Fire and Fantasy: A Limited Edition Collection of Urban and Epic Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  “Are you saying you want to be pregnant? The fae, especially those of the Sun, tend to be unlucky in that area, but I’d be willing to try.” His eyes became a silvery shade of diabolical. “I’d be willing to try really hard for a really, really long time.”

  “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”

  “Dragon, I want you and you want me. It’s been that way from the beginning. And you’re saying that it’s—”

  “Not real, Fel,” she shouted. “All the things I feel for you and whatever it is you feel for me—”

  “Love,” he clarified without hesitation.

  Her body and mind rejoiced at the thought, but she ignored the urge to give in to her feelings and continued. “We’ve been thrown together in a bowl, like a recipe. We’re just the ingredients in the bowl—exotic to be sure, but hardly sentient. Someone else’s hands have stirred us together. Don’t you see, Fel? We’re not in charge here. We never have been.” She hung her head as she finished her speech. The pain of losing Fel, though not as physically debilitating as using her ability, featured all the disappointment and infinite regret.

  “So?”

  “Uh, so I prefer to be the one who chooses who I date.”

  “First of all, we are way past dating and second, you did choose.”

  “No I didn’t. Somebody fixed it so I would respond only to you.”

  “And this is different from true love how? Oh, you mean,” he said, his voice filled with false understanding, “being unexpectedly struck by intense, irresistible emotion for one particular person is somehow better if Cupid is the one behind the arrow?”

  “Do not twist my words.”

  “I’m not twisting anything.”

  “You’d twist the sky if you could. You just wanna fuck!” she shrieked, startling a couple of cardinals out of a young dogwood.

  “And you don’t? I can see how much you want me. I can hear it in every move you make.” He closed his eyes, his body stilling as he listened like a hunter waiting for word of his prey. “A heady alto melody, complexly wrought from a few simple notes and unending. I need to lose myself in your song, Dragon.” He wrapped one hand around her neck and used his blunt thumb to lift her chin.

  “Look at me, girl.” A corner of his mouth kicked up in a brief smile at the resentment that heated her deep brown eyes from everyday ordinary to slippery, feral decadence.

  “I will have you and whether your body was conditioned to want me is of no consequence. But,” he released her abruptly, leaving her gasping from the natural-born spell he’d laid, “if you need assurance, then I am happy to help you find some.”

  “In your bed,” she guessed sarcastically.

  “With my paperboy.”

  She blinked several times to clear her confusion. “You want me to sleep with your newspaper boy?”

  “You turn into a lonely middle-school English teacher in the last three seconds?”

  “Wha—?”

  “He’s a seer. He can tell you—”

  Dragon raised disbelieving brows that clearly said she doubted that this boy knew about anything other than popping pimples.

  “—if what you feel now you would’ve felt if you’d been turned into a different species, dyed blue or left for virgin.”

  She eyed him suspiciously, wondering how it was a creature as beautiful as he, a man of such great renown, could be so mythic yet act, walk and talk like a horny teenager begging for sex.

  The noon day sun warmed the top of Dragon’s head, prompting her to ask, “Kid delivers papers this late?” She watched his face, unable to discern if his neutrality was forced.

  “He and his mom live a few doors down from my place.”

  They indulged in a staring contest before Dragon unclenched her jaw and nodded curtly. “Lead the way.”

  He tugged at the scarf around her neck and expertly repositioned it around her head and shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said, staring resolutely at his ear and trying not to smell him.

  “You’re welcome.” He ducked a bit and leaned into her line of sight, his gray eyes intense and unreadable. “Let’s go.”

  They exited Trash Bin on the south side and merged into Saturday’s afternoon foot traffic. A few interested stares discomfited Dragon and she lowered her eyes and took the hand Fel offered gratefully.

  “Love that important to you?” he said, watching a few street tumblers defy gravity for thanks and spare change.

  They entered Halo City’s theater district and Dragon watched, charmed by a group of dancers as they rond de jamb’d their way to a bus wearing scraps of fabric, leg warmers and battered running shoes.

  “Of course,” she said automatically then really thought about it. She had love, true blue, with Jasper, Quill, Ch’in and Saras. She’d looked for love all these years with different men and got only disappointment. Maybe what she wanted, what it was time for, was the truth: being where you say you’re gonna be, getting there on time, being who you say you are, living the life you’re supposed to lead. Letting that kind of truth inhabit you allowed compassion, humility, wonder and hope to do the same. The bit of ever after she’d tried to force using her ability.

  She thought of her grandmother and her mother, and instead of feeling betrayed and damaged, a bit of insight, along with an apathetic summer breeze, ruffled the edges of her sari, wafting the last wisps of the sweet water perfume Saras favored.

  Her birth was unexpected and unwanted. Her childhood was more of the same. She’d been an enigma to her blood in more ways than one. They’d tried to understand me, she thought. Through the blurry lenses of their wretched experiences, they’d tried to find a place for her. They’d tried to know her in their way.

  Her eyes watered, and she relied on Fel to lead her as she grieved for the life she could’ve had and the person she’d become, the one her mother and grandmother would never be able to accept given their limited view.

  All of this was love, and it was air.

  “Yes,” she said as they strolled past a group of girls playing double-dutch. The brick and mortar cityscape gave way to nature precisely arranged by the Morgan and Vlock development corporation, so the crumbling sign said. “It means everything, surprisingly. And for you?” she said, anxious to move the focus from herself.

  “For me it’s a new thing. A brand-new understanding. I hardly know the right way to turn,” he smiled over his shoulder as he pulled her across an unknown suburban street. “Only that I want to wallow in any direction it leads me.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that it might be…manmade?”

  He stopped as they approached the cement walkway of a mustard ranch. “I have lived a long time and have been content for the majority of it, but the last fifty or so years have been…hard,” he said with a grim smile. “Had I known what was in store for me I might’ve chosen differently.” He shrugged. “I find I have no interest in dwelling in regret. All I can think of, especially recently,” he said his eyes boring into hers, “are ways to make up for the years I lost to bullshit and drugs. I’ve become a desperate man since I met you, Dragon. I suppose that’s what happens when you find the perfect cure to all that ails you. You want it now despite any logistical concerns.

  “So no, it doesn’t bother me that what we’re feeling right now might be the result of some complexly wrought equation or spell. I am willing to see it through to the end because even if we are an easily replicated recipe, I’ve seen the alternative and I’d choose us every time. Whether we’re a clone or the real deal, love is love.” He approached one of the gargoyles, flesh because of their proximity, and whispered in its ear to disengage the alarm.

  Dragon said nothing, giving the gargoyle a wide berth as it hardened back into stone, and following Fel up the steps to the ranch’s front door. Faith. “You’re willing to bet on us even if there is more than enough evidence to ensure that the fake you see is all you’re going to get?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “W
hy?” She followed him into the dimly lit house, setting her duffel bag on the leather sofa.

  “Because I want to,” he said, twisting the deadbolt and crowding her against the back of the couch. “Because I need to. Because I know that there is an enduring mystery to existence that keeps pace with, and sometimes outdistances science. Because when faced with potions, spells and prophecies, life—no matter how it began—will always move at its own pace, in its own direction. Because I want to.”

  “You said that. Where’s the seer?” she said, exchanging the talk of love for evading him.

  “I don’t know,” he tracked her around the couch, frowning as she ducked behind an old recliner.

  “You said he could help me.”

  “He probably could.”

  “So call him.” Her eyes darted between Fel and the front door, judging the distance.

  “No.”

  “Fuck you!” she yelled and made for the door.

  “That’s the general idea.” He caught her around the waist and slung her over his shoulder which—even knowing that he, like most miscellus, could lift a moose without straining—impressed the fight right out of Dragon.

  She got the impression of a hallway lined with fake wood paneling before Fel dropped her in the middle of a king-sized bed.

  Dragon scrambled to right herself then stood in the middle of the bed, handfuls of her silk skirt clutched in her fists.

  “Dragon, things between us are complicated, I grant you. Even unanticipated and unpredictable—”

  “And a lie!”

  “However, people are trying to kill me.” He scrutinized her stunned expression. “Anything like that happen to you?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Who’d want me dead?” She shook her head at him, dismissing his comments as foolishness. I’m harmless, she thought. And popular.

  A look-see from a no-account Sun lord was one thing, but a fully-vested Prince of the brightest court? Add to that her grandmother’s resurfacing and Dragon was forced to admit that while she wasn’t in range for a kill shot, things were definitely weirder than usual.

  “It’s probably too early to tell, but I think I’m being stalked by someone in the bright court. Maybe even by the Sun herself.” She met Fel’s hard eyes reluctantly.

  He raked his hair off his forehead, drawing her gaze to the bulge and contract of upper body muscles. Frustration predicated that move, Dragon knew, and she briefly considered exaggerating the encounter with the prince to see if jealousy produced the same results.

  “So,” he said at last. “Things between us are unusual. Murder hunts me and we will likely be obliged to run for our lives at any moment. Are you sure you really want to let bullshit hold up any happiness we’re entitled to?”

  The future of their relationship passed before Dragon’s eyes and while it was filled with laughter and satisfaction, she also seemed to glare a lot, if the deep wrinkle between her eyes was any indication.

  Dragon scrubbed at her irritation and met Fel’s warm gray eyes.

  “You feel good to me. Like home,” he said. “I know I feel like that to you, too.”

  Dragon’s eyes slid away from his, embarrassed that she was so transparent and disbelieving that there would come a time when she would actually count on him to know every nook and cranny of her heart. She clenched her jaw, sighed away her stubbornness and nodded once.

  “Then lie down and open your legs.”

  Her eyes flew open in surprise and she looked at him, standing at the foot of the bed, his lived-in jeans and faded black T-shirt framed by a copy of Cloutier’s Anomalie on the wall behind him. Thick, yellow, complexly interlocking brush strokes coexisted with a curved slash of poppy splatters, making the viewer wonder whether the puzzle was in the patterns, the chaos, the colors or the picture as a whole.

  She angrily untied the laces at her back that held her blouse together and dragged it off. She untied the full skirt and kicked it away, letting her arms fall to her sides.

  Dragon felt his eyes touch her and lost her anger at him for so easily overruling what was indisputable logic, to her mind. Her defiant posture wilted a bit as she recalled that her exquisite sense of style tended to camouflage softer aspects of her physique. She searched for the resentment that fueled her abbreviated strip tease, and finding it sadly deflated, sank onto Fel’s wrinkled blue sheets, drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  “Hard, isn’t it?” he murmured hauling off his shirt. “Staying angry for no reason.”

  “I have a legitimate claim,” she mumbled, turning her face away from his hands lazily unbuttoning his jeans.

  “Mmm hmm.” He wrapped his hands around her calves and hauled her closer to him.

  Her arms uncurled from her body in surprise, but instead of maintaining her fear-generated anger, she braced them behind her, preferring to watch as he stripped off her plain cotton panties and then positioned her bent legs wide.

  “Don’t,” she whispered, trying to close her legs, but his hands insisted they stay open. He would know that she’d wanted this since he surprised her in the Garden alley. He’d know that while they disagreed and argued and faced calamity, she’d been this way: ready. He’d definitely know. Damn it.

  His fingertips brushed against her wet labia gently, like seaweed animated by the tide, and she shivered.

  “Tickle?” He ran the back of his hand over her trimmed pubis. “For me?”

  Her breath coming in nervous little gasps, Dragon cursed Saras to hell and back, for that “relaxing” night of beauty was her idea when Dragon had returned from that first exhausting night of Fel’s detox. A thorough bikini wax had been included.

  He pressed her legs open more, Dragon’s discomfort giving way to the slight burn of stretched muscles. “Don’t move,” he said, meeting her stare, his clenched jaw indicating consequences should she disobey. He stripped off his jeans, giving Dragon a glimpse of his erection, the mushroom cap flaring next to his belly button, before kneeling between her legs. He kissed her, long and slow, his tongue tangling with hers languidly.

  He dragged his mouth from hers, and placing one hand on the bed to balance himself, leaned over her as he grasped his cock with the other and fed the bulbous head into her opening.

  “Look at us,” he groaned, nuzzling her nose with his before watching her vagina swallow him. “Look how good we look together.”

  She rested her forehead against his and did as he asked, gasping as he inched inside her, filling her almost painfully. She panted a bit as he withdrew, slicker.

  She relaxed her legs, closing them slightly as if trying to keep him in her, then quickly widening them, inviting him to return and linger.

  He did, pressing forward until he was fully seated within her. He kissed her again, eating at her mouth as he used his weight to force her flat.

  Dragon threaded her fingers in his hair when she felt him about to pull away and he gave in to her demand, rotating his hips twice before he pulled away from her mouth.

  “Fel,” Dragon begged, reaching for him.

  He ran his hand along the underside of her left thigh, pulling it up until her calf was parallel with his hip then pressing it wide, parting her labia and revealing her swollen clit.

  He rolled his hips again and Dragon cried out as his pubic hair erotically rasped against her. On his next rotation and each one thereafter, he pulled out of her then dug back in, making sure to sweetly sand her clit.

  Dragon went from zero to mindless quicker than she ever thought possible.

  In the past, orgasm was the work of her fingers or that bottle-green glass dildo doused in a heat seeker charm that Saras gave her for her twenty-fifth. Once inserted, the thing would happily thrust and rotate until begged to stop.

  This was not that.

  “Fel,” she cried out, too wrapped up in the erotic tension reaching critical mass inside her to notice the wet, sucking sounds their bodies made as his flesh retreated then plunged ruthlessly int
o her or the frantic chorus of bouncing bed springs or their labored breaths.

  He growled things in her ear. Dragon thought they were appreciative curses or maybe declarations of praise—for being so wet for him, so fucking hungry. For her sweet, sweet pussy. Perhaps even I love you. She was not an authority on a language that was older than humanity, but she fancied that amidst the rolling syllables of carnal appreciation was a groaned homage to every singular moment that brought them to this one.

  Quite suddenly every muscle in her pelvis contracted and Dragon wrapped her limbs around Fel, holding on for dear life as the tension burst like a storm finally freed after a long, gray day full of still, ozone-scented atmosphere.

  Fel’s rhythm broke and he thrust himself as deep as he could inside of her, his entire body stiffening as he came. His arms, bracing him while he fucked her, gave out and he collapsed on top of her, mingling the sweat that sheened their bodies like a bond born of a penknife and blood.

  His harsh breaths steamed her ear and Dragon’s scattered awareness focused on the only thing she could hear: the relieved pounding of their hearts.

  “See?” he said. His voice, slurring with exhaustion, was triumphant.

  “Hmm?” she said not understanding and not caring that she didn’t.

  She turned her head to gratefully kiss the parts of Fel she could reach. At her second buss of his temple, he inhaled suddenly, pulled out of her and flipped her onto her belly, ignoring her stunned squeak and glare over her shoulder as she managed to get her knees and elbows beneath her.

  He covered her then like an alpha claiming his mate and threaded his hard cock into her as if it hadn’t just been satisfied.

  “See?” he growled into her ear, pumping in and out of her like his place in her body and heart was assured.