It drives the feeling of being alone that much deeper. Not that I consider myself a failure or anything. I don’t think I have social anxiety, I simply prefer to keep my circle very small. But it does make for very lonely nights.
Knowing that my fated mate is on the other side of the river and so impossibly out of reach for me now isn’t helping my mood any.
I really do wish I had someone to talk to. I consider calling Cassandra but dismiss that quickly. She’s human, she doesn’t know I’m a dragon, how would I be able to adequately explain what’s weighing on me?
What good is a fated mate if he doesn’t want to be with me? I can’t be angry about it. I know the hunger that drives Taran. I was the same way when I opened my gallery. Maybe it’s because I have a few years of being a business owner under my belt.
No close friends to unburden on, a fated mate who wants nothing to do with me.
I’m on my own for this. Again. It’s not an unfamiliar situation to be in.
It does hurt a little more this time.
Okay, a lot more.
7
Taran
The flyers for the grand opening party of Immortal Ink are one hundred percent top class. I’m envious of the buzz it’s getting in the neighborhood. Everyone’s talking about it.
Thankfully, no one is coming in and canceling their appointment in my shop to wait for her.
All my research leads me to the conclusion that Nyve is right. She’s just another unique style of inker and her shop opening right across from ours isn’t direct competition but good for business, as it opens more options for clients to choose from.
The fact that she’s working alone means that she’ll have a waiting list. Not everyone is willing to wait months to get ink done. And here’s our shop, sitting ready for their business.
Once I came to these realizations, it was a little easier to sleep at night. Having to close up shop isn’t as large a specter hanging over my head these days.
Nyve takes the flyer from my hand to study it. “So, what’s your decision, then? Are we going?”
“We can’t not go,” Varos says as he sprays down his chair to clean it before his next client. “It’d be so damn rude.”
“But how desperate will we look if we do go?” Sako is the one who found the flyer beneath the wiper blade of his Jeep and brought it in. “Especially if all of us show up at once. It could look like we’re trying to intimidate her.”
“Sako makes a good point,” Bronaz shouts from the storeroom.
I’m still chewing over the pros and cons and shoot Nyve a glance. The big guy gives me a half shrug. “You’re no help,” I tell him.
“I’ll support whatever decision you make.”
Both Sako and Varos are correct. Having a shop right across the street from her and not going is just plain rude. But if we all show up at once, it could be misconstrued as an aggressive show of force.
“Alright. Some of us will put in some face time. I have a few days to decide who goes. Everyone keep your schedules clear because those who don’t go will have to cover the work here.”
Everyone seems to be in agreement with that and I let it go for the moment. We have almost two weeks to figure it out. In the meantime, it’ll give Varos time to work his social media magic and get more intel on what they can expect.
With that decision, I expect the heavy weight that’s dragging me down to disappear. It doesn’t.
I still feel out of sorts.
Of course, I know what my problem is.
I can’t get Nosko out of my mind. I honestly believed that once I finished his tat, that would be the end of it.
It’s been almost a week since I talked to him and I’m feeling it.
Feeling it bad.
I heard fighting against your fated mate can be difficult. I really thought I could handle it. The ache in my heart is more than an emotional hole. It’s a physical ache that has no definition I can pin down. No definitive place in my body.
It weighs me down. I’m sore and sluggish. Restless sleep and drowsy days.
There’s a lot of shit I can walk off. I pride myself on being solid and stable and letting things roll off my back.
If finding someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, even though it is at the worst time possible, is going to be this much trouble, maybe I should give up dating all together. I don’t need this aggravation.
I don’t want it.
I wish it were that easy.
I do want kids someday. I do want a mate to settle down with.
I do want it to be with Nosko.
I thought following my heart meant putting the shop first.
God, I’m such an idiot.
After my self-revelation of idiothood, I was at least able to clear my thinking, get my head in the game, and get some work done. It’s the height of tourist season in the city with a jazz festival in full swing downtown. A lot of little jobs stream in as clients want to get ink to commemorate some momentous occasions.
A few minors try to sneak in and I let Bronaz handle them. He’s more of a people person than I am.
The shop is jumping and business is looking fine when Sako claps me on the shoulder. “Got someone here to see you,” he whispers to me.
“Tell them I’ll be right up.” I’m almost finished with the ivy vines circling this grandma’s ankle. Considering ankles are a tough place to work on, and the pain is higher on the scale than most other body parts, she’s bearing up nicely until I put the finishing touches on it.
She follows me up to the counter to settle up and get her care instructions when my breath catches in my throat.
Nosko is here. He’s standing at the window looking out and across the street toward Immortal Ink.
Now I’m distracted and I think I repeated myself to the old lady a few times. I’m not positive I charged her right. All of that doesn’t matter.
My dragon is too busy turning circles at seeing Nosko here.
I walk up behind him and our gazes meet in the reflection of the glass. I smile at him. He smiles back, and I honestly can say that’s the best I’ve felt all week.
Hey, he mouths in the reflection.
Hey, I answer.
He turns and tips his head to look up at me, and those lips, those sweet lips, call to me. It takes everything I have to resist taking them in a kiss. “I’m glad to see you,” I say.
“Yeah. Me too.”
The silence is awkward. “So… what’s up? Does your tat need some work?”
Nosko looks down at his arm. “Um, no. It’s fine. It’s healing pretty good. I think.”
“Let’s go in the back and let me have a look at it.” Anything to keep Nosko there.
He follows me as we head back to the storeroom. Once I shut the door, the music softens to a dull thump and we don’t have to talk so loudly to be heard.
“Let me see.” I motion for him to roll up his sleeve.
Seeing the dragon on his forearm stirs up all my feelings again, against my will. The good and the uncomfortable.
When I cradle his arm in my hands, that electric spark is back, as if my body is reminding me. It shoots through my body like lightning, tingling down my limbs and making the hair stand up.
That immediate, unmistakable connection with my fated mate.
I really am an idiot.
Nosko gasps at our connection. “Taran, I need to talk to you.”
Yes. Yes, absolutely we need to talk.
I cut him off. I need to say this before I lose my nerve and fuck things up again. “I’m a dumbass, Nosko. I’m a huge fucking dumbass.”
Nosko laughs suddenly. “Well, yeah, you kind of are.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I shouldn’t have told you that my shop came before my fated mate. I thought my reasons were sound. They made sense to me at the time.” I sag against the door, dragging him along so he leans against me.
Having his body flush to mine is a balm to my soul. My dragon sings.
“I’ve been miserable being separated from you,” Nosko says. He presses his face against my chest. His fingers curl in my shirt. I cradle him close, not wanting to squander this moment.
Does this mean there’s a second chance in the offing? Dare I hope there is?
“I came,” he continues, his voice muffled, “to try to talk to you. Actually to beg you to please give us a try. I’m so pathetic.”
“No. No, you aren’t.” I cup his face so I can look into his incredible eyes. How could I possibly think I could walk away from this incredible man?
Because I’m a dumbass, that’s why. A dumbass who was so wrong.
“You’re the only one who has any sense at all,” I tell him. Closing the distance, I slant my mouth over his and kiss him deeply. Passionately. Putting everything that I am and everything I feel into it.
An apology.
A request for a second chance.
When we part, Nosko sighs and buries his face against my chest again.
“I need to make you mine.”
Nosko’s head jerks up to look at me. “What? Like… what?”
“Like officially.” My fingers touch the spot just behind his ear, where the mark of claiming will go when I claim him as my mate permanently.
Nosko’s fingers touch lightly over mine. “Are you serious?”
That stings just a bit, but I really deserve it. I was the one who let him go to begin with.
A mistake I’m not about to make again. “I am very serious.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll let me claim you officially.”
When Nosko falls quiet, a moment of panic spears through me. Have I screwed this up beyond repair? If he says no…
Well… no is not going to be the answer. I’ll convince him however I have to, to make it happen.
“Yeah,” Nosko says slowly. He looks up at me and the smile he gives me melts my heart. I want him to look at me like that all the time. “Yeah, I want it, too.”
My dragon is doing back flips. My heart is pounding so hard I feel like it’ll rip through my chest. I’m light headed, and want to fly up into the clouds to roar my happiness to the world.
“Good. Good. We’ll… make it happen. Soon. Really soon.”
Soon can’t come fast enough for me.
8
Nosko
I’m a bit dizzy from the complete turnaround in Taran but there is no way I’m going to stop our momentum now. He agrees to come home with me this time, and short of launching out of the back of the gallery in flight form to make a straight line to my place, we hire a car, which will get to us faster than a regular cab.
Taran is in the way, and making it harder to unlock my door. He’s all hands and mouth and teeth. His moans rumble through my body, much to my dragon’s delight. Our first night together was frenetic in a very controlled way. While I couldn’t wait to get him inside me, he was able to stay in complete control the entire time.
Not this time, though. I think I hear stitches rip as he shrugs out of his t-shirt to bare his chest.
Last time I was too focused on getting him in bed. The urgency is still there, but this time I have a little more light to appreciate just how incredible he looks without a shirt on. And the tattoos. It looks like a dragon tail wraps around his chest, ending with the tip circling one pec. It’s colorful, ornate, and very detailed. Very fine work.
Now it’s my turn to slow things down as he growls and grabs at me to make us go faster.
I do a little side step dance to get out of his grip to circle around to his back. The bulk of the dragon is there. It’s a reddish dragon with flashing green eyes and smoke billowing from its nostrils, done in an Asian style of art. Something deep inside tells me that I’m looking right at Taran in his dragon form. “Who did it?” I ask breathlessly as I marvel at the artistry.
“Nyve. We worked on the design for almost a year. Now come here.”
Taran tries to turn around and I swat him back into place. “I’m not done looking.”
There is more art on Taran’s skin and I want to see. Tucked away behind the dragon, off to the side, framing and accenting are the usual suspects of tattoo art. Some glyphs or symbols, a line in script I can’t make out. Daggers and skulls, which even though they’re kind of cliché, are still beautifully done and are right at home on Taran’s body.
I note the back claw of the dragon extends beneath his waist band. “How far does it go down?”
“Take my jeans off and find out.”
My dragon is delighted that Taran is so demanding for me. It feels good to be wanted this much. Having spent most of my life with very few social interactions, it’s a nice reminder that I’m actually desirable. What can I say? I’m just a smidge self-conscious.
When I circle back around, fingers trailing over skin so hot to the touch I feel like I’ll burn up, Taran grabs my wrist. He pulls it up snug behind my back. It’s not painful but it does catch me by surprise. When my mouth opens with a gasp, Taran’s tongue sweeps inside and kisses me.
I melt against him, my body aching to be his again.
He takes us both down to the bed, fighting against me to get my shirt off. He flings it across the room and knocks something off my bureau before he covers me with his body.
He’s tight and hard. The line of his cock presses against my lower abdomen as he looms over me in a pose of possession. “I’m going to knot with you tonight, Nosko. Knot you and claim you as mine. And I’ll keep doing it until the only one who fills your dreams is me.”
Fat chance of anyone else filling my dreams. He doesn’t give me a chance to say that before he’s covered me again, claiming my mouth as I’m stretched and pinned beneath him.
Somewhere along the way we lose our clothing until he’s stretched out gloriously on the bed, urging me to straddle him. “Ride,” he says, and his voice reverberates with amazing command. My body moves to obey before I even have to think about it.
I pull his stiff cock up and straddle him, the blunt head pushing at my muscle ring. He slides in easily, my slick practically making us both wet. My body is so ready to be filled by him I open up to take him in completely. Once his head pops past the muscle, it’s an easy slide down.
My ass presses flush against his thighs. After a few deep breaths, I close my eyes and relax, letting my body do what it needs to do. My thighs scream from the exercise after a while, unused to that level of physical activity.
I’m sweating like crazy and there’s an incredible sheen to Taran’s chest. His gaze stays riveted on where our bodies join. Concentration tenses his neck and the muscles in his jaws start to flex. “God, Nosko…” Tilting his head back with his eyes closed, he grunts softly as I move as quickly as I can over him.
He’s lost somewhere in the physical sensations. It’s so easy to do when not having to do all the work. I have to fight just to keep moving.
Taran’s eyes pop open and with a snort, he sits up, arm wrapping around my waist before he takes me down to the bed in a breathtaking show of strength. His cock never slips out of me.
Pushing my legs up, he pounds into me. Now, his amazing hazel gaze is locked with mine and his body is a blur of motion. I’m climbing quickly as the rush of my orgasm starts as a tingle at the soles of my feet.
Lightning fast, it climbs up my legs to settle heavily between them. I need to touch myself. Before I can, Taran balances on one hand and starts to stroke me along with this punishing rhythm.
That last bit is all I need. My fingers clamp over his shoulders and I arch from the bed. With my head back, Taran’s mouth closes over that point on my neck, slightly higher than my pulse point and near the jaw.
His teeth bite down and a delirious sensation swamps my senses. I can’t tell if he’s broken skin. I’ve never been marked and claimed before but it’s like I’m caught in a snare. My body won’t move. The claiming has me frozen.
His hips punch in sharp staccato motions as he latches
and holds to my throat. A wild growl winds its way out of him. It’s unlike anything I’ve heard before.
It’s an ancient sound, a sound of possession.
Of claiming.
Taran jerks one final time and I feel his knot slip past my muscle ring to bury inside. It swells up to fill me like I’ve never felt before.
One final shake of his head and he exhales slowly. I can feel him empty into me. My whole body feels the throb and pulse of his cock as he fills me with his seed.
He releases my legs and relaxes over me, his forehead resting against my shoulder. His hot breath pants against my chest. “Shit,” he says after a moment. “I should have planned this better.”
I start to laugh, the sound half-crazed in my own head. “Planned it better?”
“Knotting with you. It’s more comfortable if I do it from the back. You’re stuck with me on top of you until it goes down.”
I wrap my arms around him, cradling the back of his head with my hands. “I’m fine right where I am.”
The first time we had sex, I knew we had a connection.
With his knot stuffed inside me, I know we are complete.
I call out sick the next day. There’s no way I’m going to let him out of my sight now. We have so much to talk about and there’s so little daylight to do it in. After another sweaty session of sex, he knots with me correctly (or so he says) and we talk about plans for the day.
Lunch at a great pub down in the business district, then over to a new art museum.
The Joseph T. Richter Museum of Contemporary Art has an exhibition called Territorial Markings: Musings from the Wilds. The artist goes by one name, Boehme. She’s a legend in the shifter community, mainly due to her ability to move so freely among humans without alerting them to her true nature.
“But she still has a style that shifters can easily gravitate toward,” Taran whispers as he reads from the program. We are sitting on a bench in front of one canvas. It stretches nine feet high by thirteen feet across.
Alpha Dragon_Taran Page 6