Fafnir blinked at the door until it no longer wavered before his blinking eyes. Then he continued to stare at it, part of him unable to believe Annaliese refused to banish him. Another part wanted to run after her, to crawl in her lap, to let her touch on his head bring him comfort.
Right. As if a full grown dragon could fit in a female’s lap.
When the shock of acceptance wore off, about the same time he grew tired of staring at the still-closed door, his attention snapped to Aryana. His mate. Would she accept him like Keara and Annaliese did? Or would she reject him?
Now that he finally admitted she belonged to him, the thought of her rejection stung. And it was only a thought. If in reality she rejected him...he refused to go there.
For the first time since his return to Draconia, the sense of failure plaguing him lessened. He felt...light, weightless, like he flew without spreading his wings. No, he could not tell Aryana who he was. Not while he remained a dragon.
Perhaps Keara did find a spell in the Temple archives that would turn him human. Perhaps. But he refused to put too much hope in the spell’s accuracy. Too much hope and he would be disappointed when nothing changed. As far as he knew, no dragon had ever returned to human form once stuck in dragon form. Not a one. The chances of him being the first were rather slim.
He had a better chance of finding a cliff to jump from.
A thought left untouched since a certain female dragon fell from the sky.
Soft snoring focused his gaze on Aryana. The reason for the lack of cliff-jumping thoughts. His mate.
He’d love to fight Fasolt again. This time to the end.
Aryana made a snuffling noise, a little huff like a small dragon. He wondered what she dreamed. Maybe flying? Maybe her dreams were about him.
The idea, when it struck, came like a spark of sunlight on a diamond, bright and brilliant. Simple. Yet daring. And probably against several laws.
But it would tell him what she dreamed. Whether or not she held affections for him. If he stood a chance. The only variable being could he pull it off without her knowing.
Chapter Nine
Aryana ran through the familiar dreamscape, searching for an elusive person, or was it something hidden? Whatever it was, she hunted in vain. Trees, bushes and brightly colored objects joined to hinder her search. She couldn’t let them. She needed to find…to find…what, exactly? Or should that be, who?
Her breath came in short gasps as she circled in place, always looking, never finding. Where was it? What was it? Why could she not find it? Didn’t it know how much she needed, make that wanted, to find—
A glimpse of the object floated in and out of her thoughts. A brief touch, leaving her knowing and yet forgetting in the same second. Ari clenched her teeth, fists tightening until her forearms ached.
Right when she considered blasting the nearest object into oblivion, she heard a rustle to her left.
“Aryana!” A male voice stroked against her skin, firing streaks of heat straight to her core.
The object of her search.
She knew now what she’d been running toward. The object she wanted to find. The one she kept buried deep inside her heart, locked away, hidden from discovery.
Her mate.
After all these years searching various dreamscapes, she found him. The one the Seer had predicted. The one she refused to acknowledge. The one long believed dead.
But as this dream was all she had of her mate, she’d go with it.
Even if it meant ignoring the annoying little voice whispering she’d never caught Ragnor before. Stupid little voice. Dreams could change.
Aryana focused on the direction of his voice and walked toward him.
“Ragnor?”
Silence echoed through the woods. Even the trees dripped with tension as if they knew she said the wrong thing. But what was so wrong about calling his name?
“Ragnor? Where are you?”
This time the response boomed through the trees as if he stood beside her. “Here. Over here.”
She turned and sucked down a breath. Where trees stood only seconds ago now lay a meadow, complete with blue sky, multi-hued wildflowers, and her mate.
Ragnor stood two stone’s throws from her, his black curly hair brushing his shoulders. She’d forgotten his hair curled every bit as much as his sister’s. Black lashes framed green eyes, his olive-hued skin burnished in the sunlight. A loose white shirt, the laces untied at the neck, tucked into gray trousers. He stood behind a red-checkered blanket, one hand outstretched toward her, a silent beseeching plea.
Tension flowed around his body; his throat tightened as he swallowed. Why was he nervous? Did he really think she’d refuse him?
She did have a past history in refusing him, a mutual decision, although technically still a refusal. But past history lived in the real world, not the land of dreaming. The male standing before her was a product of her imagination, a figure only alive in her dreams. And her dream mate should not look nervous.
Striding forward, she smoothed her hand down the front of her gown. Why was she wearing a gown? A sexy male stood in front of her and for the first time in a long time, she wanted to stretch him out and have her way with his body.
Why not? It was only a dream.
With a snap of her fingers, the gown disappeared. His eyes widened, the muscles of his throat tensed as he swallowed. Without saying a word, she grabbed his hand, placed it on her waist and pressed her lips against his.
Pleasure shot through her veins like a bolt of lightning. He paused only for an instant, as if shocked by her boldness, and then his arms tightened around her, pulling her against him. The rough linen of his shirt scratched against her bare skin, a thin barrier between their flesh.
Grabbing handfuls of the fabric, she broke the kiss and yanked it over his head. Her hands traced the thick pads of his pecs, brushing against the curly hair dusting his chest. Under her fingertips, his skin felt alive, as if Ragnor stood beside her clothed in flesh instead of the ethereal vapor of a dream.
The oddities of dreaming. Not that she offered complaint. Not at all. Already this dream was better than any she’d had in...well, ever.
“Eager, are we?” His chuckle sent sparks of pleasure straight to her core.
“Hush.” She covered his lips with hers. No use ruining a perfectly good dream with talking.
His hands stroked her sides from her waist, up to her breasts, grazing the undersides with his thumbs before stroking back to her waist. Over and over, driving streaks of pleasure straight to her core.
She needed him in her. Now.
Her hands stroked down his chest, across the flat planes of his stomach, reaching for the laces on his trousers. Untying them took seconds. Helping him push them down meant breaking contact with his lips.
“I did not expect to find you this eager.”
Didn’t the male have better things to do with his lips than form words? “It’s my dream. And it’s been awhile.” And even then, this craving, this urge to crawl inside him, to bond their life-forces for eternity never existed.
Was the intensity stronger with mates?
Or just in dreams?
Didn’t she have better things to do than determine the complexities of a dream?
Yes, yes, she did. One naked male coming up.
Once Ragnor’s trousers dropped to the ground, Ari hooked her foot around his ankle and tumbled backward onto the blanket, pulling him on top of her.
His smile and chuckle lit a small part inside she thought dead. “Like that, did you?”
“A male can’t complain about an eager female.”
“A male can do something about that eager female.” She raked her nails down his back and squeezed the firm muscle of his arse.
His eyes flared, then darkened with lust. “So he should.”
When his lips covered hers, she sighed her pleasure. Holy altars, but the male could kiss. She played with his hair, running her fingers through the curly str
ands, as his lips trailed a path to one breast. Drawing her nipple into his mouth, he flicked his tongue across the sensitive bud in a rapid rhythm.
“Mmm, Ragnor, that feels good.”
She felt his lips turn into a smile against her flesh before he released her nipple with a pop. He blew across the nub, flicking a finger over it as his lips drew her other nipple into his mouth.
The melody of pleasure he wrote into her skin drove her toward a peak of ecstasy. And then his talented lips left her breasts, skimming across the skin of her stomach, kissing down, down, until he reached the tender flesh of her mound.
His hooded eyes glanced to hers, as if asking silent permission. She answered with a smile from deep inside, hoping he noticed her soul’s expression of joy radiating from her face. The corners of his lips turned before his tongue swept across her folds, lapping at her core.
Ari closed her eyes, body arching under his touch. Streaks of bliss consumed her, so real, so intense, her mind trembled on the edge of believing it reality.
His tongue continued to lick over her folds, circling her bud, over and over until he latched onto the sensitive skin, lightly scraping with his teeth. Pleasure slammed through her veins as he continued to tease her nub. When he inserted a finger inside her channel and stroked, rubbing her inner pleasure spot, she swore she shattered into splinters of gold.
As she drifted back to consciousness, he thrust into her, filling her, searing her to her soul. Her eyes opened, watching his face as he rode her, as he branded her his. His.
Not so scary now.
She should never have let him go.
If wishes were jewels, she’d be wealthy.
Her hands stroked down his back, her ankles clasping around his hips, pulling him closer.
“You feel so good, Ari.” Ragnor’s breath teased her ear, his hair brushing her cheek.
“Mmm. So do you.”
In and a slow glide out, again and again, her hips rising to meet his, countering each of his thrusts. Tension circled inside, spinning her in eddies of pleasure, her breathing joining his in a symphony of small gasps and moans. His hips slammed into hers, harder, faster, over and over, until she didn’t know where she ended and he began.
She screamed his name as her body shattered, his cries joining hers as together they rode a wave of bliss. She felt his shaft thickening, widening, locking him inside and knew he fought the urge to mark her as his. To bite her shoulder, showing all a visual reminder she belonged to him.
Her gaze met his. “Do you want to join our life-forces?”
His eyes widened. “You would let me?”
“It’s a dream. Why not?” It was a dream after all. She could do whatever she wanted. What were the consequences?
He closed his eyes, rested his forehead against hers. His muscles tensed, then he shook his head, pulling back so he could meet her gaze. “I cannot.”
He rejected her. Her dream Ragnor rejected her. And why not? Her subconscious clearly went along with what would happen in real life. The knowledge failed to stop the sting of rejection from hurting.
“Of course not. You’re only a dream. A good dream, but a dream all the same.”
“Maybe I’ll join you again here. If you do not mind?” One eyebrow cocked a question.
Since when did dream lovers beg to return? “You are welcome in my dreams any time.”
His lips turned, teeth flashing white. “I’d like that.”
Rolling them onto their sides, his shaft still imbedded deep inside, he wrapped his arms around her. Aryana snuggled into Ragnor’s arms, closing her eyes, content to lie in the circle of his embrace, the bright sun warm on her skin. Amazing how her subconscious mind remembered details about his body, the feel of his skin under the pads of her fingers, the brush of his hair against her flesh, when her conscious one possessed no memory of what her fingers felt when they touched his skin.
Probably because she’d never touched Ragnor the way she had in this dream. What a shame it was only a dream. If she could see him again she’d tell him what a fool her younger self had been. How she needed him by her side.
Or would she? Being a priestess was the only thing she’d ever wanted. The childhood fantasies of love and mates lay long buried, resurfacing only recently, when she grew tired of males wishing to bed her.
Although that wasn’t completely true. She wanted Fafnir to bed her. Little chance of that happening, even if the ancient spell reversed his entrapment in dragon form. Of course, the spell might be for reversing some other change, it was so cryptically written.
And why was she even thinking such thoughts in her dream? Shouldn’t she encourage Ragnor in another round of bed-play before someone woke her?
But when she opened her eyes, Ragnor was gone, along with the blanket, the cloudless sky and bright sun. In their place dark storm clouds blew in, chilling the air, pelting her with little stabs of anxiety. Where had he gone? Why had he left her alone?
She needed to find him.
Right when she got to her feet, someone shook her shoulder.
“Aryana! Shh, shh, it’s all right!”
Aryana’s eyes snapped open. Annaliese stood over her, one hand on her shoulder. Reality greeted her in the form of the healing room. Remnants of her last moments in the dream gripped her like shackles, the squeeze of anxiety dissipating under Annaliese’s soothing touch.
“You had a bad dream.”
“Not entirely.” Aryana stretched and drew in a deep breath. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she smelled the musk of her arousal. Despite wanting to keep the dream to herself, sensitive Draconi noses meant all in the room shared in her personal dreamland activities. Talk about embarrassing.
Especially since Fafnir lay across the room, nostrils flaring, lip turning with apparent understanding.
Yes, that would explain the embarrassment. Wanting him but dreaming of another.
How hard had she hit her head yesterday?
“How are you feeling?” Annaliese’s lips turned at the corner as if she fought a grin.
“Better, thank you. How are Jaythena and Moira?”
Her grin flattened as her voice dropped to a whisper. “Moira is fine. Physically Jaythena will be fine. Emotionally? I cannot heal emotional damage. At least not as fast as the physical.” She took a deep breath. “In retrospect, we should have turned Fasolt over to the Council instead of banishing him.”
“Banishment seemed a good idea at the time.” Aryana swallowed the steam boiling in her throat. “How were we supposed to know what he’d do?” Although she should have realized a male that disturbed would plan some sort of revenge.
“Next time we will not be fooled. But we cannot focus on him now. You’re more important. How are you feeling?”
Aryana tilted her head to the side. “When can I see my sister and niece?”
“When you finish telling me how you’re doing, I’ll send them in here.” Arms crossed, Annaliese appeared an unmovable statue.
Healers. “My arm feels fine. My head hurts a bit.”
“Let’s check it out.” Annaliese ran her hand over Ari’s arm, little pulses of magic testing the injury, determining if it needed another round of healing. “You’re right, your arm is fine. Let’s see about the head.”
Another round of healing magic poured across her scalp, sank beneath her skin, probing, soothing. Annaliese hummed in the back of her throat, one side of her lip raised into a wry grin, as she shook her head.
“You need to take it easy for the next couple of days. You have a nasty concussion.”
Ari raised a brow, leveled a look at her friend. “I’ve never known you not to be able to heal one in a day.”
“Most Draconi don’t find themselves in a collapsing cave. You almost died. You need to rest.”
Who was she to disagree? Especially if Fafnir stayed in the room with her.
What was it about the dragon that quickened her heart? Burned passion through her veins? Made her desire a male after all these
years? What was wrong with her? Dreaming of her dead mate while lusting over a male caught in dragon form? She should be worried about her niece and Fasolt’s impending capture.
Maybe Annaliese was right. Her head needed to heal.
In more ways than one.
She risked a glance at the dragon in question. Fafnir’s lip kicked up, one eye closing in a wink. Heat splashed into her cheeks and she glanced away.
She had no reason to be embarrassed, and yet the feeling persisted. What if he saw inside her mind? Realized it wasn’t him she dreamed about?
What is wrong? Annaliese touched Ari’s arm, a gentle comfort.
I…nothing. Not going there. Just thinking.
Annaliese raised a brow, shot a sideways glance to Fafnir. Returned her gaze to Ari. One brow cocked a question.
I can’t help how I feel even though I don’t understand why I feel that way.
Her friend’s lips twitched as she tried to smother a smile. I see. You find yourself attracted to the dragon.
And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that to yourself.
Annaliese’s lips twitched, but sadness permeated her gaze. It is not my secret to tell.
Well, that was an odd way of swearing silence. And why was her friend sad? Perhaps she sympathized with Aryana falling for a male locked in dragon form. Or perhaps Annaliese thought her crazy for the unattainable feelings. As if she could help how her heart felt.
But all was not lost. An ancient spell needed deciphering, one that would—hopefully—return Fafnir to human form. Now that Annaliese told her to rest, it seemed plenty of time existed for her to work on uncovering the spell’s secrets.
Who knew being bedridden could have a pleasurable ending?
Chapter Ten
When Fafnir winked, his mate’s cheeks turned as red as a dragon’s scales, her throat moving as she swallowed and avoided his gaze. He wanted to do more than wink, more than stay on his side of the room. Joining her in another dream topped his current fantasy. Just to see if she would repeat those words she said, words he knew she’d never say in real life. She’d asked him to bond with her. Of course she thought him a dream, but still.
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