Releasing the Dragon

by Evangeline Anderson

  “Gods!” Dru’s hips bucked upward involuntarily, jerking in response to the gentle, teasing pleasure she was giving him.

  Annie gasped as she felt his thickness invade her even more deeply and suddenly the little bump under her fingers was gone.

  “Don’t move!” Dru’s deep voice was harsh and desperate. “Be completely still, Annie.”

  “Why? What…what happened?” God, had she thought he was in her deeply before? That was nothing—after that last, involuntary thrust she knew she had never been so completely filled and it was perfect.

  “I think…think my Pleasure Barb slipped inside you.” Dru’s voice was hoarse. “You need to hold completely still while I try to pull it out of you. If you move, even an inch, the barb will pierce your flesh and begin injecting you with my mating and pleasure compounds.”

  “But I don’t want you to pull out,” Annie protested. “Please, Dru—I’m finally starting to feel better. What if…” She bit her lip and looked at him appealingly. “What if we just sat still so I could feel you in me for a little while? Please?”

  “I don’t know,” Dru growled. “It could be dangerous. If either of us moves so much as a fraction the barb could engage.”

  “Please,” Annie pleaded again. “Let me just sit here and feel you inside me—just for a minute.”

  “Well…” He shook his head and groaned. “Gods, teeska, I can deny you nothing. All right, but just for a minute.”

  “Thank you, Dru.” She leaned forward carefully and kissed him on the mouth and at the same time, she used her inner muscles to squeeze the long, hard shaft inside her. God, it felt good to have him filling her up like this!

  But it could feel better, whispered the naughty voice in her head. If only he would thrust a little…or maybe if you rocked on him some.

  But Annie had promised not to do anything to cause the big Kindred’s Pleasure Barb to engage and she swore to herself she would keep her promise.

  Dru returned her kiss with interest and then pulled back carefully.

  “Gods, Annie—you’re so tight all around me,” he groaned. “Being so deep inside you without moving is damn hard. Do you think you’ve had enough yet?”

  “Just a little more,” Annie begged softly. “And could…do you think you could suck my nipples again while you’re in me? I think maybe my breasts are filling up again and it’s really painful.”

  “I can if you’re careful,” Dru growled. “Come here and give me your beautiful breasts to suck, teeska.”

  He was half-sitting/half laying back against the pillows propped against the headboard so Annie leaned over him and fed him one of her ripe tips. She was almost certain that the movement would cause his barb to slide out of her but to her surprise, the Pleasure Barb stayed planted firmly inside her as Dru sucked her tingling nipples.

  “Better now?” he asked at last, letting her pink point slide from between his lips. “Gods, the nectar you make is sweet! I know it gives you pain but I cannot help loving to suck it out of your full breasts.”

  “I’m glad you don’t mind helping me,” Annie murmured. “And I think I’m feeling better now. If we just—”

  Just then a tiny bark startled her. With a gasp, she turned her head and saw Nutter Butter on the floor beside the bed, looking up at her with his bright, ink-spot eyes and wagging his teeny tail.

  “Nutter Butter!” she exclaimed. “How did you get out of your nut and all the way in here? Did you climb down a towel or something?” She turned back to Dru. “I have to get him—he could get into trouble down there.”

  “No, wait,” he protested but Annie was already starting to get off him.

  And that was when she felt it—the fleshy barb suddenly and painlessly hooked into her, just inside the mouth of her pussy. A sudden rush of intense pleasure took her by surprise and Annie fell back, gasping as a whirl-wind orgasm suddenly rushed through her.

  “Oh Gods, Annie!” Dru’s head was thrown back, the cords on his thick neck standing out as he tried not to move. “Gods, I can feel you coming all around me…squeezing my shaft. Gods, I can’t help it…I’m so close to taking you.”

  “Just do it,” Annie moaned. “It’s too late, Dru—too late to stop. Just take me—just fuck me.”

  And bracing her palms on the hard planes of his chest, she lifted herself up and then sat back down hard, deliberately pushing him deep and hard inside her.

  Dru seemed to go a little wild then. Annie saw his eyes slit open, revealing the Drake’s flames, and then he flipped her over and spread her thighs wide, his thickness still buried inside her.

  “You want me to fuck you, teeska?” he growled, taking a hard grip on her legs. “Want me to fill you will my barb and my seed and breed you?”

  “God, yes!” Annie moaned. This was what she needed, she suddenly understood. Not just to be filled and penetrated but to be fucked—completely and utterly taken. And Dru was certainly doing that.

  With a low growl he pulled out and slammed back into her, making Annie gasp and cry for more. With each hard thrust the barb lodged inside her gave her a new injection of pleasure compounds so every time she felt the head of his cock giving the mouth of her womb a rough kiss, it triggered another mini-orgasm.

  She had never been into rough sex before but this time she couldn’t get enough. Besides, Dru wasn’t exactly being rough now—just extremely thorough.

  He’s Claiming me, she thought deliriously. Making sure I’m his completely—marking me as his own.

  Dru’s eyes were shining with golden light now as he looked down into her face.

  “Going to come soon, Annie,” he growled hoarsely as he kept up his steady, deep rhythm inside her pussy. His voice had that deep double echo and she knew his Drake was there too, just under the surface, taking her along with Dru. “Going to fill your pussy with my seed and tie us together forever. Is that what you want? Because if it is not, tell me now while I can still pull out.”

  In answer, Annie locked her legs around his trim waist and pulled him closer.

  “I don’t care,” she panted as he thrust into her. “Don’t care where we go or what we do as long as we’re together. Finish it, Dru—bond me to you!”

  “Gods, I want to, too,” he groaned. “I should not do it—I should give you more time to think. But I cannot help myself, Annie—I want you.”

  With a last, low growl, he thrust himself inside her as hard and deep as he could and Annie gasped as she felt hot wetness spurting inside her. It seemed to trigger another one of those mini orgasms inside her and she could feel her body tensing, drawing his seed deeper into her pussy, welcoming it into her womb.

  Coming, she thought as the pleasure overwhelmed her. He’s coming inside me…making me his. Tying us together for ever.

  “That’s right, sweetheart—that is exactly what I am doing.”

  Dru’s voice seemed to come from inside her head this time. He leaned down and kissed her hard, taking her mouth ruthlessly as he finished shooting inside her.

  Then Annie heard another voice in her head—a deep, familiar one.

  “Mine,” growled the Drake. “Mine at last!”

  “Ours,” Dru corrected his other half. “Annie is ours forever now.”

  Annie felt a warm rush of love and belonging.

  “Yes,” she sent back to the man she loved and the beast that lived inside him. “Yes, I’m yours forever and I love you both.”

  Twenty-Four

  Far above Annie and Dru in the Mother Ship, strange things were happening—though no one exactly knew it yet.

  Sophie, who was sitting comfortably curled up on her couch, sniffed the air and looked at her twin sister, Liv.

  “Do you smell that? Something sweet? Like candy.”

  “Smells like…marshmallows. And caramel.” Liv put down the knitting needles she’d been using. Knitting was a new hobby, one she and Sophie were trying together.

  “And chocolate! Is someone baking something?” Kat threw her need
les down as well. “I give up—I can’t do this. The yarn just goes everywhere.”

  Liv lifted her head and sniffed the air.

  “I can’t do it either. I’m too worried about Annie. I’m going to call the med station and ask if she’s come back yet or not.”

  “What ever happened to her?” Kat asked. She and Sophie had both been filled in on Liv’s latest patient and her Drake Kindred’s stubborn refusal to claim her.

  “I think she went on a little self-guided tour of the ship. Someone saw her in the area by the Sacred Grove and said she was taking a walk to clear her head.” Liv shook her head. “That smell is getting stronger. And I feel…strange.”

  “Me too.” Sophie, who was having the most luck with her knitting, put down her half-finished scarf. “I feel all tingly.”

  “So do I.” Kat stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry, girls but I have to go. I think I need to find Deep and Lock.”

  “And I need Baird,” Liv said. “I should call the med center first but…oh God!” She looked down at her breasts. “What’s happening to me?”

  “I don’t know,” Sophie whispered in a frightened voice. “But it’s happening to me too. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Kat exclaimed. “But I’m not sticking around to find out. See the two of you later.”

  As Liv and Sophie watched her go, both of them wondered what in the world was going on and why they felt so strange…

  Dr. Kayla Smith pushed one long, black box braid over her ear and stared down into her microscope. The alien specimen she was studying had been collected from the Kindred science station on Gaia—an Earth-like planet many light years away.

  “Sorin, have a look at this.” She motioned for the Blood Kindred scientist on her left, who was mounting another slide. “It’s absolutely amazing.”

  “Let me see.” Sorin’s pale tan hand was much lighter than Kayla’s own mocha skin tones as he put his fingers over hers when she passed the microscope to him. As usual, he had his thick, silver-blond hair slicked back and his pale blue eyes were sharp with interest.

  His touch on her hand sent an electric little chill down her spine but Kayla didn’t allow herself to acknowledge it. Though all her girlfriends and relatives had teased her about finding a Kindred husband, she had absolutely no intention of doing so.

  In fact, she still winced when she remembered her going away party.

  “You already got a bachelors, a masters, and a doctorate. The only degree left to get is your MRS degree,” her Auntie Feenie had said.

  “Mm-hmm.” Her friend Shayna had nodded wisely. “You’re single and going to a place with more than enough men and not enough women. You’ll catch one for sure. Hell, you might even catch two! I know those Twin Kindred like to share a lady.”

  “If you’re getting two, bring one back for me!” her big sister Kendra exclaimed.

  “What? But you’re married!” Shayna reminded her.

  “Yes, but I’m over Cedric and his tired-ass ways! That man can’t even put a dirty dish in the dishwasher or pick his drawers up off the floor. Why I’m the only one who’s doing housework when I make twice as much as him?” Kendra complained.

  “You don’t know that a Kindred would help around the house any more than a human man would,” Auntie Feenie pointed out.

  “Yes but most of those Kindred are awfully easy on the eyes. And even if he doesn’t fix things around the house, I bet he’d be good in the bedroom. You know they’re packing a lot below the belt,” Shayna said. “Having a foot-long salami every night for your midnight snack would sure as hell help you forget if he didn’t load the damn dishwasher.”

  Everyone had cracked up at that but Kayla had waved them all away. She was a serious scientist—up on the Mother Ship to study and learn and gather new evidence about life on other planets. Her relatives and friends could keep their jokes—she intended to remain single.

  “Fascinating,” Sorin murmured, drawing her attention back to the present. “Bron, you have to see this,” he said to the third scientist on their team.

  “What is it?” Beast Kindred didn’t usually go in for academic pursuits—most of them seemed better suited to be warriors than doctors or researchers. But Bron was the exception that broke the rule. Though his huge, muscular frame and shaggy black hair would have frightened even the most hardened warrior, he was in fact, one of the finest microbiologists Kayla had ever met.

  In contrast to Sorin’s clean-shaven face, he wore a neatly trimmed mustache and a sharply pointed goatee that ended in a braid, bound by a silver band. He had told Kayla once it was a symbol of his particular tribe of Beast Kindred back on his home world of Rageron.

  She felt another shiver run through her as the big Beast Kindred brushed past her, to peer into the microscope as well. God he was so big. Though to be honest, Sorin was only about an inch shorter. Bron’s skin was a darker shade of tan than the Blood Kindred’s but still not as dark as her own.

  The two of them dwarfed her, even though she was five-ten in her stocking feet. But they never made her feel smaller than them in any other way. Sexism wasn’t a problem in Kindred society, since the Kindred worshiped the Goddess and revered all things female and feminine. Sorin and Bron never talked down to her or assumed she was too emotional to be a good scientist, as male colleagues in the human academic setting had done in the past.

  Also, there was no question of racism. The Kindred didn’t care that her skin was darker than theirs—it didn’t even enter their heads to treat her any differently and there was no hidden agenda either, as there often was back on Earth. In other words, they weren’t jerks like human men could be. There was mutual respect and trust between all three of them—they were a team.

  And that’s all we are, Kayla told herself firmly. Just a team of professionals and friends working together and nothing else. To be honest, she didn’t even see Bron and Sorin as sexual beings at all. They were just fellow scientists and colleagues and friends—good friends. That was all.

  Oh yeah? whispered a little voice in her head. Is that why you had that crazy dream about the two of them the other night? The one where the three of you were naked in bed and you were between them like the filling in a sexy Kindred sandwich?

  Kayla tried to push the embarrassing image out of her head as she watched the two of them—the sleek, blond head and the shaggy dark one—both bent over the microscope. But somehow it refused to go. The dream had been so incredibly erotic it was burned on her brain.

  She’d woken up panting and trembling with desire but she refused to touch herself, even though her pussy was swollen and hot and needy. There was no way she was going to start getting off to forbidden thoughts of her coworkers. It would make work too damn awkward!

  Suddenly she smelled something strange. Something…sweet.

  What is that? Smells like the cotton candy Daddy used to get me when we went to the fair.

  Cotton candy…and chocolate…and strawberries…and caramel…

  The good smells floating through the air made her nearly dizzy and her mouth began to water.

  “Hey,” she called to Sorin and Bron, who were still entirely engrossed in the slide under the microscope. “You guys smell that?”

  Bron raised his shaggy head, lifted his nose and inhaled deeply. His golden eyes narrowed.

  “Something sweet. But where is it coming from?”

  “I don’t know.” Sorin sniffed too and ran his tongue over his short, double set of fangs, which was his habit when he was disturbed. “What can it be? Some kind of Earth confection?”

  “It smells like…like the cotton candy I used to eat when I was a little girl.” Suddenly Kayla felt dizzy and her throat was dry—so dry she could barely speak. “It smells…” She couldn’t finish. Her words came out in a dry croak and she stumbled and would have fallen if two hands hadn’t grabbed for hers at the same time.

  Bron caught her right hand and Sorin caught her left and together they helped her stay uprig
ht.

  “Kayla, are you all right?” Bron sounded worried.

  “Did you have a fainting spell, leelah?” Sorin sometimes used the affectionate nickname which meant “small one” in the Kindred language because it sounded a little like her name. He and Bron seemed to feel that as long as no one else was present, there was no need to be formal and call each other “Doctor.”

  “I…I don’t know.” Kayla looked up, from the sleek blond Blood Kindred to the shaggy, dark Beast Kindred. “I think it’s that sweet smell. It’s making me feel so…so thirsty.”

  “I’ll get you some water,” Sorin said at once.

  “No!” For some reason, Kayla didn’t want to let go of his hand—didn’t want to let go of either Kindred’s hand. “No, don’t leave me.” She shook her head. “I don’t…don’t think it’s water I’m thirsty for.”

  “Then what is it, small one?” Bron rumbled, looking worried.

  “I…I…don’t know if I can tell you.” Kayla bit her lip as her thirst intensified and a burst of pure lust ran through her body, setting her on fire.

  “Guys,” she gasped, looking at both of them. “I…I need help…”

  “We’re here, leelah,” Sorin said earnestly.

  “Anything you need, small one, we’ll give it to you,” Bron vowed.

  Anything? Kayla wanted to ask. Because she was beginning to have an idea of what she needed and it wasn’t good…not good at all.

  Oh God, what was happening to her and where would it end?

  Lizabeth Paige sighed and took off her reading glasses to rub her eyes. The readers were a pain in the butt but at forty-five, they were a necessity. Especially since in her line of work she did a lot of reading.

  Known as one of the sharpest legal minds on Earth, Lizabeth had been specially recruited by Commander Sylvan, the head of the Kindred High Council, to prosecute the Yonnite Mistresses who owned BleakHall, an interstellar Triple Max penitentiary where several innocent Kindred warriors had died after being imprisoned by the Yonnites.