by Molly Harper
“I don’t know, it feels pretty good to me.” He pushed her back. The metal slid against her skin, cushioning her, moving with her. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, just strange, definitely unlike the soft mattresses she was used to.
“That entendre was beneath you, Sheriff.”
“I’ve got something better beneath me,” he grumbled into her skin.
She laughed. Just as he hitched her feet to balance on his thighs, the outlines of his wings grew from his back, rising as a pair of green-and-gold-scaled wings. She watched in wide-eyed wonder as those wings expanded over them, curling around them both in a protective canopy. She tried not to be distracted by the dance of color on his scales, but it was impossible. How was she supposed to concentrate on his lovely, drugging kisses when she was this close to a dragon? Or halfway to a dragon, at least.
His fingers, long and slim, slipped between thighs already dewed with anticipation. He touched her, circling the most sensitive part of her with his thumb and she gasped, throwing her head back against the gold. She rolled her hips to meet his fingertips, and the tinkling of falling coins sounded like music.
He played her, stroking and teasing, and when she finally slid his pants down his thighs, she saw why he was spending so much time preparing her. She wondered if this was typical of all dragon shifters or if Bael was just gifted. Because if women knew about dragon proportionality, the werewolf romance novel market would be completely bankrupt.
Also, she may have grabbed it in her enthusiasm.
It had been a while.
Bael gasped as her fingers wrapped around his length, gripping it tight. Her hand was slick with sweat as she let it slip through her fingers experimentally. He dragged his lips down the column of her neck, before carefully scraping his fangs over the curve of her breast. She shrieked and threw her arms around his shoulders. He thrust deep and she arched back against the coins.
His forehead was pressed against hers and he paused, giving her time to adjust. Her feet slid along his sides, locking around his hips. She took a deep breath and undulated her hips, biting her lip to keep the frantic, embarrassing sounds from escaping. Already, she could feel the pressure building inside of her in a spiraling coil of pleasure.
Now that she’d started moving, he was plunging against her in earnest. His skin was growing warmer and warmer and the outlines of the wings against his back blurred. She was sweating under his heat, their skin slipping against each other as they moved. His tongue traced the line of her jaw while his fingers threaded through her hair.
Her fingertips explored his back, caressing the smooth, glassy scales where his wings joined to his shoulders. He froze, his eyes flashing molten gold and rolling back in his head. She stroked the extension of his wings again, and he trembled, groaning into her throat.
She could feel his elongated claws scraping against her sides as his hips pistoned against her. That was going to leave a mark. Not that she cared, because every nerve in her body was firing at once, barreling toward the edge of pleasure. Tension so strong it almost hurt twisted inside of her, and expanded then contracted. She screamed, her body squeezing him tight as his movements became frantic.
Sweat cooling on her skin, she stroked her hands over his shoulders as he reared up, wings outstretched, and roared. It felt like a wildfire sweeping through her womb. She screamed in shock and he dropped over her, clutching her to him. His claws dug even deeper into her skin and she relished the tiny bit of pain to distract her from the heat inside her.
“I’m OK,” she panted, running her fingers over his scalp. “I’m OK.”
His wings remained curled around them as he hovered over her. Still breathing heavily, he nudged his nose against her jaw, kissing the curve of it, her cheek, her nose, her eyelids. She inhaled the smoky scent of him, gently butting her head again his chin.
Slipping out of her with a moan, he dropped down beside her, holding her to his chest. His wings slowly shrank down to a manageable size. She swallowed thickly, reaching for the backpack she’d dropped close by. She dragged out a bottle of water and drained half of it, then offered the bottle to Bael. “So your cousin Balfour is a bit of a prick isn’t he?”
He snorted, spitting the water onto a nearby gold statuette of the goddess Bast. “I don’t really think I want to talk about Balfour right now.”
“I only thought of it because of him yelling to call when you were done with me. Even if you’re done with me, please don’t call him.”
“I’m not done with you.” Bael growled and kissed her, hard. “And I wouldn’t dare.”
“Thank you.”
“Balfour’s always been an asshole, ever since we were kids. He takes after my uncle Balthazar, who hated my father with a Biblical passion. And now, Balfour’s trying to prove that I’m not dragon enough to inherit my portion of my grandfather’s hoard.”
“Why would he say that?” she asked.
“My mother was human. I was the only hatchling to survive their clutch. Balfour says that between my mother’s dirty blood and the fact that my parents died relatively young before parenting me properly, I am cursed and will only bring bad luck to the family gold.”
She scooped up a handful of coins and let them drop through her fingers. “The funny thing is that most people, when they talk about cursed treasure, they mean the treasure brings a curse on the person.”
“Well, when your culture is focused on passing that gold down to your family, you worry a lot more about putting bad luck on the gold,” Bael told her.
“Is inheriting your grandfather’s gold important to you?”
“Yes, and not just because I’m greedy or that I want to add to my hoard. But because my father wanted me to inherit his share. He was a good man, a better dragon. He was honorable. I would see his wishes respected,” he said.
Jillian rubbed her fingers over his shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear about your family.”
“I was twenty-three when they died.”
“That’s not considered fully parented?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Dragons have so much information to impart to their children that a dragon isn’t considered fully raised until he’s at least thirty. It’s not unreasonable, considering our long life spans.”
“How long do you live?” she asked.
“Not important.”
Jillian’s voice rose slightly. “How old are you now?”
“Eighty or so.”
Her jaw dropped open. “I feel like I’m robbing the grave.”
He smacked her bared ass cheek, making her yelp and then giggle.
“That thing you said earlier about human females only being able to carry one egg at a time, what was that about?” she asked.
Bael shifted uncomfortably, averting his gaze.
“I wouldn’t have to ask if you dragons would share a little academic information now and then,” she told him.
He rubbed a hand over her stomach, cradling it around her hip. “A female dragon only lays eggs once or twice a lifetime, which is okay because she can lay three or four eggs at a time. Male dragons that mate with human females have very low birth rates. The females cannot carry more than one hatchling at a time, and the live births tend to produce babies that have dragon traits, but who can’t shift.”
“What about female dragons who mate with human males?”
“They have even lower birthrates but a higher rate of shifters. The theory is that it’s time in the egg, warm in the nest while the mother dragon is sitting on it, that transfers the magic. And I’m sure, after the little scene in the coffee shop today, Balfour’s gonna claim that I’m taking a human mate, dishonoring my family even more.”
“Is that just the regular interspecies racism or a desire to preserve the species?”
“A little bit of both. With the birth rates dropping, I’m expected to marry a nice dragon girl from another town, so my children can shift.”
“Well, that’s a shame. No dragon babies for me, I
guess,” she snorted.
And while she’d meant it as a flippant joke, he gave her a tender smile. “No, there’s a few more steps to it, if I wanted to get you pregnant.”
“What sort of steps?” she gasped. “Would it involve telling me your true dragon name?”
He laughed, but given the way he balked at the mention of his true name, Jillian thought maybe she’d touched on something true.
“I’m not going to tell you everything!”
“Oh come on, it’s for science!” she cried.
“I don’t think there’s any way that information will fit into your report to the League,” he told her.
“You never know! I might do a whole chapter on mating rituals. I’m wily and unpredictable,” she said, giving him an arch look.
He laughed and kissed her cheeks, but she pressed on. “I will not be distracted, Sheriff!”
But he just kept kissing her and she definitely ended up distracted. She noticed that the longer Bael laid on the pile of coins, the warmer it got, to the point that it was almost comfortable. She burrowed against his chest and wondered if she could actually sleep like this.
“So how did you get into studying magie creatures?” he asked, playing with a lock of her hair.
“Meaning, how did a nice girl like me end up in a field like this?”
“That’s what I’m asking. I know almost nothing about you, except for what your League bio says. I don’t know where you’re from or anything about your family or any of the things people usually know about each other before they…”
“Have sex on a big pile of treasure, Scrooge McDuck-style?”
As he goggled at her, she laughed and tucked her head under his chin. “I’ve mentioned I’m from Ohio.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“I’m from Loveland, Ohio. Ever since the fifties, people have said that they’ve seen a creature that looks like a four-foot tall frog, walking around on its hind legs. There’ve been several sightings over the years, but it’s usually near a bridge on the little Miami River. I’d been hearing the stories since I was a kid. People used to dare each other to go walk on ‘the bridge’ where the frog man supposedly lived. The problem being that there’s lots of bridges on the Little Miami River. And being the detail-oriented person that I was, it really bugged me that none of stories matched up—the locations were always different, the descriptions of the frog man, whether he looked more like a lizard or a frog. So I started looking at all the bridges on the little Miami River. I spent afternoons after school, riding my bike around looking for clues, picking holes in the stories that my friends told me.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like you.”
She smacked his chest. “And then one evening, I lingered just a little too long by this one particular bridge, because I found a weird stash of fishing equipment hidden by one of the supports. Throw nets and a sort of trident made out of bamboo. Everybody I knew who fished did it with cane poles and crickets. I’d never even seen a trident in real life. So, I’m documenting this stuff, taking pictures and sketches. And while I’m distracted, it got really dark. And of course, when I tried to go home, my bike tire was flat. And because I was very poorly supervised, I couldn’t get a hold of my parents. I’m just sitting there, on the side of the road with no way to get home and somebody else’s fishing equipment around my feet. I’m distracted on my phone, trying to find somebody to come pick me up. That’s when I hear someone trying to move that trident, dragging the bamboo across the asphalt. I turned around and saw this short little bald man with huge hands. He had these weirdly long fingers wrapped around the trident and looked like he was about to swing it at me. I promptly passed out and whacked my head on a rock.”
“I woke up and I met Mel Yamagita, who was an orthopedist living in Loveland. He felt bad about scaring me and he didn’t feel right about leaving me unconscious on the side of the road in the dark. So he built a little fire, did some fishing and waited for me to wake-up. He was a kappa, one of the Japanese water creatures? His family had lived in Loveland for the better part of fifty years, and they liked to spend their spare time on the river, fishing in their natural forms. And you can’t do that without getting spotted a few times. Hence, the frog man legend.”
“You found the Loveland Frog, when you were a teenager?”
“I asked him a bunch of a questions, where he was from, how his transformation worked, why he hid the fishing equipment instead of taking it with him. And he answered all of them. Of course, the known mythology only got half of the information about kappas right. I think he was relieved to finally have someone to talk to about it. I think he was lonely. His family had died over the years and he didn’t know any other shifters or creatures in the area. I asked him why he was telling me all of this and he said, ‘Who’s going to believe you?’ And he was right, no one would. I started meeting Mel for fishing every few weeks. He’d tell me about all of the other creatures that were real. Shifters and witches and dragons. It was fascinating. I majored in folklore, got my PhD from George Washington University. And if you knew who to ask and where to apply, you could get recruited for internships at the League. I did well there, and here we are.”
He stroked her hair back from her face. “So you were destined for this life.”
“I honestly think I was. I know you don’t think much of the League, but I found a community with them. I found a place where I wasn’t the weird girl obsessed with folk tales and monsters. I found my best friend, Sonja. My work and my interests weren’t something I had to hide. They were celebrated.”
“I don’t care for the League because I don’t like the idea that people we had no part in choosing appointed themselves the authority over us.”
“I can understand that.”
“So what did you mean earlier, about you being so poorly supervised as a minor that you had time to go searching bridges for monsters?” he asked.
Jillian’s expression turned pensive. “My family wasn’t exactly the kind of people that you have here in Mystic Bayou. I mean, we had a nice house in a fancy neighborhood, but it was always empty. It wasn’t that my parents were cruel, but they made it clear that they’d rather be somewhere else. My dad was always at work. My mom was too busy with whatever charitable project she was working on to be home. I was alone most of time, and neither of them noticed. They were lucky that I channeled my loneliness into studying and not drugs or some other self-destructive extracurricular activity. By the time I got through my undergrad, I just stopped inviting them to graduation and ceremonies because I was tired of them not showing up. I think it made them happy that they didn’t have to make excuses anymore. We haven’t spoken in six years. No particularly angry words when we parted. We just stop pretending to make the effort.”
“Sometimes apathy hurts just as much as cruelty. At least when someone is yelling, you can imagine that they care.”
She nodded. “What about your family?”
“Complicated. There are generations and branches and inner circles. And they’re all competing for money, attention and honor. There’s no love there, just a gravity that seems to hold everybody together.”
“I think that’s the way it is in most families, to different degrees.”
“Zed’s family isn’t like that,” Bael muttered.
“Then Zed’s a lucky guy. Should we go back now?” she asked. “It sounds like the rain has stopped.”
Bael looked vaguely offended by the suggestion. “If you’d like.”
“I think I would,” she said, smiling as she threaded her fingers through his. “I’ve got a lot of data I need to analyze.”
“But no dragon sex chapter,” he told her sternly.
She sighed dramatically. “Fine, tie my hands.”
He kissed her again. “Later, if you want.”
10
Bael
Bael parked outside of the iron gates of his grandfather’s estate, River Rest, preparing himself for a less than pleasan
t evening. It was one of the more opulent homes in the parish, a two-story pristine white mansion built in the grand antebellum style, located at the mouth of the Fool’s Blood River. The only concession to the family’s heritage was the golden dragon perched on the non-traditional dome at the top of the house.
Breathing deeply, Bael rolled a smooth golden ball inset with opals in his hand. It had once been a toy to some pampered Germanic princess, but he’d turned it into the dragon version of a stress ball. This dinner with his grandfather couldn’t have come at a worse possible time. He’d been increasingly tense for days, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was all centered on the little blond scientist.
He hadn’t seen Jillian in the days since their tryst in his cave. She’d been holed up at Miss Lottie’s house, working, or traveling all over the parish conducting her interviews. She’d taken his calls. She’d been her own sweet-and-sour self, teasing him and laughing at his jokes. But when he’d suggested that she come to his house for dinner or join him at the pie shop for lunch, she’d put him off—politely, but, firmly—in favor of her work.
Bael didn’t understand this response. She’d laid with him in his gold. He’d let her see that part of his life, trusted her with the location of his treasure. They shared what he considered to be a beautiful moment, and then she got up, put her clothes on and asked him to take her home, like they’d spent the rainy afternoon playing Monopoly.
How was it that she’d spent her lifetime studying the magique, and yet, she didn’t seem to understand what a gesture he had made, taking her to his hoard? He was offering to share his life with her, his treasure. There was no greater offering his kind could make, and he was making it even after explaining the reservations that dragons had against human mates.
She’d wanted him. She’d responded so enthusiastically, so sweetly, and she wasn’t cruel enough to fake that. Right? Had he offended her, taking her so roughly in his cave? Maybe his treasure wasn’t impressive enough for her: she didn’t seem like the type of woman who wanted to depend on a man, but maybe she required more? Would she go to some other dragon, seeking a greater hoard? Maybe Balfour? After all, she was the one who brought his cousin up with Bael’s sweat still drying on her skin.