The flames ceased abruptly when the dragon closed his lips, but the ember glow of his chest faded far slower. He walked up to Elliya in a few easy strides, his eyes locked with hers. “You would do well not to disobey me again. Now eat.”
He thrust his hand forward, offering her a piece of sizzling, golden brown meat.
The savory smell of the meat beckoned her attention, making her mouth water and her stomach cramp with hunger, but she held his gaze, brows falling low. “You are not my master, dragon.”
“Nor you mine, human. But the difference is that I can force you, should I so choose.”
Elliya gritted her teeth. “I can leave here. I can leave you.”
See how well he does without my body to sate his lust, the arrogant beast.
The dragon stepped closer and loomed over her, restless energy pulsing from his body. “You are no less bound than I.”
“But the difference is that I am not suffering the Heat,” she countered.
“You will suffer my heat if you do not cease this babbling and eat,” he growled.
She leaned toward him. “Offer it to me nicely and say please.”
“Perhaps you did not hear me correctly.” He raised the meat, pinching it between the claws of forefinger and thumb, and dangled it in front of her face. “You will eat this, and you will enjoy every bite. Then you will thank me for it.”
“Had you offered it to me nicely, I would have been grateful. Now, you can take that meat and choke on it.” She ducked beneath his arm and walked toward her bag.
Unfortunately, the dragon was faster. A faint rustling of his wings and the light scrape of his feet across the floor were her only warnings before he darted in front of her and snatched up her bag in his free hand with a snarl.
“Then you will starve, human!”
Elliya growled. “I do not need an overbearing male to provide for me!”
“And I did not need a mate, yet here you stand.”
Tears of frustration—and pain she refused to acknowledge—filled her eyes. “Why must you be so hateful?”
Something flickered in his gaze, something deep and sorrowful, but it was gone so quickly that she could only assume it had been her imagination. His features were hard-set when he replied, “Because you are human, and you forced this bond upon me. You have stolen everything from me, Elliya.”
“What have I stolen from you?”
The orange glow in his chest flared again, creeping down to his abdomen and up his neck. “My shape. My desire. My life. You have trapped me in this pathetic form for the rest of my days, you have forced me to yearn for you like I have yearned for nothing else in my existence, and you have robbed me of my immortality.”
Elliya’s heart stuttered, her brow furrowed, and her lips fell into a frown. He could not… He could not truly have meant what he’d said, that couldn’t possibly be the truth. “What?”
His voice dripped with bitterness and loathing as he said, “The touch of a human hand upon a dragon’s scales is binding in every way, female. You have tied my life to yours—and your life is but a single spark compared to the roaring fire that was mine. I had eternity. Now I have you.”
Elliya retreated a few steps, chest tight, heart pounding. She’d bound herself to a mate who despised her, and now she understood why. She couldn’t blame him. Unknowingly, she’d taken everything from him.
The stories had never mentioned the price exacted upon the claimed dragon. She’d joined the Crimson Hunt so she could have a choice in her life, a choice in a mate, but in doing so, she had stolen the dragon’s choice. Elliya had enslaved him. She’d longed for a true mate, for a loving mate, for a male who cherished her and her alone, but instead had trapped a dragon who’d forever hate her for what she had taken from him.
Whatever desire he had for her was forced by the mating bond and the Red Star. Any tenderness he might have shown her, any affection, any care, wouldn’t have been real. Those tastes she’d had were nothing more than illusions.
Elliya turned her face away from him. “I did not know the cost.”
The dragon strode forward, his heat radiating against her skin. That tense, furious energy wafted from him along with it, making the air thick and charged, as unsettling as the time leading up to a thunderstorm. “And would you have cared? The price was never yours to pay.”
“I never would have participated in the Crimson Hunt had I known. I am sorry for all you have lost, and sorrier still that it was me who took it.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “I did not know.” She hadn’t cried since she was a young girl, but she could not stop the flow now.
He caught her chin with his fingers and forced her face toward him. There was a crease between his brows, which were low over those intense eyes, and his lips were curled down in a frown. “What is this? Why are your eyes leaking, Elliya?”
Elliya pulled out of his hold and wiped her eyes with the back of it as she turned away from him. “They are called tears. Do dragons not cry?”
“No. I find it…unsettling.” He shifted closer to her again, but without the speed and aggression of before. “Would you stop if I ask you to eat nicely?”
Horrifyingly, those words only coaxed more tears from her eyes. Shaking her head, she laughed and sniffled, hating how weak and pathetic she must’ve appeared in that moment. “It is only th-the bond making you feel that way.” She took in a deep breath and looked up at the cave’s uneven ceiling, willing the tears to stop. “I will leave you be. I will return to my village and accept my duty as bride and breeder, and maybe…maybe you can reverse this.”
Moving with a burst of preternatural speed, he caught her face in his hand and forced her back against the wall, pressing his body over hers to pin her in place before she could even react.
Elliya gasped, eyes widening, and her stomach fluttered with a hint of fear—and a surge of lust. He turned her head to the side and leaned his face down until she could feel his hot breath on her ear. Her skin pebbled in awareness.
“You are bride and breeder already, Elliya. A dragon’s bride,” he growled. “You belong to Falthyris the Golden, the Conqueror, the Glassmaker and the Firestorm, Scourge of the Sands and Lord of the Shimmering mountains. There is no life for you but with me. There are no other males but for the sons you will bear by my seed.” He turned her face toward him as he lifted his head, and his eyes—glowing brighter than she’d ever seen—commanded her full attention. “You are mine.”
11
The air was redolent of fresh growing vegetation and the perfume of desert flowers, of clean, cool river water and sun-warmed sand and stone. Falthyris breathed it in deeply, willing those fragrances to ease the effects of the Red Heat.
Though it was difficult to see by daylight, he could feel the Heat around him. It permeated the air he was breathing, it radiated against his scales, it pulsed in his blood and bones. And it had been growing steadily stronger day by day. Its cycles were becoming unrelenting—each peak was higher than the last, each valley noticeably shallower, and the lulls he’d been afforded early on were fast shrinking. That would only worsen as Dragonsbane approached its pinnacle.
The comet had been in the sky for twelve days—that meant another eighteen or so before it finally moved on, and even then, the Red Heat would not immediately fade.
Falthyris sighed and raked his claws over the top of the boulder he was perched upon. His eyes shifted toward the river, where Elliya was wading into the deeper water with her back toward him. The waters were higher than the last time he’d come, result of the rainstorms that had swept over the area over the last several days. The swollen river had readily provided the fish Falthyris and Elliya had caught, cooked, and eaten when they’d arrived earlier.
Elliya’s long, curled mane—hair, as she called it—hung freely about her shoulders, its tips brushing the unblemished skin of her back. The lovely curves of her ass and hips were visible just above the water’s surface.
His shaft stirred, its he
ad pressing against the inside of his slit. He adjusted the positions of his legs and tail and covered his slit with one hand, exerting a little pressure against his insistent cock.
He’d washed in the river immediately after their meal. Now was his turn to watch, and he could not be vigilant if he allowed the Heat to work him into another frenzy. His duty was to protect his mate, and they were exposed out here, vulnerable to dangers that his lair kept at bay.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to scan his surroundings. The lush vegetation around the river swayed in the breeze, and the late afternoon sun cast long shadows that were in stark contrast to its pure, intense light. Gentle white tufts of cloud drifted across a cerulean sky, blocking Dragonsbane’s insidious red glare. The canyon was quiet apart from the river’s steady burbling and the rustling foliage.
Were it not for the Red Heat, this might’ve been peaceful. It might’ve been relaxing. This was just the sort of scene, the sort of day, Falthyris should have been able to enjoy at his leisure.
Would that he could have Elliya here with him under better circumstances.
Things will improve when the comet has passed.
But he knew even before the thought had fully formed that it was constructed upon an immense heap of naivety, especially for a creature as old as he.
It had been nine days since Elliya had claimed him. They’d mated repeatedly during that time, and he had already lost track of how many times he’d found release within her—and those releases were the only reason he’d not fallen completely into crimson-tinged madness. Each time they mated, Falthyris ended up craving Elliya a little more. His hunger for her was becoming insatiable. Her scent had haunted him mercilessly, even during his brief slumbers, and his mouth had watered whenever he’d thought about tasting her—about tasting her essence.
All that, however, was merely a single aspect of their mating bond, and it was the simplest. His drive to rut constantly would diminish when the comet was gone, but his want for her would not—he knew that down to his core.
That physical desire, that lust, was not the issue. Its source did not matter; it simply was. But wanting to rut her did not equate to having a true connection to her. Though their mating bond was very real, it was merely a cord binding them together. It could not compel them to like one another. It was not enough on its own.
There was a hollowness in his chest, a hungry void that seemed impossible to fill, and it had grown along with his yearning for Elliya. He knew it was loneliness, at least in part, though he’d never guessed it could be so overwhelming, so consuming. Dragons were not meant to feel lonely. Solitude was their natural state. Mated dragons especially were not supposed to feel it, and he’d been mated. He'd found his companionship.
Have I truly? Is she companion or prisoner?
In the eight days they’d spent together, Elliya had not denied Falthyris use of her body. She’d rutted him with determination, and usually seemed to take pleasure from it. But apart from a few hesitant caresses, she no longer touched him, no longer sought those little instants of intimacy with him. He’d seen her reach for him a few times only to snap her hand back as though touching him would scorch her flesh.
And to his immense disappointment, she’d not once tried to press her lips against his, had not once tried to recreate what had been the most complete expression of tenderness he’d ever experienced. The few times he’d attempted to do so, she’d just pulled away.
He could not express the hurt that had caused him, though he understood he had no right to be upset by her rejection. Their conversations during the last week had been uncomfortable; they’d exchanged no meaningful words, had spoken of nothing of any depth, and silence had grown to encompass the majority of their time together. Elliya had often seemed sad, downtrodden, weary.
Was he demanding too much of her body?
His eyes returned to Elliya as she dipped to submerge herself up to her shoulders. Her long hair fanned out around her, floating on the water’s surface. He could not help but wonder what expression she was wearing.
I know well it has nothing to do with my demands on her body.
Those sparse conversations they’d shared had often grown heated and confrontational. A thousand years of anger, shame, and bitterness swirled within his breast, and he’d rarely spared her its bite. Too often, he’d been dismissive or insulting. Too often, he’d been spiteful. And every time he’d snapped at her, every time he’d lashed out, insulted her, or blamed her for his problems, every time he’d been curt or abrasive, he’d seen the pain upon her face. He’d seen it in her eyes. He’d watched her steadily withdraw from him even as she’d worked to establish herself a cozy haven within his lair.
He shouldn’t have cared about her feelings, shouldn’t have concerned himself with anything beyond the relief her body provided, but his heartfire had dimmed every time he’d seen that look on her face. Shards of ice had pierced his chest with her every frown, expanding that void, making it colder and more ravenous.
No matter how close they came physically, their hearts were separated by a rift as expansive as the Forsaken Sands. All he’d done thus far was widen that rift. More and more, he yearned to close it—or, if that was not possible, to cross it. To find her. To…meet her.
He’d thought himself content to treat their bond as little more than a means by which to vent the Heat, had thought himself content to view her as a thing to be used. But her spirit had been so strong in the few glimpses of it she’d allowed him that he felt bereft in its absence.
He wanted more than just rutting, more than just her body. More than the mating bond.
His desire for her body may have been sparked by the Heat and the forced bond, but this growing need for more…that was all him.
Elliya tipped her head back and combed her fingers through her hair, sweeping more of its strands into the water.
Falthyris lifted a hand, catching one of the braids woven at his temples between forefinger and thumb. Only two days ago, he had been taking apart another ox, slicing out chunks of meat to cook for his mate, snarling because his hair had repeatedly fallen into his face. Something had hooked his hair from behind.
He’d raised his blood-soaked claws, spun around, and gnashed his teeth, lunging into an instinctive attack. His heart had skipped a beat when he realized it was Elliya behind him; he’d stopped himself with his claws a whisper away from her flesh.
Elliya’s gaze had remained steady, and the only change to her expression was the slightest upward shift of her eyebrows. Without a word, she had taken his hair again, and her deft little fingers had worked their magic. She’d braided his hair at each temple, her fingers lightly brushing his scales from time to time as she worked. When she was done, she’d simply walked away. The braids had worked well in keeping most of his hair out of his face in the time since.
He longed for those light touches. He longed for the familiarity with which she’d treated him for those moments, for the closeness and the companionable quiet. He longed for the oddly warm, fluttering feeling she’d woken in him with her gentle ministrations, with her small show of kindness.
Falthyris ran his eyes over her shining hair, appreciating it as but one part of her beauty—a beauty that was granted a unique glow by her surroundings. The sky and clouds were reflected upon the river’s surface around her, and countless points of light flared and faded across it like stars being born and dying in the space of a heartbeat. The droplets on her skin sparkled like precious gemstones as she moved.
The Red Heat slithered through his mind, deepening the ache in his loins, but he rejected its impulses. Falthyris wanted Elliya’s body—all of it—but he also wanted intimacy. Not merely physical intimacy, but intimacy of their hearts and minds. He wanted conversation. Wanted companionship.
He wanted…Elliya.
Once again, he pried his eyes away from her, this time turning his head to look downriver—that was the direction in which the wind was blowing, the direction from w
hich any hungry beasts were most likely to come. He flicked out his tongue to taste the air. Her scent was the most pronounced of all, and it must’ve been due to his skewed perspective, his altered focus. There was no way one little human could overpower all the other smells around her, was there?
She rose and flicked her hair back. Water sprayed from her tresses, the droplets flashing bright in the sunlight. The sight should have been meaningless, mundane, but something about it held Falthyris transfixed. She ran her hands over her skin, scrubbing herself clean. Though her back was still toward him, he could imagine her hands smoothing over her chest mounds, brushing those dark buds at their peaks, trailing along the flat of her stomach, dipping toward her pelvis.
But it was not until she began singing that her spell upon him was complete.
Her soft voice was high and melodic, rising over the river’s sounds without clashing with them. It echoed off the canyon walls, becoming something as powerful as it was gentle, and resonated within his heartfire, pushing back the Heat that had settled into him so deeply.
Falthyris’s tongue flitted out again, this time to slide across his lips. Without meaning to, he leaned forward, braced his hands on the boulder, and climbed down. His tail slid over the stone behind him.
Elliya continued singing as she tilted her head to make her hair dangle over one shoulder and combed her fingers through it again, working out the knots and tangles.
Falthyris stood up and walked to the water’s edge. He’d heard the songs of birds and insects, the songs of wind, sand, and stone. Long, long ago, he’d heard some of the songs of his kind. All those songs had been wordless—they communicated their intentions without the need for words. Yet the words Elliya sang did not detract from the beauty or impact of her song.
She sang her praise and thanks, to the water, to the life-giver, to the source of every plant and animal in both the Shimmering Peaks and the Forsaken Sands. Several times as she washed and sang, she invoked a name he had heard her speak before—Cetolea.
To Tame a Dragon (Venys Needs Men) Page 9