by Bonnie Vanak
Beneath his touch, she quivered. Alex stilled.
“Are you afraid of me, Em?”
Please dear gods, don’t fear me.
He spoke in a low, soothing tone. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know that. I must admit, I am a little anxious.” She plucked at the gauze skirt. “It’s this outfit and this place. If we were elsewhere…”
If we were elsewhere, I’d ravish you until you screamed and begged and cried out my name. I would give you so much pleasure that my name would be on your lips, my cock deep in your body, my seed inside your womb, and the entire world would know you are mine.
Mine alone.
His blood surged, hot and thick, barreling straight to his cock. Down boy. Not here. Not now.
But later, he knew he could no longer control his burning need to make love to her long into the night. Alex looked around. “Where’s the camera? We have to put on a show for them and buy us more time to get out of here.”
She pointed to a terrible painting of a lusty centaur assaulting a screaming nymph. Alex rolled his eyes. “Could they be more clichéd?”
He took the small paring knife from the silver tray of fruit on the wood table. Too small to be a real weapon, but it would suffice for his purpose. He flung back the bedsheets and wincing, cut his palm, smearing the blood upon the white sheet.
Emma watched with rounded eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Proof I ruined you.” He licked his palm and the wound healed.
Red suffused her face. She hugged herself and looked away.
He went to the door and listened. They had posted one guard outside the door. He could take him.
A loud banging noise sounded to the right. What the hell? It sounded like someone trying to break inside.
Turning, he saw Emma sitting straight, her body rigid, her face flushed. “These walls are very thin, Alex.”
Son of a lizard. Someone was in the next room, having very noisy and very athletic sex.
Bedsprings creaked and squeaked as the headboard banged against the wall, making the pictures on the wall shake as if they were in an earthquake. Above their bed, the painting of a portly Cupid with a penis the size of a rolling pin fell off the wall.
“Yes, yes, yes,” a woman screamed. “Fuck me hard, you big bad dragon!”
The grunts and moans made his cock twitch again. Dragon’s breath, here in a brothel with Emma, the woman who made him sweat at night, who gave him erotic dreams far lustier than the bad paintings on the wall. Emma was the one whose sweet face and sexy body he conjured in his mind when he took himself in hand in the dark of night and thought of her lying nude beneath him, writhing in ecstasy as he drove hard and fast into her.
Her gaze dropped to his straining erection. Flushing harder, she looked away. But her nipples poked through the thin gauze like twin diamonds.
They needed to get out of here now, before they both lost their minds and the blood spilled on the bed became her lost virginity for real.
“Give it to me with your twin cocks!”
Emma’s breath hitched. “OMG, do dragons really have two penises?”
Her gaze shot down to his crotch, which responded with its own enthusiasm by nodding cheerfully at her.
“Some dragons do. It’s, ah, a trait among a certain strain of dragon.” Alex looked around and saw the statue of the nude woman. “But this gives me an idea. Get that naked lady, and get into bed with it.”
Emma blinked. “Seriously Alex, are you getting kinky?”
“I’m going to lure the ogre inside. When I give the word, hit him over the head with the statue.”
She moved the basket of fruit onto the table before the painting and took the statue, then got under the covers. Grimly, Alex turned his attention to the door. Opening it, he saw the ogre standing outside, his green ear plastered to the wall next door. Alex cleared his throat and the ogre straightened.
“What?” he grumbled.
“My good fellow, I am in serious need of more condoms. What type of business are you running here that you fail to prepare for dragons with our twin cocks?”
The ogre blinked.
“Fetch me a dozen more and leave them on the nightstand. I have only four hours left to enjoy my prize.”
Turning, he slammed the door. Perhaps this time his arrogance would serve the purpose. Alex tugged his shirt over his shoulders. Emma stared from beneath the covers, her gaze riveted to his bare chest as he approached the bed.
“W-what are you doing?”
“Making it look real. I have to pretend we’re having sex.”
“Oh goddess,” she whispered. Her gaze riveted to his groin. “Wow.”
Alex looked down. His cock was pushing against the fabric of his khakis.
“It happens.” He shrugged, trying to shrug off his feelings as well. “When a male gets aroused, his trousers tent.”
“That’s a tent big enough to host a harem, Alex.” She looked uncertain. “Did I do that or is it this place?”
This was no time to have that kind of conversation. “You.”
“Oh!”
“Emma.” Strain filled his voice. “We need to stop dawdling.”
Climbing into bed with her, he lifted the covers. “Get down there and pretend you’re giving me a blow job, but keep a tight grip to that statue.”
“What?!”
“It’s the only way. When the ogre comes into the bedroom to drop off the condoms, hit him hard between the legs on my word.”
Grumbling, she did as he asked, kneeling between his outstretched legs. Her curvy body made a nice hump in the bedsheets as Alex lay back, moaning.
Emma blew a breath at his straining erection and his groans became real.
A minute later, the door opened. The ogre walked inside carrying a fistful of bright orange condoms. He dumped them onto the nightstand.
“Come on, baby, both of my cocks. Suck ’em both. Open your pretty mouth and blow me!” Alex yelled.
He cracked an eye open and saw the ogre lean over toward him as if enthralled. “Now,” Alex hissed.
Tossing back the covers, Emma sprang out of the bed and walloped the ogre between the legs with the statue. The ogre screamed, staggered back, and moaned a different tune than what Alex had sung.
Alex sprang out of bed and squeezed a spot on the ogre’s neck. The creature dropped to the floor with a thud.
It did not kill him, but he would be unconscious for a few hours.
Emma dropped the statue onto the ogre’s groin with a satisfied smile. “Here you go. What every ogre desires…a naked woman up against his crotch.”
Alex grabbed her hand. “Come on.”
He hurried to the business office he’d passed earlier on his way to Em’s room. The door was open and Simon the troll was at a large roll top desk, counting the gold Alex had paid for Emma. A radio crackled with static on the desk and papers were stacked in one corner.
Greed shone in his eyes as he furtively pocketed one of the gold coins.
Alex walked inside with Emma and closed the doors. He steeled his spine and aimed his sternest expression at the troll.
“Pilfering from the proceeds?”
The troll turned, his rounded face beet red with anger at being caught. “What the hell are you doing? This is a private office.”
“I have a business transaction for you.” He pulled Emma forward. “I want her for good.”
“She’s not for sale.”
Aware of Emma’s rapid heartbeat, and how scared she was, and how they were running out of time, he pulled the signet ring off his pinkie and held it out. Simon’s eyes shone.
“It’s gold. Worth easily a million on the black market, in gold. It’s yours. All yours for the price of her.” Alex pointed to Emma. “Remove our restraining bolts and allow us to leave in secret and you may have my ring.”
“What if I take it?” Simon laughed. “I could take it from you and bury your body and no one will ever know.”
“Try,” Alex said softly. “I may not have magick, but I am trained in how to kill a man, or an ugly little troll like you, with one blow.”
Simon swallowed hard. He looked around the cluttered office, packed with filing cabinets and papers and a few metal safes, as if considering his options. Reaching into the desk, he removed a pair of bolt cutters and snipped off the restraining bracelets from his and Emma’s wrists.
Alex set down his ring upon the desk with a pang of regret. A small one. But it was worth Em’s life.
The troll picked up the hand-held radio on the desk and clicked on it. “Horace, there’s a disturbance in Room 101. The threesome is getting ugly. Go take care of it.”
“Ten-four.” The microphone clicked off.
Simon laughed. “Stupid ogre. Failed at the police academy so he found work here.”
Then he went to the door leading outside and opened it, showing a set of stairs leading to the ground floor. “Go. There is no guards. You can shift and fly away.”
Alex started for the door, but Emma tugged on his arm. “We can’t leave the girls here.”
“Hurry,” Simon snapped. “In thirty minutes, there’s a changing of the guard. And he will not let you fly away.”
“Em, I have nothing left,” he said in a low voice.
“No, you don’t.” She looked at him with resignation. “But I do.”
Chapter 6
Alex stared at her as if she lost her mind. Perhaps she had.
“Emma, we do not have time for a discussion.”
“Are you going to stay here or go?” the troll demanded.
The Crown Prince of Clan Drakon fixed a hard look at the little green troll. “Quiet, you little slime, or I’ll pull your tongue out with my teeth.”
Simon shut up.
That familiar arrogance served Alex well. She should find it annoying, but instead it felt comforting. Alex was a powerful dragon. A shudder raced down her spine. She would hate to be the one who crossed him, or made him angry.
When he found out what she hid, he would be quite angry.
“We have to save the girls,” she said in a low voice. “I have my dragon’s egg.”
Alex shook his head. “That’s your identity, Em. It was your mother’s. Without your egg your clan will banish you. We’ll leave and return for them. I have plenty of gold.”
By then the girls would be gone. She could not allow them to be sold as sex slaves. She had to do this.
She removed the dragon’s egg from her neck and dangled it before the troll. His eyes grew large, shining with greed. “Pretty,” he crooned.
Her most precious possession. But what use was having acceptance into a clan when her conscience would remain blackened? How could she leave the other girls here to be shipped off in the night, never to see their families again? To be abused and used as sex slaves?
“If you release the girls from the basement, all of them, I will give you my dragon’s egg.”
The troll’s expression grew clever. “I could just take it from you.”
“Try.”
As his fingers made contact with the egg, he yelped.
“Unless I give it to you, willingly, and release the magick inside, you’ll get burned. But even without the magick, it will fetch a very good price on the black market.”
Dragons never gave up their eggs. Ever. Emma’s stomach recoiled. Giving up her mother’s egg felt like sacrificing a part of her spirit. But it was all she had to bargain with.
“A real dragon’s egg,” he murmured, staring at it as if mesmerized. “I’ll bring the girls outside. You have ten minutes to shift, and if you don’t get them out by then, the deal is off.”
He went to snatch the egg, but she shook her head. “When we get outside with the girls.”
Ignoring his pout, she headed for the door, tugging at Alex’s hand. They raced down the steps to the large field ringed by the brothel’s fence. Alex paced, his hands laced behind his back. Moonlight shone on the thick muscles of his broad shoulders, and picked out strands of blue in his black hair.
Waves of anxiety washed through her. He had a disapproving look about him, as if her actions truly bothered him. She could take disapproval from anyone, had done it since her mother had died, but not him.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked softly.
He turned, his expression fierce, his gaze glittering with anger. “Not at you, but this horrid caste system your clan embraces. Judging dragons for their birth bloodlines and not their character. What is the wisdom in that? You deserve to be my queen, Em. Your heart is bigger than the whole damn kingdom.”
Alex strode toward her and pulled her into his arms. “This is for what you did, damnit.”
He kissed her hard, a kiss both punishing and pleasuring. Her mouth opened beneath his assault as a willing captive, and she closed her eyes as his tongue thrust inside. Alex tasted like brandy and raspberries and chocolate, and the most exquisite fire. He nibbled at her mouth as his hands cupped her bottom, squeezing and kneading it. Arousal swirled around her like tendrils of rich scent, making her dizzy with longing. Alex in her bed, for a lifetime. Alex touching her in all her secret places, Alex soaring with her to the skies, Alex making little baby dragons with her, and then rocking them to sleep at night.
All a dream, but she allowed herself to indulge in the fantasy as he kept kissing her as if giving her the very air she breathed, and the life inside her. Her knees threatened to buckle, but she clung to him, needing this precious moment alone with him.
And then her skin prickled and she heard noises. No longer alone. Emma pushed at his chest. He released her, panting, staring down at her. He cupped her face with a hand that quivered.
“Emma, it’s you. I’ve denied myself, denied the truth. You are my soul mate.”
A weak smile touched her swollen mouth. He must be mistaken. “I’m crazy about you as well, Alex.”
But they had no time to talk, for the girls rushed toward them. Emma counted and with a sigh of relief, realized they were all there.
The troll stood by, looking uncertain. He held out his hand. Emma stared down at the egg.
She remembered the day her mother had given it to her well—when she was five and they moved to Clan Ciamoth. Memory was vague before then, recollections of a pretty cottage in the woods, and a handsome man who kissed her mother, but argued with her as well. Soon after one heated discussion, her mother came into her bedroom, crying. She spoke the words that created the magick egg, and then fashioned it into a necklace to place around Emma’s neck.
“With this, my precious dragon’s egg, you can be accepted by my people,” her mother had whispered. “Never remove it, child.”
Lost in thought, she stared at the only possession she had left of her mother’s.
“The egg,” Simon prodded.
Choking back a sob, Emma murmured the words her mother taught her, releasing the magick in the dragon’s egg. The egg glowed bright blue and then white, and then an ethereal scent of lilies filled the air. Her mother’s scent. Tears filled Emma’s eyes as tendrils of misty blue-white magick floated upward, into the air and then sped off toward the stars.
“Good-bye Mama,” she whispered.
Her mother was gone for good. She dropped the egg into the troll’s outstretched palm.
But he stood there, looking uncertain. “The magick shield is a bubble encasing the property. It rises 100 feet into the air. I can drop the shield, but only for ten minutes.”
As they started for the middle of the field, he called out. “Wait a minute!”
Simon vanished into the brothel. Alex frowned. “We haven’t the time.”
Emma’s senses tingled. “Wait, Alex.”
Alex drummed his fingers against his leg. She reached out, caught his wrist. “Just…wait. Hold that famous temper of yours.”
He scowled. “I have no temper.”
Emma gave him a pointed look. “Right.”
They didn’t have to wa
it long, for the troll scurried outside again, this time holding the hand of a little girl. Emma’s heart beat faster. The girl had the same terrified look Emma had seen in the mirror after her own mother had brought her to live at Clan Ciamoth’s castle when she was only five years old.
“Here. Take her.” Simon thrust her at Emma.
“Who is she?” Alex demanded.
The troll hesitated. And then his hand shook as he handed Emma back her dragon’s egg. “Here. I don’t need this if you take her. Her name is Alice. She’s my daughter. I’ve been trying to save money to buy her freedom…ever since Jaeden told me she will go on the auction block next year. She’s only 10.”
Alex recoiled, but recovered smoothly, bending down to take the girl’s hand. “Hello Alice. We’re dragons, but we’re going to take very good care of you. Are you afraid of flying?”
Alice shook her head.
“Good. You’ll go on my back. Emma will help you.”
Alex stood and folded his arms, looking at the troll.
“Hurry,” Simon urged. “I have an hour before Jaeden returns. I have to get the hell out of here or he’ll kill me. For you to fly out of here, I have to drop the shield. You’ll have ten minutes. It’s all I can spare or Jaeden will know. He keeps a monitor on his cell phone.”
He bent down, kissed the girls’ forehead. “Remember, do as they say and when you are far away, go to your Aunt Jane’s in the Elder Forest.”
The troll hurried away as the little girl called out, “Papa!”
Emma took her hand. “You’ll see your papa again.”
They ran to the middle of the field. Alex would need the space to shift into his full form, and Emma knew he would never allow himself to be anything but a full silver dragon of Clan Drakon, not with this much danger surrounding them.
As the girls stretched out their arms and prepared to shift, Alex looked at her. “And you have your egg. You can return to your clan.”
Emma fastened the egg around her neck. Now a dull blue, it was simply a piece of jewelry. “The magick is gone, I’m afraid. My clan won’t accept me without the egg’s magick. But it’s all right.”