Leman

by Serena Akeroyd

  “Shit, I really didn’t think this through,” she muttered under her breath.

  She heard the scrape and tumble of stones as they rubbed against the craggy floor and felt the drop in breeze as the beast’s wings ceased to flap.

  Considering the only female Dragon she knew was Arista, the Queen, and some female called Alexa, who had dropped in on Georgios from time to time—usually inciting growls of irritation from him as he said Remy was checking up on him—her knowledge of the female beasts was limited.

  It was a bitch when she was truly hoping this was the Queen. And didn’t that bring with it a whole other minefield to traverse?

  Within a blink of an eye, a woman stood at the very edge of the clearing. It didn’t seem to matter that the drop looked endless. For a beast who could create wings within seconds, Lara guessed an abyss didn’t hold much fear.

  Blinking at the female, recognizing her from the hazy depths of her own memory, Lara dropped a quick curtsey. It was a long time since she’d genuflected that way. Long gone were the days where curtseys were de rigueur after all, but Ios had told her the court was very formal.

  “My senses told me you were here. But I also knew they had to be wrong, because Georgios would have presented you to me if that was the case.” The Queen strode forward, and as she did, her maxi skirt swished about her ankles.

  In fact, for an ancient woman, she was pretty stylish. With the long, flowing skirt, a tight, black vest top, which contrasted well with the green and blue flowers on her mocha-colored skirt, and sandals, she would have fit in with the Coachella crowd.

  “Where is Georgios?” Arista asked, brows high when Lara didn’t say anything. “He didn’t just leave you here, did he?”

  Lara wasn’t scared. She’d almost died, had had to execute members of her coven she’d known a lifetime, had had to face one of the oldest, meanest judges in the Court, and had nearly faced death herself… she refused to be scared of a Dragon Queen.

  So… yeah, why had her voice done a disappearing act?

  Clearing her throat one time or ten, she managed to get it back online. Barely. Croaking out, she whispered, “He didn’t bring me here, Your Highness.”

  Arista scowled, then stacked her hands on her hips. “What do you mean he didn’t bring you here? How did you get here then?”

  “I crossed through the portal.”

  “Why would you do a stupid thing like that? You know the portals on this side are dangerous. You could have fallen off or frozen! Neither would kill you, I know, but it’s not a guaranteed way to spend a comfortable evening, is it?” Arista huffed. “What if Georgios had gone back through another portal?”

  “He wouldn’t,” she countered, “for he always uses this one.”

  Arista tapped her foot. “Indeed. What if I told you Seattle was rare because there are three portals? Would that make you reconsider the foolish action that brought you here tonight?”

  “Three?”

  Arista nodded. Held up three fingers. “Three. It’s unusual, as I said. Most areas have just the one portal. Not your particular city, however.”

  “Why?”

  Arista rolled her eyes. “There’s a whole metaphysical mumbo jumbo reason, and if you’re really interested, which I’m not, you can ask one of the court’s metaphysicists. I, however, am here for another reason.

  “Georgios knows to bring you to court when your mark comes through. Your mark is here… why hasn’t he brought you to me?”

  “Because it manifested tonight.”

  “And he wasn’t there? He should have brought you to me immediately. It is my right as your Queen to be the first to know you.”

  Lara gulped. “I-I asked Georgios to promise me something for Valentine’s Day. He was fulfilling that promise. When I woke up, I knew where he’d gone. Then, I saw the mark, and I got a bit mad and came here.” She gulped. “It was silly of me.”

  Arista peered down her nose at her. “Silly?”

  Lara shook a little as she nodded.

  The female looked harmless, of that there was no mistake. But she wore her regalness like a damn coat. It was worse than Joseph’s Technicolor one. A thousand times more powerful.

  Lara had been around powerful people before, but Arista? It seemed to seep from her pores. Tinging the air around her. Making it hard for Lara to feel anything other than incredibly young.

  Immature.

  Foolish.

  Arista folded her arms across her chest. “Show me the mark.”

  Lara gulped. “Shouldn’t Ios see it first?”

  Something she’d said had Arista’s head tilting to the side, and a smile appeared. “Aimiliani used to call him that. It is a long time since Georgios has been Ios.”

  “It fits him,” she croaked out.

  “I agree.” Arista pursed her lips. “He should be the first, however, I wish to see it.”

  It pissed her off how compliant she was in the face of Arista’s power, but she dragged up the hem of her blouse and lifted it high enough to expose the ruffles without a second’s hesitation. She cocked a hip forward and tilted her waist so Arista could see how far the scales extended.

  At the sight, the Queen’s eyes widened. “We don’t see two lemans in half a millennium, and then, we come across two whose binding marks turn into scales.” She pursed her lips. “This has to be more than a coincidence.”

  Her words had Lara frowning in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that a mating mark can have varying gradients to it. A light bond can manifest in a mark like a tattoo, for example. A deep and rich bond turns into scales. The former was more common than the latter. Until now. I wonder why that is.”

  The Queen peered at her as though expecting Lara to have all the answers when she didn’t even know there’d been a question.

  Gulping, Lara let her shirt drop down to cover her belly again.

  “Ma’am? Could you please take me to Ios’s cave?”

  “No. I won’t. Tell him to bring you to court.”

  Her mouth fell agape. “But you said he might use one of the other portals.”

  “I will make sure you’re not here next week if we don’t hear from you until then. This should teach you not to use the portals like they were doors to another room.” Arista sniffed her disdain, shifted, immediately blended into her environment, and if the sounds Lara heard were anything to go by, flew away.

  Leaving her standing there, gawking like a moron.

  Fourteen

  “Lara?”

  “Ios?” Lara scrambled to her feet, the minute she heard her name, and headed out of the cavern where she’d been seeking shelter from the coming dawn.

  As she rushed through the craggy passageways, terror flooded her.

  What happened if he didn’t hear her? If he flew off?

  Arista said she’d wait a week before coming to rescue her, but she needed blood, dammit. And shelter. More importantly than that, she needed food. Chocolate. Lots of it, to make up for this shitty night.

  She didn’t know how well this cavern would protect her from the sunlight, and she didn’t want to chance it either.

  Cursing herself for going so deeply into the cavern, she ignored the scrapes of the rock as it scored her skin, slicing into it here and there. The presence of blood in the air around her made the nightwalker come to life again. She felt the flash of her eyes as they went from their normal blue-green to quicksilver. The one joy was her pace increased, and she could see deeper into the shadows thanks to her newly enhanced vision. Almost skidding to a halt at the mouth of the cave, she cried out, “Ios!”

  Hearing a rustling sound, she felt like sobbing when her mate, looking frantic, spun around to face her.

  Before she could do more than sob out a sorry at her foolishness, he was striding forward and grabbing a hold of her.

  He hugged her so damn tightly she’d have choked if she had lungs, but it didn’t matter. She needed to be hugged as much as he needed to hug her.r />
  She swallowed back the tears that longed to fall. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and then, the words wouldn’t stop. She repeated herself, over and over again.

  He didn’t say a word, just held her tightly to his chest and kept her there. “Why?” he asked after a few minutes.

  “I was mad.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “I won’t,” she promised, not even bristling at the command in his voice.

  She’d spent the last nine hours here on the top of a mountain. A cavern behind her, a chasm at her front. No way back, no way forward. Her battery had died ages ago, and the book she’d been struggling to focus on had died a death as that limited entertainment was robbed from her thanks to shitty power saving apps that didn’t save power.

  Nine hours.

  Not the longest she’d ever been alone, but the longest she’d been stranded. With a notion that she could have been there a week.

  She hadn’t told anyone in her coven where she’d gone. She hadn’t told Georgios either. And then, for Arista to say there were three other portals? That had added to her worry.

  She was fortunate that Ios had thought to look for her in this realm, because if he hadn’t, she could have been stuck here for longer.

  Stuck because she was a brat.

  A foolish, selfish, arrogant brat.

  She pressed her lips to his throat in apology. He shuddered, pulled back, and pressed his mouth to hers.

  The next few minutes were a haze of terror-fueled lust.

  She could only imagine his panic at not being able to find her. That had added to her guilt.

  Georgios didn’t cosset her, but she knew he watched her to make sure all was well with her. And she knew that the need to watch over her extended to his dislike of leaving her to return to the other realm.

  She’d inadvertently added to his dislike of that, something for which she was truly sorry.

  She tried to imbue her kiss with apology, and as he supped from her lips and she from his, she moaned into his mouth. He pulled at her trousers, helping her kick them down, tug them to her ankles. She toed off one boot and dragged her foot free from one cloth leg, and then, when she could, immediately leaped up and locked her thighs around his hips.

  Pressing her harder into the cavern wall, he fumbled between them. Within seconds, his cock was at her pussy, and his fingers were testing her readiness as he bit into her mouth, thrusting his tongue against hers. Fucking her there as he’d soon fuck her pussy.

  Only when she was slick, hot, and aching, did he join them. With the fewest words and the fewest touches imaginable, she was ridiculously close to orgasm.

  The terror of the past few hours choked her. She suffocated on that, and it added to her need to unite with him. To be at one.

  She shuddered as he thrust inside, binding them, going as deeply as he could. When he pulled back, she clung to him, tightening her arms and thighs about his person in a desperate attempt to keep him close.

  She’d never clung before, but now, she did. And he seemed to understand. He never left her, not by even an inch. Deep, intense thrusts that had her panting. She dug her heels into his ass, her nails into his shoulders, as he nipped and fucked her mouth in time.

  She hurled toward orgasm at the speed of light. It pounced upon her out of nowhere. From the cavernous black of night to the bright, white sun, she felt the ecstasy sizzle through her veins and felt it strengthen and deepen as his cum drenched her.

  His blunt teeth nipped at her throat, and she took that moment to sup from him truly. Baring her fangs, she bit and fed from him. Letting his blood calm the heavy beat of her heart and the ache of hunger from her stomach.

  The two of them were shuddering again as she broke the day’s fast, and when she stopped, neither pulled away from the other.

  “Why?” he asked after several minutes, where his forehead had been pressed against her shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean to… I just, I was mad and scared and wanted to see you the minute you were back at the portal. I didn’t want to wait.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  And she hadn’t. That had never been her intention, but instead, she’d terrified him.

  What had fed the night’s horrors had been the knowledge that he might have believed she’d abandoned him.

  No other male would be so dense as to think that, but Ios was sensitive. He’d told her he was going to meet with Remy about his parents, and knowing that she was aware of why he was returning to the other realm, she could easily see him putting two and two together and making eighty.

  “But why? Why did you cross over?”

  “Because I got my mark.”

  He froze. Pulled back. “You did?”

  She gulped, remembered fear made her close her eyes. “It’s big, Georgios. Really, really big.”

  Breath stuttered from his chest. “May I see it?”

  She nodded and let him arrange her so she was back on her own two feet again—not with her legs hooked around his hips. When she was standing once more, half-dressed and unashamed, she lifted the hem of her blouse, and as she’d done to Arista, popped her hip out and tilted her pelvis forward so he could see the extent of the mark.

  He sucked in a sharp breath, and she heard a dull thud. The noise had her eyes popping open. The sight of him on his knees had her freezing in fear. Then, he reached forward and pressed his hands to her belly.

  The reverence in his touch had more tears pricking her eyes.

  “It’s beautiful,” he whispered, and then, a soft smile curled about his lips as he touched a few separate places on the ruffles. “My marks.”

  “Your marks?”

  He nodded, looked up at her. “We’re camouflaged, but we all have a kind of pattern on us. Mine’s like the Orion constellation. Remy’s is more of a starburst.” He shrugged. “That’s the actual mating mark, the pattern the Dragon mate has on its breast.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “No. There’s plenty I should have told you. I just didn’t want you to worry about not having yours yet.”

  She grimaced. “I might not have freaked out so badly, if you’d told me,” she chided softly. “I-It scared me that it’s so big and so weird. I never expected it to be like this.”

  He pressed his lips to her belly. “It’s beautiful.”

  Well, that still wasn’t the word she’d use for it, but Jesus, if he liked it so much, what could she say?

  She couldn’t tell him it repulsed her and made her feel sick just to fucking touch it, could she? Not when he looked at it, then at her, like she’d set the fucking moon in the night sky.

  It was with relief that she covered the horrid thing up. By the time she was tugging on her jeans again, righting herself, his cum wet the inside of her thighs. He saw it as he watched her dress and murmured, “I’ll need to present you at court now. Rather than return to the townhouse, shall we stay at the cavern?”

  She nodded. Well aware of what Arista had said, but more than that, somehow needing to be in this realm more than hers.

  As he shifted, she saw his other half for the first time in months. His stature stunned her, as it always did on the few occasions she’d seen him. He was the size of two Hummers, when it came down to height and wing breadth. Large enough to tower over her, but not huge enough to make her feel like she was in Godzilla territory.

  The shift looked painful and had her wincing at the jarring sight of his maw being formed out of a human mouth and wings sprouting from his shoulder blades.

  When he was in his beast’s form, she only really saw him because she knew where to look. Within seconds of transforming, he blended into the damn cavern behind him.

  She wasn’t sure why they needed to be like chameleons, when they were so huge and capable of such carnage that the legends about them had passed on through the generations, but hell, who was she to question?

  She held out her arms, as he’d
guided her many months ago, and let him pick her up. He curled his talons about her shoulders and down to her upper arms—those pointed babies spread pretty damn wide—and then, he lifted her off the ground, letting her hover a second before he lifted her higher into his chest, tucking her tighter against him while still somehow leaving her dangling.

  The experience wasn’t exactly pleasant, and he’d promised her he’d had a saddle made.

  She couldn’t exactly bitch at his not wearing it, not when he’d been searching for her, but still, the journey home wasn’t nice.

  The wind buffeted her, making her dangle harder, and halfway home, fear became a nauseating part of the ride as the sky started to split with color.

  Dawn was breaking.

  She felt his wings pump harder, his body strain to move as fast as he could.

  Though the sight was beautiful, though more shades than a rainbow pierced the sky and somehow illuminated the dozens of Goblin villages they passed, she couldn’t focus on it.

  Terror ate her up.

  She was focused on the light, knowing it was getting brighter and that soon her time would be up.

  And then, the clearing outside his cavern appeared, and the terror lessened a little. She closed her eyes in relief as his feet touched the ground, and he let go of her. She didn’t even wait for him to shift before she rushed deep into the cavern.

  Only when she made it into the central space, where his bed of treasure lay, could she truly allow relief to unfurl through her.

  This entire night had been one disaster after another, and she knew that whatever shit he was about to dish out, she’d have to take. She deserved to be shouted at. Deserved to have him burn out his temper on her. She braced herself for it, but when he stormed into the cavern a few minutes after her, he stunned the shit out of her by striding past, not in human skin, but his Dragon.

  He trudged toward the hot spring and trumpeted out a few dozen roars, which had her ears ringing as the Elven magick in the cavern acted as a super sensitive loud speaker and had the damn noise ricocheting around the craggy walls like a bullet.