by Zoe Chant
“I hope so,” he said softly. “With all my heart.”
Chapter Thirteen: Autumn
The town was incredible. It looked like any other small town, nestled between green hills—but nearly everyone Autumn had talked to that day had been a shifter. She’d thought that dragons were a lot to take in, but that was before she’d seen a toddler repeated shift back and forth between his human form and a tiny, furry fox cub.
Everyone here seemed so at ease with being a shifter that Autumn couldn’t help but be charmed. It was a town unlike anything she’d ever seen. Still, the people were happy and welcoming, and just as curious about her as she was about shifter life.
Of course, the one question everyone seemed most eager about was whether she’d stay—and whether she and Damon would get married.
Mated, she reminded herself.
It had all seemed so easy when she’d been alone with Damon—but having so many strangers interested in her all of a sudden was quite intimidating. Not that there was anything wrong with it.
She’d immediately felt right at home chatting to Melissa, the fox shifter with her brood of fox cubs. But she’d also made certain to go over to the bear shifter afterward, who’d been noticeably cooler, but had quickly warmed up when Autumn asked her about what sort of cakes Damon’s grandma used to make.
“No one in this town knows more than me,” Cynthia the bear matriarch said proudly. “Born and bred in these woods. I used to spend a lot of time over at the dragon’s place—Damon’s grandma as good as raised me. My own ma was very sickly—not that she’d ever showed it to us kids, bless her. But Damon’s grandma always made sure she had enough time to rest. And she taught me all her secret recipes.”
Cynthia winked at Autumn. “Now, if you want to impress that boy, come visit me one of these days, and I might help you out with a few of the family secrets...”
By the time Damon reappeared, Autumn had already forgotten all about her trip Iceland that had been cut short, although she immediately froze when Damon’s phone rang, almost as soon as they’d stepped away from the crowd.
Was it the other dragons he’d mentioned? Had they made it to Iceland?
Damon gave her a small nod as he listened, his hand searching out hers. He pressed it in reassurance as he led her back up onto the hill, this time by a narrow path that curved through an orchard.
“I can’t meet you,” he said into his phone. “I’m sorry. I’m no longer in Iceland.”
He listened for a moment, then shook his head. “Timothy—shut up. I’m sorry, but I won’t argue with you now. There are more important things at stake. I found my mate in Iceland. We were attacked three times. With every attack, more fire dragons showed up. They trailed us even to the cabin by the lake I’d rented from the Icelandic dragons. You know where—? Okay. That’s where we last saw them. Five of them, attacking from the air. Attacking dragon territory.”
Again Damon fell silent for a moment. There was a crease between his brows; he didn’t seem happy with what he heard.
“No. We’re in Dragon Springs now. She’s safe here. I won’t—”
He frowned as he was interrupted.
“No,” he said after a moment, his voice firm. “I don’t care if you hate Iceland, someone needs to keep up the search. I’m not going back, not with my mate targeted by them. Keep searching. Follow any rumors. When you’re done, I’ll come to Sky Home, and then we can talk.”
Damon shook his head when he ended the call.
“The water dragon,” he said at Autumn’s questioning look. “The worst of the bunch. The storm dragon has settled down since he found his mate, but water and I, we never got along.”
“Are they going to deal with those dragons, do you think?” The memory of the fire dragons appearing from out of nowhere made Autumn instinctively check the sky, even though they weren’t even on the same continent anymore.
“If they can find them.” Damon slung his arm around her shoulder as he continued to lead her up the hill. “But I think the time of hiding is over. They want revenge. They won’t be able to resist the chance to take a go at two council dragons.”
“Will your friends be okay?” Autumn asked. “Were they asking for help?”
“The water dragon was just complaining because he hates Iceland. He loves beaches, parties, cruises. Spending days flying across ice and mountains isn’t exactly his idea of a good time,” Damon said dryly.
“Sucks to be him.” Autumn grinned at him. “Sounds like he didn’t complain when it was you who had to do the hard work.”
“He can complain all he wants. We all know someone needs to find out more about those fire dragons. And if he’s got to spend a week without wasting his nights in bars and nightclubs, that’s the price that comes with our duty.”
“Duty,” Autumn mumbled.
They’d nearly made it halfway up the hill. A path curved to the right, leading towards Damon’s large mansion. But instead of following it, Damon now led her towards the left, where an alley of trees ran towards a rocky outcrop.
“That’s what makes us different from those fire dragons,” Damon said. “I believe in duty. I was born with the power of one of the elements of the earth. Dragons are rare—elemental dragons are even rarer. Imagine what the world would be like if dragons like me waged war against each other. We’d destroy everything in our way. Perhaps we’d destroy all humans, all shifters—and ultimately each other. It’s not a world I want to live in. I was born with this power to protect what I love. The earth, this town, my friends and family. You. That’s what I believe in.”
Autumn swallowed. She’d never known anyone who talked like Damon did. But then, she’d never known a dragon before.
And having the earth split apart beneath her in Iceland had been a terrifying lesson about the power of dragons.
“What happens next?” she asked quietly.
Everything here seemed so peaceful—but this was a shifter town, and there were fire dragons at large. As much as she’d felt straight away at home here, there was so much more going on.
Damon sighed. “As much as I’d love to spend a week or two showing you all my favorite spots in the hills and the garden, I’ll have to get back to my duty eventually. I’ll need to go to Sky Home. And as my mate, you should come with me. The master of the council will want to meet you.”
“The master of the council? Another dragon?” Autumn asked as Damon led her away from the path.
Instead, he was leading her to a wall of rocks that looked like some giant had randomly dropped them.
She frowned at them. Was that one of the spots Damon wanted her to admire? They were definitely huge rocks, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Damon flashed her a quick grin, tugging her hand, and as she turned towards him, she gasped.
There, in what had looked like a massive wall of rocks, an opening had appeared. The rocks had tumbled against each other in such a way that it had only become visible when she was standing right in front of it.
Curiously, she followed Damon into the narrow passage. When they ducked out again on the other side, the sight before her took her breath away.
A natural spring had formed a deep pool, hollowing out the rock for what must have been centuries. The water was a clear blue, mirroring the sky above them. All around the pool, verdant grass grew. There was no sound to be heard but the song of birds, and the musical sound of falling water in the distance.
When she turned her head, she could see that at the lower end of the pond, a rivulet began. It formed a tiny river as it made its way past the encircling rocks there, and, by the sound of it, formed a small waterfall on its way down the hill.
“It feeds the lake you saw when we arrived,” Damon murmured. “But I prefer this place for a bath. This is the spring the town was named for.”
“Dragon Springs,” Autumn breathed. “It’s gorgeous!”
“It’s why the first dragon of my line settled here. Fresh water, a g
orgeous valley—and a cave hidden in the hills where he could hide his treasure.”
“Treasure,” Autumn echoed faintly, thinking of the movies she’d seen.
Piles of gold as large as a dragon—was that just a thing the movies had made up, or was it all real?
Damon nodded earnestly, although there was a distant gleam in his eyes now. They hadn’t gone full metal again, but there was a tinge of the dragon’s power in them.
“Every dragon has a hoard,” he murmured. “Treasure we’d protect at the cost of our lives. No one has ever seen my hoard. And no one ever will. Except for my mate.”
Autumn drew in a shocked breath at the way his voice had gone all dark and husky.
There was an answering throb deep inside her, his need for her filling her with fire—or was it her own need for him, which she could feel sizzling through the invisible connection between them?
It nearly took her breath away, and she found herself reaching out a hand to touch him. She needed to touch him, to feel him—the force driving her was impossible to resist, stronger than anything she’d felt before.
At her touch, Damon gasped, his pupils so wide that his eyes looked nearly black. Even as she watched, she could feel the heat fill his eyes, turning them the hue of molten gold as his powerful heart throbbed against her palm.
“Sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t know it would feel so overwhelming...”
It was the exact same thing she’d felt before. It had drawn her to him from the moment she’d first seen him rise from the Blue Lagoon, gleaming and wet, like an ancient viking warrior.
All the same, even though the feeling was familiar, it had suddenly gained in strength—so much so that it almost seemed like she was drawn to him like a magnet. She couldn’t take her hand off him even if she wanted.
Of course, the thing was that she didn’t want to stop touching him. She wanted to undress him and press her lips to every single of those intriguing ridges of his abs.
But she also wanted to know what the hell was going on.
“More dragon magic?” she asked, swallowing as she watched her fingers inch towards one of the buttons of his shirt.
Damon shook his head. “Not quite. I didn’t think... It’s this place. I’m bound to the earth, and I’m bound to this land. There’s a strong bond between a dragon and the land he’s claimed as his own. I think the land feels the bond between us. It’s a fragile mate bond. And the land wants the full bond of the mating. Close your eyes; listen. You’re my mate. You’ll hear it, too.”
Autumn gulped, her body aflame with need for him.
It wasn’t scary because she knew it was her own emotions. She’d wanted him like this before, after all. But now everything was so intense that even his heartbeat against her palm made her tremble with overwhelming need.
It got a little easier to bear when she closed her eyes.
For a moment, everything was dark. Then there was a golden gleam—a string of light shining in the darkness, connecting her to Damon. It surged with heat, pulling her towards him.
She didn’t resist. She allowed herself to be pulled against Damon. Even as he wrapped his arms around her to hold her close, his breath hot against the sensitive skin of her throat, she felt a different power show beneath the gold of their bond.
In what she’d thought was nothing but darkness, she now saw whirls of green. The more she relaxed into Damon’s embrace, the golden bond between them pulsing, the easier it was to see the colors that had begun to swirl all around them through the darkness.
There was the bright green of new grass, the dark green of fir trees, the brown of fertile soil, and the gray of stone and rock. There was the gleam of amber, the russet of chestnuts, and the silver of birch trees.
It was all around them, swirling as if in some beautiful dance. It drew ever more tightly around them, as if to encourage the fragile bond gleaming between them.
And then, as she allowed herself to sink deeper and deeper into the colors of the land, she began to feel what Damon must have been feeling all along.
Emotion. Or what counted as emotion when it came from the very earth they were standing on.
Like a rush of green growth, it nearly overwhelmed her when she finally felt what Damon felt. He’d said the earth was singing a song his dragon could hear—and now, at last, Autumn could hear it, too.
Growth. Protectiveness. Nourishment. Love.
Little by little, the swirling colors all around them formed a picture. Autumn gasped when she could make out the surroundings of the spring in the small hollow, now formed by shimmering strands of light.
And there—there was another shape forming. A baby dragon, beating its wings and soaring above the spring, the round little body almost too heavy for the tiny wings that had not grown out yet.
“A family. The land wants another dragon family,” she breathed.
She wasn’t even aware that she’d said it out loud until Damon groaned and tightened his arms around her, his lips finding the sensitive spot right behind her ear that made her shiver.
“It’s the way of nature,” he said huskily. “Life. Growth. Even the bond between us. But I didn’t know the land would take such an interest in our bond...”
Autumn moaned when his lips trailed down her throat again. It felt like her skin was burning everywhere he touched her. Between her thighs, arousal had already made her wet, her panties soaked as her entire body throbbed with the need to feel him.
“I want you,” she gasped recklessly when she felt his rock-hard erection against her thigh. “But—but this feels like someone’s watching us!”
Damon laughed hoarsely even as his lips sought out her own. “That’s because someone is. But I’m the master of my element. I could distract it—”
“Yes,” Autumn moaned eagerly when his thumb found her hard nipple. Even through the fabric of her shirt, the touch sent an electric jolt through her.
She was on fire. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone or anything before.
And she wanted to have him on her own terms, because they wanted each other, and not because the spirit of the earth or whatever this strange power was had decided that it was time for the dragon to start a family.
At her answer, Damon grinned at her.
Gently, resisting the swirling desire that was still rushing and roaring all around them like a river, he pressed her down into the grass, coming to rest on top of her.
Autumn moaned, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She trailed her hands down the strong muscles of his back.
Damon arched, his hard shaft grinding against her thigh—and then his eyes turned the color of metal again.
A wave of power emanated from him. They were so close that Autumn could feel it burn through her—or perhaps by now she was so attuned to the strange energy that was his to command that she could actually feel him wield it.
The roar all around him decreased little by little. The swirling colors of the earth paled, then were gone. The power was still there, thrumming all around them—but the weird feeling of being watched by an invisible power was gone.
Instead, the focus of it had shifted.
Autumn gasped when there, right next to her face, a daisy popped out of the earth. Then there came another, and another. Near her hand, bluebells were shooting out of the grass. When she turned her head, she could see clumps of poppies rapidly breaking through the soil, blossoming into patches of bright red.
Everywhere she looked, flowers were sprouting. The tiny, green glade had become a small enclosure filled with bright flowers within a moment. The air was fragrant with the scent of flowers, and the energy that had swirled around them earlier now sank back into the earth, coaxing blossom after blossom to bloom.
And then Damon’s mouth was back on hers. As she arched into the kiss, she felt the same need that had overwhelmed her before.
It had never left. It was a part of her. He set her on fire with a single touch, the way no other had befo
re—and she still burned for him, even with the matchmaking spirit of the earth distracted otherwise.
She exhaled when he drew back. Then she reached up with a hand to thread her fingers into his hair. At the same time, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small, square package.
“You’ve come prepared,” she said, her heart beating faster as she watched him put the foil between his teeth for a second to have his hands free.
He popped open the buttons of his jeans. Then he grinned at her, taking hold of the condom again. “That’s why I showed you around the mansion first, before the gardens.”
“You planned this,” she accused playfully, even as she pushed her hands beneath his shirt to help him pull it off.
Laughing softly, Damon shook his head in denial. Then his hands were on her hips, sliding around to open her trousers.
Eagerly, she wriggled out of them. Beneath her feet, more daisies were blossoming, tiny green buds unfurling into flowers of white and yellow. But when Damon’s hands slid beneath her shirt to slowly push it upwards, revealing her skin inch by inch, she forgot all about their surroundings.
Damon’s hair brushed her cheek. “I didn’t plan for this. I just hoped that sooner or later, there’d be a moment of peace. Just the two of us.”
“Just me and you,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around his neck.
The grass was soft, warmed by the sun. The blades of grass tickled her skin a little, so that she giggled when he gently pushed her down.
She reached back to unhook her bra. As soon as her breasts were bared to the sun, his mouth found one of her nipples, making her gasp.
A moment later, his hands were pushing down her panties. She bit her lip to silence her moans, wriggling beneath him to get rid of her underwear.
And then, at last, they were skin to skin, with nothing between them.
She ran her fingers over his arms, feeling the muscles shift beneath his skin. His tongue against her nipple made heat rush through her, every touch of his tongue sending energy sizzling along her spine.