by Chant, Zoe
And it was like her orgasm turned right over from aftershocks into the beginnings of another one. Elizabeth wasn’t sure when the change even happened; just that one moment she was spasming lightly at the end of her climax, and the next moment she was chasing a bolt of pleasure, knowing that the next one was just a moment away, lifting her hips into Malachi’s thrusts and wanting—wanting—
He pinched her clit lightly, speeding up his thrusts, shallow but quick, and she came again. Not with a scream this time, but with a strangled moan, like all the pleasure was being wrung out of her until there was nothing more left to give.
“Oh, God,” she gasped as her hips jerked against him.
Malachi finally seemed to lose control, letting his thrusts speed up, the powerful grace blurring into something rawer, harder. Elizabeth luxuriated in the sight of it as her own orgasm pulsed its last waves of pleasure through her—the knowledge that he couldn’t hold on, that he had to come himself—
He shouted as he climaxed, a deep and primal noise. Elizabeth tipped her head back and felt it hit him through the mate-bond, hard and ecstatic.
And she knew once again, still, deep in her bones: this was her mate. Hers forever.
***
They lay together for a while afterwards, first catching their breath and enjoying the ongoing buzz of pleasure in their bodies, then just talking idly, stroking their hands slowly over each other’s skin. Elizabeth thought she could easily spend ten years just exploring Malachi’s shoulders.
Ten years. Where would she be in ten years? Her baby would be nine. A nine-year-old, running around, shouting, “Mom!” at her. While she...what? Cooked dinner?
She supposed it wasn’t impossible that in ten years, she would’ve learned to cook, but she didn’t think the existence of a housewife was for her. She had seen Lila do it, and be happy doing it, and had known that it wasn’t an Elizabeth kind of life.
“Do they need any lawyers around here?” she wondered aloud, stroking a hand over Malachi’s bicep. “There can’t be much demand. Although I suppose you guys have been having an excess of legal issues, lately.”
Malachi froze underneath her touch. Elizabeth stilled too, uncertain. Had she said something wrong?
But he said, “You want to stay in Oak Ridge?”
Elizabeth blinked. Wait. “You don’t?” Had he been harboring a secret hankering for the city lifestyle all this time? If so, he hid it really well.
“Of course I do,” he said, a little impatiently, which made her relax, thankful that she hadn’t misjudged him so severely. “I just didn’t think you would. Aren’t you used to the city?”
“That’s not necessarily a good thing,” she reminded him. “My experiences living in the city were: one, the city where I grew up, where the idea of a real, cohesive pack was totally foreign to everyone I knew; two, law school, where I was alone and stressed out for three straight years; and three, Leosville, where I worked for Victor. Zero for three so far.”
“I...guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.” He kissed her temple softly, and Elizabeth closed her eyes at the casual, soft gesture of love and protection. “You like Oak Ridge?” he asked, his lips moving against her skin. “Even aside from it not having any of the...drawbacks of anywhere else. You like it here, you want to stay here?”
“You know something I was thinking during the meeting earlier?” Elizabeth said.
“What, honey?”
Honey. She blushed hard, fiery red and uncomfortable-happy all over. “Ronan,” she said, and opened her eyes to meet his curious look. “He came from the enemy camp. He was raised there, and now they’re coming after you. And not once—not one person made the suggestion that he might be sympathetic to the other side. At all. Let alone a spy, or a traitor.”
Malachi made a disgruntled noise. “Of course not. Ronan’s one of us. We’ve known him for two years, and we know who he is. He’d never do anything like that.”
“Or Lila,” Elizabeth continued. “Or me. Or Katie. Any of us who came from your enemies, running straight into your arms for help, and you never stopped to say, Hey, wait. No. You can’t come here, you’re under suspicion. You don’t deserve our help.”
“Honey,” Malachi said again, sounding helpless, and Elizabeth felt that full-body flush again, not diminished at all from the first time, “of course you deserve our help. All of you deserve our help. You’re all brave, strong, compassionate people who just wanted a home.”
“And that’s why I never want to live anywhere else,” Elizabeth concluded, snuggling back up to Malachi.
There was a pause, and then he chuckled a little. “Okay. All right. I guess I see.”
“So don’t think I’m over here wishing for takeout sushi and tall buildings,” she said sleepily. “We can eat homemade dinners every night and get Lachlan to make us sushi if we’re craving it. That’s all I need. You. That’s all.”
He pulled her in tight, and she let herself drift off to sleep.
Chapter 18: Malachi
Malachi stayed with his sleeping mate as long as he could, looking down at her peaceful face, wanting to make sure she slept so calmly every night from now on.
Well. Every night that didn’t have a crying baby in it.
He smiled a little, thinking of the time, several months from now, when neither of them would be getting a good night’s sleep for a while. It would be hard. But he’d be doing it with Elizabeth, and he found himself looking forward even to the three AM stumbling around, desperately trying to find something that would make the baby go back to sleep.
His phone buzzed, and he picked it up. It was Flynn.
Red dragon spotted over the forest, coming towards town.
Malachi sprang into action. “Elizabeth,” he said. “Elizabeth, wake up.” He was up, getting his uniform on, texting back, On my way now.
“Hmm?” She sat up, blinking sleepily.
“There’s a red dragon coming here,” he said. “Stay inside. Don’t go near the windows. I’ll be out there and I’ll make sure it doesn’t come anywhere near the house.”
Elizabeth nodded, eyes wide with alarm. “Be careful.”
“Always.” He leaned in for a quick kiss, and jogged for the stairs.
Outside, he could already see the dragon approaching from the forest to the south. Close. Very close. He crouched, ready to shift and spring into the air—
When it swooped forward, reaching the edge of the cluster of buildings that made up Oak Ridge, and landed.
Malachi shifted immediately, hurling himself into the air and flying as fast as he could to the spot where he’d seen the dragon go down. Who or what was there? Was it attacking someone? Was it—
He arrived before he could finish speculating, and landed on a street to see a man standing there, a stranger with dark hair and the beginnings of a beard—just the beginnings, because it was a young stranger, practically a kid. No older than twenty-one, if Malachi had to judge.
The kid was looking around. No one else was on the street, although Malachi could see Ronan and Santos approaching from the air. Still far away—must have been out in the woods.
Since no one else had presented themselves, the kid turned to Malachi. “Hello,” he said. “Are you the town’s defender?”
Unsure of exactly how to play this, Malachi did at least know the answer to the question. He shifted to human. “Yes,” he said. “I’m Sheriff Malachi Cohen, the local law enforcement.”
The kid frowned. “Sheriff is a human job. I’m talking about your position within your clan.”
“My position within my clan is that I’m the sheriff of this town, and I enforce the law here,” Malachi said patiently. “Are you intending to break any laws while you’re here?”
Now the kid looked like Malachi was speaking a foreign language to him. “You don’t mean human laws.”
“I do,” Malachi said deliberately, “mean human laws. Those are the kind we enforce around here. And by here, I mean, in the United Stat
es of America.”
It was like the kid visibly decided to ignore what Malachi was saying to him and continue with the script in his head: after a second of confusion, he lifted his head and said, “I, Damian, am challenging you to a battle for possession of this town.”
“No one possesses this town.” Malachi felt like he was talking to a poorly-programmed computer trying to help him figure out why his internet was broken. “We have an elected mayor, and that’s all.”
“Then I will fight him!” said the kid—Damian—brightening.
“Her.”
That clearly did not compute at all. “You enforce the laws for her, then?” the kid said cautiously, after a long moment.
“I enforce the laws for the town of Oak Ridge,” Malachi said patiently. “And the state of Pennsylvania and the country of the United States of America. Where we all live.”
Damian shook his head, like he was trying to get all of this strange information out of it. “I challenge you to a battle for the possession of this town,” he repeated, a little more loudly.
“I don’t want to fight you, kid,” Malachi said. Looking up, he saw Santos and Ronan getting closer, and waved them off.
Damian turned to look, and then turned back. “A flanking maneuver? There’s no honor in that. We fight like dragons, come on!”
It was unfortunate, Malachi thought, that a kid could sound like he was playing World of Warcraft in a college dorm, but still shift into a large and dangerous dragon.
Apparently he’d decided that he’d issued the challenge, and that was enough, and there didn’t need to be anymore talking about human laws.
Malachi shifted as well, just in time, as Damian attacked.
God damn it, he thought. I really didn’t want to do this today.
He would’ve much preferred to spend the afternoon dozing with his soft, beautiful mate, and then gotten up and showered in time for Hayley to get home from school, then made Hayley do her homework while he cooked dinner and Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table and kept him company. Then they could all have eaten together as a family, maybe watched a movie or something, and he could’ve gone to bed with Elizabeth and done it all again the next day.
That would’ve been nice.
Instead, he had an enormous red dragon coming at him, claws first.
Malachi got himself airborne, assessing the situation quickly. Damian was bigger than he was, but raw-boned in that adolescent way. Probably not quite used to his size yet.
He also couldn’t be that experienced of a fighter at so young an age, but if what Ronan said about his culture was true, he’d probably been in more fights with other dragons than Malachi had. Best to end this quickly, before that became apparent.
Or he could bring Ronan and Santos into the fight. He wasn’t bound by any medieval single-combat rules.
But on the other hand...if that was indeed the rule for the red dragons, that only two people could fight at a time, then if he broke it, they might also choose to break it, and Oak Ridge could be looking at a bigger threat.
No, best to end this quickly.
Malachi met Damian in a clash of claws and teeth, both of them furiously using their wings to try and control the direction they went. Damian had a larger wingspan, but Malachi was the more experienced flier, so he got them tilted with him above, Damian below.
Of course, he took a vicious bite to his flank as payment. Wincing in pain, he raked Damian’s shoulder with his claws, fending off the dangerous lower legs with his own as he folded his wings and let gravity deal the next blow.
Damian had to disengage or hit the ground on his back at speed, and they ended up at a distance again. Malachi could see Ronan and Santos hovering not too far away, and Flynn at the other edge of town, circling.
Good. No other hostile dragons would take them by surprise while Malachi dealt with this.
He could feel a deep anger welling up inside him. This kid thought he could come into Oak Ridge and take over by force? By violent battle? What did he think he was going to do if he won, for God’s sake?
These were not the rules Malachi lived by, and he was going to make that very, very clear.
Yes, his dragon hissed. Defeat the challenger. Make him pay for his defiance.
Not quite what I meant, Malachi thought back, exasperated. But if he had to fight Damian in single combat anyway...
He waited for Damian’s next attack, rather than rushing forward. Damian hovered, assessing, and then whipped forward, faster than Malachi had anticipated—and shot up at the last minute, trying to get behind him.
Well, Malachi had a teenager of his own who liked to pull maneuvers like that while they were playing aerial tag. He did a midair barrel-roll—which put him underneath Damian, at the same disadvantage Damian had been a moment ago.
But Malachi was already lashing his tail out—his tail, barbed with sharp spikes, had always seemed an unnecessary safety hazard to him. But now he whipped it up into Damian’s soft underbelly, scoring a deep gash into the vulnerable skin, unprotected by scales. Damian let out a wounded howl, disengaging quickly and getting out of range.
Malachi took a deep breath, calming himself, and assessed the situation. Damian was wounded—but so was Malachi, bitten and bleeding from the flank. Damian looked more hesitant now, less likely to take stupid risks. He’d probably come into this thinking that the Oak Ridge dragons were soft, too used to living without real violence and unable to defend their home when called on it.
He was learning otherwise. And coming around for another pass.
This time they met head-on, jarring and brilliantly painful. There was no time to mess around; it was a straight-up contest to see who could hurt the other one earliest and most.
Damian got an early lead. He tore into Malachi’s shoulder with his teeth, heavy and cold with the sensation of teeth meeting the bone. It was probably intended to make him disengage like Damian had earlier, pull back to lick his wounds and avoid being hurt worse.
But Malachi wasn’t in a pissing contest here, a jockeying between young men for top-dog status. He was a grown man and he was keeping his home and his family safe.
So he didn’t move. His dragon roared inside him as he twisted, ignoring the way it drove Damian’s teeth deeper into his flesh, and found the other dragon’s wing.
Damian roared as Malachi pierced the delicate webbing of his left wing, and then the roar rose into a shriek as he bit down on the joint.
He didn’t have a good angle, restrained by Damian’s hold, but he had strength and determination. He clamped down until he heard the bone crack.
Damian let go, shuddering, and Malachi pulled back, feeling blood starting to run down from his shoulder. He flew a small distance away, watching as Damian limped down to the ground, having to glide in circles rather than use his injured wing any more than necessary.
Malachi landed a safe distance away. Above him, he heard the wingbeats that meant Ronan and Santos had come closer.
He crouched in the street and watched until Damian shifted back to human, cradling one arm at an awkward angle.
Malachi took a deep breath and shifted, too. Immediately, he had to repress the need to stagger, to sit down. He was still bleeding, and it was bad.
He stayed where he was. “So?” he asked Damian, keeping his voice steady. “Are you done?”
“You are the victor,” Damian said, sounding sullen. “When my wounds heal, I will return home.”
“Oh, no you won’t,” Malachi said softly.
Behind him, two dragons alit. Then he heard more wingbeats, and he looked up to see a griffin approaching...with a small figure on its back. His eyes narrowed. Who...?
“What do you mean?” Damian asked, drawing Malachi’s attention back. “Do you mean to kidnap me and hold me for ransom? That will not go well with my family.”
“No,” Malachi said, “I mean to arrest you and put you in jail. And if you think our jail can’t hold you, remember that this is a shifter town.�
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Damian’s eyes widened, just as, behind him, Flynn landed with a familiar four-pawed thump.
“That’s right,” said a familiar voice, and Malachi had to turn to see if she was really there, or if he was somehow hallucinating that she’d shown up on a battlefield.
A small one. A finished one. But still.
He wasn’t hallucinating. The small blonde figure stalked forward, dressed once again in her lawyer suit, looking sharp and smart and intimidating as hell.
Malachi stepped forward anyway, keeping himself between her and Damian. Frankly, he had to physically stop himself from shifting back into his dragon form, grabbing Elizabeth with his good arm, and flying them both far, far away from this confrontation.
He and Flynn were going to have words after this was over.
“You initiate a violent confrontation in an open street? Assault this man with a deadly weapon, completely unprovoked, admitting in so many words that your sole purpose in coming here was to commit an act of violence? In front of witnesses?” Elizabeth flung an arm out, indicating what was now a small crowd behind them. Her eyes sparkled with a deadly determination. “You severely injured an officer of the law, and I am personally going to see your ass in jail for a long, long time.”
Damian’s mouth had dropped open, and he was looking back and forth between Malachi and Elizabeth, completely bewildered.
“But,” he said. “But—you can’t do that.”
“Oh, kid,” Malachi said, as Flynn shifted to human and came forward to read him his rights and take him into custody, “You don’t know how wrong you are.”
He looked over at Elizabeth. “And I think it’s going to be a hell of a job, dealing with the society that produced someone who’s so utterly convinced he’s above the law.”
There was a puff of displaced air, and Malachi turned to see that Ronan had shifted as well, coming forward to join the conversation. “You have no idea,” he said grimly. “And they must be getting worse. When I was growing up, I wouldn’t have been totally ignorant of human law like that.”