Waterfall (Dragon's Fate)

by Lacy Danes

  They entered a large private room and closed the thick oak door. Jordan spun on the edge of his black-booted heel. His brother’s gazes held shock. Madoc’s and Ferrous’s expressions also held concern. Ilmir sat in the corner by the fire, a glass of port in hand. His eyes narrowed, and a scowl marred his angular face. He looked thoroughly vexed.

  Ferrous shook his head, and his too-long black hair fell across one of his steel-blue eyes. “The woman on the shore?” His lips formed a tight, straight line. “Never would I have thought that kind act would end in you finding your mate.”

  “I know.” Jordan stepped from the door and toward him.

  “He singed my bloody coat.” Ilmir set his glass on the table and rose to his feet. “My favorite coat.” He yanked the edges of his waistcoat down.

  “You are lucky I singed only your bloody coat.” Jordan stared at him in astonishment. Damn it. “Get perspective, Ilmir. Life is not all about you.”

  Madoc turned and narrowed his eyes on Ilmir. “Ilmir. Sit.”

  Ilmir glared at Madoc and then sat back down.

  Ferrous’s obsidian brow pulled tight. “How did that happen? Did you breathe fire? Tell me what happened, Jordan. Tell me all.”

  Jordan fisted and unfisted his fingers, then glanced at each one of them. “I realize the details are important to us, Ferrous.” He blew out a tense breath. “But for now, there is an urgent need that should be cast out.”

  “Yes, of course.” Ferrous’s hand rose, and he rubbed his square chin. “You are correct. She is Hudson’s.”

  “Newly his.” Ilmir spoke as one of his gray brows arched. “That is not an issue for us.” His pale blue, almost white eyes narrowed, and cold disdain flirted through their depths.

  “What do you mean, Ilmir?”

  “We are immortal. She most likely is too, now. Wait until Hudson dies, and then take her.”

  Jordan took two hasty steps toward Ilmir. His blood pounded, scorching through his veins. The pouches in his mouth filled with poison once again. He clamped his jaw shut. Calm, Jordan. If you do not, you will burn your brother alive. He closed his eyes. Think of her. In his mind, a flash of gold hair tumbled down from the pearl-encrusted clips that held her tresses up this night. Was he seeing her simply by wishing it? He rolled his shoulders and exhaled. Warmth blew out through his nose. He opened his eyes. Smoke curled about him. He was not used to that.

  Ilmir sat before him, legs crossed, lounging as if this discussion annoyed him to no end. Jordan swallowed, sucking the poisonous smoke down his throat. He would not give his brother the satisfaction of seeing him lose control again.

  The pouches in his mouth receded. “How could you suggest I stand down?” he asked with a steely edge. “I have waited five hundred years to have someone to love and be whole with.”

  Ilmir rolled his eyes. “So have we all.”

  He wanted to challenge Ilmir to a duel, but what would that prove? That he acted irrationally? “What if it was you, Ilmir? You who bit, and she was wed…not only to a human, but to one who could obtain important information on us all?”

  “Exactly my point, Jordan.” Ilmir brushed at his coat as if the state of the fabric were more important than his words. “There is no better way out of this than to let her go for now. Besides, look at you—your powers have returned tenfold, while ours still languish. Even in waiting to take her, you have increased your longevity.”

  He had to be in a fog. Why was no one else talking? His attention jumped to Ferrous.

  Ferrous stood to the right of Ilmir, his shoulders stiffly set as his wide steel-blue eyes stayed locked on Jordan, as if afraid to move.

  “Do all of you share the same opinion?”

  Ferrous stepped forward and closer to Ilmir. “There is truth in what he says, Jordan. We are only beginning to understand what this means to us. Waiting may not harm anything.” He raised his hand and scratched the back of his neck, exposing the copper-colored scales about his wrist. He glanced over his shoulder at Ilmir. “Ilmir is in trouble. The queen’s second niece is dead because he bit her. And Hudson knows and has offered to help.”

  Bloody hell. “The queen’s niece? Ilmir, you—” Jordan clamped his teeth tight. He should have burned him. How could his brother be so loose with his urges? The bloody toad. He closed his eyes just as Ilmir’s lips turned up. Ilmir enjoyed this! Jordan’s fists clenched tighter.

  If Jordan didn’t stay away from… He didn’t even know her name. His shoulders slumped. This was beyond the pale. If he claimed his mate from Hudson, England would no longer be home to him, let alone the rest of them. They would be cast out because of Ilmir’s lethal indiscretions. He forced himself to open his eyes and concentrate on Ferrous. “We could go back to the homeland. We should anyway, seeing that Ilmir has exhausted things here.”

  “No.” Ferrous’s voice was harsh. “I am getting closer to finding out more about our origins. It has taken us centuries of mistakes and dwindling powers to gain access to people who may know how we came to be. We can’t risk this.”

  “Bloody hell, Ferrous. You truly hope I will believe that?” He glanced at Madoc, who stood closest to him. “What—what is going on here?” He gazed at each of them and sighed in disbelief. “I don’t understand. This is capital for us.”

  “No, Jordan,” Madoc stated calmly. “It does impact us all, we cannot argue with that, but this moment is monumental only for you. We still seek our mates, and some of us are slipping from power. Fate and luck led you to your mate, so there are no additional clues on how we will find ours and survive. No additional clues on how we came to be.”

  “But the scroll we have had since birth…” Jordan looked back and forth from Ferrous to Madoc. “It says this is the way—the way to break the curse.”

  “Yes.” Ferrous stepped toward him, then leaned in and whispered, “But what curse do they speak of? We have no idea of what we are, Jordan. Where we came from, or what evil we shall unleash when we find our mates.”

  Ferrous was afraid. Ilmir was vexed. And Madoc? Jordan turned to him. Was he alone in this? With all his brothers against him? His entire body sagged.

  Madoc walked to him and placed his hand on his shoulder. “I am filled with joy that you found her, Jordan. She is confused. She is not ready. Things will go badly. Nevertheless, you finding her gives me hope that I too shall find my mate.”

  Jordan nodded and turned from them. Ferrous’s advice had never sunk him in the past. Yet his words tonight were the rope tied to the anchor pulling him to the bottom of the sea. He needed to leave them. No matter how much he wanted to continue to be with them, his path had now deviated from theirs.

  He had found her.

  To bloody hell and back. He would not give up this easily. Moreover, he would not wait twenty to thirty years for Hudson to die.

  Hudson was the problem, and Jordan’s problem to solve. He would concentrate there. He would make Hudson understand she was his. Hudson was a man of reason. He would see the truth in his words. She would be Jordan’s alone soon.

  As he grasped the door’s large metal handle, a jolt rippled through him. Her slender foot glided into a bath. The water lapped up her freckled skin as if it was his tongue. Damn. The salt of her skin swirled in his mouth. He was there. With her. He was the water she bathed in. His new powers astounded him in ways he had not imagined.

  Her dusky nipples tightened as the water swallowed her. The weight of her sensual curves drenched him as if his skin was that of the tub. He swallowed hard, and his cock stood straight. He yanked the door open. There had to be an answer. He certainly would not live the next twenty or so years of his life like this. She was in water. He was water. Time to see just how his powers had advanced.

  The water of the tub blurred. Jordan’s entire body jerked. His stomach tensed, and his eyelids fluttered. Blue light flashed, and the room about him blurred, then disappeared…

  Celeste sank into the tub of tepid water, shaking. It was done. Shivers cold and hot r
aced through her body. She slipped all the way down so her shoulders submerged. Settling back against the cool iron tub, she reached over the side and grasped the jar of oil and herbs her Grandmum had left to help her with joining with Hudson the first time. “You will bathe with this before and after. Also, place a small amount up inside where he will join with you. All will heal with haste if you do this.”

  She poured a small amount into her palm and placed the oil down between her legs, cupping her painful flesh. She had had no idea what a man and a woman together would be like. She now knew.

  Hudson had been awkward, slipping into bed with her. He had spread her thighs and fumbled with himself, trying to harden.

  Jordan’s thick flesh had pressed against her hand out on the porch this same night. He had certainly had no issues with that task. He was long and firm. The painful flesh she now touched tingled with longing to feel the difference Jordan would make in that act.

  No doubt Jordan would take her body, demanding her to do things she had never thought of. Her fingers traced her nether lips, and her mouth dropped open. Yes. He would pull her bottom toward him as her body arched backward, water trailing from her fair hair.

  She was wanton for thinking of Jordan and not Hudson on this night. She swallowed hard and removed her fingers from her soft flesh.

  She grasped her novel, which she had hoped to finish. Anything to keep her in the tub longer, so that Hudson would leave her bedchamber or fall asleep.

  But the words blurred, and exhaustion settled deep in her limbs. She dropped the book over the edge to the floor and closed her eyes. So much had happened to her in the last three days. She was desperate to know what had happened on her journey home from France, but no one offered assistance or even confirmed that anything had actually happened. Her aunt, missing since that night, was the only one who held any answers. But Jordan knew. She sighed. On the morrow, she would ask Hudson to investigate the ship, her father’s wishes not to speak of it be damned.

  Effervescent bubbles caressed her skin as if unseen fingers played up her legs to her hips and gripped her hipbones. Her bottom slipped lower in the tub. “Jordan,” she moaned. The image of what he would do to her in the act washed through her once more.

  The water heated and, in a crest, sloshed up her chest to her neck.

  “You are mine,” a voice pressed in wet licks against her ear. Jordan’s voice.

  Her body trembled. Oh dear Lord. The sensations were so vivid it was as if the man really was here. “I-I—”

  “No. There is no denying it.”

  Teeth came down on the mark on her neck and punctured her skin. Her eyes flew open, and her body arched, pressing her entire front to his as she cried out.

  This was no dream.

  Naked and dripping with water, Jordan’s weight pinned her to the back of the tub. His shoulders and long hair caged her view as his mouth latched on to and sucked her neck. My stars, it was as if her flesh was what he craved most in the world.

  But, how did he get here? In her tub in the small room just off the bedchamber where, in all probability, her husband now dozed?

  Pain seared through her neck as Jordan’s teeth released her flesh. Pleasure and hazy warmth slid in a rush from her neck through her limbs. Her muscles relaxed, and her mouth pooled with moisture. She let out a heavy breath. This was not exactly what she had thought intimacy between a man and woman was like, but this was pleasurable. More than pleasurable. While what Hudson had shown her minutes before was not.

  She stared at Jordan’s neck and his muscles flexing beneath the skin. She wanted to bite him too. To taste the salty tang of his skin against her tongue just as he now fluttered his tongue on her. Gracious, she’d gone daft. This was so uncharacteristic of her. She would go to the devil in this moment, and she didn’t care. Her jaw jittered with need. The urge was too much. Simply do it. Her lips connected with the hard muscles of his shoulder. She licked the sheen of his skin as her hands fluttered and grabbed at his sides.

  Oh. Gracious.

  Saltiness touched her taste buds, and she closed her teeth on his muscled shoulder. He tasted good.

  She needed more.

  Her cheeks swelled with pressure, and she bit harder. The hard muscle gave way to a soft, warm, sweet tang that slipped down her tongue. She swallowed and swallowed the taste of him. Pleasure scored her abdomen and quivered the flesh of her womb. The pressure in her cheeks released, and her mouth burned with pleasure and unwanted pain.

  She squirmed, and her sex panged with hunger to be filled by him, but she could not. She would not. Gracious, she had just opened herself to Hudson moments before.

  Her legs spread about Jordan’s hips.

  Lord…she never… She was unable to control her body’s response to him. Did she want to? No.

  She arched farther, sliding her bottom toward him. Simply one touch…right there… She rocked her hips.

  His penis pressed to her swollen, aching skin. Oh indeed. There. Her mouth dropped open, and she held back a groan.

  His hips pushed against her thighs, and the round tip of his sex slid up onto her mound. “You want this? I need to hear the words.”

  Her flesh throbbed, demanding for him to be inside her. To ease the tension that bound her to irrational thought. A ripple of pleasure mixed with frustration trembled through her body, and she bit him again, harder. Her lungs locked. She was unable to breathe. Oh… Someone save her.

  “Say it,” he grunted.

  Her need was so wrong. Yet she could not stop herself from wanting him to touch her breasts, stomach, and oh indeed, the spot between her legs. She released her hold on his neck and stared up at him. His eyes rippled like the sea once more. She shivered. “I need…this,” slipped from her lips.

  Jordan stilled. “Damn. I know.”

  Her hand gripped his bare bottom and clenched. Round, hard muscles barely budged beneath her touch. Her legs trembled about his hips. He was delightful, and as scary as anything she had ever seen.

  This was passion.

  She bit her lip and pulled her hips back. His phallus shifted down between her thighs. Her flesh throbbed for him. She squirmed, arching her hips toward him. “Please.” Good Lord! Now she begged for him. Heat blazed to her cheeks.

  He sat back. His thick member stood straight out from him, just above the water’s surface, and continued to grow.

  She tilted her head to the side and away from his blue stare. Her earlobes burned. Lord, she was scandalously wanton too. And this was all her. No voice in her head.

  A scratching came from the other side of the bedroom door. She turned her head toward the sound. What was that?

  Hudson? The hairs on her neck stood.

  What was she doing?

  She stared back at Jordan. A ring of blue glowed about his elbows, and blood trickled down his shoulder and across his chest. Oh! She had actually hurt him. She trailed her finger up the red path to the spot on his neck, then down to the blue bands about his elbows. Rough scales met her touch. My stars, what had happened to him?

  His beautiful blue eyes sparkled, and within the depths of his eyes, a vision of him and Celeste joined up against the wall flashed.

  She tore her gaze from his. She needed to use her head, not her wanton desires. This was wrong, and wanting him so desperately defied the vows she had taken with another. “I am Hudson’s. No matter how correct this feels—I cannot.” She had, after all, given herself to Hudson willingly.

  His eyebrows rose. “Pardon?” His mouth tightened to a straight line.

  “I—” She pushed herself up and stood, shaking. The water drizzled down her as if his hands trailed her body, each line leaving a glowing golden trail on her skin. She writhed against the sensations, grasped her robe and shoved her arms into the sleeves. Her hands quivered as she found the ties and then leapt from the tub.

  “You are mine. You know it.” He smirked at her and stood.

  She closed her eyes. Her body thought so, and the ima
ge of him smiling like that was too much for her mind to overthrow. Her stomach flipped. Behind her lids flashed the memory of his wet hair dangling down into his face, his broad, muscled shoulders, and oh, those eyes. But those blue scales?

  She spun away from him and opened her eyes. Look at anything but him. “Well, my mind does not. No matter how…” Her body lit with heat. No matter how your touch feels.

  He chuckled.

  Or how your voice makes my…

  “It will be damn good.” The water swirled behind her.

  She spun about and stared at the door. “Hudson could be behind this door, and to be frank, I simply don’t want this. Not like this.” Her voice lowered on the last three words.

  “Not like this?” He strode to her, water streaking down his muscled body. “Then how?”

  She backed up until her bottom hit the wall behind her. He pushed his body against hers. His phallus lodged between her legs and rubbed against her oversensitive flesh.

  She moaned, deep and primal, in her throat. Her body did want this. Him. And, save her, more.

  “Let this happen. It needs to. We will figure out the rest.” His fingers pushed her hair away from her shoulder and brushed the mark on her neck. He stared unwavering into her eyes.

  She couldn’t believe the words she was about to speak. “All right, I want this. Indeed I do.”

  “What is she doing?”

  Hudson sniffed at the crack beside the door in a way that made him less than human. She was not alone. That much was for certain. Unable to control the urge, he scratched at the door with his polished fingernails.

  “I don’t wish to spy on them, Your Grace.” The deep male voice came from over his shoulder or somewhere in his mind. He was uncertain. He spun around. Nothing but shadows swayed in his head. He pressed his fingertips to his temple, shuddered, and spun back to the door.

  “You serve without fail for me.” His voice puffed out, deep, dark and desperate to his own ears. He was the Duke of Hudson. He should never be desperate!