To Tame a Dragon (Venys Needs Men)

by Tiffany Roberts

  The void in the stars that was the dragon’s shadowy form grew rapidly, until she could see the crimson moonlight upon the beast’s scales and glinting on its long claws. The dragon didn’t slow until it was immediately above her. A beat of its immense wings blasted her with wind, sending a thrill over her bare skin.

  The dragon crashed down on all fours, bracing itself over her with its talons curled into the dirt.

  Elliya’s eyes widened as she stared up at the dragon and its gleaming golden scales. She’d seen large creatures out in the Forsaken Sands, had hunted them on occasion with her tribe sisters, but none of those animals could compare to the immensity of this dragon. She’d never felt so small, so insignificant, so powerless.

  The dragon spread its talon-tipped wings wide, making itself look impossibly larger, and dipped its horned head. Its eyes, glowing as bright and blue as the waters of Cetolea, met hers. They were mesmerizing, with slitted pupils that narrowed and widened as though struggling to focus.

  A huff of hot air flowed over Elliya before the dragon’s long, pointed tongue flicked out from between its lips. Those lips peeled back to reveal big, sharp teeth as a deep growl rumbled in the dragon’s chest. Its body stiffened, its claws dug deeper into the ground on either side of her, and the dragon made a chuffing sound, its hips jerking forward.

  Elliya glanced down. The beast’s cock protruded from a slit at its groin, a massive shaft with ridges and scales that glistened with secretions.

  The dragon was male.

  And he was hers.

  Unbidden, her core clenched, flooding with arousal and heat like she’d never felt before.

  The dragon’s tongue emerged again to lap at the air, and a shudder wracked his body.

  Elliya met his bright blue gaze, reached up, and placed her hand on the side of his jaw.

  His eyes rounded, fixating on her with sudden, unsettling lucidity.

  She gasped. That touch burned her fingertips, and the sensation spread up her arms and coursed through her body, filling her chest with an almost unbearable heat. The dragon recoiled from her hand with a snarl, but it was too late.

  Something snapped inside Elliya, like a cord pulling taut around her heart.

  Pulling her toward him.

  Orange light broke between his scales, looking at first like the embers of a dying fire but quickly gaining brightness and intensity. He shoved away from her with a vicious snarl, snapping his head from side to side as tiny flames spouted through his teeth—and his scales. The air heated rapidly, creating fresh beads of sweat on Elliya’s skin.

  Heart racing, Elliya dropped the sleeper dust husks and scrambled backward on hands and feet.

  The dragon burst into flames with a roar, bathing the canyon in frantic, dancing orange light. Tails, wings, and talons swung and thrashed, fighting the flames, fighting for purchase, but the fire only intensified, shifting from orange to white. Elliya’s eyes stung from the brightness and heat, but she couldn’t look away. Horror kept her gaze fixed on the dragon.

  Blackened ash flaked off his body and caught on the wind, scattering across the riverbank, and the air was soon thick with smoke.

  The mighty beast fell backwards, plunging into the river with an immense splash that was silenced by the hiss of water instantly boiling. A huge cloud of steam spewed from the water, further obscuring her view but for the intense light within it. All that hissing, growling, and splashing continued.

  Scalding droplets landed on Elliya’s foot, driving her farther back from the water. Her heart was racing, her breath ragged, her throat constricted.

  What was happening? What had she done?

  The smoke and steam enveloped her. Eyes watering, she turned her face away and coughed, throat and lungs burning. For a few alarming moments, it felt as though she’d hack up her internal organs, as though she’d die just as she’d accomplished what so few humans had before her. But the smoke soon thinned, and her coughing eased.

  All those terrifying sounds had ceased, leaving only the jarring gentleness of flowing water and wind.

  She crawled forward until she found her discarded waterskin. Uncorking it, she used the water inside to rinse her eyes, face, and mouth. Blinking away the moisture from her lashes, she turned her attention to the river, which was close enough now for her to reach out and touch.

  A haze of steam lingered over the water, which was now undisturbed but for a faint orange glow within its relative darkness. She inched closer to the water’s edge, leaning forward to peer at that ember-like light. Her eyes rounded when she realized it was moving toward her.

  As it neared, Elliya could see a dark shape surrounding the glow.

  A hand emerged from the water, its clawed fingers slamming down on the bank and sinking into the mud. Big as it was, that hand was much too small to belong to a dragon. The arm that surfaced after it was large, muscular, and scaley, but it too did not belong to a dragon.

  The figure hauled itself up out of the river, first onto its knees and then its feet, water pouring from its powerful, broad-shouldered body. Elliya tilted her head back to look up at the figure—tall and imposing, and in the shape of a man.

  A long, thick tail slashed across the surface behind the male as he stalked forward, driving Elliya back farther onto her backside. His whole body was powerfully built and covered in golden scales of varying size. His chest was illuminated from within, as though it held a blazing fire rather than a heart and lungs. Two wings stretched outward from the man’s back, shedding excess water, and he shook his head, making his long hair—silver in the moonlight—whip around his head. That only drew attention to the long horns atop his skull.

  His eyes met Elliya’s; they were glowing blue, their slitted pupils expanding as he stared at her.

  Not a man at all. This was the dragon.

  This was her dragon.

  His nostrils flared, and his tongue flicked out from between his lips to taste the air. His eyes dipped down her body to fixate upon her sex. His jaw—lined with two small bone spikes on each side—clenched, and his lips peeled back to reveal sharp teeth.

  Elliya’s gaze moved down his wide chest, his muscular abdomen, and narrow hips to settle on his cock. It extruded from his slit, long, thick, and pulsing, as golden as the rest of him with fine scales and pronounced ridges. Pale seed oozed from its tip.

  Desire flared within her, and her sex ached with want of the male before her. Not wholly man or beast, but virile and strong, magnificent and menacingly beautiful.

  He growled and took a step toward her, wrapping his hand around his cock and squeezing hard. More seed seeped from its tip to drip into the grass, wasted.

  “Female,” he said in a deep, accented, gravelly voice.

  Elliya tore her eyes away from his cock to look at his face, which was tight and pained, his blue eyes tortured but lustful. She smiled and leaned back onto her elbows, spreading her thighs wide. His hungry gaze immediately returned to her sex.

  “Yes,” she said. “Your female.”

  4

  Falthyris had never experienced such pain, had never felt his heartfire blaze so intensely. He felt like he’d been swallowed up, burned from within, violently unraveled and slammed back together again with fire and force. He did not know what had happened, but he did not care—the Red Heat had claimed him, and his mind, body, and soul were all fixated on the female.

  My female.

  The truth of those words penetrated to Falthyris’s core, even through the Red Heat’s thick fog. His heartfire flared, and he surged forward, sped by his inner flames. He landed over her, wedging his body between her legs, and hissed as his shaft nestled along her wet slit. Fresh seed seeped from his cock. He shuddered and curled his claws into the ground.

  With a snarl, he drew back his hips and thrust his cock into her sex.

  He didn’t hear the female’s pained cry, didn’t feel her hands grasping him or her blunt claws scraping against his scales—all he could feel was the slick, hot, ti
ght grip of his female’s sheath around his throbbing cock.

  Falthyris withdrew just enough to shove himself deeper into that blissfully wet channel. It was overwhelming pleasure, it was unbearable agony, and he could not stop. He pumped again and again, sinking as deep as he could go and willing himself deeper still until his female’s sex had consumed him entirely.

  He needed this. He needed her.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, Falthyris pushed harder, faster, grunting and snarling.

  His blood flowed like magma through his veins, his scales were tight over his bulging muscles, and an immense, impossible pressure was building in his loins. He felt as though his body could barely contain itself, as though it could barely contain his essence, his heartfire, which was stronger after his female’s touch than ever before.

  My female…

  Her heady fragrance filled the air. It was the scent that had finally roused him from his cave, alluring and feminine, but there was more to it now—it was enhanced by her arousal, made all the more maddening. That scent clouded his mind as fully as the Red Heat had.

  She shifted, wrapping her legs around him, and Falthyris growled, snapping his teeth and dropping a clawed hand to her hip to keep her pinned in place. His thrusts increased in speed and brutality. His female’s sex contracted, clamping around him, drawing him farther in, flooding with more liquid heat.

  So hot, so tight, so wet.

  The pressure in his loins heightened, stealing his breath. He hissed, digging his claws deeper into the ground and flattening his wings against his back. His frenzied movements grew erratic as his inner flames and the Red Heat swirled together in a firestorm at his center. Waves of pleasure-pain raced up his spine and outward along his limbs to the tips of his fingers, toes, and tail.

  For an instant, everything was still, and deafening silence enveloped him. That silence was shattered by a soft, gasping cry beneath him—not at all the sort of sound a dragoness would make.

  Falthyris exploded, his heartfire blazing out from his core to seize his every muscle and force a roar from his throat. His wings snapped out as a jet of molten seed blasted from his cock, and ecstasy unlike anything he’d ever experienced devoured him.

  His hips jerked as he poured streams of seed into his female, grinding his shaft deep. Each release provided more relief than the last until, with wings fanned out and body shuddering, he sagged upon her.

  He still felt the Red Heat, still felt Dragonsbane’s curse beating down on him, but the worst of its effects had faded—for now. As much as it hurt his pride to acknowledge that he’d succumbed, he could consider this coupling a small but significant victory in the greater battle against dragonkind’s nemesis.

  He'd given in to that burning need, but he hadn’t harmed his female—his mate.

  Still, he knew his current relief would be short lived. The Red Heat would resurge before long.

  Panting, Falthyris curled around his mate, drawing her close, and buried his snout against her neck. He inhaled her scent and released the breath in a contented rumble.

  Her hands stroked his shoulders and back, her legs tightened around his hips, cradling him against her body, and when she spoke, he felt the gentle vibrations of her voice. “Cetolea, bless this womb. May it nurture and protect the seed it has been gifted, and may it grow strong new life in its loving embrace.”

  Those words were as comforting as they were strange.

  Continuing the soft slide of her hands over his scales, she repeated her words, and Falthyris focused on them. They were spoken like some sort of prayer, it seemed, but it was the words themselves that warranted closer attention—because though he understood them, they belonged to a language he’d not heard in several hundred years. She was not speaking in the tongue of dragons.

  Something soft tickled his snout, and he released a huff through his nostrils. Awareness—both of himself, his female, and the situation—rushed to him, nearly as overwhelming as the pleasure-pain of moments before.

  There was something wrong here. Falthyris himself felt wrong.

  He lifted his head to look down at his mate. Her dark eyes met his gaze—human eyes.

  For the first time in his existence, Falthyris’s heartfire felt like it had been snuffed out, leaving him cold and empty inside. His mind raced, desperate to make sense of what he was seeing, of what he was feeling, of what had happened.

  She was a human. She had touched him.

  He had mated with her.

  Falthyris shoved away from her, withdrawing from her wet heat, and rose on unsteady legs. He snapped his wings against his back. Fire blazed through his muscles and into his bones, suffusing his being—reminding him of the immense, disorienting pain he’d endured when she’d first touched him and forced the mating bond upon him. He’d been too caught up in the Red Heat to realize what had happened, to realize what she was.

  To realize what he’d become.

  He looked down at his hands and did not recognize their long, dexterous fingers or the claws at their tips. Nor did he know the arms those hands were attached to, or the accompanying chest and abdomen, pelvis, legs, and feet, all oriented in that upright, human fashion.

  This was not his shape. This was not his body. This was not him.

  His heart pounded strongly enough to make his whole body pulse—including his still extruded cock, which glistened in the moonlight.

  He clenched his fists as his confusion gave way to fury. This was not happening. It was simply one of the many dreams he was experiencing during his decades-long slumber, and he was still secure in his lair, curled atop a bed of sand in his natural state.

  Succumbing to the red comet was shameful enough, but this? The mighty Falthyris had seen human cities crumble and civilizations collapse in his time; he could not be brought low by humans, much less a single female.

  Humans were diminutive creatures. Tiny, weak, fragile. Little more than insects to the likes of Falthyris. Even at the height of their power centuries ago, when they’d possessed the weaponry and organization necessary to slay a dragon, humans had been nothing but a minor irritant to him, easily dealt with when necessary—and easily ignored the rest of the time.

  And now I am one of them.

  Fire swelled in his chest, making his scales glow orange. He lifted his gaze to the human. “What have you done to me?”

  She had sat up, and her long, black mane hung around her shoulders, brushing that smooth, soft skin. Her dark eyes met his, and her lips curled into a smile. “I made you mine.”

  Her reply would have been infuriating enough by itself. Dragons were the apex species on this world, the most powerful creatures, the most dominant. Falthyris could not be owned. His kind were the rulers, whether or not these insignificant mortals acknowledged it. But paired with what he felt at his core—that she was right, that he was hers—it sparked a rage in him that burned hotter than anything Dragonsbane could emit.

  Falthyris filled his lungs with air and roared, ignoring how much weaker a sound this body produced. The female recoiled, her eyes widening in surprise. She threw her hands out to either side and frantically raked her fingers through the grass.

  He stalked toward the human. Her eyes glimmered with uncertainty and fear, but she held his gaze as she brought her hands together, crunching something between them. Falthyris bared his teeth and reached for her.

  The human lifted a hand, palm flat, and blew across it.

  The dust on her palm sprayed into Falthyris’s face just as he inhaled. He flinched back, squeezing his eyes shut. His nose strung and burned. Shaking his head sharply, he forced himself forward again and released a deep growl.

  That growl was cut short when he sneezed hard enough to double him over. The sting in his sinuses increased tenfold.

  “Human,” he snarled as he straightened—but he overcompensated and staggered backward. His tail swung wildly to the side, further endangering his balance, but his arms were suddenly heavy when he threw them out to counteract hi
s tail. Through willpower alone, he forced one of his feet forward. It came down hard, as though it weighed as much as a mountain. His head, in contrast, felt as light as a cloud.

  He forced his eyes onto the human as he stumbled and fell to one knee. “What…have you…”

  She leaned forward and cautiously crawled closer, keeping just out of his reach. “You will only sleep. I will watch over you.”

  Falthyris released a huff, reaching inwardly for his heartfire, for his fury. He would not succumb to this human twice. But his fire didn’t come. Drawing upon all his remaining strength, he lunged toward her.

  He landed face first on the ground, right where the grass and sand mingled. Fortunately, the void swallowed him, snuffing out his awareness before he could be crushed by his own shame.

  Elliya’s heart pounded as she stared at the male sleeping on the ground in front of her. “I…did it.”

  She’d claimed and mated a dragon.

  If not for the tenderness between her legs and his still-wet seed on her thighs, she would have thought this a dream.

  When he’d first thrust into her, it had hurt, but she’d expected that, had braced herself for it. But she hadn’t anticipated the pleasure that had come during their mating.

  Or that he’d attack her when it was done.

  She frowned as she ran her eyes over his body. After he’d gifted her his seed, he’d curled around her almost reverently, holding her close. Though that had been surprising, she’d drawn comfort from it, and had relished the feel of his heavy weight atop her, his heat baking into her, and his cock filling her. It had felt so right.

  All that had fled in an instant when he’d looked at her with such…fury.

  She didn’t understand. They were bonded, mated, and she could feel her connection with this male like it were a physical thing in her chest. All the old stories about dragons spoke of such bonds, of the dragons being fiercely protective of their females—of their unwavering devotion.