Dragon Splendor (Immortal Dragons Book 3)

by Ophelia Bell

  “I have lost my connection to the River, Diviner. I seek to renew it. I will do anything you ask to have it restored.”

  “I sssee. And is thisss fertile nymph a gift for me to play with in exchange for giving you something you should never have lossst?”

  Fuck. He closed his eyes, hoping she was toying with him.

  “She’s my sister,” he grated. “And she’s here for the same reason I am.”

  A soft chuckle echoed through the cavern. “I beg to differ,” the Diviner said in a sultry tone. “She looksss like she is about to make use of your cock, sissster or not.”

  Calder jerked at the warm slide of a hand down his belly. He grabbed Assana’s wrist just before she could grip him. His sister gnashed her teeth and clenched her fist, trying to reach for him again.

  “I need!” she wailed.

  “She doesn’t know any better,” Calder called across the pool. “Mother’s kept her locked in her entire life. I’m the only male she’s come into contact with since she came of age. We aren’t here for a mating ritual. We’re here to be connected to the River so we can convince our mother to relax her restrictions on access to the Haven. I need Assana’s help. I need her sane and not this … this sex-hungry beast.”

  Beside him, Assana keened and dropped to her knees. She raised her other hand to grab at Calder, but he caught her in his other fist.

  “Fuck, Assana, no! You’re not thinking, sister. I have a mate already. We will find you one if you just hold on.”

  She snapped her teeth at him, her huge eyes wild and dark. “Fuck me, please!” she pleaded, wrenching a hand free from his grip and plunging it between her legs. Her eyes rolled back and her head lolled as she fingered herself, but Calder knew it wouldn’t help. She either had to come to her senses on her own, or she had to be fucked into submission, and that was something he wasn’t willing to do.

  “A mate, you sssay?” the Diviner asked, her voice resonating across the space between them. “And where is she now? Why do I not sssense the power of a final melding in you? Your ssspirit is out of balance, even more than it was when last we met. If you truly had a mate, that would not be ssso.”

  “The River showed her to me before I lost my link. I met her … but it was too soon. My vow …”

  “I remember your vow, sssatyr,” she said, her voice lower, more somber than before. “You and your Thiasoi possess ssso much honor I knew it would be your downfall one day. And here you are, the lassst of them, begging me for a redo when you could have been in your mate’s armsss and far from this fresh prison you walked to of your own accord. But then, you walked into the other willingly too, didn’t you? Do you hate freedom ssso much?”

  “My freedom is inconsequential when the leader of our entire race is too scared to unlock our doors. It was a sacrifice I had to make.”

  “Tell me, then, Calder Thyrsssus: If your enemy is dealt with, would you let yourself be free, fully and completely?”

  “I …” He paused, not sure what the right answer was. Or what it even meant to be free.

  “I realize it’s a tricky quessstion, but I must know. If I grant you this sssecond link to the River, and give it to your sister, too, you must make me a promissse.”

  “Anything you say.”

  “Find your ssspirit’s balance and don’t let it go. The vow you made was only wordsss. Do you remember them to the letter?”

  Before he could answer, another voice rang through the room—his own voice, speaking the very vow he’d said when he first joined the Thiasoi to help hunt down the lamia Meri had become when her spirit was corrupted by repeated blood-melding with her victims.

  “As Gaia is my witness, I will not take a mate until the lamia is made to pay.”

  “I intend to keep to the word of my vow, Diviner. What of it?”

  Assana wrenched her other hand from his grip and proceeded to writhe on the ground with one hand clutching her breast and the other still rubbing between her thighs. The scent of her was distracting, a sheen of sweat now coating Calder’s body as his cock throbbed from his own primal ache to fuck. Thinking about Aurum now wasn’t helping matters any.

  “Gaia caresss not for the words of soldiersss blinded by honor. She cares only that life be allowed to thrive, and that your primal purpose isss fulfilled. You can have both, if you try.”

  “I won’t break my vow any more than I would bed my own sister right now, even though she needs it.”

  In a blur, Assana was on him, her lush body wrapping around his torso. One of her long legs twisted around his and she threw him to the ground.

  “Bed me now,” Assana snarled, grabbing hold of his horns as she ground against his hipbone.

  The Diviner continued. “Promise you will lisssten to your spirit when the time comesss. If you make me that promise, I will help your sissster now and grant you both what you have asssked.”

  Calder struggled beneath his sister’s slippery body. “Fine! I will listen to my fucking spirit!”

  Gripping Assana’s hips, he bucked to hold her off. In the background he heard the slide of scales on stone again, followed by a splash and the melodic lap of disturbed water hitting his hooves.

  A long, green appendage erupted from the surface of the water beside him, its underside a creamy white as it hovered for a brief moment above Assana’s head, then descended, slipping around her waist and yanking her backward into the water with a cry of protest.

  Calder rolled to his side, panting, and watched his sister get pulled halfway under the pool’s surface. In the bright sunbeams illuminating the center of the pool was the Diviner in all her glory. She had a voluptuous female torso covered in emerald scales, but her torso was the only part of her that resembled a woman.

  Beneath her navel was a solid trunk of scaled flesh that branched out into a dozen long, muscular appendages, each resembling a dragon’s tail. Three of her tentacles were now busy holding his sister’s undulating body under the water, while a third and fourth spread her thighs and a fifth pushed its way into Assana’s core. Assana’s head pushed above water, and she cried out in pleasure.

  Calder tore his gaze away. Watching his sister succumb to the Diviner’s ritual wasn’t how he’d expected to spend his evening. The slow, cool caress of another scaled tendril reminded him that the Diviner had not forgotten him.

  He forced himself to hold still, staring down at his ankle where her tentacle had emerged from the water and was slowly tickling its way up the inside of his leg.

  “Do I need to ressstrain you like your sissster, or are you going to come to me willingly?” she asked in a suggestive, flirtatious tone.

  The tendril that had emerged wrapped itself around his ankle and gave a little tug, pulling his leg into the water before sliding up his thigh again.

  Bracing himself for what was to come, Calder only nodded and silently slid into the pool. He paused with his hands still gripping the edge behind him before letting go. He only needed to be in the pool for this. He didn’t actually need to look eager.

  Twin tendrils wrapped themselves around his legs, pulling them wide. Calder quickly adjusted to maintain his balance, but realized he didn’t need to when another thick, scaled tail slid around his waist and pulled him through the water toward the Diviner.

  Up close, she was huge. Her proportions were that of a normal female, but her body was double the size of Assana’s primal form and easily three times the size of a human woman.

  “Look into my eyesss, Thiasoi, if you wish me to grant your wish.”

  Another of her many tentacles cupped his head and forced him to tilt it back, his gaze directed at her face.

  She was the embodiment of beauty, her lips full, her eyes large and entirely blue with no pupil visible. Instead of hair, she had hundreds of tiny tentacles that writhed and undulated atop her head. If he didn’t know better, he’d think they were snakes.

  As he gazed into her eyes, the pleasure began. The soft caresses that always started out so alien beca
me a craving for more. The light teasing around his groin moved inward, one touch lightly caressing his balls, while the other wrapped around his cock and stroked.

  The appendages gripping his ankles spread his legs wider, and another tickled its way down his spine to slide between his cheeks.

  Calder let out a sharp gasp when she penetrated him, but she paused then, her eyelids falling closed. The tip of her tentacle that had entered his ass probed him gently, a thoughtful look crossing her face.

  What the fuck was she doing? That combination of violation and stroking of his cock would make him come …

  Intense pleasure hit when she teased inside him in just the right way. His balls tightened and semen erupted from his tip.

  He blinked up at her, dazed from the sudden orgasm, abstractly aware that this was only the beginning. His cry of pleasure still echoed through the room, mixing with Assana’s own orgasmic cries. His sister was still being thoroughly serviced by the other half of the Diviner’s appendages, and there seemed to be no sign of things stopping.

  “You have melded with sssomeone recently,” she murmured. “A male someone. This cannot be your mate, sssatyr. Have you lied to me?”

  “No,” Calder panted. “He was in need—a captive of the Ultiori. My essence calmed him. Helped him …”

  “But a melding isss never a requirement of an exchange of your esssence. This man was not the mate you ssspoke of?”

  She teased again at the knot of pleasure inside his ass, making him gasp. “Fuck. No. You know my mate is a female, a dragon. Nicholas was someone … someone.”

  “Truth, sssatyr,” she said. She pushed deeper, the stretch of her thick flesh sparking the first twinge of pain. “Who wassss this male to you?”

  “Someone I love. Nicholas is my lover, and I hate myself for how I left him.”

  Calder’s will cracked under the intense pleasure she inflicted on him. Her motions changed, her strange eyes swirling with a maelstrom of light, mesmerizing him. Soon her appendages felt just like Nicholas’s muscular arms wrapped around him; the one buried in his ass became Nicholas’s cock. And then Calder was back in that dark cell on their last night together, relishing his lover’s desperate, pounding thrusts, filled with anger, hurt, and bitter love after Calder’s confession that they would have to part ways once they were rescued, and that they could never be together again.

  “You gave up his love for a decree from Fate. How very noble of you, sssatyr. Is the female Fate sssent you worth it? Does she incite such ssstrong emotions in you as well? Tell me true.”

  Calder swallowed and groaned when she paused her stroking and stared down at him, waiting for his response. He stole a quick glance toward Assana, just to make sure she was unharmed. His sister was currently spread-eagle, held flat on the surface of the water with three tentacles holding her steady while three more penetrated between her thighs.

  She writhed as though in pain.

  “Wh … what are you doing to her?” he asked.

  The Diviner turned to focus her gaze on Assana and a low laugh caused her huge, round, scale-covered breasts to jiggle. “Showing her what she can hope for if she lets the River guide her.”

  At that very moment, Assana’s back arched and her entire body quivered. Her mouth opened, soundless at first, but a low cry built from deep within, rose through her throat, and emerged as a single, ringing note that echoed through the cavern.

  Even if Calder could move, he was paralyzed by the sound of pure pleasure. When Assana relaxed, she turned and looked directly up at the Diviner and said, “More.”

  “My, she is a ssstrong one, your sissster,” the Diviner said. “For a female first linking to the River, I’ve never seen one absorb so much of the power, and give back just as much. There may be some wisdom in having a nymph keep her maidenhead before she joins with the River the first time. Food for thought.”

  She redirected her hypnotic eyes back on Calder. “But no more evading my queriesss. Tell me how you truly feel about this dragon Fate intendsss to be your mate.”

  The tentacle in his ass withdrew slightly, remaining just deep enough to torture him with pleasurable sensation. The others she was using to tease him toyed with his balls like several tiny tongues, and one coiled its way around and around the entire length of his shaft, beginning to stroke him.

  Calder struggled to find the breath to answer her amid the pleasure. Truth … she wanted truth.

  “The truth is I only saw her for a moment, but that moment has been ingrained on my mind ever since. She is love and joy made flesh, her touch like the sun, her scent like honey, her breath a summer breeze. I had to run from her … it’s exactly like you said. I could have been with her now, but I knew I would lose myself. That Fate saw fit to make her mine only proves that I must be worthy … I must earn her love, and to do that, I must kill our enemy.”

  The Diviner’s touch grew gentle and languorous, a far cry from the frantic fucking that had reminded him so much of Nicholas. Around him, the scent of honey and flowers built in the air, and the Diviner shifted Calder’s body just enough for the sunlight falling from above to hit his face with full force. The tentacle around his cock tightened, the one in his ass swirling like a tongue.

  “Come for me, Calder, my love.” The voice came out of the ether, incongruous but clear. Aurum’s voice. In his haze of pleasure, the Diviner’s touch became his Fated mate’s, the different tentacles somehow different aspects of how his female would please him. “Let me taste your Nirvana. Give me your pleasure.”

  Yes, he wanted this more than anything. To please her, to feel that surge of joy that had encompassed her in the brief moment of their first meeting. To give into that feeling and let it consume him this time, instead of forcing himself to run.

  “I love her. Gaia’s tears, I love her so much it hurts to be apart from her,” Calder gasped. The second the words were out, pleasure crashed over him. His entire body went taut in the Diviner’s tangled grasp, his ass clenching around its invader, which only served to increase the sensation in that spot. His cock jerked and semen erupted from his tip a second time.

  The Diviner let out a shaking moan of her own, and he opened his eyes to see hers low-lidded, her mouth slightly open as though she were experiencing the same pleasure. She held him while his orgasm continued to wrack his body with spasms, and a steady flood of glowing power traveled up each of her appendages.

  Across the pool, Assana let out another cry, and Calder watched as the same phenomenon occurred on that side, power flooding into the Diviner from Assana’s orgasm.

  A moment later, her chest heaved with a huge sigh, her shining green scales sparkling with perspiration. Her grip on him relaxed and she smiled down at him.

  “Thank you, Calder and Assana Thyrsssus. I have not had a melding quite ssso pleasurable in a very long time. It reminded me how sssublime it can feel to channel a dragon’sss essence, even if it was second-hand through the visions of your matesss-to-be.”

  Calder struggled to stay upright when the support of her appendages disappeared. Assana splashed into the water and came up sputtering with a dazed look.

  Two of the Diviner’s tentacles rose out of the water, blue light glowing at each tip. One extended toward Assana, the other toward Calder, each one resting in the center of their chests near their hearts.

  Warmth bloomed in Calder’s body and he looked down to see lines flowing out from the center where the Diviner touched him. A geometric pattern emerged like petals of a flower, unfurling until a mandala covered his chest in the shape of a lotus blossom, extending almost to his nipples.

  “What does this mean?” he asked, looking over at Assana to see she had the same mark now. “You’ve never done this before during past rituals.”

  “You know nothing of what I do or do not do during these ritualsss. But you are correct—this mark is ssspecial. Not only is it your link to the River, it is protection on your quessst to punish the nymph who has betrayed your race. However, th
is power comesss at a price. You must fulfill your promise to me, sssatyr.” She turned to look at Assana. “As mussst you.

  “If you do not consssummate your love for the female Fate has chosen, that love will be forfeit. But you also mussst not break your vow. Find a way to do both—to take this creature as your mate without mating her. If you do not do thisss, your mission will fail, and all will be lossst.”

  “I understand,” Calder said, though he didn’t understand one bit. How the hell was he going to mate Aurum without mating her? Even if he could get out of the Haven to find her …

  The Diviner had turned to his sister again. “As for you, Assana Thyrsssus, I know it has been out of your control, but to keep this link, you mussst find your mate. You are well past the age when a nymph should bear her firssst child. It is your children who will be your anchorsss. The magic they imbue you with while they grow in your womb help temper your primal nature, help focusss it into doing what must be done. Your behavior today provesss as much.”

  Assana bowed her head and nodded. “Yes, Diviner.”

  “I don’t know if you understand the dire nature of thisss. The conditions I ssset on your link to the River are only a sssmall part of it. Should either of you fail, your enemy will win. The very fate of the Haven resssts on your successs. Now go.”

  Calder still needed to know more, but there was no arguing once the Diviner decided she was done. He turned and waded to the edge of the pool and climbed out.

  When he reached the exit to the cave behind the falls, Assana caught up with him, but she refused to meet his gaze. She’d already returned to her human shape and hurriedly stooped to pick up her discarded dress. She kept walking as she threw it on, ignoring his questioning look.

  “Assana!” he called after her, trying to dress as well before realizing his clothing was made for a different shape than his oversized, hooved primal form. He shifted and quickly donned pants and shirt before running after her as quickly as he dared down the slippery slope.