Deal With Her Dragon

by Ruby Sirois

I am his possession now, his treasure, his hoard. I know what he feels for me. What I mean to him.

  He holds me down. I gasp, his dominance a spur to my desire. I get wetter just from what he’s doing, how he’s continuously coming inside me, how he’s controlling me.

  I am his. His treasure, his hoard.

  “Häxan,” he gasps. “My beautiful häxan. My goddess.”

  His words honor me, but his body dominates me. Controls me, forces me to take all of him.

  My cunt pulses, ready to come again. He’s still pumping hot hoarding seed into me, hasn’t stopped.

  I rock my hips, trying to take more of him. I love that he’s filling me up with his mating fist, with his cum—breeding me, hoarding me.

  I am his, only his. I need to show him, once and for all. To prove it to him at last.

  “Come with me,” I beg.

  I want him to know how I feel, how I need him.

  “Please, Ragnarr. I want to come with you.”

  My voice is weak, desperate. I have no more control, weakened by climaxes, needing only for him to not stop. His big body has spread my legs as far as they’ll go. He’s been pumping me full of his cum, marking me with it, but he has not yet orgasmed—and I want to feel him let go, to drop his self-control at last.

  He adjusts a knee for a better angle. With the flat of his palm, he presses me down harder into the mattress, forcing me to accept his dominance once and for all.

  “Say it,” he says. He’s completely possessed by the thought of hoarding me. It spurs me closer to coming again. “Tell me you give yourself entirely to me, häxan. That you accept me as your hoard-keeper. As your mate. Speak it, häxan.”

  I take a breath deep into my lungs. I am on fire. Frantic with need. I’m so close to coming again, and I need him to come with me.

  I need him to hold me down, to shoot more of his hot cum into me. To fill me up with his love. To breed me, to hoard me. My pussy is hot and wet with need, and there’s nothing that holds him back from owning me completely.

  My jaw drops as he thrusts deeper into me, and my head lolls back.

  “I’m yours, Ragnarr,” I whisper.

  My voice is harsh, strained. I need him to force orgasm after orgasm from me. Prove that he owns me, again and again, so that I will never forget.

  And he knows what I need. Ragnarr picks up the pace, thrusting harder. Harder than I thought I could take—but in this moment, oh, it’s just right.

  “Ragnarr!” I cry, and my body explodes into orgasm.

  I shiver as if I’m cast into a drift of snow. Hot bursts fill me, scalding me. He holds me down, pumps me full of thick spurts of his hot seed.

  And then he reaches his peak with me, crying out harshly.

  At last, at long last—I am his. Entirely his, just as he is mine.

  A cloud of golden sparks overtakes my vision. I turn my head, overwhelmed by the brightness—but my sight is fringed with flames of warm gold no matter where I look.

  It transforms me, surrounds me, enters me, fills me. And I am changed.

  My arms are around his neck. I focus on his lips. On his eyes. His mating fist is massive, iron-hot inside me, a mark of his possession.

  And he sees how I have by it become his hoard.

  There is raw need and desire on his face even now. I come one last time, hard for him, with him—and we float up into the stars with the soul-deep power of it.

  Only when I start to come down does his body relent. Only now does it start to flag.

  And we have both been changed.

  I sense the transformation: I am more than I was before. I am his hoard now.

  What does that mean?

  It means he would fight for me.

  Die for me. Kill for me.

  I am his mate—married in a way that binds us together, down to every molecule, every atom, forever. He is within me, and I him. He would do anything to keep me safe, to ensure I am protected and loved.

  I smile. I cling to him, kissing him wherever I can reach.

  He doesn’t need to do anything more to ensure I’m his. I am his.

  All he ever needs to do from now on is love me.

  For long afterwards, I drift on a cloud of bliss. Most of what I feel is his chest against my cheek, the damp heat of his skin against mine.

  And the soul-deep presence of him.

  Ragnarr strokes my hair, presses a kiss to my temple.

  “My love,” he says. “My hoard. You are never again alone.”

  And it’s true: I feel him there, by my heart, nestled next to my soul within the cage of my ribs.

  Tears spring to my eyes. There’s nothing more I could ask than to have him inside, by my side, always.

  Ragnarr’s eyes are wide, bright blue, brimming with love. His hand skims my body, tracing its curves. His movements are soft, worshipful.

  We are complete.

  32: Emelie

  The high-pitched jangle of my cell phone jolts me awake. I’m tangled up in my soft cotton sheets, tangled up in Ragnarr’s long limbs, and it takes me a bit to extricate myself and find my phone.

  Half-lidded with sleep, he looks at me inquisitively.

  “It’s my mom,” I say, and press accept. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Emelie!”

  Her voice is so loud I flinch and hold the phone farther away from my ear.

  “You haven’t been returning Pelle’s calls. Pernilla says he’s very interested, and it’s not like you have many options. Why would you be so rude to such a nice guy? Did you really block his number? I can’t believe—”

  “Stop.”

  Dead silence from her end. How refreshingly unusual. I think I’ve really shocked her.

  “What?”

  “I said stop. Just fucking stop.”

  “What is your problem? You haven’t been yourself at all lately. And poor Pernilla went out of her way to do something nice for you, and you just seem so ungrate—”

  “Stop!”

  I’m sitting up in bed now, practically yelling. Ragnarr starts to say something, but I wave him off.

  “You know what, Mom? I love you, but I’m sick of you patronizing me—about my weight, about my love life, about everything. I’m forty-one years old, not a child. This is my life and I’ll live it my way. You don’t get a say. So I don’t want to hear it. As for Pernilla—I didn’t ask her to set me up with a gross creep. And you can tell her that I said her matchmaking sucks. And that she sucks. She’s secretly had it in for me ever since I met Peter, and just because she’s your coven-sister, doesn’t make my experience any less valid or her a nice person. In fact, you can tell her I said she’s a hag.” Mom sputters, but I don’t let her get a word in. “Furthermore, I do have a man—a man who loves me. So I don’t need any more of your so-called help, because despite what you seem to think, he loves me just the way I am. So until you have something nice to say, don’t bother calling back.”

  “Eme—” Mom’s voice breaks off as I press the end button.

  Ragnarr looks at me with a little smile on his lips.

  “You know you don’t have to ruin all your relationships just because of me.” He takes my hand and presses a kiss to it.

  “Oh, she’s had it coming a long, long time. I’ve just never been able to stand up to her, even as an adult. But I know she knows I’m right, and she’ll get over it. She’ll have a long think and then call back and apologize.” A thoughtful pause. “I only wish it had been Pernilla instead—I would have really given it to her. She’s really an awful person.” I smile down at him. “Well, you never know. She’ll probably call next once she hears what I said—Pernilla always hated when I’d stand up to her.”

  “I think you’re even more beautiful when you’ve got some fight in you,” Ragnarr says. “Very draconic, häxan. I like it.”

  He pulls me down for a kiss, and we don’t come up for air for a long, long time.

  33: Emelie

  “Emelie, you’re not allowed to ar
gue this time.”

  I’m completely distracted, thinking about my upcoming vacation to Lapland with Ragnarr.

  “Argue? About what?” I hone in on the last thing Linnea said. “Sorry. I wasn’t really listening.”

  “Do you try to make me crazy, or does it just come naturally? Wait, don’t answer that. I’m sure I already know.”

  The bell above the door rings, and a short, curvy thirty-something walks in carrying a heavy tote bag over one shoulder. She hitches it up, and the contents clink softly.

  “Oh, here she is now,” says Lin, turning her attention to someone else for a change. “Emelie, this is your new assistant, Octavia Runsköld.”

  Octavia smiles and extends her hand to shake. I take it absently, pleased that her grip is confident, but it takes me a minute to say something. My mind is still half-occupied with Ragnarr.

  The stubborn part of me wants to argue with Linnea, but another part of me, the part who wants to spend more time with my dragon, is actually relieved.

  “Emelie?” Lin’s voice is wary and tinged with warning. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

  I nod, pulling myself out of my reverie.

  “I’m Emelie. So you’re my new assistant? That’s news to me.”

  Octavia glances nervously at Linnea.

  “Now, Em,” Lin says, “don’t get angry—”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “You—wait, you’re not?”

  I turn to Octavia. “Linnea’s been bugging me for about a million years to get a new assistant. She thinks I’m a stubborn stick-in-the-mud who hates change, but despite what she may tell you, she’s not always right about everything. Anyway, the last assistant was horrible—she almost destroyed my old fermenting room—so I put my foot down after that. But I’m not opposed to an assistant who knows her stuff. It would actually be nice to have some help.”

  “I heard a little about that,” Octavia says, in what I suspect is a carefully diplomatic tone. Her voice is low, but musical. She sweeps a dark lock of curly hair out of her face with one hand. “But I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with what I can do. Here, I’ve brought you a little—well, Linnea said to definitely not call it a bribe. So, not a bribe, a present.”

  I laugh. My new assistant is a woman after my own heart. Linnea gives me an odd look, as if she’s never seen me before.

  Octavia reaches into her bag and pulls out some brown flip-top bottles with labels hastily scribbled in dark blue Sharpie on white masking tape. She puts them on the bar in a neat row.

  I pick one up, reading the name aloud.

  “Lemme Braggot ‘Bout My Bochet-Stout.” The name makes me giggle. “Nice. Oh, but I do love a good bochet. Can’t go wrong with caramelized honey for the most amazing toffee flavor. And a lovely sweet stout is my idea of paradise—one of them, anyway.”

  “I love bochets, especially when you get those nice tones of roasted marshmallows and smoke. It blends really well with the stout, becomes like an elegant pastry stout. Anyway, these are all my own recipes. Linnea suggested I bring you a few to try. That one’s aged six months on Hungarian oak, vanilla, and tonka. It tastes like vanilla toffee-flavored coffee. It’s a pretty hefty drinker at 11%, though it goes down smooth. Way too smooth, actually—so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Quadruple Session Mango-mel.”

  “It has three different kinds of fresh mango, plus dried mango for an extra flavor boost. Hence ‘quadruple’. I carbonated it pretty high for a champagne-like feel, but it’s light enough in alcohol to session on a summer afternoon without passing out by sunset.”

  “Sounds delicious. Mojito Mead-ness. Octavia, I just love these cute names. I’m sure they taste as good as they sound.”

  “Thanks! I make that one with fresh-squeezed lime juice and mint, with brown sugar and rum essence added at bottling. I like serving it with mineral water and a slice of lime. It’s a really nice twist on the classic.”

  I give her a mock-suspicious look. “Did Ragnarr send you?”

  A confused smile. “Who?”

  “You sound too perfect.”

  “Um… thanks?”

  “Emelie, I hired her because she is perfect.”

  Lin’s tone is dry, but she can’t hide her smile.

  Fy fan, she’s loving this.

  “Linnea’s always going behind my back,” I say to Octavia in a loud stage whisper. “Watch out for her, she’s sneaky.”

  Lin scoffs. “Takes one to know one.”

  I wave the words away. I’ve already decided I like Octavia, so I’m just giving my best friend a hard time on principle.

  “I take it you’ve been homebrewing for a while?” I ask Octavia.

  “Only about two years, but it’s my passion. I make about a batch a week, sometimes two.”

  “What were you doing before this?”

  “I was working as a sous chef, but that’s a real slog. I was pretty unhappy. This is much more my style, because I’m really creative and I need to always be making something and challenging myself. I’m actually working on a homebrewing recipe book to eventually publish, but that’s more of a passion project. So I’ve been looking for brewery positions for a while, but it’s been tough. There certainly aren’t many meaderies around and that’s my real interest, so I was really thrilled to find this job.”

  She gives me a brilliant grin. Her teeth are white and even.

  “I have to say I’m a huge fan of yours, Emelie. So I hope you know I’ll work really hard for you, and that I’m super excited to learn from the best.”

  “Sounds like I might learn a thing or two from you.” I smile back at my new assistant. “So let’s have a taste, shall we? Looks like we have something to celebrate.”

  I pull three champagne flutes down from the rack above the bar, open the bottle of Mango-mel with a loud pop, pour a round.

  “Skål,” I say, holding my glass aloft, “to the next chapter of So Mote It Bee. May all our dreams come true.”

  I’m grinning so hard it feels like my face will crack in half.

  “Skål!” they chorus happily.

  We drink. It tastes like mango-infused heaven.

  Our special crystal wineglasses flash ruby fire in the late afternoon sun.

  A bottle of Dragon’s Blood, made even more delicious by the company shared.

  A café table just outside So Mote It Bee.

  We people-watch, holding hands under the table. The autumn air is cool, but my dragon’s fire keeps me warm.

  I take a sip, savoring the sweet marriage of berries and vanilla. The only thing sweeter is Ragnarr’s presence. He smiles gently whenever I look up at him, blue eyes soft and warm with love. I feel him glowing deep within me, in that secret place where a piece of him now resides in my soul.

  I could float off into space with happiness.

  I lean back my head, close my eyes, enjoying the sunshine, the melomel, his warmth. His love.

  Everything is perfect.

  Then, a baby’s piercing shriek. Angry voices.

  I open my eyes, jolted from my reverie. I squint across the square.

  “Is that—?”

  Peter and Anna stand next to the old well in Stortorget with a gigantic stroller loaded with packages and a crying baby. It’s a jarring, yet fascinating look into his new life.

  “Oh wow, that’s my ex and his new family. Looks like things are a bit rough.” I laugh a little.

  ‘Rough’ is an understatement.

  My ex is miserable. Anna berates him for something while the older child runs amok in wild circles, torturing the pigeons and annoying passersby with near-collisions. The baby is screaming her head off and the piercing cries audibly rise and fall from here. Peter tries to argue with his wife, but she gesticulates in the air, indicates her enormous stomach.

  He shuts his mouth in surrender, defeated.

  Undeterred by her victory, Anna’s tirade is relentless.

  The old me would have been swept aw
ay on a huge black wave of schadenfreude, but to my surprise, I actually feel a growing sense of pity. This couldn’t have been a possibility in Peter’s mind when he romanticized having a family for all those years. Now I feel bad for laughing.

  “Trouble in paradise, I see.” Ragnarr’s voice is dry, amused.

  I can just hear him thinking it: what a damned fool.

  “Well, to be fair I don’t think that situation is exactly what he signed up for,” I say, squeezing his hand warmly. “But not everyone can have the magic we do.”

  “You get what you wish for, lilla häxan.”

  “Don’t you mean, be careful what you wish for?”

  “I meant what I said.”

  He smiles down at me and plants a kiss on my temple.

  34: Ragnarr

  Mine.

  * * *

  What a burden my antipathy had been before I let it go.

  I had thought a hoard could be replaced by hatred. That through sheer will, trinkets could be turned to treasure.

  After eight hundred years dedicated to vengeance, I never imagined that a häxjävel could be my salvation. My redemption. My love.

  Those old pieces of me, shattered and stowed away in the dark so long ago, are now made whole, stronger than ever—with my lilla häxan by my side to bless me with her light.

  Emelie is my hoard, my fate, my mate—treasured above all else. Nothing is more precious. I guard her with everything I have, everything I am.

  * * *

  My dragon instincts were right all along: no one can tell a dragon nej.

  And that she is mine.

  * * *

  Mine.

  * * *

  Mine.

  * * *

  Mine.

  A Note from Ruby

  Hej!

  (For fellow word nerds, that’s “hello” in Swedish—pronounced “Hey!”)

  * * *