Lord Dragon's Conquest

by Sharon Ashwood

  Come away with me. He didn’t know where or how. His grasp of the outside world was sketchy, and there was no way to know how Keltie felt. Fresh worry whispered through him, but Larkan always faced fear with action. He leaned in, brushing her lips with his. He heard Keltie catch her breath.

  “Are you afraid that I am a monster?” he asked.

  “Are you?”

  “Most assuredly.” He caught the lobe of her ear in his teeth, nipping lightly and feeling her shiver. “But I might be tamed for brief periods of time.”

  “Why would a dragon want me?” she asked, her spine softening as he rolled closer, touching more of her smooth, vulnerable skin. “Face facts. I’m nothing special.”

  “Face facts, Keltie. You are, and dragons want everything that is precious.” His kisses found the angle of her jaw and she arched her neck, showing the delicate tracery of pale blue veins. Her skin was warm and beautifully flushed, the sweet taste of it spiced with her arousal.

  Once upon a time, dragons had loved human women, but now that was forbidden on pain of death..Larkan no longer cared. He pulled Keltie down to the furs beside him.

  * * *

  Keltie had been afraid too long, and his touch invited her to lay her fears at his feet. No, his touch demanded it. His opening gambit was simple persuasion, though words were neither necessary nor welcome. Gently his fingers soothed the knotted muscles of her neck and shoulders, working them until she felt boneless. Keltie sighed against him, tears stinging the backs of her eyes as tension left her body. He kissed her lightly, demanding only that she surrender her burden. It was a small step, and yet the situation was too strange. Surrender took trust, and Keltie wasn’t there yet.

  Obviously, she hadn’t been expecting dragons. Her body had relaxed, but her emotions were stuck in a hard, frightened knot.

  And yet she wanted, needed him close. As she lay back against the soft, luxurious furs, he worked the hem of her shirt up her ribs, leaving kisses in his path. The scruff of his beard provided interesting friction and she squirmed beneath it. Her fingers dug into the thick silk of his hair, pulling his face up to hers. Larkan’s bright green eyes questioned her, his gentle request heating to a demand. As their lips met, she felt that heat ignite her own desire, one candle to another. With a will of their own, her hands explored his chest, feeling the thick, hard muscles. She was still disoriented, excited and terrified to be there. She didn’t know what she wanted from Larkan, or what the next hour would bring.

  But there was one thing Keltie did know. She wanted to feel him against her. All of her. With a noise of impatience, she pulled her sweater over her head, reveling in the sudden freedom. Larkan’s mouth dropped to her collarbone, his lips on the flesh she had suddenly offered. He folded her into his arms, as if his body was the only shield she would ever need. The protective gesture won her over. Keltie melted inside, the cold knot within her finally letting go. The future was a gamble, but right there, right then, she knew she was safe.

  As if Larkan sensed her change of mood, he gathered her closer, hands and mouth cataloguing every curve and hollow of her form. Only then did she fully understand how large he was, every part of him long-boned and roped with muscle. Piece by piece, clothing disappeared until all that surrounded her was the nest of furs and Larkan. A slow ache was gathering deep in her belly, begging for release, but she was willing to let it wait. Larkan was not an experience to be rushed. She found the dark trail of hair that invited exploration of the hard ridges in his abdomen. He discovered her breasts and then the moist apex of her thighs, and gave every part of her its due.

  When he finally entered her she was wet and ready, but he was still a tight fit. He eased in slowly, a little at a time, retreating and thrusting again until she was accustomed to him. By then Keltie was already on the edge, digging her fingers into the heavy curve of his shoulders. They moved as one, the electric, maddening ache of it firing every nerve inside her. She wanted him inside her. She wanted him gone. She wanted relief. She wanted...everything.

  Keltie unleashed the wildness he stirred in her, unafraid to use her nails, her teeth, every part of her to possess him. Larkan welcomed it all, more than able to meet her strength. And he was hot, literally, his body growing warmer as their lovemaking went on. The sensation within her—tight and heated —expanded until it blossomed to an explosion, wave after wave tearing through her until the sweet pain of it was more than she could stand. And just before the last shudders were wrung from her, Larkan gave his final thrust, spilling hot and full into her and finishing with a final, lingering kiss.

  Chapter Six

  They fell asleep entwined. Keltie awoke twice that night in Larkan’s arms, twice more losing her sanity in his embrace. It was as if she couldn’t take her hands from his skin, or his from hers, and she could think of no good reason why they should even try. But the third time she woke, he was gone from the nest of furs. Keltie rolled over, blinking sleepily and groaning at her delicious soreness.

  Larkan, clad only in loose-fitting pants, was pouring something from a metal pitcher into a cup. The sloshing sound reminded Keltie that she was thirsty. As if he heard her thoughts, Larkan padded across the floor, handing her the clay cup. His hand lingered over hers as she took it, his green eyes soft and dark with heat. Keltie felt a flush rising over her entire body, that one look awakening fresh desire.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  She looked away, overwhelmed, and took a long gulp of the cool drink. She nearly choked. It was fizzy, sweet and bitter at once. She swallowed down the mouthful, deciding the taste wasn’t bad although it was definitely not what she wanted first thing in the morning. “What is this?”

  He chuckled at her expression. “Mead. A drink made from fermented honey.”

  Which meant it had alcohol in it. She could already feel it rushing to her head. Or maybe that was just Larkan’s effect on her. She fingered the rough cup, not sure where to look or what to say. He wasn’t the first man she’d ever slept with, but he was the first who mattered. She wanted to get these next few moments right, to be sure she didn’t spoil things. She set the cup aside.

  Larkan watched her every movement, his expression grave. “If it was up to me, I would leave you alone to gather your thoughts, but there is no time. I have been out already, and the den is in an uproar. The queen has declared that the festival is about to begin.”

  Keltie looked up sharply. At some point during the night, Larkan had explained the festival to her. She didn’t remember every detail, but she’d retained enough to know that she didn’t want to be around while it happened.

  Larkan held her gaze. “The last moments before the festival starts will be your best chance to escape. You will be able to make your way through the den and out onto the mountainside. Then run for all you are worth. When you reach your people, keep your professor and his friends from ever coming back.”

  Keltie felt a sudden wash of shame. If she had listened to Larkan and had left the cave painting alone to begin with...but that was an impossible train of thought. There was no way she could have guessed that particular cave was on the doorstep of a dragon colony. Still her blood froze when she thought of the havoc that would ensue if Switzer’s ambitions collided with the dragons’ lives. “I’ll stop him. Somehow.”

  Larkan nodded. “Good. I want you safe.”

  “But what about...” she began, but snapped her mouth closed. Then she shut her eyes, unable to look Larkan in the face just then. Don’t embarrass yourself.

  He kissed her eyelids, and she barely felt the light brush of his mouth. “I will find you. Somehow, I will know where you are.”

  Keltie opened her eyes. “Do you mean that?”

  He took her face in both his hands. “Do you think I would forget you so easily?”

  “I’m not one of you.”

  He gave her a sly smile. “Are you certain of that? I would like you to be.”

  And he clearly meant it, but Keltie wondered what would
happen once she was gone and a little time had passed. “We don’t always get what we want.”

  “Perhaps,” Larkan said softly. “But what I want most is for you to make it out of here alive. Nothing else matters if that doesn’t happen first.”

  * * *

  Larkan had fed her a meal of dried meat and the last of the season’s blackberries, washed down with icy spring water. It was simple fare, but she’d felt a hundred times stronger after she’d eaten. He had scratched a map on the floor for her with his dagger point and told her about the the trials that would pit one warrior against another for the right to win the queen’s hand. And then he had kissed her senseless. Finally, he had left.

  She was to wait an hour and then try to leave. That much of their plan was easy to remember, which was a relief. She might have been a scholar, but Keltie was finding it hard to hold everything in her mind. Where Larkan was concerned, the smallest things overwhelmed her emotions—a gesture, a word, the way he looked at her when she spoke. And right now, if she was going to escape the mountain, she couldn’t afford distraction. It was one foot in front of the other, one step at a time.

  Keltie crept out of the room, instinctively looking toward the place where Larkan had warned her there might be patrols. The wavering shadows mocked her, making figures where there were none. She let out a sigh of relief. The corridor, with its rough-hewn walls, was empty. Step one was a success.

  She crept forward as silently as she knew how, her hand gripped around the haft of Larkan’s smallest ax. After years of chopping wood for campfires, it was the one weapon she felt comfortable with—and about the only one of Larkan’s toys that she could lift. Next came a right turn, and she was on her way to freedom.

  The corridors were all but deserted, making progress easy. Keeping Larkan’s map in mind, she followed the twists and turns toward an unguarded exit. Apparently, it would lead her down a stairway to a hidden door in the caves. From there, she knew her way to the road. As escape plans went, it seemed straightforward.

  A light sweat made her T-shirt cling, though the still, warm air of the underground was freshened by cool breezes flowing down narrow airshafts. She took another turn, this time to the right. Her breath came fast and shallow, her lungs squeezed by nerves. The paranoid part of her brain screamed that this was going too well. Larkan had said the dragons would all be preoccupied, but where had they all gone?

  And then she heard a rumble. Earthquake! Terror speared through her and she flung herself against the uneven wall, panic climbing up her throat. She waited, clinging to the ax, as her pulse pounded in her head. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. She really didn’t want to be buried alive.

  Slowly she realized that the rumble was sound, not motion. It was the roar of a thousand voices. She’d found her missing dragons. Keltie took half a dozen steps, ignoring the ache of tension in her muscles. The roar was coming from her left, down a grand-looking tunnel lined with torches. Fortunately Larkan’s map didn’t indicate that she had to move toward that fearsome sound. Instead, this was the point where Larkan had said to climb up to a gallery that would take her the rest of the way to freedom. Behind a jutting lip of rock was a narrow stairway. She hurried up the steps, wondering how much time she had. Larkan hadn’t mentioned how long this festival thing was supposed to take.

  The sound was blocked in the stairway, so Keltie half forgot the rumbling roar as she climbed. She lost count around 160 steps, and there were a lot more after that. Her thigh muscles burned, but she forced herself to move on. When she reached the top, the roar returned in a wave, louder than before. She fell against the wall, gasping for breath.

  Up here the voices were more distinct. Individual cries were audible through the din. Larkan had said the gallery ran beside a central amphitheater, but he hadn’t mentioned that the festival was going to be held right there. Keltie froze in abject horror, her stomach in a cold, painful knot. The dragons were about two stories below the narrow gallery. Rock jutted up, separating her path from the open air. The rocky barrier was high enough to hide behind at either end, but no more than a foot tall in the middle. If she slipped, she’d fall to her death.

  Even worse, any of the dragons looking up could see her. She would be exposed the moment she started to cross. Swallowing back the sour taste of fear, Keltie estimated that the amphitheater was as wide as a long city block. That was a lot of real estate to cross unseen. Her hand grew slippery around the leather-wrapped handle of the ax.

  And then the roaring abruptly stopped. Keltie nearly jumped at the sudden quiet. The moment stretched painfully, not a rustle coming from the crowd below. Curiosity made her take a step forward, just enough to get a better look at what was going on. From the protection of the shadows, she had a good view of the far end of the space. A ledge of stone formed a kind of stage there, and a group of veiled women in white were climbing the steps at either end of the platform. In their midst was a veiled figure in green who strode to the center position. The moment they saw her, the assembly fell to their knees. The queen.

  The women in white began speaking, but Keltie didn’t understand a word of it. The rise and fall of the words was reminiscent of ceremonial speeches everywhere, but the dragons seemed to find this one riveting. That meant every pair of eyeballs was pointed toward the stage. With a hard gulp, Keltie began stealing across the wide expanse of the theater, praying no one got bored.

  When Keltie was about halfway across, the queen stepped forward and said something in a commanding tone. A collective cry went up, followed by a murmur of excitement. Her Majesty spoke some more, and the crowd got even louder. Whatever the queen had said, it made everyone head for the tiers of hewn stone seats surrounding the open space in the middle. Everyone but the bare-chested Flameborn standing at the front near the stage.

  Despite her curiosity, Keltie kept going, moving as fast as she dared.

  “Rand!” the queen said, pointing down at a tall, blond-haired man who looked like he could crush cannonballs between his thumb and forefinger. He bowed deeply and stepped forward. “Larkan!”

  Keltie paused mid-step. She couldn’t help it. At the sound of his name, she searched the scene below. Larkan hadn’t been at the front of the audience, but a third of the way back. She could see him from behind now. He stood now like a rock in the receding ocean of people, his shoulders squared and set. I’m leaving him behind. That was the plan they both had decided on, but suddenly every cell of her body cried out in protest.

  Larkan bowed to the queen, his movements stiff. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t on board with it.

  Keltie abandoned stealth and ran ahead. She had to get out of sight and she needed a better view of what was about to happen. When she reached the far side of the theater, she crouched behind a rising crest of rock and heaved a sigh of relief. She’d made it across the gallery without being seen.

  Her escape was almost complete. To her left, the path led straight to the exit that would take her to freedom. But to her right, a stairway led to the theater below. Both options pulled at her, equally painful and insistent. Catching her lip between her teeth, Keltie grabbed the gritty edge of the stone and peered down at the scene below.

  Larkan and the enormous guard named Rand paced toward each other. When they were about a dozen feet apart, they stopped. In an instant, their postures changed—feet braced, shoulders bunched. A moment before she might have believed them friends, but all of a sudden she knew they were about to fight. No! Fear for Larkan flooded her. Rand’s expression said that, unlike Larkan, he wanted this battle. And hadn’t he been the huge dragon that had chased them up the mountain?

  The memory of Larkan’s body—rising heat and smooth, hard muscle—rose strong enough to make Keltie dizzy. She gripped the rock, telling herself to run for freedom. That’s what Larkan had told her to do. That’s what she needed to do if she valued her own safety. But she was transfixed.

  Rand drew a knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh. It was a wicked, two-edged weap
on with a footlong blade. This wasn’t going to be a simple wrestling match. Keltie’s stomach lurched.

  Larkan had told her these trials only came when the Flameborn battled for the position of consort. Sometimes there would be one fight, sometimes many, but the queen chose the combatants from the bravest of her guards. This time she had named only two guards, so there would be just one trial—and it would be a fight to the death.

  If Larkan lost, he would die. If Larkan won, he would be the queen’s lover. Either way, Keltie would be robbed of him forever.

  Chapter Seven

  Larkan’s heart had turned to lead. “I do not want to kill you, my friend.”

  Rand didn’t answer. Words meant nothing when the madness of the trials had seized one of the Flameborn—and Rand, warrior-priest and friend, was quite clearly gone. Larkan could see nothing but the fury of desire in his amber eyes and in the twist of his mouth. He had noticed when Rand’s scent changed to take on the musky scent of a beast. His friend would fight for the right to mate, both as a man and as a dragon, until Larkan was but shreds of flesh upon the stone.

  Larkan would fight back, if only to save his own life. And without question his beast was aware of the queen. She was not just a young female ready to mate, but the alpha female among their kind. Still, for the mating to work both beast and man had to want it, and Larkan would cheerfully bed a rock troll before sleeping with Nadiana.

  And yet he could not let Rand win. Defeat would be the end of everything. He would never arrow through the sky, wings beating the wind. He would never walk among the humans or learn of the wonders of the outside world. And he would never be free to escape and find Keltie. He could feel the softness of her skin, and see the warmth in her dark, dark eyes. He had never known such tenderness. Losing her was unthinkable.