Freedom's Fall

by DJ Michaels

  Eventually Rye sped up, thank fuck, gripping Dev’s hips hard and tight. Tansy writhed under them, touching and kissing any bit of skin she could reach. He tried to hold it together, tried to let Rye set the rhythm, but Dev was on pleasure overload. His body was slippery with sweat, his breaths came in heaving rasps and every muscle he had was on fire with the need to move. The tight grip of Tansy’s core became too much to resist and he began thrashing, fucking into her deep and rough while Rye pounded his ass.

  He was close—too close—and when he felt Tansy come for him, her core squeezing and pulsing against his cock, Dev lost control. Pleasure formed in a hot, tight knot and held him immobile for a moment, suspending him in an agony of exquisite desire before exploding inside him. Bright sparks seared his body, his balls drew tight and he drove himself to release inside Tansy’s welcoming heat.

  As he shuddered through the last of his orgasm, Rye pressed against his back. Wrapping his arms tightly around Dev, Rye came in a shouted, shuddering wave that rippled over every inch of Dev’s skin. His denmate spilled inside him, the hot jets of come stroking the sensitized nerves in Dev’s ass. He could feel every pulse, every jerk and quiver in an intimacy he’d never thought to know.

  It took a few moments before Rye slid out of him and collapsed onto the bed. As loath as Dev was to leave Tansy’s body, he eased himself out, rolling onto his side and pulling her close. Rye snuggled up tight against her back and reached out to cup the nape of Dev’s neck.

  “All right, my brother?”

  Dev smiled, running his hand along the length of Rye’s arm. “Yes. That was wonderful. And so much more than I ever expected.”

  Rye leaned across Tansy and gave Dev a hot, possessive kiss, his lips warm and demanding. “Next time you get to fuck my ass.”

  Dev had thought he was done, but at those words a surge of liquid desire shot through his body and went straight to his cock. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Rye gave him a cheeky grin and looked down at their mate. “Don’t feel left out, honey. We intend to fuck your ass too.”

  Tansy looked so surprised and shocked that Dev burst out laughing. It obviously hadn’t occurred to her that he and Rye would fuck her at the same time. When the knowledge dawned, she didn’t seem all that enamored by the idea.

  “Too bad for you,” he said, laughing through the words. “If I have to take it in the ass for the good of the triad, so do you.”

  “Now wait just a minute—”

  He cut her off with a kiss, and when he felt the curve of a smile on her lips he thought his heart would blow right out of his chest. “I love you,” he muttered against her lips. “I love you and Rye with everything I have in me.” Which, as it turned out, was quite a lot.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dev woke to an insistent dragon prodding at his mind, but he was too tired to surface. The night before had not been spent in sleep, and his lethargic muscles were winning the battle to drag him back into unconsciousness. Then the klaxons sounded.

  His body was so well-trained that he was on his feet and scrambling for his leathers before he even opened his eyes. Rye was on the other side of the bed, yanking on his tunic and trousers at the same speed Dev was trying to achieve. As soon as his leathers were in place, Dev sat on the bed to drag on his boots, casting a quick look at Tansy over his shoulder.

  Their mate had shot to wakefulness as he and Rye leapt out of bed, and she was sitting against the headboard with the sheets clutched to her chest. With her swollen lips and sex-messed hair she should have looked satiated, but the wild gleam in her eyes was full of fear and anxiety. It pained him that he didn’t have time to offer her comfort.

  He stood, turning to face her as he tied back his hair. “That’s the alarm for a Brightstar raid, so the whole den is mobilizing. Get dressed, but stay in our den until all the dragons are clear, then you can go to Sorcha’s.”

  The women had decided there was comfort in numbers, so they’d arranged to meet in Jax and Kaelum’s den if the Enforcers had to ride out.

  Leaning down, he kissed Tansy quick and hard. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe here, and Rye and I have fought hundreds of battles and come out unscathed.”

  She nodded, turning her face to Rye as he kneeled on the bed to claim a kiss for himself. “Be careful,” she said. “And come back safe.”

  They were almost out the bedroom door before she’d finished speaking. The alarm still rang, shrieking through the den and pumping adrenaline into the body of every Enforcer.

  Dev ran side by side with Rye as they sprinted down the hallway, through the living room and along the corridor that led to the lair. Skidding into the small room that held their weaponry, they gathered their regulation battle armor.

  Dev strapped jointed carapaces over his legs and arms, then Rye helped him into the plas-leather armor that protected his torso. Long spikes ran down the outside of his legs and arms, and Dev’s broad shoulders were made to look even wider by several long, sweeping spikes that outsized his body.

  Once he was securely buckled, he performed the same service for Rye, and neither of them spoke a word as they collected their personal weapons and helmets. This was what they did, who they were, and while Dev’s heartrate accelerated with the knowledge of the battle to come, his mind was clear. The dragon riders were well-trained and experienced, and they drilled often enough to ensure they mobilized quickly and efficiently. Every Enforcer knew what to do, where to go and how to ready himself to fight. That was even truer for the den captains.

  As quick as Dev and Rye were, Zenbaylan and Fellescend were ready and waiting for them, saddled, armored and with a full array of weapons. Den engineers had long ago perfected a system of levers and pulleys to ensure the blacks could don their own tack and armor. They needed no help from their Enforcers to be battle-ready.

  Fellescend used his tail to pull a lever, and as the exit doors of the landing eased open, Dev climbed on board and buckled himself in. He hadn’t quite finished securing his helmet when Fellescend turned and scrambled out of the not-quite-wide-enough opening. They dropped hard and fast before Fellescend snapped his wings open and pumped, quickly gaining altitude.

  The air was packed with dragons and would have looked chaotic to the untrained eye, but Dev could see the flights beginning to form. As Fellescend carried him to their staging area, Dev opened a link.

  What do we know? he asked his dragon.

  The blue soldiers want to play. Fellescend sounded gleeful, which meant the Enforcers were in for a punishing day in the air. The coastal scouts estimate there are five hundred skiffs, and they have confirmed at least ten gunships in the second wave.

  Dev winced. It wasn’t the biggest enemy force he’d ever come up against but it was going to stretch the Enforcers to their limits. There was no doubt the den would incur serious losses.

  He sent a message to Zenbaylan. Make sure you take care of my denmate. I don’t want to have to face Tansy if you bring Rye back harmed or worse.

  Zenbaylan poked at him through the link. I know how to do my job. Just make sure you do yours.

  And with that pep talk, she shut him out.

  Dev flew high and wide, holding his position to rendezvous with his flights. As he waited for his men and their dragons to form up, he scanned the low altitudes until he saw a small group of five flying just above the tree line. Rye, Behr, Kaelum, Tarkan and Rowan were heading for the coast in the hopes of infiltrating the heart of blue soldier command and killing Sergeant Edrick.

  Dev understood Finn and Behr’s need to put Edrick in the dirt, but he couldn’t ignore the ugly surge of fear that heaved inside his belly. He and Rye were lovers now—partners in body, heart and soul. Being mated to Tansy and Rye had given Dev more than he’d ever thought he could have, which in turn meant he had so much more to lose. He couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to either of them. While he knew Rye wouldn’t thank him for his concern, it didn’t stop Dev from watching those five sh
adows until they disappeared from his view.

  The wait for the flights to get into position seemed interminable, but finally Fellescend got the all-clear from his subordinate dragons. Not long after that, they received the go order from Tengale. In a rippling wave of wing and scale, over three hundred dragons and their riders moved out to meet the enemy.

  * * * * *

  Tansy couldn’t see any dragons when she looked out the floor-to-ceiling window of the den. The blue sky was pale and clear, the forest below stretched out in a lush green carpet and the lake in the distance sparkled in the sunshine. Obviously the dragons were staging on the other side of the den, and in a nod to her new-wife status, she decided she owed it to her Enforcers to see them off.

  She made it through the corridor with no problems, but when she got to the landing and was confronted with the far wall completely open to the air, she almost lost her nerve. An expanse of empty sky filled her vision and her heartbeat accelerated, her blood roaring in her ears. Anxiety prickled up her spine and a cold, clammy sweat coated her body. Breathing hard, she resisted the need to turn tail and run. Her men were out there, flying into who knew what kind of danger, and the very least she could do was stand witness for them.

  Pressing herself to the wall, she shuffled along as far as she dared and then slid down to press her ass firmly to the floor. Anchoring herself in the smooth coolness of the marble paneling, she turned her face to the enormous doorway. Her position against the wall didn’t give her a panoramic view, but she was able to see a large chunk of sky. For a moment she thought she was still in the wrong place, but then a seething sea of black flew into view. The dragons swirled in a mass of wing, tail and teeth, their natural ferocity augmented by the spectacularly armored Enforcers on their backs. They looked like something out of a Tolkien fantasy, a war machine made up of bone, muscle, skin and scale.

  All of a sudden the chaos smoothed out into battle formation, and not long after that they moved off. It seemed like hundreds of dragons flew through her tiny piece of sky, and she watched in amazement as they surged through the air. Then, just as suddenly as they’d appeared, they were gone. She closed her eyes, following with her heart now she could no longer follow them with her vision.

  She knew Dev was a captain, which meant he was in a leadership position, but she didn’t know if that meant he would be in front of the action or behind it. She had no idea of Rye’s role or where he fit in the formation, and now it was too late to ask. Until this moment, their jobs as Enforcers had been more concept than reality. She understood their role in an abstract sense, but the practicalities were something else altogether. It was a shock to her system—and her heart—to have her men scramble out of bed, strap on their weapons and take to the air. The two most important people in her world were flying into a danger she didn’t understand and couldn’t measure. Her fear for them reverberated right down to her bones and she squeezed her eyes shut, praying to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in.

  Tansy didn’t know how long she sat there with her eyes closed, her heart and mind completely focused on her husbands and their dragons. Her ass was cold and numb, her legs had pins and needles, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave just yet.

  The sound of a soft, metallic whine—an engine, maybe?—had her cracking her eyes open and squinting into the sunlight. At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing, her vision giving her little more than blurred shapes. Then the shapes resolved themselves into men. Black-garbed, heavily armed and riding the gunwales of a small personal transport.

  Nobody in Ivasta used skimmers, because the ion storms made them useless. But she knew what the machine was because she’d seen plenty of them in her time at Allsgate. She scrambled to her feet as five men stepped from the transport onto the landing of the den. Four oversized guards and one small, paunchy, balding man who struck terror into Tansy’s heart.

  “No.” The denial slipped past her lips, but she knew she wasn’t seeing things. Willersby Lockmehdyhn had come for her and she was as defenseless as she had been the first time he’d captured her. Only now she had more to lose.

  Willersby stepped onto the landing, walking forward a few steps as he looked her up and down. His disgust at her silk tunic and trousers was evident. “You look like a whore.”

  Tansy had scrambled out of bed in a hurry. She had no doubt her sex-hair, bare feet and lack of underwear told the story of how she’d spent her night. And she could see by the hard glint in Willersby’s eyes that he was going to make her pay for it.

  Icy claws of fear raked her belly and her lungs squeezed too tight for breath. The blood pounded loud and panicky in her head, and she fought against her wavering vision.

  “I’m in a mating contract,” she said, her voice tight and thready. “What I do or how I look is nobody’s business but my husbands’.”

  Willersby smiled, cold and cruel. “I’m afraid that contract is not legally binding.” He took two steps closer, triggering so many bad memories that Tansy couldn’t even think. “I own you,” he said. “I have the indenture documents in my possession, all duly lodged and notarized. You don’t have the right or legal standing to sign anything, especially not a mating contract.”

  Two more steps and he was on her, one hand tangled hard in her hair, the other tight around her throat as he drove her to her knees. Tansy collapsed, slamming onto the floor as she struggled for breath.

  “You are my whore,” Willersby said, leaning down over her, “bought and paid for with my hard-earned money.” He beady eyes were full of retribution and his breath burned hot on her cheek. “And you’ve tried to cheat me of what I’m owed.”

  Tansy was sinking, drowning in a black wave of powerlessness and terror. It blanked out everything but the shame and misery of Willersby’s body so close to hers, and the humiliating knowledge that she’d lost the fight before it had begun. His men all had weapons, and while Tansy doubted they’d kill her, they could easily knock her out and throw her into the transport.

  Tansy heard a pop and then the angry hiss of a pissed-off dragonet. Bloody hell.

  “Oskaal, no!”

  Willersby angled his body to see what was going on, and Tansy got a half-view of Oskaal hissing, spitting and doing his best to claw at the guards. The men might have had orders not to kill her, but Tansy knew they’d have no such reservations about killing a dragonet. Desperate, she said the first thing that popped into her head. “Run, Oskaal—you can’t tell them what happened if you’re dead.”

  “Them”being Fellescend and Zenbaylan. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she cursed herself for being such an idiot. Before she thought better of it, she sent out a distress call to the dragons.

  I’m in trouble. Willersby is here with four armed guards and they’re threatening my dragonet. Make Oskaal leave.

  There was a moment of quiet and then the dragonet disappeared in a shower of sparks. Tansy slumped in relief, or as much as she could in Willersby’s hold. A few seconds later, Zenbaylan’s voice sounded in her head.

  I am coming, pet. You need to delay as long as you can. Don’t allow them take you from the den.

  Tansy was on her knees and struggling for breath. She was in no position to “allow” her captors do anything one way or the other. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try.

  She didn’t know if she should pander to Willersby’s massive ego and hope he would linger to gloat, or fight him and waste his time trying to subdue her. She dared a glance at him, trying to decide, and she saw his lip curl.

  “You dare to look me in the eye, whore? Have you remembered nothing from your lessons?”

  Yes, Tansy remembered everything, and those memories decided her course of action. She lowered her head to take the pressure off her neck and to give herself time to brace for the oncoming pain. Then she began her delay.

  “I remember plenty.” She raised her voice enough for the guards to hear. “I remember your tiny little dick and how bad you are at using it.”


  Willersby released her, but before she could move he slapped her so hard on the side of the face that she fell to the floor. Her ears rang and her vision blacked for a moment, so she didn’t see the boot coming hard and fast at her ribs.

  The impact doubled her over as the pain shot through her body. A hot wave of agony filled her, so severe she had to fight the urge to throw up. Curled into a ball, she took the next kick on her shoulder, the impact twisting her open for a moment before she struggled back into the fetal position in the wild hopes of giving herself some protection.

  Willersby grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the floor. Keeping her knees to her chest, Tansy reached up to grab his wrists so he didn’t yank her hair from her scalp. She didn’t have to look where he was taking her, because she knew him too well. He wouldn’t be able to resist the open ledge of the landing. She had a sinking feeling her will to survive wouldn’t be strong enough to fight what he had in store for her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  As soon as they left the den, Rye and the other members of Behr’s special squad dropped down to fly as close to the trees as they could. The snap of branches and twigs formed a sharp counterpoint to the heavy beat of dragon wings, but the sky above them was so busy nobody noticed the five dragons arrowing toward the coast.

  As they flew under and beyond the den’s battle formations, the blacks concentrated on the forward view while their riders kept their heads tilted skyward, on the alert for any enemy movement from above.