The Dragon's Mate (Book Seven)

by Elizabeth Kelly

  When they broke apart, Gram was grinning widely at them. She held her arms out. “Give the hatchling to me, human, and return to Kaida’s cabin so you two can get started on making your own hatchling.”

  “Gram!” Kaida’s face turned a bright red as the other dragons around them laughed.

  Gram took the hatchling and kissed his forehead. “Oh please, it’s not like we don’t already know you’re sleeping with the human. Just remember to be gentle with his fragile human bones.”

  * * *

  Bren squinted into the darkness. He could hear Kaida dressing, but she had pulled the blinds in the bedroom and the room was pitch black. He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand, turning on the flashlight and aiming it in her general direction. Kaida raised her hand to block the light shining in her eyes.

  “Sorry.” He flicked on the bedside lamp before sitting up. “What time is it?”

  Kaida was wearing the blue cloak that matched the blue in her hair and her eyes. She fastened the cloak and slid the hood up over her head. “Almost three. I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep, Bren.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “It’s my night to fly,” she said and then purred so loudly, her entire body seemed to vibrate. She rolled her eyes. “Sorry, my dragon gets super excited about flying.”

  “I bet. Can I come with you?” he asked.

  “What?” She stared at him in obvious surprise.

  “Can I come with you?”

  “I… that’s not a good idea.”

  He slid naked out of bed and crossed to her, secretly amused by the way her gaze immediately dropped to his dick. He put his arms around her. “I’d really like to join you. I’d love to see you in your dragon form.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a part of who you are, and I want to see that specific part. I want to see all of you.”

  She continued to hesitate, and he kissed the tip of her nose. “Look, I’m not asking to go all DragonRiders of Pern on you here, okay? I just want to see you in your dragon form, and watch you fly. But if you really don’t want me there, I won’t go.”

  “I want you there,” she said. “But I’m worried that seeing me in my dragon form will…”

  “Will what?” he asked.

  “At best, kill your attraction for me. At worst, scare the shit out of you,” she said bluntly.

  “I think you underestimate how strong my attraction to you is, and I don’t scare easily. You should know that by now.”

  She relaxed against him. “You’re the bravest human I know.”

  He laughed. “Even though you don’t know that many humans, I’ll still take it as a compliment.”

  She studied him for a moment. “Are you certain you want to do this, Bren?”

  “Yes,” he said with no hesitation.

  “All right. Get dressed.”

  * * *

  His worry that it would be too dark to see Kaida change was unfounded. The moon was out, nearly full and so bright that the world shone in cool blue light. He followed Kaida through the trees. Her hand was hotter than normal, he imagined that was from her excitement about flying. He was excited too, the chance to see Kaida in her dragon form making his skin tighten with anticipation.

  They were deep in the forest now, they’d been walking at a steady pace for nearly twenty minutes, and he could hear the rustle of the smaller animals as they passed. Unease settled in his stomach. He’d left his gun in Kaida’s cabin and he was regretting that. While he wanted to see Kaida in her dragon form, he also didn’t fancy being a late-night snack for a bear or a wolf.

  “What’s wrong?” Kaida was inhaling deeply and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Have you changed your mind?”

  She had smelled his nervousness. He squeezed her hand. “No. But I’m not looking forward to a bear or wolf deciding to taste test me while you’re out flying.”

  She smiled. “The creatures of the forest do not go near this place.”

  “Because of you?”

  She started walking again. “Yes. My scent and that of my clan’s is… off-putting to them. You will be safe while I am flying, my mate. I would not leave you alone if I did not believe this to be true.”

  She spoke absently as she picked her way through the trees, but his stomach tightened, and he had to swallow the urge to giggle like a little kid. It was the first time that Kaida had called him her mate outside of the bedroom, and –

  Not true. She called you her mate the night they were going to burn you to a crisp and when you were surrounded by the reporters.

  That was true, she had. But both times, he hadn’t thought much of it. He’d been more concerned about the real possibility of dying the night he met with the council, and of Kaida firebombing the bunch of reporters. Tonight though, he was fully focused on her and being called her mate was a shot of pure happiness. Maybe her feelings for him were growing as strong as his feelings for her. She had told him earlier that she couldn’t and wouldn’t leave him.

  Not entirely accurate. She said her dragon couldn’t leave you. Ever stop to consider that it’s only her dragon who’s really into you? Kaida’s always insistent that it’s her dragon who calls you her mate, not her, remember? Also, you’ve known each other for less than a month. Maybe chill out on the ‘we’re gonna be together forever and I want her to have my babies’ thing.

  He cringed inwardly. He was acting a little on the desperate side, and if it really was only Kaida’s dragon who felt strongly toward him, his obvious desperation to be with her was going to turn Kaida off. She liked him, they had a great connection, and mind-blowing sex, but all they’d agreed to was trying dating. That didn’t equate to love. Her dragon might be weirdly attached to him, but he didn’t know who had more control – Kaida or her dragon. He suspected that it was Kaida, and with all the battles their relationship was facing – scaring her off by pushing for more was a real possibility.

  Let’s not forget that your own father is trying to force her clan to be branded like animals. Do you really think she’ll let this go on much longer, no matter how attached her dragon is to you?

  “Bren? What’s wrong?” Kaida had slowed to a stop and she stared worriedly at him.

  He pushed all the questions and the fears out of his head. This might be his only chance to see Kaida in her dragon form and he wouldn’t waste it by worrying about a future that was too soon to consider.

  “Nothing,” he said. “How much further?”

  “We’re here.” She led him past a large pine tree, and he stared at the clearing in front of them.

  It was obviously man-made and about a hundred and fifty feet long and two hundred feet wide. Stumps dotted the clearing here and there, but most had been completely removed. Grass seed had obviously been planted in the clearing and with no trees to block the sun, it grew in a thick soft green mat that was calf high.

  “It’s a landing pad,” Bren said.

  Kaida smiled a little. “Yes.”

  She dropped his hand and pointed to one of the larger stumps at the edge of the clearing. “Sit there, Bren. All right?”

  “Sure.”

  She hesitated before pressing a kiss against his mouth. “Are you certain you wish to see this?”

  “I am,” he said.

  She still looked a little worried. “Once I’ve changed to my dragon -”

  “Let me guess, don’t come near you or touch you,” he said.

  She blinked at him. “No, you may touch me if you wish. My dragon will be,” she adopted a long-suffering tone, “pissed if you don’t touch and admire. She wants to show off.”

  He laughed. “Okay, cool.”

  “What I was going to say is that once I’ve changed to my dragon, make sure you are well clear when I’m about to fly. I don’t want to accidentally hit you with my wings or something.”

  “Right,” he said. Things suddenly seemed a little surreal and Kaida must have sensed it because she stared at him worriedly.

/>   “Bren?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just suddenly… a little weird, you know? I’m about to see a real-life dragon.”

  “I can wait a bit to shift if you’d like,” she said.

  He shook his head. Her little glances upward, the smoke that was curling out in a steady stream from her nose and mouth, and the nervous energy that surrounded her, showed him clearly that she was itching to shift.

  “No, go ahead and shift.” He kissed her and then walked away toward the stump. He sat down, sticking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, the wood cold against his ass despite his jeans. He watched as Kaida moved to the middle of the clearing. For the first time, he noticed the other cloaks that were lying in heaps in the clearing. There were five of them and he immediately scanned the sky, but there was no sign of the other dragons.

  He returned his gaze to Kaida, his mouth going dry, when she unfastened the cloak and it slid from her shoulders. She was completely naked beneath the cloak. Half her body was in shadows, the other half lit into stark awareness by the moonlight. The curve of her hip and the lean length of her thigh made his cock immediately hard. He was suddenly aching to take her right there in the clearing with the light of the moon bathing both of their bodies.

  He stood, his desire to see her in her dragon form completely overtaken by his need to make her his. Before he could take a step, Kaida’s body began to swell, he could hear the cracking of her bones as her head fell back and her spine arched. She dropped to her hands and knees, her face obscured by the smoke drifting from her mouth. Her pale skin turned blue, he blinked, and now shimmery blue scales covered her body.

  Her body was distorting to an impossible size and he flinched when he heard more bones cracking. Even from across the clearing, he could feel the heat radiating from her body. The air around him shimmered and sweat dripped down his face. His eyes watered and he squinted them shut against a particularly fierce blast of heat.

  When he opened them, a dragon stood in the clearing. He stared in silence at Kaida. In her dragon form she was close to twelve feet in height and he estimated at least forty feet long. Her scales were a shimmery dark blue, the wings folded against her body a lighter shade of blue. A double row of bony spikes started behind her head, growing larger in size as they followed the length of her spine, then waning in size as they travelled down her long tail to the tip. Her legs were large and powerful, each foot tipped with four black talons at the front and one at the back. Each talon was thick and razor sharp.

  He walked toward her. His legs were shaky, but it wasn’t nerves that made him feel like he was using rubbery noodles to propel himself forward. It was excitement and pure adrenaline.

  He stopped in front of her, smiling when she bent her head toward him, and that great rumbling purr erupted from her chest. It was almost deafening in sound. The heat that radiated from her was so intense, he wondered for a moment if it would burn him to touch her.

  His worry was dispelled when Kaida nudged him with her large head. He stumbled back – Christ, she was strong – and then reached out and rubbed the space above her nose. She was hot but not painfully so, and her scales were somehow both rough and smooth at the same time.

  Remembering what she’d said about her dragon, he said, “You’re beautiful.”

  The dragon purred again, her golden eyes glowing with what looked like delight. She nudged him a second time, this time knocking him clean off his feet. Her purr turned to embarrassment – was it weird that he could recognize her different purrs? – and he jumped to his feet before rubbing the side of her face. “I’m okay. Are you ready to fly?”

  The dragon opened her mouth, revealing long and pulse-pounding rows of sharp white teeth. Bren swallowed hard when she said, “Fly.”

  The voice was thick and more gargled sounding than when the dragon spoke while in her human form, but that undercurrent of Kaida’s voice that still ran through it, made shivers run up and down his spine.

  He took a deep breath and smiled at her. “Have fun.”

  He returned to the stump and sat down. Kaida stared at him for a moment before unfurling her wings. His pulse, which had slowed to normal, immediately ratcheted again, pushing the blood through his body in hot and throbbing waves. Her wings were a combination of leathery membrane and tough bone supports. They were massive in size and as she spread them out completely, he guessed her wingspan to be at least seventy feet.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed.

  Kaida was staring at the sky, her wide chest heaving in great gulps of moon lit air as her powerful legs crouched. With an ease that seemed almost magical, she leaped upward, her enormous wings beating the night air so hard that the wind from it almost knocked him off the stump.

  He grabbed the sides of the stump, watching with a combination of awe and disbelief as Kaida rose quickly and steadily into the sky. When she was almost forty feet above the treeline, she flew forward, her body gliding through the air, the beat of her wings echoing in his ear drums. She did a few dips and dives, her body swooping gracefully across the sky, before she flew toward the mountains in the far distance. She grew smaller and smaller until not even the bright moonlight was enough to help him see her.

  “Holy fucking shit,” he said.

  He was still clinging to the stump and he released his grip, his fingers aching from the pressure. He stared at the moon, his heart rapping against his rib cage like an impatient butler knocking on his master’s door, processing what he’d just seen.

  He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth and said, “I saw a dragon fly.”

  When nothing replied, he studied the night sky and waited for her to return to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The others returned before Kaida. The first dragon who dropped from the sky to land in the clearing with a ground shaking thud was bright orange in colour. He was larger in size than Kaida, and he stared curiously at Bren before shifting with a low pop to his human form.

  Bren didn’t recognize the shifter. His short blond hair had streaks of orange throughout it and he was well over six feet with a lean and muscular body. He picked up his cloak, not at all bothered by his nakedness, and draped it around his body before nodding to Bren and walking out of the clearing.

  The next two that arrived, landed in the clearing together. The bigger one was a rich dark green in colour, the smaller the colour of emeralds. Bren turned away hastily when they shifted to their human form and the smaller one was a woman. He waited a few minutes and then turned around. The dragons were in their cloaks and already at the edge of the clearing. Without looking at him, they disappeared into the trees.

  Ten minutes later, a dark shadow blotted out the moon. Bren looked up, his eyes widening as the dragon coasted silently to the ground. It was midnight blue in colour and so colossal in size that when the tip of one massive wing brushed against a tree as the dragon landed, the tree cracked with the sound of a gunshot and landed on its side as though felled by an invisible axe.

  “Holy fuck,” Bren said as the dragon turned its golden gaze toward him. The dragon growled, its teeth shining in the moonlight as smoke drifted out of his mouth. Every muscle in Bren’s body went slack.

  Shit. This had been a very bad idea.

  There was a low pop and the vast dragon turned into the vast human body of Bones. Bren choked in a breath, pressing his hand against his chest. “Jesus Christ, Bones. You scared the shit out of me.”

  The dragon laughed and smoothed his goatee down as he reached for his cloak. “You didn’t piss your pants. I’m impressed.”

  “I came pretty fucking close.” Bren stood up, taking a few steps toward Bones as a dragon, much smaller in size and its scales a deep rich red in colour, landed behind the dragon shifter. “You have to be at least, what? Sixty feet in length in your dragon form?”

  Bones twirled his finger in a circular motion. “Turn away before my mate shifts, human. Unless you want to know what it feels like to have your
flesh melted off.”

  Bren turned around immediately. Behind him, he heard the now familiar pop and then the soft voice of Javee. “Don’t be a dick to the human, honey.”

  “You know it’s my go-to.” Bones voice was thick with amusement.

  Javee laughed. “Indeed. You may turn around now, human.”

  Bren turned, nodding to the pretty dragon shifter as she fastened the last button on her cloak and pulled the hood over her head. “Hello, Javee.”

  “Hello, human.” Javee took Bones’s hand. “Your mate was not far behind me. She will return soon.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Come, my love,” Javee tugged on Bones’s hand. “Let us leave before Kaida arrives and mates with her human.”

  Bones made a face before following Javee toward the trees. “Gross.”

  Javee laughed. “As if we’re not going home to do the very same, my love.”

  The grin on Bones’s face widened and he grabbed a handful of Javee’s ass as they left the clearing.

  The heat from the dragons quickly faded and the cold air returned. Bren blew on his hands and stuck them under his armpits in a bid to warm them. It’d been almost two hours since Kaida had shifted to her dragon form and he’d grown steadily colder as he waited. He stomped his feet as he paced back and forth in front of the stump. He was having a hot shower the minute he returned to Kaida’s cabin. A scorching, steaming shower with a cup of coffee afterward that was hot enough to scald his tongue.

  The soft thud behind him made him turn quickly, his breath steaming out in front of him in the cold air. Kaida stared at him but made no move to shift to her human form. He walked toward her and when she bent her head, he stroked the side of her face. “Welcome back.”

  She purred loudly and then shifted to her human form. Her pale skin was still a soft shade of blue, but it disappeared as she reached out and traced a hand across his chest. “Hello, human.”