All I Want For Christmas Is My Mating Stone

All I Want For Christmas Is My Mating Stone Page 4

by Brenda Trim

  “I’ll be fine,” Mack replied and turned to Kyran. “Come on. Let’s go see Elsie,” she prompted Kyran and pulled him to­ward the ad­ja­cent room.

  Zan­der was sit­ting on the edge of the bed where Elsie lay. His old­est brother looked over his shoul­der when the door opened. “Shite! I hoped you were Jace,” he mur­mured then turned his at­ten­tion back to Elsie.

  Kyran pe­rused the room and no­ticed a few pieces of med­i­cal equip­ment had been brought up from the base­ment. He didn’t have a clue how to op­er­ate the ma­chin­ery and was grate­ful the war­riors had a doc­tor in the house. Very con­ve­nient when their lives re­volved around bat­tling demons.

  The queen moaned, bring­ing Kyran out of his mus­ings. Elsie clutched her rounded belly, and her sis­ter, Cai­lyn, reached over and grabbed her hand. “Hang in there. Jace should be here any minute,” Cai­lyn re­as­sured. The queen’s sis­ter was preg­nant, as well, and jeal­ousy in­stantly spiked. It was a re­minder of what his life was lack­ing.

  He didn’t want to re­hash the sore sub­ject with Mack, but he wished his mate un­der­stood how deeply he wanted to start their fam­ily. He was very young when his par­ents were killed and wit­ness­ing the bru­tal rape and mur­der of his mom led Kyran down a dark and twisted road for many years.

  How­ever, the hand­ful of mem­o­ries he had of his par­ents were near and dear. He re­mem­bered feel­ing loved and safe with them, and he wanted to share that same ex­pe­ri­ence with Mack.

  “Any idea what’s caus­ing the pain?” Mack asked no one in par­tic­u­lar.

  “Nay. At first, she com­plained of mild cramp­ing but, within an hour, she was dou­bled over in pain. I doona know what to do,” Zan­der ad­mit­ted as he placed a damp rag to Elsie’s fore­head.

  “Ugh,” Elsie moaned and looked up at Zan­der. “What if Jace can’t help me? I need my mat­ing stone,” she mut­tered through a ragged voice. Cai­lyn held a cup of wa­ter to Elsie’s mouth, and the queen took sev­eral small sips.

  “Stay pos­i­tive, a ghra. Jace will be here soon,” Zan­der re­as­sured his mate, but Kyran didn’t miss his brother’s hunched shoul­ders or for­lorn gaze. It was down­right heart­break­ing, and Kyran felt guilty for his pre­vi­ous pity-party. He and Mack could worry about chil­dren later. Right now, Elsie needed their prayers.

  As if sum­moned by Zan­der’s will, Jace walked into the bed­room. He quickly made his way to Cai­lyn and placed a ten­der kiss to his mate’s lips then sat on the bed, plac­ing his palm on top of Elsie’s. “Cai­lyn told me you’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing se­vere cramps. Any bleed­ing?” Jace asked as he placed the back of his hand to Elsie’s fore­head. “No fever, which is a good sign.”

  “No. There was some spot­ting ear­lier, but it stopped,” Elsie of­fered.

  “That’s a re­lief,” Jace said with a warm smile. “I’m go­ing to do an ul­tra­sound to see how the baby’s do­ing,” he ex­plained and mo­tioned for Cai­lyn to bring over the ma­chine.

  “Would you like us to leave?” Mack asked as she stepped closer to Kyran. He won­dered if watch­ing this would so­lid­ify her de­ci­sion against chil­dren. If so, then maybe it was best if they waited in the other room.

  “No. Please stay. I want my fam­ily here with me. Your sup­port means ev­ery­thing,” Elsie replied, and Mack nod­ded.

  Jace pulled the sheet half­way down Elsie’s body, and the queen lifted her sweat­shirt. Jace ap­plied a jelly-like sub­stance to her large belly, and Cai­lyn handed him a large wand then turned on a mon­i­tor. Kyran’s eyes were glued to the screen. It was fas­ci­nat­ing to see the tiny be­ing grow­ing in­side Elsie.

  “Is the bairn okay?” Zan­der de­manded as he stared at the small mon­i­tor.

  “Let me ask you some­thing, Elsie,” Jace said, com­pletely ig­nor­ing Zan­der’s ques­tion. “Have you no­ticed less move­ment from your baby lately?”

  “Yes, but I fig­ured it was be­cause the baby is get­ting so big. You know, less room to move. Is that bad?” she blurted as panic crossed her face.

  “The baby’s move­ment should be more and more ac­tive as he or she grows. When did you no­tice the change?” Jace asked, and Kyran didn’t miss the con­cern in his tone.

  “I don’t know. A cou­ple of weeks ago, maybe,” Elsie an­swered.

  “Your baby is un­der duress. There’s no in­ter­nal bleed­ing which is good, but I’m very con­cerned about the lack of move­ment. I’m go­ing to send my magic to your womb, and hope­fully stim­u­late your baby. Is that okay with you?” Jace asked and looked from Elsie to Zan­der. The male was a sor­cerer with the abil­ity to heal, and Kyran knew if any­one could help the queen, it was Jace.

  Zan­der and Elsie stared at each other, and Kyran knew they were com­mu­ni­cat­ing tele­path­i­cally. It was an­other as­pect of Fated Mates that so­lid­i­fied dur­ing the mat­ing cer­e­mony. Kyran looked over at Mack and smiled then sent a mes­sage to his beau­ti­ful mate. “Let’s no’ fight aboot bairns any­more. It will hap­pen when it hap­pens. All I need is you.”

  Mack’s gaze soft­ened, and her whiskey eyes rooted him in place. She replied, “One day, I prom­ise. You and me for­ever, blood­sucker.” His mate winked and gave him a smile that lit up his world.

  “Aye. We trust you com­pletely,” Zan­der said to Jace, mak­ing Kyran turn his fo­cus back to his brother and Elsie.

  “If you feel any pain at all, let me know,” Jace in­structed Elsie as he placed both hands on her dis­tended belly.

  Elsie nod­ded her un­der­stand­ing, and Kyran felt the power of Jace’s magic fill the room. He watched in awe as Jace’s palms roamed ev­ery inch of her swollen stom­ach. He couldn’t imag­ine what that must feel like. To have the power to heal.

  He’d watched Jace heal the Dark War­riors many times, but this was dif­fer­ent. There was a life in­side Elsie that needed, no, de­served to live, and Jace was the only one ca­pa­ble of of­fer­ing that.

  “How are you do­ing?” Jace asked.

  “Good. Bet­ter than good, ac­tu­ally. I feel such warmth in­side. And, I feel the baby mov­ing again,” Elsie ex­claimed with a wide smile. It seemed as if ev­ery­one breathed a sigh of re­lief with the news, and the cloud of ten­sion evap­o­rated.

  Jace ran the wand over her belly again then glanced to the mon­i­tor. “Yep, this lit­tle one is a war­rior, al­right. Did you see that round­house kick?” the healer pointed out with a chuckle as he wiped his hands on a towel then cleaned the jelly sub­stance from Elsie’s stom­ach.

  “I think you’re out of the woods for now, but I’d like you to stay in bed for at least the next few days. I’ll be check­ing on you ev­ery few hours,” Jace im­parted as he pulled the sheet up around Elsie’s body.

  “Thank the God­dess,” Zan­der blurted as he grabbed Elsie’s face and claimed her lips in a rough kiss.

  “Speak­ing of which,” Mack in­ter­jected. “We need to speak with the God­dess, pronto. I want to know what the fuck is go­ing on with the miss­ing mat­ing stones. Elsie’s or­deal was too close for com­fort.”

  “I agree, Mack, but like I said be­fore, I canna reach her with­oot the amulet. Izzy is the only one who can do that now,” Zan­der ex­plained as he raked a hand through his shoul­der-length hair.

  Kyran glanced over at his mate and could see the wheels spin­ning in her beau­ti­ful head. That was never a good thing, he thought as Nate walked into the room with a tray loaded with food.

  “Fig­ured you might need some fuel,” the dragon shifter an­nounced as he set the tray down on a small ta­ble near the bed.

  “Oh, thank you, Nate. Are those my mon­ster cook­ies?” Elsie asked as she propped her­self against the head­board.

  “In­deed. Prob­a­bly not as good as yours, but I gave it my best shot,” Nate replied and handed her one of the choco­late chip, M&M, and pecan cook­ies.

  “Well, that does
it!” Mack in­ter­jected. “Looks like me and Kyran are go­ing to Khoth to visit Izzy. Some­body’s got to get our mat­ing stones back. Might as well be you and me, blood­sucker,” she in­formed Kyran with a broad smile.

  “Hell, yes,” Nate shouted. “Road trip. Count me in.”

  Kyran rolled his eyes and shook his head. Whether they re­turned with the stones, or not, he knew their trip to the dragon realm would be un­for­get­table.

  5

  Kyran grabbed Mack’s hand and stepped through the por­tal that trans­ported them from Earth to Khoth. Dizzi­ness as­sailed him as they trav­eled be­tween the two di­men­sions. He closed his eyes against the swirling sen­sa­tion and prayed he didn’t hurl all over his mate. He would rather go up against a hun­dred demons than step through a por­tal. He’d be nau­seous for the next cou­ple of days, and his equi­lib­rium would be off for a week.

  As soon as he stepped into the dragon realm, warm hu­mid air slapped his face, and he took sev­eral deep breaths to calm his roil­ing stom­ach. He glanced over at Mack and stepped out of her path. Her ashen com­plex­ion told Kyran she might vomit on him.

  “I’ll never get used to that,” she mut­tered as she wiped her brow with the back of her hand. Seemed he wasn’t the only one who didn’t care for por­tals.

  Nate ap­peared next and shouted the mo­ment he set foot on his home turf. “Fuck, my dragon feels alive,” he bel­lowed, and blasted a stream of fire to­ward the night sky.

  Kyran no­ticed his red eyes had trans­formed into faceted gem­stones that re­minded him of ru­bies. This was a dragon’s nat­u­ral state, and Kyran won­dered if it was re­lated to fly­ing. Maybe the facets pro­tected their eyes or en­hanced their vi­sion.

  Mack jumped to the side, dodg­ing the scald­ing heat Nate’s flames emit­ted. “Watch it, dragon-breath. This shit is flammable,” she scolded and pointed to her spiky hair. His mate used God­dess-only-knew-what to make her hair stand in spikes all over her head. It was her sig­na­ture style, and Kyran loved her wild and crazy look. It matched her per­son­al­ity.

  “Oh, yeah. I for­got you use a bot­tle of gel ev­ery day,” Nate joked with a laugh.

  “Bite me,” she coun­tered and flipped her mid­dle fin­ger his way.

  “That’s my job,” Kyran in­ter­jected and pulled Mack to his side pos­ses­sively. “Doona for­get it,” he mur­mured against her ear. His mate shiv­ered, and her whiskey eyes filled with de­sire. Com­pul­sions were strong be­tween mates. De­sire, pos­ses­sion, jeal­ousy, lust, de­vo­tion. It was in­tox­i­cat­ing and mad­den­ing all at the same time.

  “Wel­come, Prince Kyran,” Leg­ette an­nounced, in­ter­rupt­ing their mo­ment as he stepped from the shad­ows.

  Leg­ette was sec­ond in com­mand to King An­gus, and leader of the Máa­hes knights. Kyran noted his at­tire, which con­sisted of leather pants and noth­ing else, and re­called that was typ­i­cal for the dragon knights. Less clothes to carry for the fire-breath­ing beasts once they shifted.

  “And, Mack, al­ways a plea­sure,” Leg­ette added as he ap­proached their group. He em­braced Mack first, then Kyran.

  “‘Tis good to see you, both,” Kyran greeted then turned to Lorne, one of An­gus’s high­est-rank­ing knights. “Thank you for meet­ing us here.”

  “It’s an honor to es­cort you and Mack to the cas­tle,” Lorne replied then bar­reled to­ward Nate, knock­ing his friend to the ground. Ever since An­gus placed Nate at Zeum in the Tehrex Realm, the dragon knights hadn’t seen each other of­ten. “About fuck­ing time you came home, douche dick,” the male growled, and their ban­ter quickly es­ca­lated into a wrestling match on the ground.

  “Ig­nore the chil­dren,” Leg­ette in­formed Kyran and Mack with a shake of his head as he made his way to­ward a clear­ing. “Ready for take-off?” he asked with a wide smile. “I know An­gus and Keira are anx­ious to see you.”

  Fly­ing bare­back on a dragon was Kyran’s sec­ond least fa­vorite thing to do. Giv­ing power to some­one else was damn near im­pos­si­ble for con­trol-freaks, and Kyran was mas­ter of that do­main. Not to men­tion, he wasn’t a fan of heights.

  “Woo-hoo!” yelled Mack ex­cit­edly as she se­cured the straps on her back­pack. “I’m be­yond ready,” she an­nounced and bounced on the balls of her feet in an­tic­i­pa­tion. His mate, on the other hand, loved fly­ing on the back of drag­ons.

  “Aye. I can barely con­tain my ex­cite­ment,” Kyran quipped flatly as Leg­ette dis­ap­peared into the dark­ness.

  He guessed the male was un­dress­ing and ap­pre­ci­ated the fact he didn’t strip in front of Mack. Su­per­nat­u­rals weren’t shy about nu­dity or sex­u­al­ity, but mated cou­ples didn’t like the idea of any­one ex­pos­ing their nude body in front of their Fated.

  Trum­pet­ing filled the air, and the dragon’s bel­low vi­brated through Kyran’s body. The sound was deaf­en­ing, and he watched Mack plug her ears. When the noise sub­sided, he grabbed Mack’s hand and walked to­ward the large beast.

  The mas­sive crea­ture was eas­ily fif­teen feet tall and its wing­span was five times that in width. The slate-gray scales looked iri­des­cent un­der the pur­ple moon of Khoth and Leg­ette’s faceted, blue eyes looked like gi­ant hub­caps star­ing down at them.

  The dragon snorted, and a puff of smoke shrouded Kyran and Mack. “All aboard,” Leg­ette in­structed via mind speak.

  “I call the driver’s seat,” Mack squealed as the dragon laid on the ground, so she could climb on its back.

  “Fine by me,” Kyran re­torted as he hopped on the dragon’s leg then hoisted his body be­hind Mack’s. “I pre­fer this po­si­tion any­way,” he mur­mured as his cock jerked against her ass.

  He reached around, cup­ping her lush bo­som, and im­me­di­ately won­dered if any­one had ever fucked on the back of a dragon. If not, maybe he and Mack should chris­ten Leg­ette. Maybe fly­ing wasn’t so bad, af­ter all, he amended as the im­age of Mack rid­ing him in the sky filled his one-track mind.

  “Keep it clean, leech. We’ve got com­pany,” Mack said over her shoul­der, but then wig­gled her butt against his groin. So fuck­ing sexy.

  His hands trav­eled south and cupped her sex. He nuz­zled her neck, and her cit­rus-vanilla scent filled his nos­trils. His fangs shot from his gums, and he scraped them against the ten­der flesh at her neck.

  “Don’t even think of bug­ger­ing on my back. If you do, I swear I’ll drop you down the throat of Mt. Ba­tia,” Leg­ette threat­ened. Kyran wasn’t too fond of lava, ei­ther, so he willed away his rag­ing erec­tion. He had no doubt Leg­ette was se­ri­ous, and charred flesh didn’t sound pleas­ant.

  In the next breath, the dragon leapt into the air. Its enor­mous wings flapped in suc­ces­sion, caus­ing a wind tun­nel around them. Kyran wrapped his arms around Mack’s waist, and held her against his chest. Within mo­ments, they were soar­ing through the sky.

  “Don’t you love this?” Mack asked as she looked over her shoul­der at him. He saw the ela­tion on her face and couldn’t help but smile at his stun­ning mate.

  Truth­fully, it was hard not to love the view. Khoth was an in­cred­i­bly beau­ti­ful realm, and from this po­si­tion, it was breath­tak­ing. The laven­der glow from the moon il­lu­mi­nated the trees and ground be­neath them. There were no cars in the realm, so the air was crisp and clear. It in­vig­o­rated Kyran to his core. He was over seven cen­turies old and re­called when Earth was prim­i­tive like Khoth. He missed the days of sim­plic­ity.

  Not to men­tion, Khoth held a spe­cial place in Kyran’s heart. It was where he and Mack dis­cov­ered they were mates. What started with her stab­bing him in the chest ended in her risk­ing ev­ery­thing to save him from cer­tain death. A true love story, in his opin­ion.

  “It doesn’t suck,” Kyran replied as he took in their sur­round­ings then kissed her cheek.

  He glanced
over his shoul­der when he heard the bel­low of an­other dragon. Nate, he con­cluded when red eyes met his. An­other dragon flanked his side, and Kyran as­sumed that was Lorne.

  “Don’t let them beat us,” Mack en­cour­aged Leg­ette, and Kyran felt the dragon surge.

  Min­utes later, Kyran spot­ted the city lights of Du­a­mutef. Cob­ble­stone streets and stone build­ings stretched for miles un­til they met the sandy beach lead­ing to the Saqara Sea which was in­hab­ited by the Stoor­worm sea drag­ons. The scene re­minded him of the vil­lages in Italy.

  Sud­denly, some­thing flew near his face, and Kyran swat­ted at what looked like a wood­pecker. Its body was cov­ered in blue and red feath­ers, and it had a long, pointed beak that glowed green. The pesky crea­ture re­turned, and be­fore Kyran knew what was hap­pen­ing, it latched onto his arm and buried its beak into his shoul­der.

  “What the fuck?” Kyran shouted as pain as­sailed him. He grabbed the crea­ture with his bare hand and squeezed its neck un­til he felt the body go limp.

  In the next breath, they were sur­rounded by a dozen of the killer wood­peck­ers. Kyran no­ticed only half of them had glow­ing beaks. “What the hell are these?” he shouted to Leggette as they swarmed around them.

  “Wakati. The fe­males are poi­sonous, so don’t let them sting you,” Leg­ette told them through dragon mind speech.

  “And, how do we know which are fe­males?” Mack screeched as she kicked one that landed on his dragon.

  “The ones with glow­ing beaks.”

  “Shite! I got stung by one of them. What hap­pens now?” Kyran barked as he pulled his sgian dubh from his boot. The next fucker that got near them was los­ing a head.

  “You die,” Leg­ette replied then Kyran heard a deep chuckle. “Just kid­ding. You’d have to be stung many times for it to kill you.”

 

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