“I’m fine,” Leif said, pasting a broad smile on his face. “Glad to see you sitting up. You really scared me there for a minute.”
Sofia frowned at him. “Are you sure? You don’t look fine. You look like you’re ready to kill someone.”
Leif had to chuckle. “Well, trust me. I’d be happy to kill Vincent or any of his minions if they tried to come back here again.”
Sofia kept frowning. “So I guess the High Council told you about Vincent? And about who I am?”
Leif nodded. “Yeah. I came to the High Council building this morning not long after the Dark Warriors broke in and forced you to open the vaults. The High Council explained everything to me at that point. I…I owe you an apology. I’ve treated you like shit, when all the while you were working so hard to help our cause.”
Sofia dropped her head. “Not hard enough. I can’t believe the Dark Warriors managed to use me to get into the vaults. I was so weak!”
“Hey. No one blames you, okay? We all saw the video footage of what happened. No one could have stood up to an attack like that on their own. You did the best you could. The best anyone could. I mean it.” Leif reached out and grabbed her hands in his. He was surprised at how small they felt in his, and at how cold they were. He was also surprised by the sudden flip flops his heart did when his skin touched hers. He tried to ignore the way his heart beat faster, and he hoped that his emotions weren’t showing as strongly on his face as they felt inside of him. Now that the excitement of battle was finally starting to fade, he had expected his sudden infatuation with Sofia to fade as well. But it seemed to only grow stronger. He forced himself to hold her gaze, and he was surprised to see that her eyes were burning with emotion, too. But what emotion was it? It wasn’t possible that she was suddenly feeling something for him too, was it? He had been nothing but rude to her since the day he met her, and he was sure she hadn’t been able to stand him because of that. Surely, one battle wasn’t enough to change all that. Or was it? The way she was looking at him now left him wondering.
She was the first to look away. She stared up at the treetops, as though waiting for someone to fly back into the clearing suddenly. But everything around them was mercifully still right now. Even the breeze had ceased.
“So, what happened?” she asked. “I don’t remember much after I saw you. Vincent knocked me to the ground, and the two dragons were thrashing around. Then you appeared, and then everything went black.”
“I drove them all off,” Leif said with a shrug. “It wasn’t that hard to do, really. They were using dark magic spells, but they’re not very good fighters. Most of the spells just bounced off my dragon hide. I actually brought Vincent down with a tree branch, funny enough.”
“A tree branch?”
“Yeah, he was trying to use you as a shield, so I burned off a tree branch from high above him. It fell on him and knocked him out. Possibly killed him, but I can’t be sure.”
Sofia looked back at where the tree branch still lay on the ground in a heap of tangled twigs and leaves. “Wow. The dark magic master brought down by a tree branch. If he is still alive, he’s going to be horribly embarrassed by that.”
Leif laughed. “Yeah, I guess he is.”
“But what about the two dragons? What happened to them? Were they Seth and Evan? Do the Dark Warriors still have them? We have to go help them!”
Sofia started to stand, but Leif pulled her back down.
“Calm down. There weren’t actually two dragons there. Some of the Dark Warriors wizards were casting some sort of optical illusion spell or something. They wanted it to look like they had captured two dragons so they could scare you and anyone who rescued you into thinking that they are actually a lot stronger than they are. I have to admit, they had me worried for a minute. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, fighting with a group that had already captured two dragons. But I wasn’t about to leave you alone with them, so I decided I had to fight no matter how many dragons they had captured. When I landed on the ground, I could tell they were fake. There was no scent of dragon around, and, besides, the two “dragons” kept writhing around in pain even when no one was attacking them anymore.”
Sofia’s eyes widened. “You’re right. I sort of noticed that, too. I thought it was really odd. But if that wasn’t Seth and Evan, where are Seth and Evan?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Leif admitted. “I left Torch Lake in a hurry, and didn’t bring a radio with me. I’m assuming they are somewhere north of us. This part of the Gray Oasis Forest isn’t very close to where most of the dark monsters hide out, so it wouldn’t make much sense for them to be here.”
“You left Torch Lake without a radio?” Sofia sounded incredulous. Leif shifted a bit uncomfortably.
“Yeah, well, you were in a lot of danger. I didn’t want to waste a single second.”
“But surely the High Council would have insisted you take some supplies with you?”
Leif felt even more uncomfortable. “Well, uh, the High Council didn’t actually send me. I just came myself, without their permission.”
Sofia looked at him like he’d just grown a third head. “Do they know you’re here, at least?”
Leif nodded. He was suddenly painfully aware of the fact that he was still holding Sofia’s hands, and he let them go as he looked off into the distance. There was nothing to see out here other than trees and rocks, but he acted like the pine tree a few dozen feet away was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. He had never been the type to defy a High Council, but this had been a matter of life and death. Surely, Sofia could see that. How could he explain that to her, though? And why the hell did he suddenly care so much about what she thought?
Before Leif could get himself too worked up about the situation, Sofia started to laugh. It started off as a small chuckle, but quickly grew to full-on giggles, and then to roaring guffaws. Leif gave her a blank stare. Was she making fun of him?
“What’s so funny?” he demanded.
She wiped tears from her eyes as she kept on laughing. “I don’t know,” she finally managed to choke out. “It’s just that I spent so much time trying to convince you that I wasn’t an awful person. All it took for you to realize that was my getting kidnapped, I guess. Maybe I should have gotten kidnapped from the start. Now you’re so convinced of my worth that you took off to find me without the High Council knowing.”
“Well, they know,” Leif said reluctantly. “They saw me take off, and I’m pretty sure several of them were yelling at me to stop. But I chose not to hear.”
Sofia grinned as she finally got her laughter under control. “Well, in any case, it’s nice to know you don’t hate me anymore.”
“Yeah, about that…” Leif swallowed nervously. “I owe you a big apology. I treated you like crap, and there’s no excuse for that.”
Sofia shrugged. “It’s okay. You didn’t know who I was.”
Leif shook his head. “No, it’s not okay. Regardless of who you are, I should have treated you with more respect. I was so caught up in trying to prove myself in my new position that I lost sight of what’s important. I wanted to prove that I could handle the Dragon Utilization Department better than anyone, but I let my ego get too big. I should have been more focused on combating dark magic, and less focused on being better than everyone else. The truth is that you are a lot better than me. Now that I know who you are, and how hard you’ve worked and how many sacrifices you’ve made to protect Torch Lake from dark magic, I feel like a fool for ever thinking I was better than you.”
Sofia smiled at him. “It’s really okay. I know I was hard on you. I did my best to annoy you intentionally. The more you hated me and thought I was actually a snobby junior auditor, the more convincing I was to Vincent. But now that my cover is blown anyway, I have to say that I’m relieved you don’t hate me anymore. I admire you, and all the effort you’ve put into the dragon training program. It’s true that the more dragons we have, the safer Torch Lake will be. F
or what it’s worth, the High Council was heartbroken to have to end the dragon training program early. But they didn’t feel like they had a choice. They didn’t want Vincent to find out who I was, and if it looked like I was balking at the idea of getting two promising dragon shifters out of Torch Lake, Vincent would have been suspicious.”
“But now your cover is blown anyway. And that’s all my fault, too. He figured it out because of what you said to me in the grocery store. I should never have cornered you like that.”
Sofia shook her head. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Regardless of how cornered I felt, I shouldn’t have hinted at being a spy. I was an idiot to do so in a public place. The fault is mine. And I hope we can move past our rough start and be friends.”
Leif tried to ignore the sudden urge to say he wanted to be more than just friends. She’d given him no indication that she had feelings for him, and he was bound to make her angry if he tried to make a move on her now. She was offering him friendship, and he should take that gratefully. After everything he’d said to her, and all the times he’d treated her like the enemy, she would have been within her rights to say she never wanted to see him again. Instead, she was forgiving him and offering the olive branch of friendship. He should take that and then keep his big mouth shut. He’d come here to save her from dark magic, nothing more. So he smiled at her and extended his hand.
“I would like that very much,” he said. “Friends?”
“Friends,” she repeated, taking his hand. And then, to his utter shock, she leaned in and kissed him.
Chapter Twelve
Sofia had never been the impulsive type. She thought things through carefully, with brutally rational logic. Acting on emotions wasn’t a smart idea for a spy, and so Sofia had trained herself to stuff her emotions down and survive on reason alone.
Until now.
Perhaps she was overwhelmed with relief at the fact that she’d managed to escape death so narrowly at the hands of Vincent. Or perhaps she was angry at the High Council for not sending someone to rescue her right away. That was, after all, the obvious conclusion she had to draw from the fact that Leif had not been sent by the High Council. He’d shown up here alone, and no one else had come yet. Sofia shouldn’t have been surprised, since the High Council almost always took an obscenely long amount of time to make a decision. She shouldn’t take it personally, and yet she did. They’d wasted time deliberating over what to do, and that wasted time would have cost her her life if Leif hadn’t defied them to show up here.
So here Sofia was, high on the mere fact of being alive, filled with the need to rebel against the High Council, and undeniably attracted to the gorgeous dragon shifter who had ignored the High Council to rescue her. The cocktail of emotions was too much for Sofia, and she gave in.
She kissed Leif.
She should have known that giving in to her desire for him would only kindle that desire more. As soon as her lips touched his, fire shot through her body like a bolt of lightning. Leif had seemed surprised by the kiss for a split-second, but then, he had given in to it. One might even say he had taken control of the situation. He wrapped his arms around her and slipped his tongue past her lips. He pulled her down onto the ground with him, so that they lay with their limbs entwined and their tongues dancing. Sofia could not believe that they’d gone from presumably hating each other to making out furiously in the span of less than a day, but she didn’t want to think rationally about what they were doing right now, or whether it was a good idea. She just wanted to experience it, and soak in the wonder of the moment.
And how wonderful the moment was. As Sofia let go of all logic, all reason, she was overcome with a pure, primal desire like she had never known. She forgot to worry about Vincent and the Dark Warriors. She forgot her frustration with the High Council. She even forgot to wonder whether being so physical with a man she barely knew was a good idea. All she knew was that she had never felt so attracted to anyone in her life, and, for once, she was going to act on what her heart wanted, not her head.
She let her worries and hesitations slip away as Leif wrapped his arms tighter around her. He was already naked, since he’d just shifted back to human form after using his dragon to save her. Sofia knew shifters were never fazed by being naked in front of other people, so she’d tried not to act like anything was out of the ordinary the whole time they’d been talking. But she hadn’t been able to keep from glancing across his entire body. At first, it had been pure curiosity. But that curiosity had quickly turned to lust. How could it not, when she was looking at a body as magnificent as Leif’s? Not only was he tall, with a broad chest and shoulders, but every part of him was toned and muscular. His leg and arm muscles were thick and sculpted, and his abs formed a perfect six pack. And how could she ignore what was between his legs? It was larger than anything she’d ever seen, and she’d had to make a conscious effort not to stare at it longingly.
She wasn’t sure why the impulse to kiss him had overtaken her so suddenly, but she was glad that it had. If she’d stop to think about it too much, she would have pulled back, and then she would have missed out on the thrill she was experiencing right now. Leif held her tightly, as though he was afraid she would float away if he loosened his grip on her. The strength of his arms filled her with a sense of comfort. The last few months had been lonely. Sofia hadn’t been able to be herself around anyone, and she had felt like an island amidst a sea of people. Now, there was no more pretense. There was no more pretending. There was only her and Leif, drowning in desire for each other.
Sofia let the warmth of Leif’s body wash over her. His tongue felt like a firecracker in her mouth, setting off sparks that sent tingles across her whole body. His hands rubbed against her back, then her breasts, then her ass. It was as though he wanted to drink up the very feel of her. She felt a hot pressure building in her core, and she could feel herself growing wetter between her legs with every passing moment.
This is crazy, her mind screamed at her. You were enemies just a day ago. You don’t know him. You’re in the middle of a forest.
None of it mattered. For once, all that Sofia cared about was how she felt. And in his arms, she felt like more of a woman than she ever had before. She didn’t even consider stopping him when he reached for the buttons on her shirt and started unfastening them. Instead, she closed her eyes and relished the feel of his fingers brushing against her skin as he tenderly pushed the shirt back. He kept going, reaching for the clasp of her bra, then the button of her pants and the edge of her simple black panties. He never broke their kiss as he undressed her. He was hungry yet tender. Confident yet gentle. A perfect mix of strong and sweet.
Sofia could feel the ground beneath her naked skin now, but it didn’t feel cold as it had before. It felt warm and soft under the heat of their passion. In fact, even though she should have been shivering in the November air, she felt as warm as if it were a midsummer day. Her passion for Leif was burning her up from the inside.
Leif rolled her onto her back, and she felt strangely secure with the strength of the earth beneath her. She couldn’t have said how, but she had a sense in that moment that the very fabric of the world had woven itself together in a specific way to bring her and Leif together, here and now. He hovered over her, his eyes on fire as he gazed back at her. Sofia felt her breath coming faster, and the hot wetness of desire seeping more quickly from between her legs. Leif was the man who had saved her life. He was her destiny. The rational side of Sofia had long since given up trying to convince her that this was a bad idea. What woman in her right mind would want to resist the strong dragon who had rescued her?
Leif looked at her for what felt like an eternity, even though it was probably only about fifteen seconds in reality. His emerald eyes burned and seemed to swirl, and Sofia lost herself in them. She wanted to cry out to him, to beg him to take her. But no words would come. No words were needed, though. With their eyes locked, the rest of the world seemed to fade away. The past
and the future had no bearing on this moment. Here, in this moment, they were together, united in their irrational and yet all-consuming desire for each other. All they had to do was give in to the fire, and they would both be changed forever. Sofia couldn’t have explained how she knew that, but her heart told her that this was no ordinary moment of passion. It was fate.
Leif seemed to agree. He threw back his head and roared, a deep growl that came from the very depths of his soul. And then, he gave in to his hunger. He slammed into her with authority, and Sofia’s mouth flew open in disbelief as he filled her. His stiff, thick shaft pushed against her inner walls and the pressure in her core instantly rose to an almost unbearable level. She felt his fire spreading across her body even hotter than before. Tingling flames traveled from between her legs to her head, her arms, and all the way down to her feet. He was consuming her, burning her up from the inside, and she had never felt so alive.
He moved in her, sliding back and forth as he thrust his hips against her hips, and the motion pushed against the tingling pressure that Sofia was barely containing within her. She squeezed her eyes shut, drinking in every second of the bliss. She fought against the release that wanted to claim her. She was determined to drag out this perfect moment as long as she possibly could.
But when Leif bent his head to take her nipples in his mouth, it was more ecstasy than she could take. She arched her back instinctively, pushing her hips up against his as she screamed and gave in. Her release crashed over her in violent, unrelenting waves. She thrashed beneath him as her body pulsed and spasmed, clenching hungrily around him and drinking in his fire. He roared again, and then joined her in riding the waves of sweet release. He stiffened and thrust one last time, even deeper than he had before. Then he pulsed and came into her.
They were joined in that moment. Sofia felt like her very skin was glowing, and she continued to tremble as the waves of pleasure slowly subsided. He held himself there inside her for a long time, and she kept her eyes closed, concentrating on the feel of his thick shaft pressed against her inner walls, wishing they never had to separate.
Dragon Rescuing (Torch Lake Shifters Book 3) Page 9