Using Her Dragons: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Omega Book 3)

by April Canavan

  “I’ve got one too.” Arielle tried to smile. “On the bottom of my foot.” She lifted her foot up so that he could see. She didn’t need to look at it. Not anymore.

  She also didn’t tell him about how she’d stared at it every night when Xavier came to her. He wouldn’t get any other piece of her. Not here. Not now. She shuddered slightly before pushing that thought away. Stefan rubbed her foot gently, before smoothing his hand down her leg.

  When did he take off his pants?

  Arielle leaned back when he advanced on her again, his erection pressing into her sensitive skin. She felt the wetness pooling in her core, leaking out and onto her leg. She’d moved away from embarrassment, at least for now. She was too needy.

  Stefan kissed her, with just enough space between their bodies so that he could notch himself at her entrance.

  “Say yes.” His voice was coarse, pleading.

  She gave him what he wanted. What he needed from her. “Yes.”

  Everything shifted as he pushed inside her. Arielle braced herself for the familiar pain that came with the act, but there was none. She only felt blissfully full. He was heavy, large, and she could feel her body stretching to accommodate him.

  “Yes,” she repeated.

  Stefan grunted, but she could see the beads of sweat dotting his forehead. He was restraining himself, and she couldn’t have that. No, she needed all of it, even the pain that came with it.

  Doing the only thing she could think of, Arielle slapped him across the face. Instinctively, he grabbed her hands and held them above her head, sinking all the way into her with one thrust.

  “What the hell, Arie?” His eyes were full of fire, and she could tell that he liked that little bit of pain.

  “Hurt me,” she told him.

  His eyes widened in disbelief. When he shook his head, she leaned forward and bit him. When he still didn’t act, she pouted.

  “Just a little?”

  She wrapped her legs around his, needing him to move more. To give her the pain that she’d known her entire life.

  He broke. There was no other word to describe it. One moment he was refusing to give her what she wanted, and in the next he was thrusting into her harder and faster than she could have expected.

  Arielle screamed. “More.”

  Stefan pulled her hair to the side, running his lips down her neck while he kept thrusting, and bit her hard on the collarbone.

  Arielle came unglued, her orgasm blinding her while Stefan kept thrusting raggedly. She felt her body tighten around his, pulling him impossibly further inside her. Helpless there was nothing she could do. Her body was locked down, riding out the pleasure he’d given her.

  “Can’t hold on,” he warned her just before he froze. She felt the heat from his release pouring into her body, and idly she wondered if it was always that amazing.

  Her eyes drifted closed while he was still inside her, and she smiled.

  “Thank you,” she said tiredly. “I needed that.”

  Stefan snorted, and pressed a soft kiss on her forehead before pulling her into his arms.

  “Charlie will be here tomorrow,” Arielle told him as she drifted off to sleep. “Need to get ready for company.”

  “Who the hell is Charlie?”

  13

  Matthew stared at Adam like he'd grown a second head. Having that much ammunition was ridiculous.

  "What are you expecting to attack?" He watched in awe as Adam loaded yet another gun and put it somewhere on his body. "And where are you hiding all these things?"

  Seriously, it was getting out of hand.

  "We don't know who this guy is, or why he's coming. Stefan didn't bother to keep the princess up long enough to get an answer." He looked pointedly at where Stefan was standing against the fridge with his arms crossed. "So, it's best to be as prepared as possible. Especially when we still have a job to do."

  "Don't get jealous," Stefan quipped. "It's not my fault it happened that way."

  "I'm not jealous," Adam said. The audible click of yet another gun magazine being loaded called him on the blatant lie, though. "I'm just saying that it would have been nice to know beforehand that she has feelings for all of us."

  Adam sniffed, and Matthew rolled his eyes at Stefan. The two of them shared a look, and Matthew made sure that his friend understood that he didn't have any worries where Arielle was concerned.

  "Are you telling me that you're jealous?" Stefan uncrossed his arms and sat down at the table, taking one of the knives that was sitting there and started fiddling with it. "You don't have to be jealous. She wants all of us. Not just one of us."

  "What are we going to do when Drake finds out? Because you know that he's going to find out." Matthew had switched to coffee as soon as Stefan appeared out of Arielle's bedroom, and took the chance to get a refill while he waited for Adam and Stefan to come up with an answer.

  "The best thing to do," Adam said. "Is to tell Drake, immediately. Before he randomly sees something or someone tells him. It'll only make things worse."

  Adam was right, but it wasn't Matthew's place to say that. After all, he wasn't the one who had slept with Arielle. Stefan chewed on his lip for a minute, obviously perplexed about the whole situation.

  "What's the worst that could happen?" He tapped the knife on the table. "I mean, he could kill me."

  "He could try to kill you," Adam corrected him. "Remember. He loves his little sister. There's no way in hell that he'll hurt any one of us if it would hurt her."

  "I'm not going to use his sister against him," Stefan said.

  Matthew thought about it, though. Isn't that what Arielle had been doing to them? Albeit unwillingly, all three of them had been used to make sure that she was safe and taken care of. Whether or not they wanted to, she was under their protection.

  "I think," he spoke up. "Telling Drake is the right thing to do. But what I want to know is if Arielle felt that connection form with you. The one that tells her that she's mated to you."

  "Don't be stupid," Adam said distractedly while he began to clean up the mess he'd made with his weapons. "Female dragons don't just feel it. They choose their mates. It's the biggest secret in the history of dragons."

  Matthew scoffed. "Then how'd you find out?"

  Adam grinned, baring all his teeth almost maniacally. "Danica."

  Both Stefan and Matthew jerked to attention. Where Adam's words could be taken with a grain of sulfur only a moment before, having Danica as his source spoke of the truth in them.

  "So, what?" Matthew asked, "Arielle doesn't have to end up mated to someone if she sleeps with him?"

  "God, I'd hope not." Adam muttered, before his face turned red.

  Stefan dropped the blade he'd still been holding onto the table, and Matthew listened to it clatter in the tense silence that took over the kitchen.

  "Not about you," Adam quickly amended. "Shit." He rubbed his neck and took a deep breath. "I have to tell you something, but you can't tell anyone. I'm pretty sure that Arielle would kill me if she found out that I said anything."

  Matthew got up and made another cup of coffee, while Adam waited. Stefan glared at him.

  "What?" He took a drink before sitting back down at the table. "We're in the middle of a long ass conversation, in the middle of the night. I need coffee to process whatever the hell Adam wants to tell us."

  "She was raped," Adam said without preamble.

  Matthew knew better than to say anything, because if he did, he'd regret it. Not only was he frustrated and pissed that something happened to Arielle that he didn't know about, but he was just as angry that Adam knew and didn't tell them.

  Stefan was deathly quiet, too. And Matthew knew that he was running through everything that had happened with her earlier through his mind. No doubt he was trying to make sure that he took care of her without making her feel used or bad about their copulation.

  "While she was being held captive by her father," Adam said. "She was raped. When she had
a panic attack, she told me about it. She swore me to secrecy. I didn't want to keep it from you, but I didn't really have a choice."

  "Well," Stefan said carefully. "That changes things."

  Matthew turned to look at him, wondering what there was to say and what it changed. "I mean, it definitely explains the way she's been acting." He rubbed his face. "If she was raped and is free for the first time in her life, it's no wonder that she didn't want us here. It's why she ran away, fought tooth and nail to get a ridiculous job at a coffee shop when she's a princess. Her brothers would have bought her anything she could ever have wanted, but she turned her back on their help."

  Adam nodded. "She's a survivor. And we're going to help her stay that way." He patted one of the guns he had on his body. "Plus, I haven't gotten to kill anything lately."

  Matthew laughed. "I've told you before, and I'll say it again. We have claws. Why would you ever need a gun?"

  Adam shrugged, but Stefan is the one who answered Matthew's question.

  "He likes knowing that he's the most dangerous person in a room. Having the weapons means that he's not only dangerous in dragon form. He's dangerous as a man, too."

  "I really just like to kill things," Adam added. "And I want to be prepared in case we have to kill whoever this guy is."

  "Charlie." Stefan said the name and practically snarled afterward.

  "Come on, now." Matthew said. "It might not be as bad as you think."

  He was wrong, so very wrong.

  The scent hit Stefan before anything else happened. Arielle was standing in the kitchen making breakfast, trying to convince Adam to show her how to use a rifle. Matthew was drinking his fourth cup of coffee for the morning, and trying to get rid of the yawns that he kept popping off with.

  Stefan was standing next to the door, still waiting for the elusive Charlie. He noticed something, a scent. He was out the door before anyone could ask him what happened.

  There she was, a female. A female dragon walking down the street toward him, with her head turned back. She couldn't see him. He should know better than to think that it was impossible, but he was struggling with it.

  "Stefan, what's wrong?" Arielle opened her screen door, standing on the porch with a concerned look on her face.

  "Go back inside," he told her. "I need to check something out."

  "Okay," Arielle said demurely, and Stefan cursed silently. He hadn't meant to raise his voice at her, especially after everything he'd learned the night before.

  "Arielle," he said again. "I'm sorry."

  She wasn't looking at him anymore, though. Instead she was staring over his shoulder and a huge smile broke out over her face.

  "Charlie!" She called out, "I can't believe you made it."

  Arielle rushed down the stairs, passing Stefan as she went. Adam and Matthew were on the porch in a flash, Adam with a gun drawn and Matthew just looking curious.

  "Holy shit," Adam said when Matthew put his hand on the gun to lower it. "Charlie's a chick."

  Matthew looked like he was going to be sick. Neither one of them moved off the porch, and Stefan turned just in time to see Arielle pull Charlie into a hug.

  They whispered between the two of them, and even with his dragon hearing Stefan couldn't figure out what they were saying. Titters and giggles were all he caught.

  "Stefan," Arielle said. "This is Charlie. I met her when I went to the human world."

  He didn't move, didn't even want to breathe on her. There was no way in hell he was going to touch another female especially not after he'd gotten to have Arielle in his arms.

  "Hello," he finally managed to say. His voice was tight, and the harshness of it surprised him.

  "Well, aren't you handsome?" Charlie smiled at him, and Stefan took a step back.

  "Not interested," he said.

  Adam laughed behind him. "Sorry, Charlie. You're gonna run into a brick wall where all three of us are concerned. Arielle's the only one we're going to let in our pants."

  Stefan nodded, glad that his feelings were reinforced, but also curious as to why Arielle would let it happen.

  "I told you," she said with a smile on her face. "I don't know what I did to deserve it, but they don't even look at other people. And I haven't even slept with Adam or Matthew yet."

  "One of them is named Matthew?" Charlie craned her neck, trying to see past Stefan, but Matthew had gone back into the house so there was nothing to see.

  "Yep," Arielle went on, completely oblivious to the change in Charlie's demeanor. "He's a therapist."

  Stefan did his best to pay attention to what they were saying, but Arielle grabbed Charlie by the arm and dragged her towards the house. He barely got a look at the scratches and bruises that lined her pale arms before Arielle was shuffling her inside.

  "I got you set up in the bedroom across the hall from mine. Thankfully, this house has like six bedrooms, or it would be a tight fit."

  Charlie said something after that, but Stefan missed it.

  "What do you think she's doing here?" Adam asked when they were inside and the door was shut. "I don't think it can be anything good."

  Stefan shook his head. "Arielle's like a completely different person. Did you notice that?"

  "Stefan," Adam said. "She's lonely. Her best friends are Danica and Mary. Danica has been on bedrest with the twins, and Mary is in the dragon realm with Drake right now. There's nothing for her to do, and no one that understands what she's going through." He stroked the gun in his hand. "Not everyone is as solitary as we are."

  "You're just plain weird and you know it," Stefan said while shaking his head. "You're right, though. She does need someone here for her."

  "Now, if we can find the person who was trying to abduct her, maybe her brothers won't kill us for sleeping with her." Adam leaned against the porch railing, looking at his gun.

  "So you're going to sleep with her, then?" Stefan joined him, happy to not be talking inside the house.

  "Yeah," Adam said. "I told you. Ever since that first time I saw her in the coffee shop, I haven't been able to look at anyone else. It's gotta be her."

  "I'm glad you came," Arielle said while she and Charlie sat on the back porch later that night.

  "Me, too." Charlie closed her eyes and sighed. "It's nice not to be looking over my shoulder for the moment."

  The stars twinkled in the sky, and there wasn't a cloud in sight. Arielle was so busy, spending her days trying to be free, that she hadn't taken the time to enjoy the beauty around her.

  "It's beautiful here," she said. "I haven't noticed before now. The dragon realm is full of sulfur and ash. Besides, you can't turn around without smelling the war and destruction that have existed there for years."

  "I haven't been there since I was a girl," Charlie said with her eyes still closed. "I hope I never have to go back."

  The light behind Arielle flickered and went out, along with all the lights in the backyard, and even the ones she could usually see from her neighbor's house. When her generator didn't kick in, she got up from her chair.

  "I've got to go tell the guys the power isn't coming back on," she said quietly. "They'll have to figure it out."

  Charlie grabbed her wrist before she could go. "Hold on a minute." Her voice sounded off.

  "What's wrong?" Arielle laughed. "Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark." She patted Charlie's hand, who let go almost immediately.

  Rustling in the trees at the edge of her yard distracted Arielle and she squinted into the darkness to try and see what was happening.

  "I'm sorry," Charlie cried. "They caught me because of you, and when I tried to get away they threatened to kill my whole family if I didn't bring them to you."

  Arielle's heart began pounding in her chest, and her focus grew razor sharp with her panic. "What are you talking about?"

  Her question was answered, though, when three men stepped out of the shadows and into the fading moonlight. Sulfur and ash, the smell of home, filled her lungs as tho
ugh she'd summoned it with magic.

  "Please," Charlie pleaded. "Don't make a sound and they won't hurt you."

  "She doesn't have to make a sound," Stefan said from behind them, shocking Charlie enough that she jumped next to Arielle.

  Adam dropped down from the porch roof, landing with a quiet thump. The lights flickered back on and Arielle saw that he had two guns in his hands, pointed directly at the men. Matthew stepped out from the shed, where the generator was stored, with a grim look on his face.

  "Look, guys. They only sent three." Adam laughed mirthlessly. "Do you think they knew they were coming to their deaths?"

  14

  Arielle didn't spare a glance for the men in her yard. She couldn't. Not when Charlie had dropped a bomb by saying that she’d caused all of this. She’d sold Arielle out.

  "I'm so sorry," Charlie whispered again. "I tried not to lead them to you. But then you called and I was losing the fight. They were going to kill me, unless I brought them to you."

  Arielle pushed away the immediate sense of betrayal, and put herself in Charlie's shoes. She knew there wasn't anything she wouldn't do to save her life. She'd been pushed to that limit time and time again. She'd had multiple chances through the years to kill herself, and never once had she done it. Instead, she'd done everything in her power to stay alive.

  "I understand," she said.

  Arielle hugged Charlie. "You need to hide. Go inside, and don't come out until it's safe."

  Charlie grimaced. "I'm not going to leave you out here. What if they get through your men?"

  "They won't," Arielle said. "And if they do, they'll have to get through me. Xavier wouldn't like it if I was returned to him with a mark on my body."

  Charlie looked at her incredulously, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

  "There are so many things about me that you don't know," Arielle told her with a small smile. "Go inside. You'll be safe." She winked at Charlie, hoping that her fear didn't show through.