Primal Ice: Paranormal Fantasy (Ice Dragons Book 3)

by Ann Gimpel

  I tried to wriggle out of his embrace. “You need to spend more time with that book.”

  “Yes. I do. But there’s not much point until I can confer with Y Ddraigh Goch. I’ve done what I can to reach him. Meanwhile”—his eyes glittered with tenderness and heat—“we have other priorities.”

  I tried to resist—surely, with everything that faced us, making love was frivolous—but I didn’t try very hard. Being smushed up against him turned my brains to pablum and the rest of me to a flood of lust. When his mouth crashed down on mine, I kissed him back and dug my nails into his shoulders, hanging on for dear life.

  No more stopping shy of “the deed.” No more making adjustments because fucking would cement our commitment. Between our bodies, Arianrhod’s pendant warmed and pulsed approvingly as if she were blessing our union.

  The last of my resolve to focus all our energy on defeating the sea-serpents shattered. Reaching between us, I wrapped my fingers around his cock. My world narrowed to the man I’d fallen in love with.

  Konstantin

  The scents that were uniquely Erin when she was aroused floated around Konstantin. Cinnamon, vanilla, and musk. Damn! He could live on those smells. He’d planned to return to the book, but his beast had been giving him nine kinds of hell to complete the mating bond. The dragon had launched argument after argument, many of them impossible to dispute.

  He was here. Erin was here. Who knew when they’d have another opportunity?

  Erin would be far stronger mated to him than she was in her current limbo state.

  The being stronger reason was what had finally swayed him. As his mate, not just his betrothed, Erin would be able to tap into his magic. And she’d be much stronger. If she were kidnapped, he’d be able to find her with a thought. No complicated spells to cast. The dragon had other suggestions as well.

  Some were a bit on the self-serving side, but just as irrefutable as everything else rolling out of the beast’s mouth.

  Nestled in his arms, Erin molded her body to his. The globes of her breasts were flattened against his chest, highlighting her pebbled nipples. Her hips wriggled as she pushed as close as she could get. His tongue was sunk into her mouth, and she teased it with teeth and lips. Dropping his hands lower, he gripped her high, tight ass.

  No woman had any right to such a fine ass. Watching her walk gave him an erection every single time. He withdrew his tongue and swiped it along her cheek to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, and thence down to the hollow between her neck and shoulder.

  She made a sound that reminded him of a hungry dragon on the prowl, low and throaty. Steam surrounded them, courtesy of both their beasts.

  His cock was distended. His balls ached. It took all his willpower not to turn her around and plumb her from behind. The thought of her ass snugged against his thighs was enticing as hell.

  But his dragon wasn’t having it. Not yet, anyway.

  He lifted his mouth from her sweet flesh. “Shift, darling.” His throat was so constricted with lust he could barely get the words out.

  She focused her beautiful eyes, whirling since her dragon was near the surface, on him. “But I thought—”

  “And we will. In both our forms.”

  Momentary confusion clouded her features. “Where? There isn’t room to fly.”

  “Outside, there is.”

  “The other dragons will see us.”

  He nodded. “They will, and they’ll rejoice. I am their prince, and I am unmated. They will approve of our union and interpret it as a good omen.”

  Erin grinned. “I’ve never been into public sex, but my dragon is enthusiastic as hell. Look.” She levered the hand that she’d had curled around his cock out from between them and showed him talons where fingers should have been. “Hussy dragon. She wanted to cop a feel too.”

  “Hussy dragon, indeed.” He chuckled softly.

  Erin dragged her tongue over lips swollen from their kiss. “It’s good when she and I want the same thing. Saves a lot of haranguing.”

  Kon let go of her and very reluctantly stepped back a pace. “Come on. Hurry. I want to get outside before my beast breaks through and I have to teleport because I won’t fit through the door.”

  “Bet you can’t beat me!” Erin sprinted around him and took off across the great room for the stairs.

  He ran after her, surprised he didn’t actually catch up until she’d dragged the stone entry doors open. Her red beast formed faster than he’d imagined possible for such a young dragon shifter. He opened his mouth and half bugled, half roared his approval.

  She bugled back as his beast broke through. He’d just spread his wings when she took to the skies. His dragon wrested control of their shared form and leapt skyward. Steam billowed from him.

  Erin ducked and swooped, leading him a merry chase. Steam puffed from her mouth too. Dragon sex was simple. What their beasts were doing was a mating dance. It stoked the lust sheeting from them both. Other dragons had heard their bugling and were pouring into the clearing around the first lake.

  No modesty in dragondom. He’d understood full well that his mating dance would be cause for celebration. He’d been watching Erin’s flight pattern, and it had grown predictable. She wanted him to catch her.

  Her next swoop past him, he twisted midair and settled across her back. Gripping her shoulders with his forelegs, he jammed his cock into her in one quick, hard movement. He’d never had sex with another dragon. If he had, she’d be his mate and not Erin. His only comparison was sex with a human, and so he wasn’t prepared for the extraordinary heat that encircled his beast’s cock. Like nothing he’d ever experienced before, it was so intense he nearly came on the spot.

  He hadn’t known he could be this hot. This high. And not come all over everything. His entire scaled body vibrated with unslaked lust. Tilting his head, he bit her shoulder. The mating bite. It more than anything told him the ritual was nearly complete.

  Erin’s body tightened, surrounding him with prickles of love and lust. He let go of her shoulder. Protectiveness raced through him, so ferocious that fire streamed from his mouth, joining the clouds of steam.

  More compelling than anything he’d encountered watching over his hoard, possessiveness bolted to the forefront of his mind. Erin was his. HIS. For now and forever more. His dragon was ecstatic. Apparently unconcerned with anything beyond driving them to unparalleled sexual heights, his bondmate plunged his cock into Erin’s willing beast.

  She mewled and roared and bugled. He felt it when her vault shuddered around him. Unlike a human climax, it just kept on rolling. “Now!” his bondmate shrieked. “Yes. Now!”

  A tsunami of an orgasm blasted through him. Hot. Intense. Lasting forever. Semen pumped in white-hot jets of delight. They settled to earth with his cock still buried in her and still coming.

  Around them, cheers and whistles and bugles and cries wishing them good fortune rang out, but the dragons who’d witnessed their mating had the wisdom to leave quickly. When his appendage finally deflated enough for him to detach from Erin’s body, they were alone next to the lake.

  He wanted to hold her, stroke her hair, tell her how much he loved her. She understood without words, and the air around her grew liquid with shift magic as she sought her human body. They stood, still breathing hard. He drank in her tumbled blonde mane. Her hard nipples. Splotches of color marking her breasts and face.

  A small wound on her shoulder—the spot he’d bitten her while they were mating—changed into the likeness of a red-and black dragon. He held out his arms, and she fell into them.

  “That was so amazing, I don’t have words for it,” she murmured against his shoulder.

  “We don’t require words,” he told her and submerged a hand in the silk of her hair. Scooping her into his arms, he carried her back to his home—their home now—down steps, and into one of the sleeping rooms.

  His cock was still hard, jutting from his body, as he set her down on a pallet and settled next to
her, gathering her close. “Are you all right?”

  “More than all right. My dragon is purring.”

  “Let’s make your human half purr too.”

  “Yes, let’s.” She rolled them so she was on top. Sitting, she straddled him and took him back inside her body. She moved slowly, letting herself stretch to accommodate his girth. Arching her back, she cupped both breasts and rubbed her nipples to even stiffer peaks.

  Watching her touch herself was an incredible aphrodisiac. Not that he needed anything extra. The vista of her body sitting over him, hair falling to waist level, was alluring. Her form was perfect with its combination of muscles stretching over bones, flared hips, long legs, and tempting, curvy breasts.

  “You’re so lovely,” he said.

  “I was just thinking the same thing. You’re glowing with magic.” Leaning forward, she planted her hands on his shoulders and rotated her hips in a sideways movement that also drew her up. The next twist brought her down until he bottomed out inside her. The combination of twist and thrust made him ache for her with a singlemindedness only another dragon could understand.

  Today was a day for firsts. The sex he and Erin had had before this paled in comparison.

  Maybe because they’d already mated as dragons, lovemaking with her this way was almost as mind-rattling as their earlier coupling had been. He let her set the pace, willing to go wherever she led. He was aware of orgasms ratcheting through her, and just as aware she wasn’t done with him.

  He cheated and leveraged magic to hold himself on a fine edge. Almost there, but not quite. When she growled, “Come, goddammit,” he was more than ready to oblige.

  Balls tight against his body, he gripped her hips and upped the tempo, stroking quick and sure. After half a dozen thrusts, he spilled his seed within her. She held his shoulders tight enough to draw blood with her nails. Steam poured from her. Panting and puffing, she cried. “Mine. You are MINE.”

  He laughed. Whether the proclamation had come from Erin or her dragon didn’t matter. He was delighted. “Yes, darling. We belong to each other.” He drew her down until she lay on top of him and held her close.

  A whispery wisp of magic caught his attention. When he glanced toward it, more curious than alarmed, he wasn’t surprised to see the outline of Y Ddraigh Goch’s dragon.

  “Erin. We have company.”

  “What the hell? I had no idea dragons were such a bunch of voyeurs.” She pulled herself off his half-hard cock and rolled to a sit. “Oops. Sorry. I recognize that dragon. I didn’t mean him.”

  Konstantin laughed again. “He’s not exactly here, but he will be very soon.”

  “I suppose we should thank him for not interrupting us.” She finger-combed the mass of tangles cascading around her body but didn’t make much progress.

  He sat too. “What we did was critical. It was long past time for me to select a mate. Having an unmated liege doesn’t bode well for the future of our kind. Our god understands that very well. It was why he allowed us to complete the mating ritual.”

  “It was my reasoning, indeed.” In human form, Y Ddraigh Goch shimmered into being in the doorway. Konstantin hadn’t seen him that way often. The dragon god was an imposing man. Tall and broad shouldered, his long hair was golden with thick silver streaks running through it. He had a high, noble forehead and a square jaw peppered with golden stubble. Long, curved red talons tipped his fingers and toes. But his eyes were the most intriguing aspect of him. Much the same as when he was in his dragon body, they held an ever-changing collage recounting the history of dragon shifters since the beginnings of time.

  Leather trousers hung low on his hips, and a colorful tunic swathed the upper part of his body. Like everything about the god, his clothes were probably either magical—or illusion.

  Konstantin got to his feet and bowed. “You honor me with your presence.”

  Erin stood next to him and bowed her head as well.

  “Congratulations on your mating,” the dragon god rumbled in his deep, musical voice. “Leave it to you, Konstantin, to wait until the world hovers on the brink of destruction to finally do what you should have done years ago.”

  “But then, I would never have found Erin,” Konstantin said. “She is my fated one. The woman I am meant to travel my life’s road with.”

  Y Ddraigh Goch turned his gaze to Erin. “Perhaps you are right, after all,” he murmured after staring at her for long moments.

  “Forgive me for speaking out of turn,” Erin said, “but did you deliver the magical book to us?”

  A corner of his mouth twisted downward. “It it’s the book I believe it to be, it found its own way here.”

  Konstantin whistled. “It’s that powerful?”

  “I would not have said so if it weren’t,” the god retorted.

  “Of course not. No offense meant.” Kon murmured.

  “You have need of me,” Y Ddraigh Goch went on. “I would have been here sooner, but I couldn’t resist doing away with a pod of serpents who thought to bar my path.”

  “They must not have recognized you,” Konstantin said, “or they would have teleported out of harm’s way.”

  “Oh, they recognized me well enough, but they’re drunk on their own power. I may have wiped a few dragon minds along the way.”

  “How many of the dragon traitors dare to lurk near my lair?” Konstantin growled.

  “Fewer than before.”

  It wasn’t an answer, but it was all he was going to get. Questioning Y Ddraigh Goch generally didn’t yield much.

  “What happens to a dragon after you’ve cleared out their memories?” Erin asked.

  The dragon god smiled with zero warmth and a whole lot of teeth. Double rows of ivory were part of his human presentation as well as his dragon one. “They start over. Dragon and human get to know one another again. Unless I break the bond. Then the dragon is banished, and the human’s life may be forfeit as well. Depends on the level of their transgressions.”

  Konstantin cleared his throat. All the steam and ash and fire had left a few raw spots. “For the ones who begin anew, will they possess our standard knowledge base? The one where they view serpents as enemies?”

  “Of course. Otherwise, why bother to do anything?”

  “Again, forgive me if this is a stupid question,” Erin said, “but why would dragons join with sea-serpents? What’s the allure? They feel scuzzy to me. Like I dipped my brain in slime.”

  Y Ddraigh Goch blew out a breath, and a tongue of fire danced across the room. “Not all my children believe in me any longer. Many were angry at the way I handled Mu’s ending—and other things as well. They’ve been plotting ever since. An alliance with sea-serpents offered them the perfect mechanism to challenge my sovereignty.”

  Konstantin debated whether he should mention the debacle with the serpents that had preceded their exile. In his opinion, that was when some dragons had begun to doubt their god. He shuttered his thoughts. The serpents’ downfall was bound up with Y Ddraigh Goch’s children being tortured. Not a pleasant topic, nor one he wished to thrust into the limelight.

  “Beyond that,” the god continued, “blended magics have more power. Dragons would benefit far more from an alliance with serpents in that respect. The serpents’ power has continued to fade. It is why they lost their immortality in their human bodies.”

  Konstantin angled his head to one side. “It sounds as if you planned things that way.”

  “I did. If I’d created that level of chaos when I sent them away, they’d have panicked. Fought against my edict. As it was, I smoothed things over. Planted seeds they’d be independent one day, and then I dropped them in a few locations where they’d have to work very hard to create problems.”

  “Did you know they’d escape?” Erin asked.

  “No. If I had, I’d have done a better job defanging them before I sent them away from Mu. Enough questions.” The air shimmered around him. When it cleared, the book from downstairs sat on the floor
at his feet. The god crouched in front of it and ran his taloned fingers reverently over its cracked binding.

  “I never thought I would see this again.” Fire billowed from his mouth and surrounded the book. The ancient tome took on an eerie red-gold glow. Runes on its cover came into view.

  Erin lurched forward, but Konstantin caught her arm. “It will be all right,” he reassured her. Y Ddraigh Goch had loved the First Dragon in the same way all parents dote on their firstborns. Konstantin hadn’t been alive when the dragon god was forced to destroy his creation, but he’d heard enough to understand the decision had torn the god in two.

  By then, there’d been other dragon shifters. The First Dragon was jealous, so resentful he undermined their magic. After he nearly killed one of his brothers, Y Ddraigh Goch was forced to choose.

  His firstborn. Or all the others who would come later.

  The book was all that was left of the First Dragon’s magic. Y Ddraigh Goch would smite anyone who harmed it. Fire continued to paint the book’s cover. As it cleared, the tome lost its dogeared appearance and looked fresh and new. As if it had just been created.

  “Better,” the god murmured. He rocked back on his heels. “I would give much to know where this book has been. I looked for it before Mu exploded and couldn’t find it.”

  “Someone must have taken it,” Erin said and slipped a hand into Konstantin’s.

  Y Ddraigh Goch shook his head. “Not necessarily. Articles imbued with strong magic have ways of protecting themselves. It is possible the book moved itself to safety, a spot it remained until it felt its knowledge was needed.”

  “Someone must have been keeping it up,” Konstantin said. “I read about the serpents’ exile and our current war with them.”

  The god cocked his head to one side. The collage of images moved faster across his multicolored eyes. “The book writes itself. This”—he tapped the cover, now a shiny brown leather—“tome was special in that way. It knows the future. And the past. And it alters what is written within it as events unfold.”