Sunshine in the Dragon's Heart

by Jaime Samms

  “This will take a few minutes,” Sunny announced as he situated the last slice over a layer of cheese and lowered the flame a notch. He turned to lean on the counter next to Emile. The heat he gave off went straight to Emile’s groin.

  Comfort him, Emikku. Not… that.

  He shifted his feet. He wanted to do both.

  “So.” With an air of slightly soggy smugness, Sunny crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me more about this ball-licking situation.”

  Emile stared at him, for a split second thinking he’d given something away, but then Sunny burst into a wide grin.

  “Or….” He waggled his eyebrows, which encouraged a smile to creep over Emile’s face. “We could exchange the licking bit.”

  That sounded like an excellent idea. Emile’s cock liked it very much. So did his dragon, and that’s what he listened to as he dropped to his knees and freed Sunny’s equally interested cock from his loose cargo shorts. Shut up and lick. This is comforting. In a way. The best of all ways.

  “Emi—oh.” Sunny sighed softly, sliding his fingers through Emile’s hair as Emile took him into his mouth. The salty tang was perfect on his tongue, the weight of Sunny’s heavy cock a delight. He could be a hedonist in skin as well as he could in scale. He just hadn’t had that many opportunities before now.

  A glance upward, filtered by his lashes, revealed Sunny’s face already flushed, lower lip caught under bright white teeth. He curled the side of his mouth up and cupped a hand at the back of Emile’s neck.

  The firm grip brought a groan direct from the pit of Emile’s gut to rumble around Sunny’s cock. It was comforting rather than confining, as it often felt when Hakko did the same thing. Sunny wasn’t holding him still for the rough, immediate taking as Hakko often did, so much as holding him safe while he performed an act that gave them both pleasure.

  The insistent bump of Sunny’s cock at the back of his throat momentarily engaged his gag reflex, and Sunny paused, watching him intently. Their gazes locked, Sunny’s golden intensity lighting tiny sparks along every one of Emile’s synapses. Emile fought and conquered the instinct to back up.

  “Oh, that’s good,” Sunny whispered, lips forming words Emile had to strain to hear. The effort set off a cascade of goosebumps over his scalp, and he groaned. His magic prickled along the disturbance, his ears twitched, but he held back the instinct to flick them forward.

  “Jesus.” Sunny curled his hips again and pushed deeper.

  This time Emile swallowed around him, accepting the push of cock into throat. The satisfied grunt from Sunny made it worth the effort. He dropped his jaw and gripped Sunny’s thigh for balance, welcoming the deeper penetration as Sunny began to rock his hips.

  Sunny made the work of taking his cock deep pleasurable, whispering praise and encouragement with every stroke. His hands on Emile’s neck, his fingers caressing his cheek, tracing lightly through a tear as Emile’s eyes watered and spilled over from the effort, made his magic sparkle and sing in his head.

  But it didn’t try to escape. It hovered, ready to jump his bonds, but didn’t push. It raced through him, lighting up his nerves, making his cock ache to be touched, but he was too busy holding on to Sunny, taking Sunny, to manage that much higher function.

  Rather than fighting his magic for control, Emile let it course through him. Every prickle and surge made his blood race. Every scrap of skin Sunny touched heated, lit up from within by the flaring energy until Emile was certain he had to be glowing. Sunny’s hands were like brands on his skin, his cock the entire focus of Emile’s attention.

  “I’m gonna—” Sunny bit his lip hard and huffed, shoving his hips forward, his cock deep. Emile swallowed and panted around him, breath cut short, but he didn’t care. He had the bright, effervescent grace of the magic coursing through him. “So… close….”

  Sunny whimpered. His body tightened, and the magic came to an abrupt, fiery halt, straining through Emile to get to Sunny. As Sunny’s spend flowed from the pulsing end of his cock down Emile’s throat, the magic reared up, flaring bright and unstoppable, gobbling up the essence Sunny spilled into him with greedy surges. Every inch of Emile’s skin lit on fire, and he cried out with the shock, instant pain and equally instant and shocking relief as it washed away. His cock throbbed once, releasing a torrent of come into his shorts.

  Startled at his cry, Sunny jerked back and the last spurts of his orgasm splashed over Emile’s lips and cheek. He didn’t care. The smell of it, of their sweat and the lingering, ephemeral scent of magical release, swirled through his head, and he moaned, swaying on his knees.

  Sunny knelt just in time to catch him as he pitched forward. For a few heartbeats, he struggled to contain the heavy, sluggish residue of the magic’s afterglow, to keep it from oozing out between his restraints and growing his horns or sprouting feathers. The warmth of Sunny’s chest against his cheek, the smooth, sweet sound of his voice uttering pleased praise, and the strength of his arms encircling Emile went a long way to shoring up Emile’s battered concentration. He soon had the magic back in its cubby, curled in a nest of satisfaction and drowsy contentment. Exactly where he would like to be in that moment, rather than slouched on the hard wood of the kitchen floor, Sunny’s embrace notwithstanding.

  “Come on.” Sunny all but lifted him to his feet. “Let’s get you someplace more comfortable.”

  Emile expected Sunny to deposit him on the couch, into his familiar nest of pillows and blankets, but they bypassed it without a pause. Instead Sunny guided him to the foot of the stairs leading up to the bedroom.

  “Think you can manage this?” Sunny asked.

  Of course he could. He was spent but not helpless. “I’m fine,” he muttered.

  “Maybe I worked you too hard.” Sunny kissed his temple.

  Another tendril of lazy magic curled around the ball inside and settled into the whole, its usual warm, green-gold glow encompassed by deeper, redder strands of molten, earthy power.

  “It’s… okay.” And it was. Physically, yes, maybe he’d overextended. But the magic was taking less of a toll than he’d expected, and he felt an underlying strength returning that he had missed since crossing the Fold.

  “Let’s just get you lying down, and I’ll come back and finish the sandwiches.” He made a face as he sniffed. “Or probably make new ones. That smell….”

  Emile hadn’t noticed the scent of char, used as he was to the ever-present smell of baked heat just on the edge of his senses. It was a dragon thing, he supposed: that inner, constant sear of magical energy that left the sensation of deeply ingrained heat in the pit of his being.

  Food would be welcome. Emile was starving. Not surprising given how much energy the magic had sapped as it spun through his body. He could still feel fingers of it poking at his control, threatening a partial transformation, but this time he thought probably he wasn’t in any danger of that happening.

  They made it to the top of the stairs, and Emile sank his grateful frame onto the soft mattress. Once more, Sunny kissed his temple and crouched to look into his face.

  Emile didn’t have anything to say, so he leaned close, taking Sunny’s mouth in a kiss. He had no way to convey with words how thankful he was to have the magic—finally—as close to dormant as it had ever been since he’d come here.

  So he thanked Sunny with the kiss. He poured his gratitude and happiness into the connection, surrendering when Sunny cupped his cheek and tipped his head slightly. Anything Sunny wanted from him, he could give, if it promised more of this kind of relief, of pleasure, of satiation.

  This was a calm he’d never experienced. He was greedy for more. Giving up control of his body, his senses, to Sunny seemed to have done the trick. He’d gladly do it any time Sunny asked.

  “Lie down,” Sunny whispered, lips still touching his. “I’ll get you a warm cloth. Some food. Water.” He pulled back to look into Emile’s eyes. “What do you need? Tell me what I can do for you now.”

  Emile sh
ivered. “Kiss me again. Please.”

  Sunny did, long, lingering, releasing Emile only when he was satisfied. It took Emile a moment to catch his breath. He swallowed, nodded, and let Sunny push him over with a gentle shove.

  “Be right back. Stay put.”

  Oh, Emile did not need that instruction. He was not going anyplace. In fact, he watched as Sunny retreated back downstairs, keeping his eyes glued to the other man until the straw-coloured locks had disappeared below floor level, then pricking his ears—with impunity this time, since Sunny couldn’t see him—to listen to his movements below.

  If this is a cage, at least it’s one of my own making. And what a jailor I’ve found.

  He was vague when Sunny returned, drank the water Sunny handed him, allowed Sunny to strip him bare and clean him up with delightful strokes of a warm cloth and strong, capable hands. He was half-hard again by the time Sunny was finished, which earned him a rich, indulgent chuckle.

  “Food first,” Sunny admonished when Emile whined at Sunny stepping away from the bed. He leaned close again, tucked a strand of Emile’s hair back from his face, and handed him a book. “But don’t worry. Now I’ve got you here, I don’t expect I’ll be letting you leave this bed for some time.”

  His magic roiled, a low simmer of heat and want in his belly, and accepted the sentence with a lazy smile. I can be a happy prisoner here.

  Chapter 16

  THE INTRUDER they had not managed to lay eyes on that first time returned over the course of the next few days. They still didn’t see who—or what—it was, but Emile had no doubt that they weren’t alone. Every time it made its presence known, Emile’s magic surged. It wanted him to change, wanted him to grow his fangs and claws, sharp horns and a whipping tail that could protect his Sunny from any danger.

  “He grows bolder,” Emile muttered as he followed Sunny’s gaze to the woods at the bottom of the yard. Fernforest glanced up at him as though hearing his mutterings. The dog’s tail was out stiff behind him. He swivelled his ears back, not pinned, but clearly showing his displeasure at the intrusion.

  “I just wish whoever it is would stop sneaking around and show themselves.” Sunny’s frown tugged at Emile, making him wish the same thing, if only to appease Sunny’s mood and ease the unsettling effect it was having on Emile’s already heightened magic.

  If he hadn’t already convinced himself this wasn’t the garden-variety trespasser Sunny expected, Emile would have forced the issue and gone looking for them. He could no longer pretend he didn’t feel his magic responding to the native flux, nor could he ignore that he wasn’t the only magical being to notice that the world around them was waking up.

  “Feels like a storm coming,” Sunny muttered, even as he glanced up at the cloudless blue sky. He wandered over the grass to the end of the driveway and peered down to the road, but there was nothing to see.

  All around them, the air charged and crackled. Emile’s magic rippled under his skin, arching out to Sunny standing just beyond Emile’s reach, as though it would draw Sunny closer, within its circle of protection.

  The branches of the nearby rose brambles shivered, and Fernforest cocked his head towards the bushes. Soft, ruffled sighs rolled between the shivering leaves, and Emile was sure he caught a glimpse of the prickly dryad within, stirring.

  “Sunny.”

  Sunny grunted, attention still fixed on the empty drive.

  The rose bush rattled again, seeming to expand outwards under the caress of a nonexistent breeze. The movement caught Sunny’s attention, and he stared at it.

  “Is that a porcupine?” He squinted and took a step closer to the bush, leaning in to get a better look.

  Emile’s magic sparked.

  The dryad convulsed and formed fully, its magic that same heated red-gold that intermingled with Emile’s after he’d been with Sunny. Turning in its crouch to look at Emile, the dryad inhaled, pulling at Emile’s magic, bolstering its new form with strands of his thready, twining energy winding around its own. If it stood and revealed itself, there was no telling how Sunny might react.

  Emile made a soothing sound and extended his magic willingly towards the bush. The first time a dryad took a corporeal form was the only time it needed the magical input from a source other than its own tree. If sharing his magic would calm the spirit, Emile would gladly do so.

  He felt his energy brush against Sunny’s body in passing, and Sunny shivered, running one hand down his arm, smoothing the hairs as they lifted away from his skin. His focus moved from the bush to Emile just as the dryad shook itself and began to soak in Emile’s magic. Rosebuds furled open. Tiny new leaves stretched to their full potential, and the soft new wood of the twig-tips burst with fat leaf buds before Emile could pull his magic back.

  The dryad sighed, settled cross-legged in the centre of its bushy home, and closed its eyes. It should have vanished back into twig and bark, but it didn’t. It was hard—nearly impossible—to make out amidst the riot of blooms and leaves, crisscrossed by shade and light, but it was there, corporeal and alive. Awake.

  Emile took a step back, but fortunately Sunny’s attention remained on him.

  “We should go inside,” Sunny said, voice husky, eyes bright and wide.

  “We should?”

  “Uh-huh.” Sunny grabbed his hand. “Now.”

  “I thought we had yard work.”

  “Yard’s not going anywhere.” Sunny placed a hand in the centre of Emile’s chest. Instantly his magic spun to a standstill, poised, emitting an excited thrum Emile could hardly ignore.

  “I suppose it’s not,” he agreed, caught in Sunny’s intense gaze.

  If Sunny wanted him, Sunny could have him.

  They made it as far as the couch, and this time it was Sunny’s mouth on Emile’s dick, and oh, did the magic love that sensation. Emile wasn’t completely in control of it when he came, nor could he be sure some hadn’t escaped, flowing out of him along with his release.

  He only knew the room seemed brighter, the little cabin cozier, and Sunny unnervingly energetic after they were done. There was no mention of trespassers or any talk of weird weather for many hours. The garden work went fast, and Emile was pretty sure the plants leaned towards Sunny’s touch as he worked around them, digging fingers deep into the soil as he spoke softly to them, pulled weeds, and pinched away pests and wilt.

  The sun was nearly down by the time Sunny called it a day and stood back from the raised beds to survey his work.

  “That went well, I think.” Sunny rested fists on his hips, satisfaction flowing from him. “Faster than I expected too.”

  “That’s good.” Emile moved to take his hand in hopes of soothing some of the frenetic energy. He could feel the thrum of Sunny’s pulse through the skin-to-skin touch. It melded with his own heartbeat, their energies twining and curling around each other. “This is good,” Emile murmured.

  Sunny’s grin lit up the dusk.

  Nearby, Fernforest hopped about, snapping and tumbling over his own feet, chasing fleeting splashes of light and colour.

  “What is he doing?” Sunny tipped his head to one side. “Is that a firefly?”

  Emile squinted. Pixies? He thought he saw the flash of iridescent wings, and then Fernforest got his mouth around something, and Emile gasped.

  A pixie-dragon. They weren’t any bigger than a robin, though they were more scales than feather, and had some limited shifting abilities, able to tweak their forms to resemble the tiny winged pixies they were named after. They retained their brilliant colours and most of their scales, though, as well as their batlike, membranous wings. Actual pixies had wings more like those of dragonflies, were much smaller, and tended to be far more level-headed and less troublesome than their namesakes.

  “I don’t know what he has.” Sunny let Emile’s hand go. “Ferny, drop that.”

  Even as Sunny was approaching the dog, the pixie-dragon shifted in Fernforest’s mouth, no doubt hoping the smaller, more humanoid form woul
d slip free more readily. One of the things pixie-dragons could do that real dragons could not was shed their thornlike spikes as they changed and use them as weapons in their skin forms. This one did just that, wielding two spikes, nearly as long as the creature itself, to poke at the inside of the dog’s mouth.

  Fernforest yelped and shook his head, mouth wide open, feet scampering backward, fortunately away from Sunny, until he hit the rose bush at the end of the drive.

  The dryad hidden within the bush gave a mighty shake, walloping the poor animal in his backside with branches covered in thorns.

  Fernforest whined and danced, then shot off in the direction of the forest.

  “Ferny!” Sunny pelted after him, but Emile called him back.

  “He won’t go far,” Emile said, hurrying down to the bridge where the dog had vanished along the trail. “Sunny, please.” He didn’t want his lover disappearing into the forest just as dusk was falling. If anything was bound to happen that couldn’t be explained away, this was the hour for it.

  “But he—” Sunny stared into the deepening gloom under the trees.

  “He’ll be fine.” Emile pulled him back across the bridge to the yard, but Sunny refused to go any farther as he kept searching the darkening forest.

  Emile used Sunny’s distraction to find the pixie-dragon and scoop it up from where it sat, slightly dazed and dripping dog drool in the grass. “You’ll go find him and bring him back.”

  The creature glared at him, flame-bright eyes flashing.

  “He’s harmless. He wasn’t going to eat you.”

  You don’t know that. He was going to swallow me.

  “Emile?” Sunny called from the bridge. “I can’t even hear him anymore. I should go find him.”

  “Please,” Emile whispered. “Fernforest isn’t an ordinary dog. If you take a moment to think at him as hard as you just thought at me, you will see. I’m sure his attempt to capture you wasn’t completely unprovoked.”