Saving Cinder

by Maggie Hemlock

  “Have you seen Seth?” I changed the subject.

  “Young love is so adorable, but this isn’t your first time around the maypole. You already know that. He’s over there with Clarence. I’ll lead the way,” he took my hand and guided me into the crowd.

  Several dragons waved and nodded, but none dared to interrupt my conversation with Medwin. Later, they’d want all the juicy details too, but they’d wait their turn.

  “There’s our boys,” Medwin whispered.

  I swallowed a gasp as Clarence and Seth came into view. They stood under a tall flowering tree that I didn’t know the name for, but the tree’s size was easily overtook by how handsome Seth looked in a tux. I expected him to turn up in his jeans and work boots as he did for everything else, but he really dressed to impress for our faux-engagement party. He wore a dark blue tie which made his eyes look like the ocean he loved so much. His normal five o’clock shadow was gone.

  “Thanks for being honest with me,” Clarence said in response to something I couldn’t hear. “Knowing the truth will really help matters along. Everything and everyone will be back where they belong soon.”

  My heart dropped into my stomach.

  “THAT SLIMY BASTARD SOLD US OUT!” My dragon roared inside my chest.

  Shut up. Don’t freeze my legs like that. Don’t do anything. Just look pretty and smile. Tonight, we’re getting the hell out of dodge before they sell us back to Reggie and my parents. I should’ve known Seth was too good to be true!

  Chapter Eighteen

  Seth

  “You really laid it on thick at the feast,” I laughed as I unlocked the door.

  “It’s so easy to be genuine with you. I like you a lot. You know that, right?” Cinder said as we stepped inside. The words rushed over his lips like he couldn’t wait to say them. “I don’t have to put on a show with you. You made me feel safe and secure.”

  “I like you too.”

  His eyes fell to the floor for a second.

  “Everything alright?” I asked him. “You smell off.”

  “I’m just a little sad tonight. I saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen since my wedding. I know you like sleeping on the boat, but will you stay at the house tonight? I know, it’s silly, but I just don’t feel as alone when you’re sleeping here too.”

  “Alright,” I nodded. “How’s your back? Do you need another layer of mush?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks for helping me with that this morning. Thanks for everything.” Cinder rose to his tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek. “I think I’m going to hit the shower and get some sleep. I’m ready to fall into a food coma.”

  “I was going to camp out here anyway. They’re calling for rain tonight.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Once Cinder was upstairs, I zoned out in front of the television. I went years without watching tv when Stacy was alive. We always had something more exciting to devote our time to. Now, I’d happily lose hours in front of the idiot box. Sometime between the evening news and the start of one of those late-night talk shows I dozed off. Without the waves to put me under television was the second-best thing. Cookie laid next to me curled into her usual fluffy ball.

  Sometime around midnight she barked at the ceiling. I blinked and squinted at her. She barked again.

  “Cinder’s allowed to walk around. You’re the lady of the house, but not the queen,” I laughed and scratched behind her ear.

  She swerved away from my fingers and raced up the stairs barking louder with each one she ascended. I sprinted on her heels trying to snatch her up before she woke Cinder if he was still asleep. She stopped at his door and let out the cutest yet the most annoying high-pitched howl I ever heard.

  “Everything alright in there, Cinder?” I called through the door.

  He didn’t answer, but a window squeaked open.

  “Cinder?!” I knocked on the door. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  My heart pounded into my throat and adrenaline flooded into my blood. I sniffed but didn’t smell and intruder only Cinder’s stress and frustration.

  “Cinder?” I tried the knob, and found it locked.

  Something thudded on the other side of the door.

  “I’m coming in!” I said and rammed the door with my shoulder.

  “SHIT!” Cinder swore under his breath.

  He straddled the windowpane with one leg inside the room and one on the outside. His suitcase lay open on the floor with his clothes spilled over the hardwood.

  “You know you can use the front door, right?” I asked.

  “Shit! You can’t stop me!” He scurried from the window back onto the floor to gather the contents of his suitcase. Wrapped chocolates, clothes, and photographs.

  “Let me help you,” I knelt down with him. “What are you doing? Do you need a ride somewhere?”

  “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” He growled.

  “Cinder, are you okay? What’s going on?” I tried to take his hand, but he snatched it away.

  Fear and frustration saturated his scent. My wolf stood up tall in my chest with his ears alert for danger. I sniffed the air searching for what caused his anxiety. He inched backwards away from his belongings until his back was against the wall.

  “Cinder, no one else is here. It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not! You sold me out to Clarence! Was this one big scheme to sell me back to my parents?” He growled.

  “What in the name of Frost’s fiery balls are you talking about? No one’s selling you to anyone!” I growled back.

  “I heard what Clarence said! Everyone and everything would be back where they belonged!” He shouted at me.

  Fuck. I told Clarence we should’ve talked business after the damn feast.

  “He wasn’t talking about you! He thinks you’re my starry-eyed fiancé grateful for a second chance at love. He wanted to know if I saw the crown of Queen Someone or Another the last time I was in the Alps. I hadn’t, but I did tell him that a friend of mine had a moving company and he talked about a crown that looked like the one Clarence showed me a photo of. He wants to bring her crown and scales home to the Moonscale territory, because she’s like his great-great-grandmother or something like that. That’s who he was talking about!”

  Cinder stared at me searching me out for hidden details and deception.

  “H… How do I know you’re not lying?” He asked.

  “Look,” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened my banking app. “We both know Clarence pays for everything he wants. He paid for the information. There’s the transfer. Look at the memo.”

  I handed him the phone.

  “For aiding in returning a great dragoness to her birthplace,” Cinder read aloud. “Queen Esmeralda, then?” He asked.

  “That’s the one,” I nodded.

  Cinder handed my phone back to me and sighed. He stared down at his feet before closing his eyes.

  “Cinder, I wouldn’t sell you out. How could you think that?” I moved next to him against the wall. “I know things aren’t moving as fast or maybe in the direction you’d like, but I’m not that guy. I’m not the asshole buying and selling people.”

  “Reggie’s trying to open a brothel and force omegas to work there,” he blurted out.

  “Fuck,” I swore under my breath. “Let’s call Clarence. It’s not Moonscale territory, but this…”

  “He knows. He has to, because Medwin told me.”

  “Then why haven’t they put a hit on the fucker?” I growled.

  “Maybe they have. Clarence wouldn’t tell his mate that and you know it. He’s all ‘protect Medwin from the big bad shit of the universe.’”

  “This is what has you all worked up?” I wrapped my arm around his shoulder, and he leaned in close.

  “I thought you guys were selling me back to him and if I didn’t marry him, he’d…”

  “You know I’m going to have to kill him now, right?” I asked.

  “Huh? If Medwin’s inf
ormation is correct Reggie deserves to die, but it doesn’t have to be you who takes him out.”

  “Yeah, it does. You dragons have so much red tape to get past and if he’s even attempting shit like that he has to die. There’s no way around it. Not to mention, he really pissed me off back in Cornwall. He fucked with the wrong dragon.”

  “You’re a wolf.” Cinder managed a strangled laugh.

  “He fucked with you.”

  Cinder glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and managed a smile.

  “He didn’t turn into an asshole until I tried to leave,” he said.

  “That’s how assholes like him operate. If you play their pawn and let them move you across the board, they’re nice as pie. When you stop, they show they’re true colors.”

  “Don’t leave tonight.” He leaned his head against my shoulder.

  “Where would I go?”

  “To kill Reggie.”

  “Not tonight. Things back on the dock probably showed me as a dumbass. I’m not stupid. Reckless maybe, but not stupid. To kill a dragon would take a team.”

  “Stay here with me. He has friends there. Maybe my parents are involved or at least one of them. I don’t know who my dad is.”

  “Augustus Aldred, right?” I arched a brow.

  Cinder cast his eyes down and shook his head.

  “Dad told me the night before you showed up that he wasn’t my real father. My real father is a beta dragon. I don’t even know his last name.”

  My stomach twisted into knots.

  “What’s wrong?” Cinder asked.

  “It just sucks they lied to you like that.”

  He wrapped his arms around one of mine and curled into my side with his head resting on my shoulder.

  “I don’t like your rules about us. I don’t know what you’re hiding, but it’s not going to chase me away. This is where I want to be. Maybe it’s too soon to know if it’s forever, but what is forever? Is it a kissed squeezed into a moment, a dying man’s last breath, or is it just whatever we decide?”

  “I’m a recovered addict.” I spat the words out before I chickened out.

  If Cinder thought, he wanted to go forward he needed to know the truth. The whole ugly pockmarked truth.

  “After Stacy?” He looked up at me.

  “Yeah. It didn’t help, though. I mean it did. I saw her. Every time it just took a bit more. I know it wasn’t really her, but it’s what I had. Eventually, during one of my benders the hallucination of her or whatever you want to call it told me to stop being a dumbass. That’s when I found out I couldn’t just stop. It became this cycle of trying not to, and then relapsing anyway. Then I’d see her, and she’d be pissed. That made me feel like crap. So, it circled round again. Then eventually, late one night I stumbled into a late-night meeting. I stayed there three days straight without leaving. I couldn’t. If I went back on the streets, I’d get a fix. Eventually, I spent a week of horrible withdrawal on another guy’s couch. Then I did a month of voluntary impatient to make sure I had it right. Alphas detox quickly, but it depends on how long you’ve used the shit and I used all the shit. Whatever I thought would make her show up the quickest. I’ve been clean for a long time now. I don’t usually think of it unless some jackass like Rhett asks if I’m using again, because they think I’m doing something crazy.”

  I didn’t look at Cinder until I finished speaking. He blinked away tears swelling up behind his eyes.

  “Don’t cry for me. I’m alright.” I grinned at him.

  He turned his face into my chest and sobbed.

  “Sweetheart, I’m okay. Really.”

  “It’s not fair. It’s not right that fate gives us true-mates and then takes them away like that. What do they expect us to do?” He growled between sobs.

  “Hey, it’s not fate’s fault. I made my bad choices.”

  “But..”

  “Okay, let’s get this out of the way. The circumstances were shitty, but if I went to get fucked up every time something shitty happened, I’d still be laying somewhere out of my gourd arguing with a phantom of my dead mate.”

  “I know, but I don’t have to imagine how you felt. After Sivan’s funeral I slept for two years. Everyone kept coming by to wake me up and I wouldn’t. Not for love, money, or food. Not for trips or adventures. I had to sleep like only us dragons can, because in my dreams Sivan was alive.”

  I cupped Cinder’s chin and tilted his head up, so our gazes met.

  “Look at me. We’re going to be okay. We survived this long and nothing’s bringing us down now. Not drugs. Not Reggie. Not Frost himself. We’re survivors, you and me. Whether there is ever an us or not, we’re going to be okay.”

  Cinder’s tongue flicked over his soft kissable bottom lip.

  “With all the respect I can muster, I sincerely say fuck the rules,” he said and leaned forward.

  Our lips met and Cinder climbed into my lap closing the space between our bodies. His scent was all steel, roses, and fire. Loneliness and anger dissolved as he wrapped his arms around my neck. My dick hardened under his weight and he wrapped his legs around me.

  “Is this okay?” He whispered between kisses.

  “Perfect,” I said and pulled him closer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cinder

  “Perfect,” Seth said.

  The word washed over me. Perfect. He was right. Life was messy. My suitcase lay open spilling my life all over the new bedroom floor but leaning in close and feeling his breath against my flesh was perfect. He wasn’t Sivan, but I wasn’t the same person I was all those years before. Time and circumstance changed me.

  Seth sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and my ponderings screeched to a halt. Tingles danced up and down my spine and I leaned in closer to him. There was no such thing as too close. His hands trailed over my shoulders and back leaving behind a hot path of desire that led to my ass. He cupped my ass cheeks massaging hard and grinding up against me as his cock hardened. I reached out longing to touch his mind but couldn’t. Sex without a link was going to be a new experience for me.

  “Sex with anyone except Sivan is a new experience,” my dragon murmured.

  A hot blush flooded my cheeks, but I didn’t break the kiss. Determined to end our loneliness tonight, I reached between our bodies and grabbed Seth’s dick. He murmured into the kiss and I smiled to myself. His cock was long and thick. Warmth radiated through his jeans and into my palm. He kissed me harder and I undid his fly. His cock sprung free of its fabric prison. I wrapped my hand around him reveling in his girth and the sounds he made into the kiss. Seth squeezed my ass harder making me all too aware of how slick I was for him. I drew in a deep breath and Seth’s warm aroused scent washed over me.

  He slid his hands down the back of my pants groping and massaging bare flesh. Zips of longing shot through my body. Being touched was almost too much. I leaned into him and ran my thumb around the thick mushroom head of his dick.

  “Frost-damn,” Seth swore under his breath.

  “Damn them all,” I smirked and kissed him again.

  Seth pulled away and jerked his shirt off. Then reached for mine. I let go of his cock and held my hands up allowing him to undress me. The open window let in a cool night breeze which hardened our nipples and gave me goosebumps. With our shirts off we were still overdressed for the occasion. I rose to my feet and fidgeted with my fly with trembling fingers.

  When did I get so nervous?

  Seth knocked away my hands and did it for me. Then he tugged down my black boxer briefs to free my hard cock. He ran his hand down my length evoking a murmur from deep within me. His fingers danced over my balls teasing the sensitive flesh of my scrotum. I leaned forward or tried to. The clothing around my knees tripped me up and I fell into him. Taking advantage of the situation, Seth fell back bringing me down on the floor beside him. I kicked off my pants and boxers and reached down to strip my socks off too.

  When I finished, Seth was naked. I raked my eyes over
his body taking in the contours of his muscular chest and abs that led down to his Adonis belt.

  “This is the point of no turning back,” Seth said.

  “I don’t want to turn back. Do you?” I asked willing my hands to stop their damn trembling.

  “No,” he shook his head and leaned in for another kiss.

  “Good, because we both need this.” I smiled at him.

  Seth’s lips claimed mine. His newly grown five o’clock shadow tickled my chin, but I leaned in to deepen the kiss anyway. As we kissed, I explored the now exposed contours of his muscular torso enjoying the dips and pivots of his muscles flexing against my touch.

  Breaking the kiss, Seth kissed up and down my throat. His teeth raked against my flesh sending bolts of pleasure landing squarely between my thighs. The tangy scent of my arousal filled the room. He kissed across my collarbones and licked over my nipple. His strong warm hands were surprisingly soft as he caressed over my stomach and down to my thighs. My legs parted under his touch. He gave my cock a few quick promising strokes before trailing lower to my slick omegahole.

  I pulled him in for another kiss as his fingers teased my hungry hole. He drew slow circles urging me to open to his touch. His fingers slipped and slid over my slickness. Unsure of what to do with my hands like a bumbling virgin all over again, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around Seth’s cock. He bucked his hips thrusting his dick through my fist.

  I reached out to him again, but there wasn’t a link. His hands were everywhere, but without a soul-to-soul connection I didn’t know what he’d do next. His freehand slid to the back of my head and claimed my lips again. I moaned into the kiss begging him with my mouth to slide his long slick fingers into my body.

  After a few more seconds of teasing, he obliged. Friction and pleasure mingled in my belly as the almost foreign sense of fullness settled over me. His digits moved slowly inside my omegahole opening me to his touch and reminding me of how good being touch felt. Seth’s rocking fingers awakened long sleeping nerve endings. My heart pounded in my ears. I squeezed Seth’s cock hard as the new-to-me-again sensations washed over my fuzzy brain.