Fires in the Darkness

by Nora Ash

  The sight of her full tits bouncing for each downward slope made him decide on some sort of a compromise.

  Eliath pushed himself up into a seated position, leaning on one arm so he could wrap the other around her back and pull her close. He bent his head and caught a nipple between his lips, and then started moving his pelvis in rhythm with hers, meeting her every downward movement with an upward thrust of his own.

  Kathryn gasped at the added friction, which only encouraged him to pound into her harder. Her gasps quickly turned to cries, and when her fingernails dug into his shoulders, drawing blood, he lost the final vestiges of his self-control. Eliath rolled her over onto her back and raised up over her writhing body on his hands so he could finally fuck her as hard as his instincts demanded. From the way her tight sheath spasmed for every thrust, he knew she would soon reach her climax even without having her clit stimulated, but he shifted his weight onto one hand and moved the other down to her small pearl, nonetheless. Nothing felt better on his cock than when his Kitten came from his dual assault on her frantic little pussy.

  “Fuck! Eliath!” Kathryn’s entire body seized in a tight arch underneath him.

  Eliath growled in response. Her pussy milked him hard and relentlessly, bringing his own climax on in a torrent of unbearable ecstasy. He slammed in one more time, pressing his flared cockhead so deep his cock found heaven as the first spurt of his release flooded into her.

  There was nothing but her, nothing but the pleasure wracking through his very being from where they were connected. Mindlessly, he moved in her a few more times until all he had and all he was was spent inside of her.

  Eliath collapsed on top of Kathryn, only barely remembering to catch himself so he didn’t flatten her with his much greater body mass. Little bursts of electricity crawled along his skin, rendering him as vulnerable as a newborn lamb. How did she do that? Sex was not meant to be such a near-fucking-spiritual experience, he was sure of it. That, or he had been doing it wrong for most of his life.

  “I love you.”

  The quiet whisper from underneath him made his orgasm-blissed brain snap back into focus so instantly it almost hurt. Surprised, he turned his head to look at Kathryn’s pretty face. It was flushed and sweaty with exertion as expected, but she was also staring at him with an odd mix of exhilaration and fear, where normally, she’d be too high on her orgasm to look anything but content. Yup, he’d heard right.

  “I love you, too.”

  Perhaps he should have spent some time angsting over whether or not what he felt for her was anything more than primal magic forcing them together, as Mirome claimed, but as he looked into her eyes, the words came of their own accord. And he knew them to be true—as true as anything in his life had ever been. He loved her, with all that he was, because she was his soulmate. Simple as that.

  That’s why, when her face contorted in pain and she began crying against his shoulder, he knew that their love would never be whole again without the other third of their unity.

  Yes, he loved her with every fiber of his being, because as he held her close to soothe her heartache, he knew without a doubt he would do anything in his power to return Lightning to them. Even betray everything his race had held sacred for millennia.

  Six

  Kathryn

  I was thankful that Eliath didn’t just get up the second I started bawling like a baby.

  What a way to react to hearing what I’d been so desperate to hear, even if I’d spent a good amount of time in complete denial. He loved me too. Eliath loved me, like I loved him. It was time to put on my big-girl panties and honor Lightning’s sacrifice.

  I did my best to wipe away my tears and swallow down the sobs that kept pressing against the inside of my chest like hot, aching bubbles of despair. “We should really get going, Eliath. If Bright’s plan is unfolding at dawn, we need to get out now, get as far away as possible before it happens.”

  He looked down at me for a moment, and I could practically see the calculations behind his glowing, blue eyes. He was up to something.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

  Carefully, so my body had time to adjust, Eliath raised up off me and pulled out, grunting when his softened cock slipped from my swollen pussy. I cringed at the sensation of his semen rushing out from the deepest part of my channel and silently thanked the Lord that I’d been smart enough to get on birth control early on. Somehow, I had an idea that superhumans also had super-strong sperm, if my reaction to a mouthful of Lightning’s was anything to go by.

  “You don’t know what will happen if Wilkins truly succeeds in giving back his followers their dragon form, Kitten,” he said as he slumped down on the bed and rolled over so he could look at me, one hand propping up his head. “In ancient times, we ruled the human territories we conquered without mercy. No weaponry could stand against our power, and we were … less human than we are today. Less compassionate. If Wilkins succeeds, not only will the entire population of St. Anthony be slaves—he and his followers will be merciless. They will kill, torture, and rape for sport, and no one will be able to stop them.”

  Guilt swept over me at the thought of what would happen to all the people in the city—my city—if no one stopped Bright. But what could we do? We had tried to stop him, and we had lost.

  “Why did your ancestors ever give up your dragon forms in the first place?” I asked. “If you were so much more powerful as dragons?”

  “We were very few, back then. Maybe a dozen, and very territorial. They got bored of their self-imposed solitude and started to take on the guise of human flesh to be able to walk among them. Some started to get involved in human politics, pulling on strings behind the curtain and playing with mighty rulers as if they were puppets,” Eliath said, distractedly drawing circles with a finger on my naked hip as he explained.

  “I see that’s nothing new, then,” I muttered. “How did you end up stuck in human form, then?”

  Eliath sighed. “Hubris, of course. They got too careless, believing themselves all-powerful, taking risks where they shouldn’t have. And then, one day, the humans realized that their highest posts had been infiltrated, and killed one of our oldest ancestors in his human form. Up until then, no one knew how vulnerable the human disguise was. The humans captured the Queen of Dragons before she could shift and forced her to perform a spell that ensured no dragon could ever return to their natural form.

  “It’s one of the stories we all learn at our mother’s teat—where we come from and how we lost it. And I believe that’s why Bright has been able to overthrow all our customs and laws—most of us yearn for our ancestral power, as we were taught to do, not realizing that the world has changed so much since then. We are far too many to share the world like our ancestors did, and the humans have had millennia to forget that they have not always been the master race. It will turn into war and destruction, and more than likely, the whole planet will burn.”

  “Well, look at The Big, Bad Shade being Mr. Rational,” I said. “There was a time I would have thought you’d be in front of the line to gain that sort of power.”

  Eliath gave me a ghost of a smile. “Perhaps. I was quite content ruling the business world by day, and the banks by night, though. And now… now, there’s you. It’s one of the tales that seems to have been kept hidden—how our ancestors intermingled with humans and spread their genes. Only the Secret Keeper knows that every once in a while, a human and a dragonborn are connected by their very souls, allowing for a union.” He lifted his hand from my hip and touched my face gently. The smolder in his eyes made my heart flutter and my abdomen clench wantonly, despite still being a bit sore from our recent activities.

  “What, exactly, is a Secret Keeper?” I asked in an attempt at distracting my lower region. Now was not the time for an encore.

  “There is only one at any time. It is the one who carries all our secrets, all our old tales and history, in their mind. Once they are killed, he or she who kills the old
Secret Keeper will take over the mantle. As I understand it, the old Keeper’s knowledge will transfer at the moment of death, bestowing it onto the new host. What they then choose to do with it is up to them. Some have kept their status hidden, some have come forward to help govern our path and shape our society. Mirome is the current Secret Keeper—my best guess, he’s the one who has convinced Bright that there is a way to regain our dragon form. But at least he also did something good. He’s the one who told us about human mates… though he failed to understand the true meaning of what’s between you and I, and Lightning. He called it breeding instincts, purely based on the need for our magic to spread, but that’s because he didn’t understand—couldn’t understand—what meeting your true mate is like.

  “Kathryn… you are my soul. And you are Lightning’s soul. It is that simple. Which means that, without him, we won’t be complete. Ever.”

  My lower lip trembled at his words, and I had to bite it not to start crying again—because, in the deepest part of my being, I knew he was right. I didn’t understand dragon magic, or what made people soulmates, but I knew that Lightning and The Shade—Nick and Eliath—were two of the three parts my very foundation was made up of.

  Not that it changed the cold, hard facts.

  I set my jaw and blinked the moisture out of my eyes.

  “Lightning gave his life for us, Eliath. His life. The only thing worse than losing him would be if we didn’t honor his sacrifice. We have to try to make a life for ourselves, and to do that, we need to leave St. Anthony—right now.”

  Eliath leaned over and placed a kiss on my lips. It was warm and comforting, but chaste. Without moving his head back more than a millimeter so he could lock his eyes in mine, he asked, “Do you really think I would accept that my soulmate will never be truly happy? You need Lightning. And, though I don’t share your sentimental attachment to the wretched people in this city, I know the slaughter of them would haunt you for an eternity, what with that annoying ‘good soul’ flaw you seem to have been burdened with. I’m not going to allow you a lifetime of sorrow, Kathryn. I can’t. Which means I’ll stay. And fight.”

  As much as his love shone through every word, and everything in me desperately wanted to cling to the promise and conviction in his voice, I shook my head. “You can’t. I can’t lose you too. I won’t.”

  “Kathryn.” Eliath stroked my cheek and tipped my chin up when I tried to look away. “I am not what you’d call a ‘noble soul’. I’m not saying this to go and martyr myself in some battle for the greater good of humankind. And, frankly, I don’t much care for Lightning. I’d be perfectly happy with leaving this rotten city behind, take you somewhere far, far away where Bright and his followers will never come, and stay there and make lots of babies with you until the end of our days. And, if you tell me you believe you can ever be truly happy knowing that the city went up in smoke and your other soulmate is dead, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

  “So tell me, my Kitten… can you?”

  Perhaps in another state of mind, the “lots of babies” part would have warranted a comment or two, but at that point, all I could do was shake my head as my tears finally won the battle over my willpower.

  “Then that’s settled,” Eliath said. He kissed my forehead and then rolled over and climbed out of bed.

  I watched him pull on his clothes, for once not hypnotized by the flexing of his hard stacks of muscles. “But how? There are no superhumans left in the city who will stand against Bright, and you said yourself that getting help from other enclaves in time was impossible.”

  Eliath’s mouth set in a grim line as he pulled on his mask, once again looking like the villain who had first claimed me. “No. There are no supes left. But there are others in this city who would fight against Bright, if they knew what he’s got planned.”

  Seven

  Kathryn

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked. “Maybe I should go in alone.”

  Eliath rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure, Kitten. You think the Chief of Police would believe some random girl walking in off the street? It has to be me.”

  “It’s not like you got the most trustworthy of reputations,” I muttered as he grabbed me around the waist.

  Eliath ignored me. The now familiar sensation of a pull by my navel made me clench my teeth, and then the world fell in on itself.

  We appeared with a crack in the middle of an office. I bent double to dry-heave until the bout of nausea eased, so I missed the Chief of Police’s initial reaction to our unexpected arrival.

  I didn’t miss the metallic click of a gun being cocked.

  Slowly, I straightened up with both hands in the air, but the man on the other side of the worn desk didn’t even look at me. His eyes were glued to my large companion, lips pulled back from his teeth in what could have been anger, but the trembling of his hands as he clutched his weapon gave away his fear.

  “I don’t know what you want, Shade, but you just made a grave mistake.”

  Eliath sighed, deeply and rather provokingly, considering he had a loaded gun pointed straight at his chest. “You and I both know you can’t fire that thing before I’ve snapped your wrist.” His eyes narrowed a fraction as the chief’s lips opened halfway. “Don’t be stupid. If you call on anyone, I’m just going to have to bring you somewhere more private—perhaps the top of the City Bank? You and I do have a lot of history with that building, after all. Put down your weapon and sit down, Chief. I’m only here to talk.”

  The chief didn’t look like he appreciated being told to sit down in his own office, but he obeyed nonetheless, after clearly weighing the truth of the villain’s words. He sat down on his chair, his entire posture so rigid I imagined he’d need a serious massage after this visit. The glare he leveled at Eliath could have made lesser men wither on the spot.

  “I’m here because the city is in danger,” Eliath began, casually taking a seat in front of the chief’s desk without having been invited. “And I realize you’re now planning on spending a good half hour telling me why you have no reason to trust my word for anything, probably spiced up with a few choice profanities and insults. We don’t have that kind of time, I’m afraid, so let’s just fast-forward to where you tell me what will make you believe me, so we can save this wretched city from the biggest fucking catastrophe it will ever face, before time’s up and everyone’s either dead or enslaved.”

  The Chief opened and closed his mouth a few times, and I silently cringed at Eliath’s disrespect. He hadn’t even bothered to tell the man what was happening.

  “Sir, many of the superhumans have organized, with Bright leading them. They are planning on taking over the city and enslaving all of us.” I stepped forward from my spot halfway behind Eliath to get the chief’s attention, though I didn’t have the gall to sit down in the last empty chair without an invitation. When his eyes flickered from Eliath’s masked face to me, I continued. “It’s not a joke, sir. It’s happening tonight, and if we don’t do something, the entire city will be lost.”

  The chief frowned at me. “And let’s say for a moment that I believe you, and this ‘thing’ is actually happening. How did you two come about this information? And who, exactly, are you, miss?”

  “My name is Kathryn Smith, and I’m a bl—a freelance journalist. I’ve been investigating corruption in the mayor’s office for several weeks now, and that’s how I came across this.” I cleared my throat when the chief gave me a questioning look before glancing at the villain. “Yes, well… that’s how I met The Shade, too. He was looking into Bright’s operations and our trails crossed.”

  I realized that, to the rest of the world, the man who called himself my soulmate maintained a reputation as a ruthless killer, and knew I had to add a bit of drama to my explanation if I wanted any chance of the Chief to believe me.

  “When he saw what I’d uncovered and that I could be useful, he decided I could be useful. So I’ve been working with… uh, for him since, in an e
ffort to uncover what was happening. Sir, we found out that Bright and Mayor Wilkins are one and the same.”

  “And, as I said, he’s planning on quite literally killing or enslaving every single human in this city within the next few hours, so could we please skip to the part where you tell me what will need to happen for you to round up your officers and help me stop him?” Eliath interrupted. “Because if we don’t get moving soon, it’ll be too late.”

  “How about proof?” The chief raised both eyebrows at the clearly agitated villain across his desk. “At this point, all I have is some unknown girl and the city’s most wanted criminal making wild accusations. Forgive me if I’m not jumping at the chance to send my officers on a wild goose chase around town just on your word, Shade.”

  “Funny thing,” Eliath growled. His agitation with not being immediately obeyed was clearly mounting. “When supervillains infiltrate your local government with plans to overthrow it, they rarely leave much proof behind until after it’s done. But you want proof I’m not lying? Fine. Then let me give you the one thing I know you’ve been salivating for for the past decade, Chief.”

  Eliath’s hands went to his face, but it wasn’t until I saw him nimbly grasp his mask that I realized what he was doing.

  He was ruining any chance of a life among humans—and probably throwing away his staggering fortune.

  With a careless flick of his wrist, Eliath tossed his mask on the desk in front of him and looked at the stunned chief, eyebrows raised in challenge. “Ready to listen now?”

  “I’ll be damned.” The Chief of Police stared at him, as if Eliath might vanish into thin air if he blinked. “Elias Shaw. Damn, that’s...”

  Eliath just stared back at him, waiting for him to process what I couldn’t argue was quite a shock, having been on the receiving end of it myself.