He stopped suddenly and I almost stumbled into him. “These are Lord Blaque’s quarters, my lady. Your trunks have already been delivered. If you need anything, I’m three doors down.”
“Thank you, Mr. Berrick.”
“Just Berrick, my lady.”
“Thank you, Berrick.”
“There’s a pitcher of water for cleanin’ up. I’ll have a washtub brought down for you at first light.”
“What about Rhys?”
Berrick nodded toward the room. “We thought it best he rests where you could watch after him.” The knots in my chest loosened. “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, that’ll be all. Thank you.”
He stepped aside to let me by, but before I could open the door to the room, he said, “We appreciate what you did out there. Healing Lord Blaque.”
“It was nothing,” I said.
“Just the same. Good night, my lady.”
“Good night.”
He left, and I hurried to the bedside where Rhys lay sleeping. The bleeding had stopped and he didn’t have a fever, which was a good sign. I never would have thought I’d wish for him to come back to me, but as I knelt by the bed, that’s exactly what I did. I never did much praying when I was at the temple, the Goddess never answered them as far as I was concerned, but I found myself murmuring devotions as I clasped Rhys’s hands in mine.
He didn’t wake, but the words and the ritual eased my nerves. After glancing at his wounds and reapplying a medicinal salve and a fresh bandage, I made use of the attached facilities and then went to the washstand where a pitcher and cloth waited. The water was freezing, but it was fresh and clean.
I stripped myself from the ruined gown and threw it in a bin in the corner. My trunks were by the bed, and I selected a soft white nightgown. Noticing my grimy hands, I went back to the washstand and wet a towel. A gelatinous bar of soap that smelled of things I’d rather not describe stung a little, but it got rid of the blood.
By the time I finished, my eyes ached and the small space beside Rhys was looking extremely comfortable. I returned to his bed and climbed in beside him. Wrapped in warm furs and sheets that whispered with the scent of his skin, I fell into a deep sleep with him at my side.
My nose crinkled at the scent of charred wood and harsh smoke. I coughed and a hand came to my back and rubbed as I came awake, shooting up with the blankets pooling around my waist. My eyes burned, and I struggled to discern the shapes in the shadows. The embers from the small fire in the grate gave little light, but I didn’t need any to recognize the large form by my side.
“Rhys?” I managed, my voice hoarse from the coughing fit.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I blinked owlishly. “No, that’s all right. You’re awake.”
“You seem pleased,” he answered from the darkness. His voice was weak with exhaustion, but he was awake.
I felt the bed shift under me as he turned to his side to face me. I’d wedged myself between him and the wall so I was well and truly trapped. Even wounded, he was a force to be reckoned with.
“I’m pleased I didn’t kill you.” My voice caught, and I didn’t realize how afraid of losing him I was until that moment.
He moved closer until I could see the unearthly aqua light shining inside in his eyes. A loud purr came from his chest and I felt it through that ineffable connection between us. I could have sworn it was his dragon reaching out to me. It wasn’t something I’d ever heard being possible, even between mates. Shifters only spoke to their own clansmen, never to each other’s.
“Were you injured?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, no I’m fine. Does it hurt? I should check your bandage.”
“I’m fine.”
Swallowing hard, I said, “You did it on purpose.”
His hand came to my face, and I found myself turning into his touch. I didn’t realize I’d come to need it so much. This was dangerous. He was dangerous. “What’s that, pet?”
“You got yourself hurt so I couldn’t be mad with you about leaving me behind.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to focus if you were around. It would have gotten us both killed.” His body was pressed against mine, and the last thought in my mind was about wounds.
“I can hold my own,” I said. I put my hand on the uninjured side of his chest. “You don’t have to protect me all the time.”
The humming in his chest transferred to mine, and he crushed me to him. I felt it all the way down between my legs and I shuddered against him.
“That’s two times in less than two weeks when someone has tried to kill you, pet. I think the last thing you need is less protecting.”
A weighty silence greeted his words, and I didn’t need our bond to feel the tension emanating from him. Despite the dying fire, it heated the room to an uncomfortable temperature. My skin buzzed with energy trapped just beneath the surface.
“You should rest,” I said, trying to ignore how much I wanted to do anything but sleep. “We still have a lengthy journey until we reach the Northlands.”
He was equal parts terrifying and alluring, like a dare I desperately wanted to indulge. A risk I knew may be my undoing.
His responding smirk was feral, and he clucked his teeth, chastising. I unclenched my fingers, allowing him to pull the furs down. The weight of his gaze traveled down my body like a touch, searing a path with each revealed inch. Despite my resolve, I found myself trembling by the time the furs reached my waist.
“No more rest,” he said. “Now lie back for me.”
14
Rhysander
My shoulder ached, but it was nothing compared to the overwhelming desire, no need, to have Elena. To prove, irrevocably, that she was safe, here, mine.
Naturally, she ignored my command. My mate was no submissive. Instead, she pushed on my good shoulder and made me lie back for her.
“We have to be careful,” she said and straddled my hips. “I wouldn’t want to hurt you even more.”
My hands went to her waist as her weight settled over me. I groaned, already hard against her heat. “Nothing you do could hurt me, sweet.”
“I thought you were dead,” she said softly. “I was so afraid he’d cut too deep and I wouldn’t be able to save you. I was really scared.”
Reaching up, I pulled on the fabric of her nightgown and it slipped down her shoulder to reveal more creamy white skin. She was so beautiful. To Slaine with keeping her at a distance. She belonged with me, at my side. The mere thought of the knife to her throat had me burning with rage.
Whatever the humans were up to, we would get to the bottom of it.
“You’re thinking too much,” she whispered. “I must not be doing this correctly.”
She had no idea. “Perhaps you should remove this,” I said and tugged at her nightgown, causing it to slip down her breasts. The material caught on her nipples and I felt sweat bead on my brow, but it wasn’t from the fire in the hearth.
“Help me?” she asked, and I hissed out a breath.
My eyes followed the material as I pushed it up her thighs, then over her lifted hips and finally over her head. She wore nothing underneath, her skin glowing in the combination of moonlight coming in from the window and firelight. Shadows danced over her, and so did my hands.
Unashamed, she sat still above me as I looked my fill. I weighed her breasts with my hands, pinching the nipples into rosy buds and causing her to squirm. Urging her forward, I brought one peak to my mouth, flicking the tip until I heard her moan, then I sucked it deep, teasing a little with my teeth. She was begging by the time I finished with the other and I could scent her arousal in the air, I was drunk on it.
Too greedy for finesse, she shoved down my breeches and freed my cock. Taking it into her hands, she brushed the tip against her entrance, wetting it. I could only grit my teeth and fist my hands into the sheets at my side. My muscles quaked with the need to take her.
She spread herse
lf to ease down over the shaft and I swore. There was no sight more erotic than the vision of her easing herself down onto my swollen length. She lifted her hips repeatedly to settle down more fully, getting used to the fit and feel of me inside her. Her lashes fluttered down to kiss her cheeks and her teeth bit into her lower lip.
When I reached up to touch her, she shook her head. “You must stay still,” she ordered, a wicked glint in her eye. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Letting out a stream of curses, I did as she bade me. "You’ll regret this. When I get you in my bed at the castle, expect a full repayment.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” she murmured, distracted by the slick glide as she braced herself with hands on either side of my head and lifted her hips.
It was too much. I couldn’t close off the connection between us and I was assailed by her thoughts, flashes of sensation. Emotion battled inside her as she recalled facing the possibility of losing me. Her fractured thoughts volleyed between how good I felt inside her, to how scared she’d been when she thought I would die.
Her pace became a frantic grind as she sought relief—both from the brewing orgasm and the fear. She was sobbing in breaths of steamy air, collapsing on top of me as she worked herself over my cock. Her desperation sucked the breath straight from my lungs. She’d been desperate for me. Me.
I gave into the connection, relaxing underneath her, my hands going to her back. The beast inside of me unleashed, turned my fingers into claws and my teeth into fangs. I’d never made love to a woman this way, with my beast taking part in a semi-shifted form, but now I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to go back.
My senses sharpened, and through the blending of our minds, our connection, Elena felt it too. She paused, looking up at me and inhaled a quick breath. Noting some change in my face, she lifted a hand to my cheek. My nails bit into her generous rump, and I bared my teeth.
She wasn’t frightened by the change. If anything, her cunt clenched around me and I heard her say, Mine in her thoughts as clearly as I heard my own. And oh, the beast liked that very much. He wanted her claim. Wanted her to own every part of us, body and soul.
That was the one thing I wasn’t willing to give up…yet. But he was content to take part this way, for now. To feel her through my hands, taste her with my tongue.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
I rubbed a claw down her back, squeezed her ass and used my grip to hold her still while I ground up into her. “My dragon wants to play.”
Her breath caught. “Is-is that possible?” I caught an image from her thoughts of her mating with my dragon in full form and chuckled. She didn’t find the thought unappealing. In fact, she contracted around me.
“Not that way, sweet mate. He wants to take control of my body.”
“I-I didn’t know you could do that,” she said, tipping her hips to meet each of my upward thrusts. “I’ve never heard of mates being together in-in that way.”
She gave me her neck as I swept kisses from her mouth down her throat where her mark was pearly white against her skin. “Most shifters don’t like giving up control that way. Allowing their animal form to take hold in bed is as vulnerable as it gets. Well, taking a claim would be a step above that.”
My eyes were on her throat. I’d never wanted to give a woman a full claim, a bond so strong it was nigh on unbreakable. A bond that, when broken, was so destructive it could cost the surviving mate their life. Because it was only broken if one of the mates were to die. Elena’s thoughts went to her parents, her ailing father.
“Don’t worry, Elena. You won’t lose me.”
“You can’t know that.” She shook her head when I started to argue. “I don’t want to talk about that now. I want you to make me forget, like you did before. Make me feel good, Rhys.”
The sound of my name on her tongue swayed me. “Both of us?” I asked. I trembled from the effort to withhold the beast inside of me.
“I trust you,” she answered.
Ignoring the twinge in my shoulder, I urged her onto her back, slipping out of her body only for as long as it took me to remove my breeches the rest of the way and climb back on top of her. She accepted me with welcoming arms and I drove into her with a growl.
I shook in the effort to control myself. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt her, and I wasn’t sure what would happen when I unleashed the snarling dragon inside of me. She wrapped her legs around my waist and drew my gaze to hers with a hand on my cheek.
“I trust you,” she thought.
I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, it was as though I were observing the scene as a bystander. I was present, but only partially. My hands reached out and softly sifted through Elena’s hair. She held perfectly still as my claws flashed in the glinting moonlight.
Scales bloomed on my arms and down my chest. Hesitantly, Elena reached up to touch them, exploring how they felt under their hand. My eyes shuttered, and a rumbling purr vibrated behind my ribs. My scales were sensitive. I’d never liked to be touched this way, but my dragon did. He liked her hands on us.
He showed his appreciation by reaching between us and taking the bundled nerves of her clit between his middle and forefinger. She gasped as his thumb rubbed the engorged flesh. He alternately soothed and tormented until she was shaking.
How he liked seeing her beneath us. Watching her take my cock as he thrust long and deep. She gasped when she realized my cock had changed, too. Its smooth surface was covered in sensitive, spiny but blunt protrusions that massaged at the walls of her cunt on all sides all at once. When her restless legs writhed, he placed them over my shoulders and held them with one hand while he brought his attention back to her clit.
He brought my thumb to her mouth, and she sucked it in, laving it with her tongue. When it was wet and shiny, he brought it back to her clit. She mewled in pleasure.
It was as though I could feel everything, but couldn’t do anything. The sweetest kind of torture. I felt her responses with all of my heightened senses. Her thoughts screamed at me, and I felt everything my beast did to her. Heard how much she liked it, how she wanted more and more.
When she clenched around me, my dragon yielded, victorious. I came back to myself and cried out, unsteady as my senses whirled. My dragon only half gave the reins back, merely wanting to share the moment fully.
Elena was sobbing with her release, her hands in my hair, her body wrapped completely around me with abandon.
“Rhys,” she said. “I can’t…”
“I’m here. I’ve got you.”
She turned blindly I met her mouth with mine, tongues battling as I swallowed back her moans.
As Elena settled into aftershocks, instinct had me wanting to put space between us, but her legs locked around me like tangled vines. I had no words as instinct turned to panic so I couldn’t protest, but she didn’t let me.
Trembling though she was from exertion, she rolled with me until I was on my back, like she’d done in the beginning. Her eyes met mine, and she began to ride, adjusting until she found a spot that had moans coming from deep inside her chest. All I could do was hold on.
She was wet and warm and tight around me. Not quite steady because she was tired and twitchy from her orgasm, but she knew what felt good and worked herself over me until all my muscles were tense, trying to hold myself back.
There was no holding back from her. She listened to my breathing, read the spasmodic jerks from my muscles as I grew closer and closer to the edge, and adjusted herself accordingly until her hips were rocking back and forth over me, driving my cock deep inside her with each movement. I tried to distract myself by nibbling on her breasts, which swayed and bounced in front of my face, but it only made it worse. She tasted so good and felt so good. There was no denying it.
I clamped down on her hips with my claws, restricting her movement and she fused her mouth with mine. I was afraid I was drawing blood, bruising her sweet flesh like a tender piece of
fruit, but she lapped at my mouth, murmuring sweet words of encouragement.
I needed no encouragement. There was no stopping. I wrapped my arms around her waist as she brought me to the precipice and over. She bewitched the orgasm out of me as I pressed my lips to the mark at her neck, much to the satisfaction of the beast who prowled inside of me.
15
Elena
The nights aboard the ship became ours.
Rhys healed quickly, more quickly than I’d ever seen any shifter do. He showed his gratitude for taking care of him by splaying me out before him on the furs like a feast and licking at me until he deemed me well satisfied. The only complaint I had was the journey across the sea came to an end much too swiftly for my liking. I enjoyed having Rhys to myself, isolated as we were amongst the group of his men, who left us alone under strict instruction.
Haran was a small village on the southernmost tip of the Northlands. It wasn’t navigable by amateurs because of the steep cliffs of rock and ice. Few ventured to the port save for the shifters who called the frozen continent home. From my vantage point at the bow of the ship, I studied the treacherous approach with more than a hint of disbelief. No one could maneuver the jagged rock without the gift of flight, but somehow the industrious captain angled the boat with a deftness akin to magick. I wondered if the skill was characteristic of the Dragon-Clan.
“Better hold on tight, Lady Blaque,” Rhys murmured and wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Wouldn’t want you to fall over.”
I glanced down over the edge of the ship to the dark, glacial water below. Was it my imagination or were there shadows the size of small carriages shifting underneath us? It was a strange unfamiliar world I was traveling to. The thought was exhilarating. The novices and the temple felt very far away from this foreign land. Rhys pulled my attention from the water and pointed to something in the distance. Peaks of winter white thrust against the clear, blue sky.
Deal with the Dragon (Immortals Ever After Book 1) Page 11
