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

by Ashley Hunter

  The pain was completely gone now, leaving only a strange edge to her pleasure that drove her even wilder. She threw herself against him, pinned by his superior strength but still able to roll her hips under him while he drove them both toward climax.

  For long moments their moans and shouts rose in unison. She lost control first, thrashing and trembling under him with her fingers digging into the muscle of his shoulders. He couldn’t hold out; she heard him groan her name a last, breathless time--and then every muscle in his body went taut as his crisis struck him. His long roars of completion hurt her ears, but all she felt was joy--for now, he knew as well the pleasure he had given her.

  He caught himself on his arms before he could fall on her, panting, eyes wide with amazement. She smiled up at him as the lightning flashed again, and he managed to kiss her once, softly, before settling over her, limp with exhaustion.

  She lay there, hands moving in his hair, slowly recovering. She was sore in spots she wasn’t used to, but only a little. His body lay over hers, completely relaxed, almost helpless. And as she stretched luxuriantly under him and started to drowse, she wondered what form the mark on her would take.

  8: Marked

  She woke next time in full daylight, blue sky showing outside the cave mouth. Her whole body felt deliciously relaxed, and the furs brushing against her bare skin made her tingle. Taran wasn’t beside her, and this worried her a little bit until she heard the sound of wings outside. Of course he wouldn’t want to leave her alone for too long. Not now.

  She took stock of herself; still sore in a few spots, a few finger bruises along her hips and back, a few protests from her muscles. His scent clung to her, seeming to come out of her pores, like some spicy cologne. She wanted to keep lying there until he came back, hold out her arms and offer him seconds--but when the wing-flaps drew near and a soft breeze blew in announcing him, she grew too excited to stay put.

  His immense black shape landed at the cave mouth, and she got up, nude and uncaring, walking over to him. His eyes shimmered as he looked down at her, and he lowered his huge head to nuzzle her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, feeling his nostrils blow hot against her belly. “Good morning,” she murmured, and he let out a little, purring rumble.

  He changed back, stepping up to wrap an arm around her and kiss her. He was back in his armor and cloak again, but the steel didn’t hurt to press herself against; it had a warmth and resilience, like his own scales. “I brought you something new to wear,” he said, and pressed a bundle of cloth into her arms.

  The gown was much more dignified than the “wedding outfit” the King had had her delivered to Taran in: black and green velvet, an emerald and gold brooch at the throat, snug enough to cling to her curves but with a full skirt and sleeves to keep her warm. A pair of low green boots for her feet. It made her feel like a princess, which--wait.

  Holy crap. I think technically I AM a princess now. Or soon will be.

  ...ha! Take that, Aunt Margaret! She smiled, and leaned up to offer him her mouth, which he kissed eagerly. “Go on, try it on. As much as I like seeing you naked, we’re going flying soon.”

  “In daylight?” She peered out the cave entrance, then blinked up at him curiously.

  “Yes,” he breathed gently. “We’re going home. And now, we will be welcomed.”

  By the time the sun had climbed high over the sea, she sat on her lover’s back while the water slipped past in his massive shadow. His wings gleamed like obsidian in the sun.

  She let her hair blow unbound in the wind as she gripped his ruff and watched the whole world from above, including the tower cities and the great forest of the island’s interior. Now and again, they would see another dragon--but none of them drew near until a familiar cream-colored shape soared toward them from the far coast.

  “My Lord!” Ranald rumbled in surprise as he back-winged and then fell into flying beside them. “I couldn’t believe your message! Did you--” His bright blue eyes fixed on Jenna, and he blinked. “...oh. Oh, I see.” His eye ridges went up so high that Jenna stifled a giggle.

  She hadn’t decided yet if she liked herself better with green eyes. But both of them certainly seemed to. Taran’s green color had invaded her own irises gradually over the course of the morning, and now when she looked at her reflection in the small mirror he had brought her, the brown was gone and they shimmered back at her, pale, black-ringed and iridescent. Dragon’s eyes.

  “You see, my friend,” Taran breezed as they flapped along, “There is arranging a marriage on my father’s terms. And then, there is arranging it on my terms.”

  “And mine!” Jenna called cheerily, tossing her head.

  Ranald laughed. “Well, then! I’m still feeling that I must have missed something, but under the circumstances I can hardly complain. I’m just wondering what your father will think. When your message was brought to him he didn’t say anything for five minutes. Then he ordered the patrols to stand down. But that is all. He’s been sitting mutely on his throne ever since.”

  “Well, perhaps he’ll stay that way. Gods know we’d do better if he didn’t open his mouth so much.”

  “Hah! It may be treasonous to say so, but I agree!” Ranald did a small loop of happiness. “But honestly, what are you going to say to him?”

  “I’m going to make a strong suggestion that he quietly abdicate due to health reasons,” Taran replied with quiet determination. “I realize now that the trauma of the Plague deaths, combined with his current illness, have rendered him more than a little mad. I won’t forgive him soon for his treatment of Jenna, but since my Lady here has urged me not to seek revenge, I will satisfy myself knowing that this is the last abduction of a human woman that will happen here, ever.”

  Jenna looked out across the forest, to the royal tower looming in the distance. The island was small. They would be in the presence of the King soon. And she would do her best to remind herself that she was looking, not at a heartless tyrant, but at pain and loss and madness, more than even a strong personality could fully bear.

  But she was still looking forward to the day when Taran kicked his scaly butt out of office.

  Taran didn’t bother to announce himself; instead he simply flew in the landing balcony across from the throne room, ducked inside, and glided into the throne room, settling down and folding his wings. Several chess pieces flew in the wash of air and the King looked up from his game with the aged priest in annoyance. But then he noticed Jenna, sitting astride his son in a princess’s gown, her eyes glowing green and her gaze back at him entirely steady.

  The King rose from his seat, staring at her. Not at his son, but at her, as if he couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing. He smoothed the front of his hauberk in a strangely nervous gesture, and she realized with a start that he was shaking visibly. He didn’t let it show on his face, remaining stoic and cold--but there was fear and wonder in his eyes.

  She leaped off of Taran’s neck, and he changed back and caught her in mid-jump, then set her lightly on her feet. They held hands as they turned to face the King, while Ranald came in more decorously behind them and bowed his head. Taran did not bow.

  Neither did Jenna. The King certainly noticed--but he showed no outrage, and made no protest. There was something...resigned...to his manner now. Perhaps even...relieved.

  “So, you have returned,” he stated flatly, as servants scrambled to pick up his scattered chess game. The priest himself stood, looking between the two of them thoughtfully before quietly withdrawing. But the King simply stood looking at them for a moment before going on. “I imagine it took you a bit to get your rebelliousness out of your systems. But, that’s done then. I grant your my official pardon for defying me. And I suppose I should be glad that I don’t have to keep working at playing matchmaker for you.”

  They both watched him silently, and he actually started to fidget, one hand twiddling its fingers into and out of a fist. Finally he glanced around at his court. “
Leave us.”

  Every last one of the other dragons filed out, leaving the three of them standing in the cavernous space alone with the King. He stared at them for a few moments longer, mouth working slightly and eyes hard. Then he seemed to diminish slightly, and settled into one of the nearby chairs, ignoring his throne on its dais.

  They joined him in nearby seats, Taran keeping her hand in his, both of them watching as the King ran his hand back through his short hair and then replaced his crown. Finally he sighed, and looked back up at them. “If you are expecting an apology, you will be waiting until we meet in the next life.” He was looking at Taran, but the rest of him was angled toward Jenna, as if he addressed her more without even realizing it.

  Taran deliberately kept silent, looking to her instead, a faint smile on his lips.

  Jenna sighed and sat forward in the outsized chair. “I wouldn’t expect one. In fact, I’m not sure that expecting one would even be appropriate.” He looked at her in surprise, and she took a deep breath and went on. “Both of us have gone through Hell because of choices that you made. You seem to think that what happened to your people justifies everything you have done since then, but if you truly believed that you wouldn’t be so defensive.”

  He gave her a sharp look...and she stared back at him, and he slowly looked away. “I have done the best that I could by my people, my son included.”

  “If that’s the case, why is no one here happy with your decisions?”

  He smirked a little. “The two of you seem happy enough.”

  “Father,” Taran said quietly, “That is as much in spite of your actions as because of them. Do not think that I will forget her tears over your treatment of her easily or quickly.”

  The King seemed to diminish by another degree, and his eyes closed. “They are the enemy, Taran. I cannot afford to look on them with kindness.”

  “They carry the hope for our future, Father,” Taran replied with a deep, sad patience. “Without my mother, whom you despised, you would not have me, nor my brother. Without Jenna, I would not have a reason to even return here and seek to offer this kingdom the stability which you wish it to have, but have been unable to give it.”

  “You’ve done everything you could to make me your enemy, but I’m still not one. Humans aren’t.” Jenna looked at him until he finally managed to meet her gaze. “What Taran described as happening to your people was nightmarish. But that disease was created by certain humans, to kill other humans. Those people are very specific, they have names, they have addresses, and many are still alive and around today.”

  As she spoke, he stared at her, his eyebrows slowly creeping toward his hairline. “You tell me that you would give up information on the makers of the Plague to us…?”

  “I couldn’t be very specific. I’m not a scientist or an investigator. But I could point you at the right people and in the right directions.”

  His eyes clouded in confusion. “But they are your own people.”

  “No.” She scowled. “Nobody who would create something like that is ‘my people’. Human beings are crippled daily by this sickness, and the military has done nothing to help them. Nothing. Do you think that any of us would care if people as evil as that woke up one night with an angry dragon on their doorstep? No, because as long as they’re around they find new ways to hurt us too.”

  He pushed himself up out of his chair, blinking rapidly. They watched as he walked over to one of the windows and stared out of it, across the sea.

  “In all my years, I never expected a human to say such things to me.” he said in a voice so quiet that Jenna almost missed it. “I almost wish that none ever had. I don’t want to consider these things. That my enemy might be smaller and more defined than the whole of humanity. It forces me to question so much else.”

  “As you should,” Taran said sternly.

  A long silence. “Perhaps,” the King conceded. “But I am old, and I am dying. This illness of mine has reached my lungs, and soon it will end their function, and me with them.”

  He sighed. “And I don’t particularly mind. I have despised this life for decades. I have seen too much. If you believe I should be punished for what I saw as necessary cruelties, then I imagine in the end I can do little to stop you. But time and memory have done worse to me than you could conceive of. Either of you. And perhaps that is as it should be.”

  Jenna’s eyes stung and his vision blurred, and the King heard the catch in her breath and looked back at her in shock. Then a slow, mirthless smile curved his lips, his eyes avoidant and full of pain. “Ah,” he said softly. “And here are human tears for me, instead of that I caused. What a strange age this is. I do not think I could adapt to it, even if I lived.”

  Taran shuddered once next to her. He had already accepted that his father was mad, and ill, and desperate, but there was no standing in that room without wishing for what might have been, for him, for the King, for all of them, if only things had gone differently. “It is not my wish to punish you. But there must be a change, and it must happen now.”

  “Oh yes,” replied the King. “That I can entirely agree with.” He turned his back to them again, and walked over to the window that Taran had broken out during their escape. He looked up at the sky, and then slowly, with a quiet gravity, removed his crown, and laid it aside on a chair by the window.

  “I don’t know about hope for the future, or about what would happen if our races could somehow find peace together. In secret or in the open. I only know that I miss my wife very much, and that I hope to be seeing her soon.”

  He looked back at his son. “Find the ones that did this to us, Taran, and see that they are punished. That is my final request.”

  Taran blinked rapidly, and for the first time Jenna saw something of his father in his face and manner after all. “It will be done.”

  The King nodded and turned around, spreading his arms. A moment later, a deep green shape rose on tattered wings, flying heavily, and sailed out of the window, rising high on the updrafts that swept along the cliffs. They heard his trumpeting cry a last time, and then the sound of wings slowly diminished.

  They went to the window together, and Taran took the crown in his hand and stared down at it. Eventually he simply took her in his arms and buried his nose in her hair, and they quietly sought comfort together.

  9: The King’s Chamber

  That night the whole kingdom took to wing, trumpeting and blowing fire in celebration of the new King’s coronation. But the King, and his new Queen, were nowhere to be found among the celebrants.

  There were some bawdy jokes made about that, and no one hushed in fear of being overheard, for King Taran was not known, as his father had been, for being humorless or vengeful. If anything, he was thus far most noted for his rather casual approach to the formalities of kingship.

  But that was where formalities were concerned. Even the more traditional-minded had to admit that when it came to his duties in fathering an heir, he was as dedicated as inhumanly possible.

  Jenna curled panting on his immense canopied bed, naked, misted with sweat, her whole body limp with the most exquisite form of exhaustion. Her newly greened eyes were a little wide, and she whimpered now and again. Taran moved up behind her and ran his lips down her spine, making her gasp, then set his teeth lightly in the side of her neck. She moaned as he pressed himself against her from behind. “Oh...my God. Oh God...Uhhh. Again? How can you even be…ready again so soon?”

  He chuckled in her ear as he reached around to knead her breasts. “You started this,” he reminded her, taking hold of her shoulder and rolling her from her side to her back, then clambering over her. “You’re welcome to tell me to stop, but I notice how you’re not doing that.”

  “You should probably leave off once I’m...unconscious,” she huffed softly, and then let out a low moan as he kissed her already hypersensitive breasts. So far that night they had done a lot of exploration, a lot of experimenting.

  He hadn
’t expected her to try taking the lead in any of it, but had delighted in it anyway when she had. Though when she had used her mouth on him she had worried that his cries would bring the guards running.

  Fortunately, he had explained when able to speak again, he had sent them off to celebrate. If anyone had had the nerve to make an assassination attempt, he would simply kill the interloper himself for interrupting them.

  She believed it. Now that he knew what sex was and what it could be, he pursued it with her like a man possessed, his eyes blazing with lust as he entered her for the third time. They rolled around delightedly on the broad mattress, hands groping and mouths busy with each other, until finally he pinned her down and started thrusting.

  Tomorrow he had promised her a look into the whole matter of punishing her aunt. Taran was not vengeful. But Jenna? She had a little something to say about being sold like chattel to anyone. And a little something to do--with his help. Then they would learn if her head really would explode at the sight of a dragon.

  Meanwhile, Jenna knew that this whole situation would have driven Aunt Margaret mad with a mix of scandal and jealousy. All the more reason to enjoy it. She felt him slide his fingers between them to caress her just above where their bodies joined, and squirmed, her muscles starting to tense and shake. She was going to be sore tomorrow morning. Maybe every morning, from now on.

  Dragons danced in the sky outside their windows, blasts of flame blowing and trumpeting voices calling through the dark. Soon enough, their voices rose to join that chorus, in cries of ecstasy and fulfillment.

  Tomorrow, there were enemies to identify and plot against. Aunt Margaret’s fortune would certainly help in that endeavor, especially if used to buy information from the right people. Tomorrow, they would start gathering the names and locations of those directly responsible for the creation of the Plague. Tomorrow, the dead and crippled among dragons and humans would see the first step taken in avenging them.