by Ann Gimpel
She placed a finger over her lips. Frustration soured my nerves. How the fuck were we going to talk with this Bennet fellow? Or would all the conversation be in mind speech? Leaving me out of the loop.
I didn’t care for that alternative at all, particularly given the other dragon shifter had been interested enough in Katya to want to marry her. Mate with her, I corrected myself.
Well, she was already mated. To me. My beast’s possessiveness roared to the forefront, obliterating everything else. Yes, those twenty-first-century customs were gone for good. I was ready to challenge Bennet to a fight to the death—never mind, dragons were immortal—and I’d never even met him.
Magic blasted through the rear wall, and the other dragon shifter was just there. No transition while he materialized. He’d come in his human form. Russet hair was braided away from his face and hung down his back in several plaits. He had a high forehead, sharp hawk’s nose, and a squared-off chin. Naturally, his eyes were golden with deep green centers. Like us, he was naked.
I would have liked it better if he was short and squat and ugly, but he had the same type of build as Konstantin. Broad shoulders and acres of muscles.
Katya shot to her feet. So did I, and I made a point to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. For a ridiculously long time, the three of us stared at one another.
“What are you doing?” Katya asked in a low, strained voice.
“There is much you do not know,” he replied. “Wait.” He raised a hand and turned in a full circle as small white darts flew around us. Once he’d closed the circle, the projectiles grew together and formed something like a translucent tent surrounding us.
“It will not last long,” Bennet warned, “but it will allow us to talk without being overheard for a short time.”
“How could you have anything to do with serpents?” Katya glared at him.
“Power is a strong motivator, Kat.”
“Strong enough to leave your principles at the door?” I sneered.
He rounded on me. “I will allow criticism from her. I’ve known her my entire life. We were young together. You will hold your opinions. I have no idea who you are, and no wish to alter that status.”
Fire poured from me. My dragon was incensed.
He angled a pointed look my way. “Precisely what I mean. You’ve yet to learn how to control your beast.”
“Leave him alone,” Katya snarled. “This isn’t about him. You always were good at diverting attention away from what you didn’t want others to look too closely at. Third time, Bennet. How could you?”
He shrugged. “Some offers are too good to refuse.”
“What could they possibly have put on the block that was so attractive you’d walk away from everything good and decent? I can’t believe your dragon didn’t at least try to talk you out of this.”
A corner of Bennet’s handsome mouth twisted downward. “Oh, he did, so I found a better beast. One of the original versions of us. Before that piker who passes as a god exiled the serpents.”
He ran his gaze over Katya, taking her in inch by inch in a way I didn’t like at all. “I came because I had to see you once again.”
“What happened to Mina? And your children?” Katya crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
“She felt much the same way you seem to.”
Sadness flickered across Katya’s face. “I feel sorry for you. You cast aside everything that was important in your life. Your mate. Your children. Your bondmate. You broke rules at the heart of what it means to be a dragon shifter. And what did you gain?”
“We live a long time, Kat. Nothing is permanent. You should know that by now. Come away with me. I can offer you—”
“Over my dead body.” I stepped in front of her. “She is mine. You lost whatever chance you may have had when she refused you eons ago.”
“Is that so? Shall we let the lady speak for herself?”
Heat built in my belly and chest. Smoke, ash, and fire sprayed outward, but Bennet batted them away.
Katya moved from behind me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I never wanted you, Bennet. Never. You were always too arrogant for your own good.”
“You’re making a mistake. You will lose this world. You’ll cede it to us after you get tired of losing.”
“We did not exactly lose today,” I growled.
“Eh. First skirmish is just a warmup. Besides, those faery bastards appear to have left. I can’t scent their reek anymore.
“Last chance.” He leered at Katya.
I doubled up a fist and punched him square in his sanctimonious face. I heard the thwack as his nose broke. I waited for blood to sheet down his face. Instead, his nose bounced back to where it had been before I hit him. The whole thing reminded me of a cartoon sequence with Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.
“Take your last chances and go fuck yourself,” Katya barked in a harsh tone like nothing I’d ever heard from her.
He shrugged, a motion that made muscles ripple across his chest and down his arms. “I fought against this too. You’ll see the light. And when you do, I’ll be there. I’ve always wanted you, and I’m finally powerful enough to take everything that’s due me.”
My beast wanted out in no uncertain terms. Katya was ours. OURS. He bugled, challenging Bennet’s dragon to aerial combat. While I was struggling to hold onto my human body, Bennet vanished in a cloud of smoke and magic, laughing his head off.
A crazed edge to his laughter set my teeth on edge. “There is something wrong with him,” I muttered. At least my beast was becoming more manageable now that his adversary had left.
“There always was,” Kat murmured. “I’m sorry. When I sensed his presence not far from us, I invited him to meet. I was hoping for information. I had no idea he was so far gone, or that he was still carrying a torch for me.”
“He certainly healed fast.”
She nodded. “His magic is strong. More robust than dragon shifter magic has any right to be. After you hit him, I was afraid he’d strike back. I don’t understand why he didn’t.”
“I do.” I’d received that message loud and clear. “He was letting me know he is a bigger man than me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I never did do well interpreting all that dick wagging. He did say something I want to follow up on, though.”
“The part about breaking his bond with his original beast?” At her nod, I went on. “That was the beginning of my dragon demanding ascendency. He was outraged. I guess Bennet’s dragon was a friend, but I’m not sure. My bondmate is still too angry to talk with me.”
“Mine isn’t saying much, either. She’s rampaging about, screeching. The dragons all know one another, but I had no idea any dragons from our original creation remained.” Ash and smoke blew past her lips. “I saw a group I thought were early sea-serpents in a vision, but it occurred thousands of years in the past—at least, that was my interpretation.”
“Serpents from before our deity exiled them? What happened?” I’d heard bits and pieces of the story, but never the whole thing.
“Y Ddraigh Goch banished the serpents and took their wings after they tortured his children. He made a few changes to the dragons’ configuration at the same time, probably to ensure we would have different habitats than the serpents. It’s why water isn’t exactly a natural element for us any longer.”
I shook my head. “I was asking about your vision.”
“Oh.” She closed her teeth over her lower lip. “I was with Konstantin. That image was the last of a series we viewed that day. At first, I thought the bunch sitting around a fire were cave men. Then I thought they were dragons. Finally, after it was too late to extricate myself easily, I understood they were serpents, but before Y Ddraigh Goch had taken their wings.”
“What did they want?”
“To use my magic to forge a path through time. Kon broke my mirror and ended my scrying spell.”
I put two and two together. “You could not close off yo
ur casting in any other way?”
“No. I tried.”
Protectiveness flooded me, but the incident had already happened. Even if I’d been there, I’d have had no idea how to intervene. I wrenched my attention back to the other dragon shifter.
“Could Bennet have been lying about breaking the bond and crafting a new one?” It seemed logical to me. Men who had no honor frequently played fast and loose with the truth.
“Yeah, he could have. It’s likely, now you mention it. We lack the magic to break things off with our beasts. Only our god has that power.”
“Do you sense any other dragons or serpents on the headlands?”
“When I checked after we first got here,” she answered, “the only one I found was Bennet. Doesn’t mean much, though. They could have been warded much like us.”
I tried for subtle and sent a thread of seeking magic outward. I asked my beast to help interpret the results. “I believe we are alone,” I said once I’d searched. The dragon didn’t contradict me, but he was still spun out about Bennet’s beast.
“My take too. Shall we go back? I need to tell Kon and the others about this. And we need Y Ddraigh Goch. He will know if any of the original dragons remain.”
“If what Bennet said is true,” I spoke slowly, “it means the dragon god no longer has control over the dragons’ original configuration.”
“Which is why Bennet was probably lying.” Katya’s tone was brisk, and she set a teleport spell in motion.
I was all for leaving. The cave stank of Bennet. Unlike other dragon shifters, he smelled like the serpents with a cloyingly rotten undernote that grew worse the longer I breathed it.
“There is nothing left of the dragon I knew inside Bennet.” My beast finally recovered his voice.
“But is it the same dragon?”
“Yes and no. He is changed, and not for the better. His capacity for independent thought has fled. It is as if he’s been ensorcelled.” More fire shot from my mouth. “It’s an outrage. No one tampers with dragonkind.”
“Katya?”
“Yes, I heard. Even though your beast is correct about it being disgraceful, still I am relieved we aren’t dealing with a resurrection of whatever we were before the serpents’ exile.”
“Did your bondmate weigh in, yet?”
She shook her head. “Long ago, she urged me to accept Bennet’s offer of mating, but that was when she was pushing me toward any male who showed an interest in us. She’s probably feeling guilty.”
The clean feel of her power surrounded me. The cavern gave way to the verge around the lake. It had emptied of shifters except the odd dinosaur grazing on marsh grass. Three were in the lake, splashing about.
“Where’s Konstantin?” Katya called.
Something that looked a lot like a Spinosaurus called back, “He left to talk with the land.”
“How long ago?”
The dinosaur shrugged, shaking water in a wide circle. “A while.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you want to hunt for him?” I asked.
“No. Let’s go inside for a bit. I’d like to consult the lore books. And see if I can’t set the wheels in motion to raise Y Ddraigh Goch.”
I threaded my fingers with hers. Together we walked inside and down one flight to the level with the sleeping pallets. Both of us stopped, and she wrapped her arms around me.
I drank her in, still not quite believing she was mine. “You are so lovely,” I murmured and brushed my thumb across her cheek. My bondmate took up his chant about the mating flight where we would shift and make love in the air. I felt for his plight, but the odds of us taking the time to travel to the surface to mate were nonexistent.
Lost in passion, we would be exposed to whoever lurked there.
Her nipples pebbled where they pressed against my chest. Despite being mates, we’d only made love once. My cock rose in a column and pressed against her soft belly. Her eyes glowed with love and tenderness.
“We shouldn’t,” she said, “but what harm can five minutes to ourselves do?”
I wanted a whole lot more than five minutes. The only other time we’d gotten together hadn’t lasted much longer than that, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. She snuck a hand between our bodies and curled her fingers around my shaft. Not that I’d been undecided before, but her touch clinched it.
Still clinging to each other, we sidestepped into the nearest room. The door slammed shut behind us, and we half fell onto a pad pushed into one corner. Katya was on top of me, straddling my legs. She rose far enough to seat my cock at her entrance, and then she sank onto me. The heat of her surrounding me was enticing, irresistible.
Reaching up, I filled my hands with her breasts, rubbing the erect nipples between my thumb and forefinger. She moaned and pressed herself deeper into my touch. Her muscles clenched around me, and she rotated her hips from side to side. The musk of our combined arousal stoked the heat racing through me.
She dropped her hands onto my shoulders and steadied herself as she danced up and down the length of my shaft. Her mouth crashed against mine, and I wrapped one arm around her back and grabbed a hip with the other hand. Between the two, I moved us faster and faster. My heart thudded against my chest wall, and my breath turned to ragged pants.
Within her, my cock was as achingly hard as it ever got. I willed her release. Fucked her harder. Faster. I wanted the sensation spilling through me to last forever, but these were stolen moments. Time we should have been researching Bennet’s claims and begging the dragon god for his time and assistance.
She’d been biting my lower lip when she dragged her mouth from mine long enough to say. “We chose this. Dragons are jealous. Think only of me.”
“How could I not?” I somehow managed to get the words out. “You are everything I have ever dreamed of in a woman.”
She crinkled her nose at me. “Brash. Outspoken. Headstrong.”
“Gorgeous. Smart. Insightful. Compassionate.”
Her hair streamed down around us. She captured my mouth with hers again, and I took firm hold of the amazing rounded globes of her ass. Upping the tempo, I walked a fine edge, holding on until her soft moans and the rhythmic contractions around my cock told me she was cresting. No reason to hold off any longer.
I let go of everything and lost myself in the woman I loved.
Panting and laughing, we hung on for dear life until our passion ebbed enough for us to untangle our limbs. “Not much more than five minutes.” She grinned at me.
“Worth every second.” I grinned back. “Not having clothing to get in and out of has advantages.” I rolled to a kneeling position and held out both hands. “Shall we?”
“We shall. I believe we were on our way to the library?”
“We were, indeed. Might we detour through the kitchen?”
She snorted. “We could, but there might not be anything left.”
I scrambled to my feet and lifted Katya to hers. “If not, we shall remedy it later.”
Her expression sobered. “I have a feeling hunting on the run will be our new normal. At least until we either dispatch the serpents or give up and leave.”
“Never. Earth is worth saving.”
“Let’s hope she feels the same way. If not, there won’t be a whole lot we can do to convince her to hold on.”
A thought occurred to me. “Much as I view this as an absolute last-ditch scenario, if the land is hellbent on destroying herself, perhaps we can arrange things so she takes the bloody bastard serpents with her.”
“I like the way you think. In fact, there’s not much about you I don’t like.”
Her words pleased me as I trailed down the stairs after her. My stomach rumbled, and I hoped to hell there was at least a pan of dried kelp left to munch on. “What is your first priority in the library?” I asked.
“Dragon shifter history,” she replied. “I want to make certain what I believe is what actually happened and not a watered-down version we were
fed as youngsters because it was more palatable.”
“I am glad humans are not the only ones who rewrite history to whitewash atrocities.”
“No one has a corner on that market.” She whooped. “We’re in luck. No one found the rest of the seal meat.” Scooping booty into a cloth square, she ran for the library with me right behind her.
I swear, that woman has the finest ass. I could watch its curves forever and never tire of the view. A shot of magic from Katya eradicated the illusion that kept the library hidden from casual view. She plopped the cloth sack on the desk and headed for a particularly dusty shelf. I grabbed a bit of dried seal and settled in with a stack of scrolls Erin had collected that mostly had to do with how dragon shifter magic worked.
We’d figure this out. We had to. Rather than dwell on Bennet’s magic and why it was so potent, I chalked him up as a nut case and began to read.
Konstantin
Konstantin was partway down the steep shaft when the earth rumbled menacingly around him. Rocks cascaded downward, bouncing off the walls. “Stop that!” He infused command into his words. Earth was turning into a fickle bitch, but he’d be damned if he’d let her bury him under tons of rock. He could dig his way out with magic, but it would take time he didn’t have right now.
A terrified shriek cut into his soul. Erin. What was she doing anywhere near him? Had she decided to tag along quietly? The cry had come from above. He dug his feet and knees into the soft dirt to stop his downward trajectory. A blast of magic propelled him upward.
But he didn’t get very far. The upper end of the shaft had filled in with soft crumbly dirt and rocks. “Erin!” he yelled and followed it with a thread of seeking magic. Sure enough, she was between him and the ledge that led to the shaft, presumably mired in dirt and boulders that had fallen into the chute.
A whimper reached him, followed by garbled telepathy. “I’m sorry. I’ll get myself out of this. Last thing I want is to add to your problems.”
He rebuked himself for being overprotective. For not teaching her to teleport properly. Her dragon could step in, but would she? Intent on freeing Erin, he levered himself upward, clawing dirt out of the way as he went. He mixed in streams of magic to make things go faster.
