base. My ears fill with her screams. She quivers and shakes as I grasp her waist, pulling out to slam back in.
There is no fight this time from my female. She loosens, letting me pummel her, take what I need, and use her. And I use her, brutally, unable to hold back. The only thought I had during our chase was throwing her to the ground and exacting my revenge.
