by G. A. Aiken
Her brother shook his head. “Are you insane? If the family finds out—”
“It’s a risk I have to take. And I think you can help me, Dagmar.”
“You want me to get the rumor about you and Esyld out?”
“Can you think of anyone better to make that happen?”
Dagmar smirked. “Not really.”
“I don’t like this, Keita,” Gwenvael said.
“I know you don’t, but I need the traitors to present themselves much sooner. I fear we’re running out of time.”
Gwenvael began to argue, but his mate cut him off.
“She’s right.” Dagmar let out a breath. “We’ve become fairly certain the Sovereign human troops are raiding small towns and villages near the Western Mountains. Dividing Annwyl’s troops, hoping to pull more dragon troops there to help.”
“And it seems Styrbjörn the Revolting may be helping Thracius,” Ragnar added. “Everything is moving into place. As much as I hate this as well, we must push this along.”
“And what about the safety of my sister?” Gwenvael demanded, glaring at the Northlander but making Keita feel a touch more special than she had a few minutes ago.
“I will protect your sister with my life. I swear it on the Code and the name of my kin.”
“Which means what to me?” Gwenvael demanded.
“Everything,” Dagmar told her mate. “It means everything.”
“Keita?” Gwenvael asked her. “What say you?”
“I trust Ragnar the Cunning as I trust you…or actually more like I trust Ren.”
Gwenvael pouted. “You trust Ren more than me?”
“At least he’s reliable.”
“You can’t seriously still be blaming me for that, little sister! I was late one time!”
“And I nearly lost this amazing head! If it hadn’t been for Ren, my perfection would have been lost for the ages. I still don’t know how you live with yourself after that!”
“Because my perfection would have remained. And that’s all that matters!”
They eventually left the warehouse, the pairs separating. As they headed back to the castle, Gwenvael took his mate’s hand.
“Well?” he asked.
“I can’t believe you never told me.”
“It wasn’t my information to tell. And she’s my sister.”
“Reason help me, she is so your sister, Gwenvael.”
“What does that mean?”
“I hope Ragnar understands what he’s about to get himself involved with.”
“He’s already fucked her—how much more involved can he get?”
“He hasn’t.”
“He hasn’t what?”
“As you so eloquently put it, fucked her.”
Gwenvael stopped, pulling his mate to a halt. “How do you know that?”
“Instinct. Body language. Your sister is very smart. She knows having a very secret relationship with Ragnar, a low-born enemy dragon—no matter how many alliances your mother agrees to, many of your kin and other noble dragons still consider the Northland dragons enemies—Keita comes off even more of the bored royal itching for her mother’s throne. She plays stupid because it makes her seem controllable. Too bad she’s more like her mother than either of them seems to realize.”
“Don’t ever say that loud enough Keita can hear you. She’ll rip your throat out.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She tugged, and they began to walk again. “But they will be soon enough, I’m guessing.”
Gwenvael had learned over the years that his mate had a tendency to jump from conversation to conversation because that’s how her brilliant mind worked. Most beings could barely manage one or two cohesive thoughts at a time; Dagmar seemed to manage hundreds.
“They will be soon enough what?”
“Fucking.”
Gwenvael stopped again. “I thought you just said they weren’t?”
“They’re not. Although I don’t know why it bothers you so much.”
“What if he’s just toying with my sister because he’s good and pissed I got you?”
“I think it would be very hard for any male to toy with your sister and live to enjoy it. But it doesn’t matter because that’s not Ragnar’s way.”
When Gwenvael could only manage a grunt, Dagmar stroked her free hand against his chin. “And I’m with you, not with him. He understands that.”
“He better.”
“Besides, I’m sure once he beds your sister, he won’t think about me for another second.”
“How are you so sure that’ll happen?”
“Do you need my spectacles to see, Defiler?” She tugged him into moving again. “They’re both gagging for it!”
Keita was heading out of town with Ragnar when she saw him. He stood by a blacksmith stall, talking to a pretty young girl. He held the girl’s hand and leaned in close.
She stopped, stared, rage singing through her veins.
“Keita?” Ragnar slid his hand down her back. “What is it?”
Unable to answer, her anger too great, she marched across the street until she reached the pair. Lifting both her hands, she slammed them into the human male, shoving him to the side. She grudgingly had to admit she was impressed. Although hitting her brothers like that would do little more than annoy them, she had been known to break a few bones of the human males. This one, however, just stared at her.
“Keita?” he asked, obviously shocked.
“Do you think,” she snarled at the bastard, “that you can do this and get away with it? That I’d let you do this?”
The general of Annwyl’s armies and her sister’s worthless human mate frowned, appearing confused; then his eyes grew wide. “No, no. You don’t under—”
Unable to look at him without wanting to set him on fire, she spun on the girl. “You. Whore. Get from my sight, or I swear by all the gods that I’ll destroy everything that you love!”
The girl, rightly terrified, burst into tears and ran off, allowing Keita to focus on the man behind her.
She faced him, pointing a finger. “I should rip the flesh from your human carcass, you low-born—”
“She’s my cousin,” he cut in.
“Yeah. Right. Nice one. Like I’ve never heard that line of centaur shit before.”
“I was asking her to be our new nanny.”
That had a ring of truth to it, didn’t it? “New nanny?”
“We lost another nanny, and Morfyd asked me to see if my young cousin would take the position. The young cousin you just sent screaming and sobbing back to my aunt and uncle, who will probably never let me see her again.”
Keita lowered that accusing finger, knowing he spoke the truth. “Oh.”
“You can ask Morfyd, if you’d like. She knows my whole family. They adore her.”
“Brastias, I’m so…very…”
“No, no. It’s always wonderful when your fourteen-year-old cousin is called a whore on the street and you’re accused of betraying the mate you adore. And in front of the blacksmith, too.”
Keita looked over, and the blacksmith gave a happy wave.
“Truly, I am so sorry. I just—”
“You and Morfyd go at it like cats and dogs,” Brastias said, “but something always told me I never wanted to be on the wrong side of that.” He walked past her. “Now I know I was right.”
He headed off down the street, back to the castle, and tossed over his shoulder, “Some of the Cadwaladrs are dining with us tonight. With Izzy back, there will probably be dancing. I thought you should know.”
Keita buried her face in her hands. Mortified. She was absolutely mortified!
So when Ragnar put his arm around her shoulders and led her out of town, she didn’t even ask where they were going. She didn’t even care.
He took her deep into the forests, leading her along until he got to a small lake behind some large boulders. It was secluded and quiet, a place he’d stumbled upon when he’d been here two years
before. Less than a mile away was the spot where Keita had stabbed him with her tail. She didn’t go into a rage often, but when she did…there were always so many victims.
He brushed off one of the smaller boulders and led her to it. “Sit.”
She did, planting her elbows on her knees and her face back in her hands.
“You all right?”
She answered, but he couldn’t make it out with her hands in the way, so he crouched in front of her and pulled them away. “What?”
“I said I’m mortified.”
“Is that a new experience for you?”
“Kind of.”
Ragnar brushed her hair from her face. “All right. So you called a child a whore and accused your sister’s mate of betraying her…I’m sure it could be worse.”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to make you feel better?”
“You’re not very good at it.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” She gave a little laugh. “I think it’s endearing.”
“Like the village slow boy who brings flowers to the pretty neighbor girl?”
“Pretty much…but I must say you have managed to make me feel better.” Keita sat up, scrutinizing the dragon crouched in front of her.
“What?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You know…you have a beautiful face.”
“Thank you?”
Reaching out, Keita framed his face with her hands.
“Has no one said that to you before?”
“Of course. My brother said it just the other day before he bought me a pretty new gown…and earrings.”
“You Northlanders do love your sarcasm.”
“It gets us through the day.”
“Would this help you get through the day?” And then she kissed him, pressing her lips to his, stroking her hands across his jaw.
To Keita’s surprise, unlike their first kiss, there was no response from Ragnar. She might as well have been kissing the boulder she was sitting on.
Feeling a little idiotic, she pulled back and found those strange blue eyes watching her.
“Was I too forward, warlord?”
“No. But I’m no Southlander.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“Something about you tugs at me, Keita, and I won’t be shooed away like some irritating fly once you bed me. You can play that game with your Fire Breathers, not with me.”
“So should I hand my wings over now or wait until you come first?”
His smile was a little sad as he took the hands she still had pressed against his face and gently pushed them back into her lap. “If that’s the best you think of me, perhaps you should find yourself someone else. A safer distraction for Her Majesty than a wing-removing bastard of a Lightning.”
He rose to his full height, towering over her with all that power and muscle. As a dragoness, she should feel wary. Ready to fight or flee at the slightest move from the Northlander who made her feel so uncomfortable.
“It’s all right,” he said. “To the rest of the world we’ll be ravenous lovers.”
He took a step away, and Keita reached out, catching hold of his inside thigh. Keeping her hand there, she stood. She only reached his shoulder, but that was enough.
“How about we make a deal?” she suggested.
“What kind of deal?”
“I promise not to shoo you away like a…what was it? An irritating fly? And you promise not to force a Claiming.” She pressed her hand hard against his thigh. “Seduce me, if you like. Charm me, if you can. But no more than that. If that’s amenable to you.”
Ragnar turned toward her, stepped in close. Her hand automatically moved up until it pressed against the sizable cock he had hidden behind his leggings. His big hands slid into her hair, fingers massaging her scalp while he tilted her head back.
“That’s a deal I can agree to,” he murmured, his gaze searching her face.
“Then kiss me, warlord. I think we’ve both waited long enough.”
He knew he’d made a dangerous decision as soon as he took her mouth with his own. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter to him, nothing had ever felt so perfect. And what kind of deal had he agreed to? A deal that, at the moment, felt impossible to abide by when all he wanted to do was toss her over his shoulder and fly her back to his Northland home. Yet he knew that the one way to lose Keita forever was to break his word to her. And not the everyday things that males promise their females—“I know I said I’d clean up the ox carcass from the dining hall, but I’ve been busy!”—but this deal in particular. It was a test, and they both knew it. Because what Keita wanted above all else was her freedom. The freedom to go where she liked, when she liked, with whomever she liked. That meant everything to her. Of all the commitments they’d made to each other over the last few days, some that risked life and death and the future of their territories, this was the one that could make Keita his or push her away forever.
For that reason alone, he should stop this now, get this situation that might or might not involve the Sovereigns out of the way. Then, when the time was right, Ragnar would return and court this dragoness of royal blood properly.
That’s what he should do.
But as soon as he ripped her bodice open to get at her breasts, any hope of doing what he should rather than what he wanted ended.
He sucked her nipple into his mouth and she moaned, her hands digging into his hair, her small fingers quickly undoing the braid that fell past his shoulders, and he knew they were both beyond the point of stopping and thinking rationally.
Rationally? He would have laughed if he wasn’t busy falling on his back and bringing Keita with him.
Rational thought was for when one courted someone one was interested in, but who didn’t heat the blood. Someone safe and pretty and not remotely challenging. Keita was dangerous and stunning and more challenging than that nest of ice snakes he fell into once. Ice snakes, which could grow so big and long that they could wrap around a dragon his size seven or eight times, and crush every bone he possessed in less than a minute. And that five-hour fight Ragnar only managed to survive because of Vigholf and Meinhard—not nearly as challenging as Keita.
Then again, nothing ever would be, and he understood that now.
He’d torn the bodice of one of her favorite dresses and she didn’t care. He’d dragged her to the lakeside dirt rather than easing her there slowly, seductively—she didn’t care. And his grip on her was like steel as he held her close, locking her in place while his warm mouth sucked one nipple, then the other, teeth scraping, hands digging into her hips—and she loved it.
She hadn’t dared to hope that someone as methodical as Ragnar the Cunning could ever be so passionate. Then again, maybe she should have known. The way he looked at her, watched her.
He released one arm so that he could reach between them and get at his leggings. She knew then there’d be no foreplay this first time, no soft caresses, no sucking his cock to make him hard, no licking her to get her off, before they got to the finale of it all.
And, for once, it didn’t matter. As soon as he’d kissed her, she’d grown wet, nearly desperate. A desperation she hadn’t felt in a very long time for any male, no matter how handsome or powerful he might be. At the moment, Keita needed none of those extras, yanking herself from Ragnar’s grip so she could unleash human-sized talons and shred the leggings from him until his cock reared up free. She caught hold of it and rose up on her knees, moving her body until she was over it. She spread her thighs, took a breath, and dropped her weight down.
Her pussy engulfed all that male hardness in one shot, both Keita and Ragnar groaning, writhing. He filled her, expanded inside her even more.
Ragnar caught hold of her hips, pulling her in tight while he drove up.
Keita’s head fell back; she laughed even as she moaned.
Gods! That felt so good.
She couldn’t e
xplain why, didn’t care. She just knew she loved it. Every inch of his cock driving into her—nothing had ever felt quite this good.
His hands moved up her sides and pulled her down, closer. Ragnar sat up a bit until he could reach her breast. His mouth surrounded it, and then, she felt it. Little lightning strikes against her breast. Little lightning strikes that had her entire body clenching, her eyes opening wide in surprise.
She panted, twisting hard against him, her hands pressing against his shoulders. Not to get away—at this moment, she was sure she’d never want to get away—but because she’d lost control. A control she prided herself on having when it came to males. He moved to her other breast, released more little shocks against her flesh, and Keita screamed out, the first orgasm ripping through her, followed closely by a second.
Shaking, covered in sweat, she held on to him as he continued to fuck her, using his mouth and tongue on her nipples until he did it again. Until he sent those tiny lightning strikes into her body and Keita cried out once more, her entire body clenching. But this time his cry joined hers, his hands squeezing her so tight she wondered if he’d crush her ribs. He came inside her, his hips rocking into her as each new ejaculation shot into her hard and hot.
When, finally, his arms wrapped around her waist and her head crashed into his chest, she knew with absolute certainty that making a deal with this dragon was perhaps the dumbest thing she’d ever done.
Panting, head slowly beginning to clear, Ragnar realized he had Keita in his arms and a short amount of time to figure out how to keep her there.
The first step, though, was not to let her know that was his intent. If he even showed a hint of making what they had permanent, she’d run off like a startled rabbit.
So he wisely kept his mouth shut and leaned back against the lakeside dirt with Keita held against him. He waited until they could both breathe evenly again before he asked, “Is there any way to get out of the dancing portion of tonight’s dinner?”
