Lucan

by Susan Kearney

  Through all her ministrations he didn’t move. His pulse remained weak, his skin white. As she tended to his wounds, images flashed through her mind—of Lucan holding her hand, of the passionate way he kissed her right before she’d dropped down the chute.

  Live. Damn you. Live.

  When she finished her treatment, she again took his pulse. Although she’d stopped the external blood loss, he’d already lost too much. His breathing remained shallow. His skin was pasty and cold. But he didn’t shiver—the body’s way of warming itself—and his inability to do so was a very bad sign.

  When she opened his eyes to check his pupils, he didn’t react.

  He was dying.

  The knowledge crushed her, consumed her. Biting back a cry of anguish, she almost doubled over, racked by the certainty she was losing him.

  He needed blood. And the only blood here was hers.

  But she had dragonblood, sacred blood, a genetic anomaly. Giving her blood was forbidden by custom and law.

  Giving her blood was wrong.

  But he didn’t deserve to die. Tormented, she rocked back onto her heels, feeling as if her hearts were being clawed from her chest. How could she not do everything in her power to save him?

  It’s still wrong.

  Again she checked his pulse. It was slower, weaker. She gasped, succumbing to despair and frustration. Without her blood he wouldn’t regain consciousness. She’d never speak with him again. Never laugh with him again. Never touch him again. He would die.

  His life force was almost gone.

  Smoothing back his hair, blinded by terrible panic, she felt her thoughts whirl. If he died, if she didn’t do everything she could to save him, she would have to spend the rest of her life without knowing him, without the possibility of a future that wasn’t so unbearably lonely.

  Cael did not break customs lightly, but she couldn’t let Lucan die. After letting her cloak slide to the floor, she grabbed tubing and needles. She hooked their circulatory systems together so that her blood flowed into his veins. Both her hearts, as well as his, dispersed her blood. As he grew stronger, she grew weaker and cold.

  Still, she ignored the exhaustion and chills, and she gave him more. Gave all his body would take. And when his color slowly returned to his cheeks, when his pulse strengthened, only then did she unhook the tubes connecting them. Exhausted physically and emotionally, she slumped. She could do no more except share her body’s warmth. Taking off her robe, she lay down naked by his side and cradled him in her arms.

  LUCAN MUST HAVE passed out. When he awakened from a deep sleep, he found a warm, naked female spooned against him. He didn’t recognize his surroundings, a simple cave with stone walls and rough-hewn furniture, but he identified the scent of the woman, and his nostrils flared. Cael.

  In contrast to the hard floor under him, Cael’s sensual curves felt velvety soft against him, and memories came rushing back. Sir Shaw’s murder. The fire. The incinerator. Cael holding his hand. Cael’s kiss. Her purple eyes smoldering with golden flames.

  Being shot down.

  Pain. Pain in his shoulder and radiating down his arm. Pain in his chest. His neck. Here the memories became more confused. He must have been hallucinating from the injuries. He recalled a shadow swooping out of the sky to save him. Somehow he’d summoned a telepathic link with the creature—a power he thought had disappeared years ago when he’d flown out of Earth’s solar system and left his twin behind. But his dream had nightmarishly twisted his telepathic link with Marisa to a mind link with a… dragon. And an owl had flown as the dragon’s wing man. Talk about bizarre.

  The dragon images were intense, visceral. He recalled the frigid mountain air slicing him, the wind whipping by as he clung to the leathery scales of the dragon’s back. There’d been terrible pain in his shoulder. More pain mixed with images of Cael tending his wounds.

  Wounds? Pain?

  He flexed his shoulder. He had no pain. No wound. None.

  Could she have healed him with some miraculous drug? Something he hadn’t heard about during his time on Pendragon? Legends on Earth endowed the mythical High Priestess of Avalon with all sorts of mystical healing powers.

  Cael’s cheek lay pressed to his chest, her bare legs en-twined intimately with his beneath the robe that covered them both. His gaze wandered over her face, from her closed eyelids rimmed with long golden lashes, to her shoulders, to her lush breasts.

  Suddenly Lucan had a more pressing need than finding answers to his questions. Heavy lust filled him. It was hungry and urgent, raw and primal. In that moment, he could think of nothing he wanted more than keeping Cael in his arms, kissing her, making love to her. With her palm resting lightly on his chest, her breast curving against his side, it was as if in sleep she was daring him to take her.

  And take her he would. Lucan had never been much good at resisting temptation, and he saw no reason to change now. So what if she was High Priestess and touching her was forbidden? A man had to take some risks to feel alive. And a woman as lovely as Cael was worth a lot of risk.

  In sleep she cuddled against him, the smooth caress of her skin on his proving there was nothing mythical about her. She was all female. And soft. So soft. Although her eyes remained closed, she was waking. Snuggled in his arms, her hair fanning the pillow, she tipped her face toward his, her lips curved in a smile.

  Dipping his head, he kissed her mouth. With a soft moan, she parted her lips. “Mmm.”

  He nibbled her lower lip and asked softly, “Where are we, hon?”

  “The nest,” she answered sleepily. “It’s safe.” And then she kissed him again, her mouth drawing him closer, her tongue slipping shyly between his lips, feeding his hunger.

  Between kisses, he asked, “How did we get here?”

  She tugged his mouth back to hers. “Later. I’ll tell you later.”

  Cael’s sleepy sexiness hit him with the intensity of a summer thunderstorm. Urgency slammed him. He had to have her. Now.

  His lust flared white-hot, and he didn’t just ache with need. He was primed to explode.

  What the hell was going on?

  Cael nipped his shoulder with her straight white teeth, and he hissed in a breath as she licked away the sting. Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he helped her roll on top of him until she straddled his hips. She looked like a goddess, warm, willing, and wanton, her hair falling seductively around her strong shoulders, locks of spun gold curling over her breasts. Breasts that were larger than he’d expected, rounded, firmer, with perfect pink tips.

  At the sight of her pink nipples, so close to his face, he raised his head to slip a pink tip between his lips.

  She tasted like ambrosia. And desire pulsed between them, flooding him with the need to make her feel as wild and raw as he felt.

  He laved her flesh with his tongue and she went crazy. She bucked, her jerky reaction catching him off guard, and his teeth tugged too hard on her nipple.

  “Easy, darling,” he murmured.

  She gyrated her hips, arched her spine, and tipped her nipple back into his mouth. “I don’t want easy.”

  That worked for him. Every damn muscle in his body demanded he take over, thrust into her. But damn it, he wanted this to be good for her. Gritting his teeth, sweat rolling over his brow, he crushed down his wild urges.

  He wasn’t going to slam into her and take what he needed. He was civilized, not a savage. But at the sight of her eyes turning golden, blood roared in his ears and rammed through his system. His heart kicked in triple time. And every cell in him drummed a demand to thrust into her now. Right now.

  With her brows knotted in fierce determination, her lovely mouth uttering tiny encouraging groans of pleasure, she seized hold of his shoulders, slamming him against the floor.

  For a second, he saw stars. What the hell?

  She wasn’t holding him down so much as using him for leverage. Looking like a wild warrior priestess, the pagan choker around her neck her only adornment, s
he looked straight into his eyes. And a lightning bolt of heat fired through him.

  Her voice was proud, yet silky soft and intoxicating. “Tell me you want me.”

  His intended chuckle came out a groan. “You have to ask?”

  “Tell me.”

  Surely she could feel how badly he wanted her?

  “Tell me,” she repeated.

  He couldn’t speak. His mouth was too dry. His head spun from craving her. And he was fighting himself, willing his hands not to yield to his body’s demand to seize her hips and plunge himself inside her.

  She rubbed her breasts against his chest, creating a sensuous friction, and he lost all chance for rational thought.

  When she rocked against his erection, his body went haywire. Every tortured nerve cell howled for more of her touch. More of her scent. More of her essence. And she was teasing him, rubbing her downy nether lips along his rigid sex, and nothing had ever felt this good.

  God damn. He wanted to bite her. He wanted to plunge inside her. And thrust and thrust and thrust. Gritting his jaws to prevent the animalistic urge, he clamped his hands on her waist. As if sensing he might try to curb her pace, she stepped up her rhythm.

  Too fast, too soon. He feared he wouldn’t last long enough even to sheathe his sex in her heat. He had to slow her. He needed a second to breathe, to regroup, to gain control of the tension gripping him. But as if sensing his intent, she shimmied her hips, taking him deep inside her in one giant thrust of heaven.

  Mother of God! She was a virgin. He’d felt her barrier shred. And if he’d had any sense, he would give her body time to adjust. But before he could react, she reared up and slammed down on him again. Harder.

  Her hands clenched his upper arms, but her strength was no match for his. He rolled, intending to end up on top, to take control of this madness, but she was fierce, using his momentum to tumble him again. He lost count of how many times they rolled across the floor. They knocked over a chair. A table toppled. Her nails clawed his back, drawing blood, but the sweet pain only increased the pounding primal urges. He forgot civilized. Gave in to the savage urge to sink his teeth into her shoulder.

  “Yes,” she screamed and bit his earlobe. Blood trickled down his neck. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  He rammed into her with shocking need, and she clawed his hips, sucking him deeper, lifting her legs and hooking them around his back, so he could plunge deeper still. Every time he thrust in and out, she squeezed, and her slick heat shot him into a frenzy.

  This was insane. Intense. He couldn’t draw air into his lungs fast enough. Slick with sweat, with no finesse, he pounded into her. Taking exactly what he wanted. Demanding everything she had.

  She lifted her hips to match his cadence, meeting him thrust for thrust. The ache in his balls tightened to exquisite pain. Grinding his pelvis, he pumped hard. Fast. Deep. The roar in his ears matched the beat of his hips.

  Her gyrations added fuel and fury to the mating, her strong thighs rising to meet his, urging him deeper. And when she spasmed and took her woman’s pleasure, he emptied into her with a giant roar, the bliss bursting from him in a white-hot bolt of magic lightning.

  The Dragon is no different from the Serpent. Both are dangerous, cunning, and powerful.

  —THE ELDERS

  6

  That was amazing.” Cael had felt pleasure greater than she’d ever imagined possible. No one had ever looked at her in such a bold, sensual way. She had never felt more important, more desired. The closeness they’d shared had been delicious, intimate, and so very satisfying. In fact, she couldn’t wait to do it again. And again.

  She’d seen the way his eyes had smoldered as he’d paired with her. He seemed to want her as much as she wanted him. Just then Lucan turned to her and stared at the bite marks on her neck, his eyes widening in astonishment. He started to touch her skin, then jerked back his hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more gentle.”

  She was the dragonshaper, and he was worried about hurting her? “You did nothing to my body that I did not enjoy.” She said the words slowly, willing him to believe her. But she could feel he was shaken by the intensity of their pairing. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know she was a dragonshaper.

  For her to keep deceiving him was wrong when he didn’t know what was at stake. Although the idea of revealing her true nature frightened her, she couldn’t go on like this. The risk was huge, yet if they were to have any chance at a future together, he had to know what she was. To believe. His people might not know about dragonshaper destiny, but it was time he knew the truth. So this honorable man could make his own choices.

  She just hoped he’d choose her.

  Filled with tension, Cael found a robe for him, and after he donned the garment, she gestured toward the door. “Come outside with me. There’s something you need to see.”

  “It’s freezing out there.” He glanced out to the snow-covered mountain peaks that surrounded the nest. “Just tell me.”

  She snorted and raised her eyebrows. “You won’t believe me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have no faith.”

  He didn’t dispute her words. “And if I go outside with you, what will I see?”

  “You will see a dragonshaper.” She held his gaze, feeling his disbelief war with his fierce curiosity.

  Perhaps she should wait. Build a better bond with him before showing him… but that would be the coward’s way out.

  “A dragonshaper?” He stepped toward her, then glanced at his now fully healed shoulder, and clearly, he remembered other things. “How can I believe in a dragonshaper when I don’t even know what it is?”

  “A dragonshaper has the ability to change from human to dragon and vice versa.”

  “Like in the Book of Jede?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You expect me to believe in a fairy tale?”

  “Just the dragonshaping part.”

  “And this dragonshaping, how exactly does it work?”

  “We don’t know. The biological science is still a mystery.”

  “I see.” He couldn’t keep the skepticism from his voice.

  Clearly, he didn’t see. And he didn’t believe her. Even if filled with dread over how he would react, she needed to give him the proof he sought. She pointed to his shoulder, where his jagged wound had already healed. “You don’t even have a scar, but you slept for only a day and a half.”

  He peered at the bite marks at her neck. “Your wounds are gone, too—just tiny scabs. You must have some really strong medicines to—”

  “I didn’t give you any medicine.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I gave you dragonblood.”

  “Dragonblood is an herb?” he asked.

  He certainly knew how to make things difficult. “Dragonblood is blood from a dragon.”

  “Right, a dragon flew by and you captured it, stole its blood, and put it on our wounds.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Sorry, I don’t believe in magic dragons.”

  “Who said anything about magic?” Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that Lucan was a scientist. A linguist who knew how easily words could be used to deceive. She could only show him and hope he could deal with the truth. And in her hearts, she braced against the possibility that he might very well loathe and fear her once he learned her true nature. “Come with me.”

  After pairing with him, she didn’t know how she would bear it if he feared to look her in the eyes. If he cringed at her touch. The risk she was taking made her stomach clench into knots. And it took all her self-discipline not to delay the inevitable.

  More determined then ever to get this over with, she marched through the entrance into the freezing air. He didn’t hesitate to follow, yet kept his distance.

  Cael stared at the steep rocky peaks of the mountains, breathed in the chilly air, allowed the cold snow beneath her feet to seep through her flesh, into her blood, and deeper into her bones.

  “Look at me,”
she commanded and dropped her robe.

  CAEL STOOD NAKED before him. He sucked in a cold breath. Wild energy ripped through him, and suddenly, he had a raging hard-on.

  He didn’t just yearn to hold Cael’s soft flesh against him, he had to have her again. Immediately. What the hell was wrong with him?

  Cael frowned at him. “You’ve got to contain your emotions.”

  “I don’t understand.” His passion was strong and building in intensity, like a brewing storm.

  “Because your emotions… hurt.”

  Damn. He kept forgetting she could feel his need. “My emotions are hurting you?”

  Lips pressed tight, she nodded. Even in pain she was stunning. With her shoulders squared, her chin raised, her spine straight, her breasts lifted, and her nipples tight, she looked magnificent against the jagged rock cliffs. She’d also freeze to death if she didn’t—

  He blinked and Cael vanished. In her stead stood an enormous purple- and green-scaled dragon with a massive tail. The dragon’s head sported spikes. Its teeth had to be as long as his thumb.

  He staggered backward. A dragon. Unless he was hallucinating, Cael had turned into a dragon.

  Son of a bitch. The High Priestess was a dragonshaper.

  He held his breath as she gracefully spread her wings, launched her massive body from the cliff, and soared into the sky. Her huge body with its heavily muscled chest shouldn’t have been able to fly. Even with a wingspan three times his height, she looked too heavy to soar. Yet she flew with a grace that stole his breath away. As a woman Cael enchanted him, but as a dragon, she was wondrous, spectacular. Mesmerizing.

  Lucan had seen many beautiful and amazing sites in his life: the pyramids in Egypt, the crystal caves on Isir IV, the singing coral reefs of Abicron Station, the phosphorescent jelly floaters on Sighi Meteron. But none could match the glory of Cael’s flight. She was gorgeous and dangerous and wild.

  Cael, High Priestess of Avalon, was a dragonshaper. No matter how many times he thought it, the fact still wouldn’t sink in. But after all, this moon was named Pendragon. And Pendragon, King Arthur’s surname, meant “master dragon.” Was Cael’s dragon-morphing ability another connection between this world and King Arthur? Or was Lucan searching for connections that didn’t exist?