by Ophelia Bell
Suddenly the well of emotion she’d only let loose with Darius and Zak rose again. She tamped it down with a vengeance, determined to follow through with Rafe’s absolution first. The act of doing so would liberate her as much as him.
“If there’s anything I learned during all this it’s to never give up what I know belongs to me. You are mine. Trevor is, too—I can feel him through his mark.”
“No…” Rafe answered in a low, calculated tone. “I’m only halfway there yet. You haven’t marked me.”
“Roll over,” she said with a nod. She slid off him and waited.
Rafe turned and lay placid while she considered how to proceed. This couldn’t be the same as the tiny blessing she’d given Trevor already. But at the same time she didn’t want to draw out her anger at Rafe any longer than necessary. Give it to him and be done with it, move on.
Her words accompanied her talon slicing the pattern into his back, her measured tone a far cry from the turmoil in her belly. She hated the idea of causing him pain, but he bore it with barely a twitch.
“You’ll remember how this feels, because this is how I felt when you turned your back on me.” She moved as quickly as she could, but still deliberate enough that she could be sure Rafe felt every inch of the cuts she made into his skin. Trevor hissed in sympathy beside her, but thankfully remained otherwise silent.
Finally she stopped and let out an extended exhalation of breath. Rafe let his own held breath release, too, but Rowan wasn’t finished yet.
Summoning her magic, she focused it on the pattern she’d etched into his back. The flames shot out with surgical precision, landing like an amber snake coiling around the bright red circle, an intricate medallion of blood that graced Rafe’s entire back.
As the magic took hold and the mark’s bond began to tie them together, she could feel the prickle of it in her own skin, the pain growing with each inch of flickering fire as it branded him hers.
He begged for mercy and forgiveness over and over, then broke down into harsh sobs that wrenched her heart. When the flames finally subsided she expelled the healing breath. The luminescent red smoke seeped into his skin and he relaxed. Finally she lay across his healed back, pressing her own weight on him, her breasts adding soft pressure to the middle of his back. She let her lips brush against his shoulder.
“You didn’t have to feel that if you didn’t want to. I know that much. I’ve clawed you just as badly before. Why?”
“I’ve been in pain since you left, and it’s been my own doing. I couldn’t let you forgive me without making it hurt.”
“Who says I forgive you?” A hint of humor tinged her words and prompted Rafe to turn over. Rowan shifted again, resuming her position astride him. The truth was she had forgiven him the moment she’d felt his power infusing her, but there was no sense making it easy for him. She raised an eyebrow, expectant.
“Name your price,” he said.
She turned to Trevor and beckoned.
Trevor sat up straighter, ready to answer.
Rowan bent and kissed Rafe, teasing her tongue against his in tiny, swirling coils that she knew he loved. The act of being marked had already made him painfully hard and she wasted no time rising up and engulfing him again in her slick warmth. She didn’t move for a moment, enjoying the thick fullness of him pulsing inside her. Instead, she extended one long, graceful arm to her other mate and Trevor slipped closer. He wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her, his mouth sweet and soft against her own.
Trevor lowered his mouth to her breast and Rafe’s eyes flicked lower, staring in wonder for a second until darting back up to meet Rowan’s gaze. She had one more piece of punishment to dole out to him, and wondered how he’d take it.
“I want Trevor to get a full view of your mark whenever we fuck.”
Trevor’s head shot up in surprise at the sound of his name, but Rafe didn’t hesitate to flip her over, baring his back to the other man.
“As you wish.” Rafe pushed her hands above her head and smiled down as he pumped his cock into her with one slow stroke.
Trevor didn’t move for a second until Rafe looked over his shoulder. “I don’t think I need to explain this to you, brother.”
“Ah…No.” Trevor said. He sat back on his haunches and laughed. “No, man, I got the picture more than a week ago what she likes. I’m just happy to get in on the action finally. Especially since it means I get a little payback.” Trevor grinned. “I’ll be gentle, I promise.”
Rafe laughed and bent closer to Rowan, his face hovering over hers, eyes feverish. His lids shut tightly and a pleased smile flickered across his face when Trevor moved behind and dipped his head too low for Rowan to see. Trevor appeared again a moment later.
“Are you ready?” he asked, his arm moving in a rhythmic motion, but his hand obscured. Rowan could see both their faces clearly. Trevor’s expression was intent and almost business-like, Rafe’s mouth open and panting from pleasure.
“Yes,” Rafe said, holding Rowan’s gaze.
Both men’s breathing sped up when Rafe’s cock pressed deeper into her in response to the shove against his hips from behind. Rowan lifted her legs to wrap around Rafe’s torso, her own body responding to a mind-altering degree, every movement of Rafe’s hips making her pussy clench and quiver. She wanted more.
Trevor’s hands slid down her thighs and found the place where she and Rafe were joined, caressed them both with his fingertips. The slight touch made her moan in ecstasy.
“God, I would do anything for you. Both of you,” Trevor murmured.
“Fuck me harder,” Rafe groaned and they moved as a unit, hips rocking in steady rhythm.
Rowan closed her eyes and let herself feel everything. The steady thrust of Rafe, so long missed. His cock’s familiar bump against the most sensitive parts of her felt like coming home. When she delved deeper into their union, she sensed the hints of every emotion that passed through both men’s hearts, tangible now through her links to them. Their movements soon reached a crescendo and the emotions spilled from them with their Nirvana, flooding her with the comfort of their unspoken devotion.
As she came, Rowan cried their names in one long, smoky breath that settled over them, carrying with it her own promise of forgiveness and love to them both.
Rowan lay quietly between them afterward, not quite sated but almost as close as she’d been a week earlier. Their arousal had siphoned a measure of the lingering magic from the room, that magic that had lured her to this place. Her mother’s place.
“Did you know her?” Rowan asked softly.
Rafe leaned up on one elbow and smiled down at her. “Yes. She was our queen once. I’m not surprised it was she who gave birth to a creature as amazing as you.”
“Did you know my father, too?”
Rafe frowned and shook his head. “I doubt it. But your brother may know who he was. You’re a purebred so it won’t be the same father he had.”
Rowan’s eyes widened and she sat up abruptly. “I have a brother? Who is he? Tell me everything!”
Rafe opened his mouth to speak when a commotion of footsteps and chattering voices echoed down the corridor outside the chamber. Someone cried out excitedly and the footsteps coming toward them sped to a dead run and a deep voice yelled Rowan’s name.
“I think you’re about to meet him, love. I’ll let him tell you the rest.”
Rising Dragons
Book 7
Breath of
Fate
Ophelia Bell
Breath of Fate: Chapter 1
Issa dreamed of flying into an eclipse. The chill of darkness seeped through her scales as the moon covered the sun. The coolness of it soothed her aching need, but only briefly. Soon enough the ache returned as a searing burn. She couldn’t backtrack fast enough, though she tried to turn and flee. The dark of the moon kept sucking
her energy dry, bit by bit, leaving her longing for the sun to come again. She relented, giving into it. Wind rushed past her folded wings as she plummeted. Gravity took its course. At least she was cool, giving up. The moon could have her as long as she could stop the struggle.
“Issa!”
The voice jolted her into semi-consciousness.
“Issa, wake up!”
“Kris?”
“Yes, love. Wake up, you’re okay.”
She tried to open her eyes. The world swam in her vision. Distorted shapes merged into his pretty face, his beautiful multi-colored eyes framed by creased brows. Sweet Mother, she loved him.
The world swooped and turned and she clenched her eyes shut again. “I can’t. It’s too much for me to even move right now.”
“I’ll give you anything. What do you want?”
What did she want? To not be a ridiculous mess over this pregnancy? To not be forced to beg her mate to replenish her energy every few hours? She loved him for being so willing. But she felt like a needy infant crying for the breast most days. She knew she was close to the end. Only days from her imminent labor, in fact. The twins inside her had told her as much. They weren’t particularly eloquent, but they were insistent, and hungry.
“They like your magic more. You know this.”
Kris gave her a sly smile. “Then let’s give them that.”
With that, he kissed her, his lips giving her the same sweet soft pull they always had. She’d always think of him as innocent and inexperienced, and she his first true exploration of love. But when he released her mouth and met her eyes, she knew there was so much more. The feverish glow in his gaze set her alight. Then heat grew exponentially in her core when he bent his head to her breast.
Every part of her was already intensely sensitive. More than she’d ever been in her life. It only took a flick of his tongue over her nipple and she writhed in ecstasy. The barest touch of his hand inside her thigh had her surging against him for more. His fingers moved deeper and she nearly came just from the contact.
“We can give them both of us,” he murmured.
“Yes. Let me feel you inside me.”
He moved behind her, shifted her thigh up to give himself access. Velvet heat pressed against her too-sensitive flesh, his tip sliding back and forth between her folds.
“Kris, don’t tease me, please. I need you to fuck me. Now!”
Kris let out a slew of rough curses that didn’t make sense to her, finally ending with, “I love you.”
The glorious stretch of his thick cock inside her instantly sent her to climax. She yelled out and clawed at the arms wrapped around her. She rode the wave of pleasure, enjoying each subsequent stroke of him into her hungry depths.
The babies pressed against her womb as if they were dancing. The cock inside her kept moving, and every stroke felt better than the last.
His arms clasped tight around her, his face buried against her neck. “I love you,” he murmured again while he plunged ever deeper to the point she lost herself again. All she could feel was the deep, lovely push of his beautiful cock inside her, thrusting harder and harder until it swelled and pulsed with his climax.
They’d already made these babies together. Her only regret was that they couldn’t make more right now. But they had time to add to their brood after these were born.
He palmed her thigh and pulled it higher, slipping out of her and moving lower. The sensation between her thighs changed, becoming something wholly more erotic. Sweet Mother, she loved it when he did that. She came again, with his tongue sunk into her.
The babies finally settled.
“Thank you,” she said, pushing herself back against her pillows.
Kris looked offended. “I would be a poor mate if I didn’t see to your needs.”
“Baby, you’re a terrible liar.”
He broke down. “I hate seeing you suffer. I would give everything to help them but just don’t know what more to give.”
Issa sighed and pulled herself back up against her pillows. “They can’t help, can they?”
Anguish filled Kris’s eyes for a split second and he dipped his head, kissing her shoulder to disguise his emotions. Issa was well aware that he couldn’t share the things the Council told him. Sometimes there were details he could share and she just had to read between the lines when he did. They’d both become adept at subtlety, even when they shared their silent thoughts.
“They can’t share their magic directly.” It was the first thing he’d said that hinted at more.
“They’re letting you tell me this?”
“They want to do more. They just can’t. These twins you carry mean more to them than anything. I can feel it every time I meet with them. They’re afraid. I don’t know what they have to fear, but their hands are tied to do anything about it.”
“But if we had the others here, they could help. Even human energy, if I had enough of it, would be better than sapping your energy every day. Has the Council given any hint why they wish this pregnancy kept secret?”
“No, but I believe it has something to do with two Catalysts being conceived so early in a generation. I was the last child conceived in our generation, only a few decades before your hibernation was over. My mother was at her fullest power when I was born, and sacrificed her remaining life energy to me with her last breath. These twins signal too much change for our race; I believe the Council is afraid knowledge of their existence might be dangerous.”
Issa shifted awkwardly onto her side and pressed her palm against Kris’s broad, tattooed chest. She traced the glimmering outline of the dragon tattoo that represented the transfer of his mother’s power to him in his infancy. The dragon’s scales illuminated in multicolored light under her touch. She couldn’t imagine having to make the kind of sacrifice his mother had—to give her life simply because their laws required it. Issa would give anything to be able to see her children grow and thrive
The twins inside her shifted in languid recognition of the tiny surge of power that transferred into her from her mate. Kris would give his life for her and their children, of that she had no doubt. He had nearly done so during the worst moments of her pregnancy, but they’d come to an agreement that he hold back. Their race needed him. They would find other ways to sustain their offspring until they were born. The small gifts were just Kris’s reminder to her that he was willing, if necessary, to give all of his power to her and their children. Nearly every time they touched, she felt the small surges, even when he believed she was sleeping. He wasn’t like the others… he could give without the buildup and release. His touch was sacred for that reason. He could take just as easily, if he chose, as long as she was willing and had energy to give—which had been the case until the pregnancy had taken its toll and the twins absorbed every spare ounce of energy she had. Still, they preferred Kris’s over hers and always settled easier when he gave.
Giving to her had been Kris’s sole purpose for so long. Issa objected, then forbade him from doing it the first night he collapsed in their bed and began to shift while unconscious. She had panicked, unable to shift herself to meet his dragon and sate him back into his human shape. The babies wouldn’t withstand a shift if she tried it. She’d called for the Unbound, but only Zak had come. Frantic, Issa asked where Darius was, but Zak only gave her a dark look. “I’m here. I can help.”
It had been quick enough, with Kris as delirious as he was. Zak’s human legs and Kris’s scaled ones twined together, the pair embracing and writhing in ecstasy. Kris’s cock dwarfed Zak’s, even in that in-between state. Both glorious columns of hot flesh pressed together, Zak’s hand stroking until they both shot pearly liquid on their bellies while Issa watched. Zak’s Nirvana flowed into Issa’s half-shifted mate and Kris subsided back into his human shape.
Issa felt both exhausted and aroused after Zak gave her a quick kiss
and left them alone again. Kris apologized and objected when she climbed atop him, taking his cock into her with a single slow stroke. It didn’t take much of her own power to restrain him and fuck him, cursing him for his stupidity the entire time until he took what little she had to give as well.
“Don’t ever do that again. I need you. We all need you.”
“The babies need me,” he said. “There are no human monks at the Monastery free to offer. If only I’d had time to find more human mates to mark and bring to you to see you and the babies through. Darius said my mother practically had her own harem of mates to help her through by the time I was born.”
“They were unexpected, but I don’t regret this pregnancy. If we fail to make the Council see reason, all our children will have their futures put on hold for five hundred years. We don’t want that for them. The babies need you more as their advocate now, than as a source of energy. We’ll find another way.”
That had been months ago and they had as yet found no other way. The Unbound would give what they could to Kris, but it was never enough and the babies always hungrily absorbed his power. Kris’s face was drawn and haggard, his skin too pale, his normally healthy prismatic aura woefully weak after seeing to her needs. A light rap sounded outside their door as she was brushing his hair off his sweaty forehead. Issa called out for the visitor to enter.
“Darius. Welcome,” she said to the tan-faced dragon who stood in the doorway. The stark look of worry on his face was no different than the others. For a moment she wished for a happy look from someone—anyone.
Kris tensed beside her. Without opening his eyes he said, “Did you finally come to make your own offering for our childrens’ sake? Or is it still too great a burden for you?”