Romance: Bought by the Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Romance Standalone (Paranormal Romance) (Studly Shifters Book 2)

by Ashley Hunter

  He shrugged, then. “No point in being shy, anyway. This isn’t exactly a white wedding, I suspect.”

  Her anguish swelled up again and she started trembling. Yes it is. That’s what makes this all the more horrible. You think I’m some money-grabbing whore opening her legs to you because it will profit me. But I’ve barely even been kissed, and now you’re...you’re going to….

  He started nuzzling her neck, running his tongue over her skin and then nipping gently at her pulse point. It should have felt good. Her body responded as if it did, shivering and arching, her mouth making a little sound of pleasure...but she seemed to stand outside herself, numbly apart from the sensations.

  His hands slid over her skin, exploring every part of her now that she was bare: her back, her thighs, her breasts again, kneading and caressing. He would not kiss her; didn’t even try. She stared at the underside of the canopy, feeling her body jerk and tremble in response to his attentions.

  Her hands clung to muscled shoulders that she would have happily caressed if only...if only they were there willing, if only this wasn’t being forced...on both of them. That reason alone kept her from hating him as he reached down to unbuckle his belt and slide off his breeches.

  He was huge, she realized with a little jolt of fear: even half-erect, what brushed against the inside of her thigh was as big around as her wrist. His breath had gone heavy and shaky, and he reached down to caress her mound with his long fingers, kneading and rubbing. She heard a soft moan come from her lips, but she was still numb from the neck down. Her responses were nothing but reflex.

  He took his time with her, rolling her over on the bed, nipping and tonguing his way up and down her spine, running his teeth against her hips, kneading her ass while making small appreciative sounds.

  The sunlight started to slant and redden more and more, then faded entirely, leaving them in near darkness. Candles flickered on his bed-stand, lighting his face and catching in his shimmering eyes as he tried to ready her body for him dispassionately, but instead slowly gave in to naked and unapologetic lust.

  At least one of us will enjoy this, she thought bleakly as she felt his now fully erect organ throbbing against her. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.

  He was moaning low in his throat by now, having restrained himself for hours until his lust overcame his own resistance. Maybe he was thinking of other women; this Andrea, for example. As he parted her thighs with his hands and positioned herself over her, she tried her best to relax. Relax and comply. He can’t last long after all of that. It will be over with soon. Maybe I’ll even be lucky and get pregnant on the first try.

  But even as he started to push in on her, a sudden wave of anguish and despair undid her, and her eyes brimmed over, tears spilling down the side of her face.

  He froze, the haze of lust clearing from his eyes. “You’re...crying?”

  She tried to stop herself. Thought of everything she could: that this would be done with soon, that she could go home eventually, that she could then hack off her aunt’s head with a butcher knife. But the shock on his face undid her, and she started to sob.

  His erection wilted immediately as a look of horror crossed his face. “What is this…?” he asked breathlessly. Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and stared her in the face. “You--girl! What is this? Why are you crying? Aren’t you here willingly? Why are you so frightened?” He reached down between her thighs and felt her sex, and his eyes widened. “You’re dry. Two hours of preparing you and you’re dry as a bone. Tell me the truth--what is going on here?”

  She knew she was doomed now. Through her gulping sobs, she finally came out with it, thinking At least this way the King won’t get what he wants! “I...they kidnapped me! My aunt sold me off without my agreeing, or even knowing, and then they drugged me and I woke up in a dungeon...and then he had me dragged out to him, that horrible old bastard, and he...he told me...he told me that I had to do this or I’d never be free, and that if--if--if I told you the truth, he’d have me walled into my cell….”

  His eyes widened gradually as her story spilled out of her, and the horror peaked--and caught fire into rage. A feral snarl vibrated his throat, and he leaped off of her, landing crouched on all fours as he started to change. A moment later, a dragon the size of a city bus crouched there, tail lashing, black scales gleaming like obsidian, his pale green eyes glowing with anger.

  “Get your clothes on,” the beast demanded. “He will answer for this atrocity. I am not a rapist! I will not become one for his pride, or even for the kingdom!”

  She hastily grabbed up the pieces of her outfit and did her best to put it all back together, still sobbing--but this time, it was mostly in relief. He might be an asshole, but he had a basic decency that his father lacked. He had spared her. Her first time wouldn’t be a rape for some king’s convenience. Taran wouldn’t allow it.

  A few minutes later, Taran burst into the throne room with her hurrying along behind him, careful to avoid his angrily lashing tail. The cream-scaled door guard trailed after them, his expression troubled.

  The prince changed back into man-form as he moved, now dressed in black scale-armor, his white face set in lines of rage. The King looked up in confused annoyance from a chess game with the gray priest, and glanced between his son and herself. “What precisely is the meaning of this?”

  “I warned you,” Taran growled as he stomped over and swept the pieces off the board with one hand. “I warned you not to try and trick me. This girl is a captive! She came here in chains! Do you think that I wouldn’t find out? Do you think that I wouldn’t discover that you tried to make a rapist of me?”

  The King stiffened, his eyes fixing on Jenna in an expression of cold anger. “So, you didn’t take my warning seriously, and told him. I see.” He raised his head and called out to one of the green-liveried servants. “Fetch the stonemason and the dungeon-keeper both! I’ll have her walled in within the hour.”

  She almost fainted--but Taran wasn’t done. He stepped up to his father, his face twisted with what could only be called blood-lust. “I should kill you for what you’ve tried to do to me. And to her!”

  Jenna stared at Taran in shock, for his voice shook as he mentioned her, and she suddenly realized that some of his anger was on her behalf. He confirmed it a moment later, hissing to his father, “You may have found nothing wrong with what you did to our mother.

  But we are the ones who had to go on once she killed herself. I won’t do that or see it done to another woman! I warned you!” He took Jenna’s arm and drew her forward.

  “I want her returned to her homeland, compensated, and set free. Otherwise, I will legitimize my rule by beating you down. You won’t have to wait for that illness to kill you--I will do it myself!”

  The King stayed cold and focused in the face of his son’s homicidal fury. “Nonsense. If you won’t do your duty, I’ll simply have you replaced as heir.” He looked up at the door guard. “Ranald, inform Grimald that he is now the heir apparent. I’ll have her taken to his chambers and impregnated instead. If it takes, I’ll let her out of her cell long enough for her to give birth.”

  A wail of horror escaped Jenna as she realized that she wouldn’t escape rape even though she’d chosen imprisonment over it.

  The sound didn’t stir the King one bit, but he was not the only one in the room. Ranald winced, a pained sound escaping his throat. The gray elder’s brow ridges drew together in a look of troubled concern. And Taran?

  The prince let out a roar and changed again; she stumbled back as his body swelled into its other form and he turned on the advancing guards. The five creatures hesitated in the face of his fury; he swatted aside one of them and snapped at another, driving the blue-green creature backward in fear.

  The King started to get the idea that he perhaps wasn’t safe, and backed off alongside the elder, getting the throne between himself and the growing battle. Taran had blood on his teeth now, and one of the guards, a smaller gray one,
limped away with his shoulder bleeding.

  Ranald didn’t move. He didn’t lay a paw on her, he didn’t make a single gesture toward her, and he didn’t join the fight. She had no idea what his plans were until a charcoal-colored guard slipped past the furious prince and tried to reach for her. A cream-colored tail lashed out and tripped him surreptitiously, and he went over on his nose and slid several feet.

  More guards were coming; she could hear shouts and growls, hear running feet and slithering sounds. Taran looked around--and then at one of the ceiling-length windows. He turned to look at her. “On my back, now!”

  She ran past Ranald, who made no attempt to catch her, and leaped onto Taran’s back, gripping the crest on the back of his skull and wrapping her legs around the base of his neck. He ran straight for the window, and she ducked down behind the crest. Glass shattered.

  They were falling into space. Then he unfurled his wings and they glided upward in a long arc. He flapped once and then banked, darting away toward the open sky.

  She caught a glimpse of moonlight over the sea, and high cliffs, and the massive spire of the tower blocking out half the moon. Then he climbed higher, flapping powerfully, quickly leaving his few pursuers behind.

  5: Hideaway

  Jenna woke slowly, her mind a jumble of strange memories. Lying nude under a powerfully-built figure who caressed her dispassionately...or pretended dispassion, anyway. The truth lay in his eyes...those pale green eyes, growing bright with suppressed desire.

  And then Taran’s rage at discovering his father’s deception. The argument with the King...the battle, the escape...and then just a dim memory of black scales under moonlight. I must have fainted, she realized with a twinge of embarrassment.

  She opened her eyes, and looked around. She lay on a pile of furs inside a decent-sized cave, dry and from the sky outside, very high up on the sea-cliffs. The cave had been converted into a rude one-room home, complete with bed, a table and chairs, a fire pit, a few lamps, and a stack of books.

  She got up, wobbly and with her head stinging from thirst. A steel decanter sat on the table, and she crossed to it, uncorking it and sniffing. Water. She drank the contents down in a few gulps, then set it down and looked around carefully. “Taran?” She didn’t see him anywhere.

  She walked over to the cave mouth, which was scored heavily with claw marks, and looked out over the sea. Clouds scudded across the sky as a sharp cool wind blew; the waves rumbled far below her, and the blue of the ocean stretched to the horizon. No ships, no planes, nothing aside from a few gulls showed signs of life outside. As she looked along the curve of the cliff face, she saw, very far off, a few spires: another cliff-side tower city.

  Shivering, she took one of the furs off the bed and wrapped herself in it, covering the thin silk of the gown she had been offered to Taran in. She shuddered, remembering. Not because of him; God knew that if the circumstances hadn’t been completely crazy she would have found him ridiculously attractive.

  But they had been forced at each other, and even his talented hands and animal attractiveness hadn’t been able to overcome her outrage and terror. And in the end...he was probably glad of that. She realized that that was the reason for his arrogance and bitterness; in his own way, he had been forced as well.

  She felt a surge of sympathy for this strange dragon-man, who had rescued her (and himself) from a terrible fate. She would have to thank him when he returned. Even if he felt violated and angry, he needed to know that at least one person thought his defiance of his father was justified...if not downright heroic.

  Soon enough, the sound of wings approached, and a shadow fell over the cave mouth. Taran landed, already transforming, and walked in with an armful of wood and a large, fresh-caught fish of some kind she didn’t recognize. He looked troubled, but wiped the expression off his face when he saw her up and looking at her. “You’re awake.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, I must have fainted.”

  He sniffed, dumping the pile of wood into the fire pit and then shoving the spit above it down the fish’s throat. He replaced the loaded spit and rearranged the wood into a neater stack. “It’s understandable. What is your name?”

  “Jenna. I um...I wanted to thank you. I didn’t think anyone there would listen to me. He seems to have complete control over everyone, and I couldn’t get away without help.”

  He stared at her for a moment, expression coldly measuring, then turned to the fire pit. He spat out a thin stream of fire, setting the wood alight and starting the fish cooking. She jumped and went quiet. He looked at her again, and then said simply, “I have no interest in human women. I complied with my father’s wishes for an heir on the condition that she be aware and willing. When he failed even to provide that, honor demanded that I act. You heard me. I am no rapist.”

  She remembered the light of lust in his eyes and knew that he was lying about his disinterest--perhaps even to himself. But she didn’t comment on that. Instead she asked, “Why do you even need human women for that in the first place? Aren’t there any...girl dragons...around?”

  He stared at her, the firelight reflecting in his eyes and his mouth its usual guarded line. “No.”

  That confused her. “What? Why?”

  He walked over to the cave mouth, his back to her and his arms folded. “You must think that my father is a great monster. If only that were true, it would be so much simpler. But my father is not a monster. He behaves monstrously, because he is broken.”

  She moved up behind him, stopping a few feet away. He glanced back over his shoulder at her, but did not react otherwise to her approach. “What do you mean?”

  Taran sighed. “Thirty years ago, before I was born, there were female dragons, as many as the males. We could still mate with humans, and some of us gladly took human wives or husbands, and lived among you. Some of us still do. But this place, this island is our homeland, and where many of us still live and keep to the old traditions.

  “Dragons are...not immortal. We are very long-lived, but we do age eventually and weaken, and certain things can kill us. Certain weapons, certain poisons...certain illnesses. At that time, a sickness was being discovered, brought back unknowingly by dragons hunting from far off, or returning from the mainland.

  This sickness was plaguing humans too, but to them it is a crippling illness instead of a deadly one. Not so for dragons. This new sickness was carried by the ticks that can trouble us as badly as humans or other warm-blooded things. The difference was that this illness was developed by humans, as a weapon of war against other humans.”

  “Lyme Disease.” She had heard the stories of Plum Island, of the waves of illness that had been spreading across the country from the East Coast for decades. “It kills dragons?”

  “Correction. It kills female dragons. The fevers it brings causes their fire to rage out of control, killing or sterilizing them. My father was there when it happened.” His voice started to shake a little. “Within three years, dragonkind’s numbers were almost halved.

  He witnessed his mother, his sisters, his wife and many of his subjects simply...fall from the sky, burning from within.” Taran squared his shoulders, but his imposing shape didn’t fool her. She knew that if he turned around she would see the pain in his eyes--and that was why he wouldn’t turn around.

  She moved up closer to him, fighting the urge to lay a comforting hand on his back. “His wife died too. Your mother?”

  “Oh no.” He let out a bitter laugh. “My mother was human.” He paused, drew a somewhat shaky breath, and went on. “My father issued a decree, that as many of the survivors as possible take human wives in order to repopulate the island. Most of these women were simply kidnapped.

  You see, when we learned that this horrible illness had been engineered by humans, many of us came to hate your race. And none hated you more bitterly than my father.” He turned around and looked at her, and she saw the grief behind his mask-like composure. “He lost his heart that day, you see. The day
his beloved burned. Every cruel thing he does to humans, he does because he cannot ever forget, cannot ever forgive.”

  Her heart was beating fast. She tried to imagine the King, that cold, dispassionate sociopath, watching in grief and horror as his wife, and all his female kin, died one after the other. And the terrible thing was, she could do it.

  The image of the King in her head, doubled over, not in pain from his illness but with the pain of a torn heart, screaming silently, unable even to weep lest he show weakness to his subjects. I will feel nothing from now on, the shade of him whispered in his voice inside her. I will feel nothing, so that I never ever have to feel this again.

  Taran looked at her, startled. Then he reached out, and touched her now-wet cheek. A wry little ghost of a smile quirked his lips. “You must have a very big heart, to find some pity for him in it after what he tried to do to you.”

  Jenna swallowed and looked down. “Some things I can’t wish on anyone.”

  “I wonder how long your pity will last when you hear the rest of the story,” he mused quietly. He went back to the fire pit and turned the spit over, then rose up again. “When the decree was issued, my father was childless. He took the initiative, snatching my mother off of a racing boat she was practicing in and flying off with her. She was furious, of course, and fought him, and tried to escape many times in the first year. But then...I was born. And suddenly, despite hating my father, she had a reason to stay.”

  She actually smiled a little, thinking of that. But his expression didn’t change. “Did they ever get along?”

  “Oh no. In fact, she spent most of her time imprisoned, to ensure that she would not try again to escape. You saw the cells where the nobles’ women were kept in those days.”