Despite his sense of urgency, Hugo forced himself to hang well back, even after he saw the motor yacht that Landor was heading towards. He could pick out men moving on the decks. At least three. And possibly more in the wheelhouse and cabins.
Ahead of him Landor was slowing. He was probably tired from having to support Leah's weight with his forelimbs. Hugo found himself praying that Landor would not drop her in the sea where she would be prey for sharks. Especially if she was wounded by her captor's talons.
The weary dragon flew low over the pleasure craft. He hovered over the deck and hands reached up for his captive and carried her below deck, while with a piercing cry of triumph Landor circled away. Hugo plunged headfirst into the sea and waited half-submerged to see what his enemy would do.
Maximilian landed on the water and resumed his human form. His companions steadied a ladder at the stern and he climbed aboard. He followed his men below decks. Hugo watched but he did not re-emerge. The yacht, however, hauled anchor and took off at speed, bow lifted high out of the waves.
Time to take to the air again. It was more difficult to get airborne from the water when it was too deep for him to reach the ocean floor, but he had done it many times and knew the trick. He used his powerful hind limbs and tail to propel himself erect so he could raise his wings out of the water. He flapped hard and waited for the ever present wind to catch them like sails.
When the gust came that filled them, he let it hoist his body horizontal while his tail extended behind at full length like the powerful rudder it was. He flapped harder and the wind failed. He belly flopped into the sea. Ah, well, it had been too much to hope that he would get it exactly right the first time.
In fact it took three tries before he was speeding after Landor's yacht. The vessel had slacked its speed, and he and his men were fishing—or pretending to. And drinking. Ye gods. Could any dragon be so stupid? There was no sign of Leah. He counted five men now including Landor, and surely there was a skipper also. However, these fools had no thought of pursuit, for they were still not keeping watch.
Even if they had been looking, he doubted that with the eyes of men they would have seen a dragon lord glittering in his wrath. Against the tropical sky he was probably invisible to mortal eyes. The day grew hotter and the men went below decks to escape the relentless sun. This was his chance.
Hugo flew down into the sea and swam to the stern of the vessel. He clutched the ladder with his forepaws and let the ship carry him along while he laid his plans.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It took some doing but Leah managed to roll herself off the bunk onto the floor. To her hypersensitive ears she had made a great thumping racket. But no one came to check on her. She had banged her cheek and it was sore but she had done it. She might hurt worse now, but at least she was now lying on her front.
She only hoped that she could take dragon in this small space. And that whatever she was tied with—it felt like nylon rope, would break as easily as her strand of pearls had. She pushed herself up inch by painful inch until she was kneeling. At last she let her dragon morph.
It felt as if her arms were being wrenched out of their sockets. The sensation of violent stretching and pummeling intensified. Smoke puffed out of her nostrils as she stifled her shrieks of pain. The ropes snapped—first around her hind legs, and then around her forepaws. Her wings sprang free.
She was almost too big for the small floor space. Her tail was underneath the bunk. Her snout was at the door. She was forced to crouch in the small area. Joyfully she realized that her ring was still in place. And most pleasingly of all, it was lit from within by fire.
Hugo was nearby!
Leah eyed the door assessingly. Could she break it down? Or should she wait until someone came to check on her. The handle did not budge when she rested her weight on it. And when she pressed her shoulder into the door it rocked but held. She had to think about this some more.
* * *
Landor came out on the second tier deck. He was dressed jauntily in white ducks and a navy blazer. Just a rich guy out for a boat ride. With a roar Hugo launched himself upward and landed on the railings breathing fire.
Landor and his companion were slow to shift. Hugo's blast of fire caught them midway through their change. Landor's foot soldier screamed in terror and dove into the sea to extinguish his blazing clothes. Landor continued with his change and hurled himself at Hugo.
Hugo slashed at him with the claws of one great hind leg and blood dripped from Landor's pale brown underparts. He shrieked with rage and flew straight up, with Hugo in hot pursuit. Landor circled and dove down—he obviously intended to take Hugo from above. But he had lost his target. Hugo was behind him rather than beneath.
Hugo seized Landor's tail in his huge jaws and bit down hard enough to pierce his enemy's armored scales. He twisted his huge snout sideways and shook his captive like a great dog with a rabbit. Landor swung from Hugo's jaws like a rag doll. Hugo let go and Prince Maximilian floundered in the air trying to regain his balance.
Hugo floated away on angled wings. Landor righted himself and flew after his enemy. He lunged with the last of his strength and brought his tail around in a last desperate flick. The black tail dart made contact. It pierced Hugo in the vulnerable fold where forearm met ribcage. Pain hotter than fire, and sharper than knives shot through Hugo's entire body. The little skyworm had poisoned him.
With a cry that promised vengeance, Hugo swept round in a rush of wings and talons. He jumped Landor from behind and knocked him into the sea. Leaving his enemy to sink or swim, Hugo made for the yacht. He was poisoned and dying, but before he left this earth he must rescue his mate.
The yacht was on fire. Smoke billowed from below decks. Frantic sailors were rushing about chaotically. A beautiful golden dragon with dazzling scales swept the decks with her powerful tail knocking feet from under men. Her breath scorched those who ventured too close.
Behind her a small dragon slowly took form and attempted to confront this enraged Amazon. With a battle cry his brave dragoness launched herself at Landor's hench-dragon and laid his throat open. Hugo's eyes were blurring now, his strength was going. He lay down on the deck too weak to move.
Leah turned back to Hugo. He was taking human. His skin was now as pale as death and blood gushed from his armpit. His golden eyes were closed.
“Come on,” she urged him. A harsh scream emerged from her dragon's throat. He couldn't die. Hadn't she known he would leave her? Everyone always left her.
He was going to die here on the deck of this sinking ship. Leah’s heart felt like lead in her chest. Why hadn’t she realized that this dragon lord was half her soul?
She nuzzled him with her snout and tears flowed out of her dragon's eyes to stream wetly on her lover. “Rouse yourself,” she urged her mate silently as her tears soaked his torso. “Don’t leave me,” she begged him.
Above her a helicopter beat the air with violent strokes. Louder than the throb of the rotor and engine, she heard gunfire blazing. She spread her wings over Hugo's naked and defenseless body and turned her head protectively to offer challenge.
She had no opponent. The dragon she had wounded had returned to human and he lay huddled like a sack of skin. She spared him no thought. Her mate was dying.
A strong arm pushed at her left wing and Hugo's voice spoke low. “Let me up, darling.”
She nearly sent him flying in her haste to look at him. Hugo was sitting up. He looked pale and weak, but he was alive. He put his right hand under his left arm where a gash like a knife wound was covered with clotted blood.
He touched her snout tenderly with his left hand. “Fly home, Beloved” he said. “I'll have to take the chopper.”
Holden had thrown out a ladder and it dangled above the third deck. Leah watched as Hugo climbed slowly and carefully up to the second deck, and then to the third. He grabbed the swaying ladder and began his painful ascent as the helicopter started to move away.
&n
bsp; Leah launched herself into the air. She had not flown in the daytime before. Perhaps she never would again. She circled around the yacht as she let the wind lift her high. Men were struggling in the water. The boat was crippled and listed to starboard.
She set her course for Isle Balaur and Hugo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Hugo woke from a dream in which Landor clutched his mate with terrible claws. He reached for Leah. She wasn't there. His dread was instant. He sprang from his bed flooded with adrenaline. Leah came out of his bathroom wrapped in his navy robe. She had rolled the sleeves up but they were still too long. The hem brushed the floor.
“Did I wake you?” she asked apologetically.
“I don't know,” he admitted hoarsely. “I thought you were gone again.”
“Just to the bathroom.”
“Too damned far,” he growled hauling her against himself and slipping his hands inside the silky robe. He kissed her fiercely.
Leah could feel how hard his heart was beating. Her poor dragon was drenched with sweat. He really had been worried to wake up alone. She returned his kiss just as fiercely. She wanted to celebrate his being alive as much as she wanted to make love.
“I thought you were dying,” she said angrily.
“I was.”
She looked at him. His hard face was perfectly serious.
“If not for you, my dearest treasure, I would have died with Landor's poison running through my veins.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“When Landor stuck me with his tail dart he pumped me full of venom. Lethal venom. The only known cure for dragon venom is tears of love. Dragon tears. You saved my life when you wept over me.”
He picked her up and held her so she looked down at him. “You love me.” He spun in a circle still holding her above him. Reckless in his joy. “You will always love me. Will you admit now that you are my destined bride?”
Leah nodded. “I thought you were going to leave me like Mom and Dad, and Poppy and Grammy,” she whispered brokenly.
“Not willingly, my darling. Never willingly. I am your bonded mate while my heart beats and life lasts. Believe that I will love you while I still have breath to move my lungs.”
Leah cupped his face with her hands. “I believe,” she said. “Should you be holding me like this when you were wounded only yesterday?”
Hugo tossed her and caught her in his huge hands. “Loving you makes me stronger every hour,” he declared. “Now I could eat a horse, and then we must debrief Holden.” He set Leah down reluctantly.
“I spoke to him after we put you to bed. When he found the place where Landor took dragon and carried me off, he went for the helicopter and followed you.”
“I wondered how he had managed to appear just as I needed him,” Hugo said.
“He hung back out of earshot, until he saw the smoke from the yacht. He figured he was needed then and brought the chopper over the yacht. He got you back here before I made shore. And he sent the coast guard out to rescue the vessel.”
“Did you set Landor's boat on fire?” Hugo asked.
“I did. I thought that if they had a fire to deal with at the same time we were escaping, that they would be too busy to give chase. Only it took me a long time to get out of the cabin they had locked me into. I tried kicking at the door but I was too cramped to have much power.
“You knew I was there?” he asked.
“I knew you would come. And my ring lit up so I knew you were nearby.”
He nodded gravely. “It is a ring of great power. It amplified your aura so I could follow you even when you were unconscious.” He stroked her cheek. “How did you escape?”
“Landor had tied me up and when I woke I couldn't move. Eventually I realized that I could turn and break the ropes. When I couldn't kick the door open, I melted the lock. The door just popped open once the metal got malleable. But by the time I got on deck, you were already hurt,” she said.
“Fortunately, my treasure wept all over my wound and saved my life.” Hugo kissed her hand. “You do know what it means when you save a life?”
“No. What?”
“That you are forever responsible for the person you saved.”
“Well, bless your heart.”
* * *
Her dragon was lying on his stomach fast asleep beside her, although the sun was high and light glimmered through the shutters. Poor thing, Leah thought, admiring his long legs. He’s still tuckered out from his wounds. He needs his rest. Why, the poor lamb must be exhausted.
Hugo's body was heavy with hard muscle and solid bone. The deep furrow of his spine divided his back into two slabs of sculpted golden muscle which tapered down to two hollows just above his golden buns. They were perfect globes bulging with muscle. Leah's' fingers itched to touch the golden skin and test the suppleness of his sleeping body.
Despite the terrors of yesterday, and their adventure, she was feeling wonderful this morning. Hugo was alive and so was she. And she was tired of waiting for him to wake up.
His muscular arms clutched his pillow and she could see that already the hideous gash of yesterday had completely closed and was already fading to pink. She touched his scar gently and wonderingly. Thank goodness dragons healed fast.
Hugo woke to the feel of butterfly kisses on his ass. His morning erection, always fierce, felt excruciating today. He lifted his body away from the mattress to give his scimitar some room to spring free. Above him Leah's soft giggle accompanied her vigorous kneading of his nether cheeks. Her fingers crept between his thighs to find his balls and pet them lightly.
“Come up on your knees,” she directed him curtly.
It was a strangely vulnerable position to be in. To kneel with his face turned into the pillows while she played with his favorite jewels. She had his hard dick in the gentle grip of one soft hand and was rubbing it from base to tip, while her other hand tickled his scrotum and lightly plucked at the fine hair there. His balls tightened even more.
“Be careful, Beloved,” he growled. “This will be over all too soon if you do not have a care!”
“Perhaps I don't care,” she teased. She squeezed his cock a little harder before pulling her hands away.
He turned so quickly she didn't have time to move. Her bed-tangled hair was a soft, golden nimbus around her surprised face. She looked angelic and spicy at the same time and she made his already rampant sex even harder.
“Do you want to play, my darling?” he asked, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her astride one massive thigh so that she faced his kneecap.
Leah clutched at him to keep her balance. But Hugo had no intention of letting her go. He moved his hands to her swelling bottom and used her round cheeks to urge her to ride him. He spread the delicate folds of her wet sex so that her hidden nub would glide along his sleek thigh.
Leah gasped and her thighs gripped him as if he were a steed and she his rider indeed. She was surprised to have the friction of his smooth golden skin rubbing her pussy so effectively. Pure pleasure shot through her with every electrifying movement. Hugo's long fingers teased the feathery fringe that marked the cleft between her round high cheeks.
She spasmed wetly against his mighty thigh. Hugo lifted her effortlessly and flipped her in the air. She landed on his rock hard abs and sat there with her rose petals wide open on his belly. He sat up so they could kiss, his red mouth taking hers and stealing her breath, while she slid down onto his thicket.
His hands were busy, now stroking the underside of a breast, now caressing her shoulders, and then patting her delta. She could feel herself oozing her juices onto his pubes. His cock was a broad long pole pressing hard between her buttocks.
It was too much. She lifted herself and grabbed him and let herself glide down over his cock to soothe her inner ache. She put her feet flat on the bed and rode him in earnest. His hands grabbed her hips and he pulled and tugged at the flesh there as if he would wring his orgasm from her.
&
nbsp; But she was having too much fun to rush this experience. She had read about being on top, but this was her first time and she intended to enjoy it. It took a bit of doing to get her rhythm, but at last she had a cadence that suited her. Each lift and fall tugged gently at the hood of her clit and sent ripples of pleasure through her buttocks and deep into her core.
Everything within her wound tighter and tighter. Her vision blurred. She hardly knew when Hugo lost his calm and began to buck in time to her canter. She came, falling forward into his waiting arms while his purple headed spear flooded her with potent shifter seed.
Hugo held his bride against his sweat soaked chest. He felt wrung dry. Used up. He had created a monster and his troubles were about to be multiplied. Leah loved him and he was going to sire the greatest dragons of all time. He fell into a contented doze with his bride held close.
A short time later Leah roused. She nuzzled Hugo's chin until he woke up.
“Hmm,” he said sleepily.
“Did I mention that I will marry you?”
“No, Beloved, you did not. Thank you. Now can I go back to sleep?”
“Not until you show me how much you love me.”
Oh, yes, he had indeed created an insatiable monster.
<<<<>>>>
BEAR NECESSITIES
BOOK ONE
BEAR FURSUITS
by
ISADORA MONTROSE
CHAPTER ONE
October, three years earlier...
HANNAH METCALFE GOT OUT of the cab. She opened her umbrella in one smooth move, like the experienced Seattleite she was, and stepped briskly over the puddles on the sidewalk, being careful not to get her new chocolate brown suede t-straps any wetter than necessary. She made the overhang and closed her umbrella.
In the tiny vestibule of the restaurant she looked around in surprise. The place was totally unlike Charlie’s usual picks. Charlie liked sleek, upscale glass-and-chrome bistros. This place was cozy. It had been decorated in dark wood, with a palette of warm gold and rich terracotta with a little forest green. And it really was more of a bar.
Dragon's Treasure (BBW/Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 1) Page 17