“Ok. So what you’re saying is it’s against the law to mate with someone outside your species?”
“Not against our laws. Laws are made for things that can be fathomed. Our mate bond, even our precious son…these are against everything the drakkon know to be true. It is incomprehensible, like mating with food. It will take Drakkon a very long time to understand, and even longer to accept.”
“Are you saying Eos is in danger?”
“No,” he answered decisively. “Our son is safe. I will keep him safe. I vow this to you, Reverence. But keeping him safe means he and I must stay hidden here with you in these unsettled lands where the other drakkon will not so easily locate us. Yet the mission cannot return to Drakkon without me…so like you, I find myself without a civilization, far from my home of origin. Possibly forever. After your heart ceases to beat, I will not return to Drakkon with Golden Son. I will remain here, where I know he will be safe from those in court who would cast their lot against him. Yet despite all this, my fire is not blue.”
“But why not?” Fensa demanded, her heart tearing at the thought of all he’d given up for her, and all he would continue to give up to protect their son, long after she was gone. “You were the prince of an advanced civilization, for god’s sake! And because of me saying some stupid words at the Arizona gate, you’ve lost everything. Your home. Your mission. Everything!”
At that, the dragon turned his giant head to gaze down at her again, his usual expressionless countenance softening as he answered, “Reverence, I would rather spend one hundred solars with you and our son, than another 18,000 as a lonely Royal. I am incapable of the love of which you once described to me, but be that as it may…I am your drakkon, Reverence. Yours. Understand you this?”
It was strangely the most heartfelt, moving thing anyone had ever said to her.
“Understand you this?” Xenon repeated.
“Yes,” she replied. And she truly did.
“Then give me your touch. I would feel your hand upon my true form, as I never have before.”
Fensa really didn’t want to. But she felt she had to. As if this one act, rather than a formal apology, was the truest test of whether their relationship could recover from all that had passed between them.
He was her mate. Not her husband in the technical sense as defined by the social norms and laws of her time. But in this place, in this time…they didn’t need some ceremony or legal documentation to formalize their union. He was also the father of her child. A new kind of hybrid. Half-shifter, half-drakkon.
The best of us both, Fesna thought to herself as she finally stepped into the warm water.
Yet her hand trembled as she lifted it to touch one huge scaled knee gingerly. It felt…impossible to explain. Like a cross between steel and vulcanized rubber. Giving, but impenetrable and cold to the touch. Fensa felt the burning weight of his dragon gaze on her as she moved her hand over his scales. Towards his huge underbelly, which turned out not to be nearly as soft as it looked. Unyielding to sword, she remembered Papa saying when he’d described the battle. And so hot it felt like touching a stove window. To her surprise, Xenon’s stomach rippled, and he let out a rough snort.
She looked up at him sharply.
“Forgive me, Fated Mate,” he said inside her head. “You do honor me with your touch. But that is a very sensitive area of my body. It sits directly above my male works.”
Fensa snatched her hand away as if she’d been burned.
“Have no worry, Reverence. Drakkon are well-evolved. Nothing inappropriate will happen while I am in this form. It is not possible for me to...respond as such with any but a drakki.”
Well, thank the Lord for that, Fensa thought to herself, almost giggling out loud at the combination of sheer relief, and sense of the ridiculous that washed over her. This whole exercise was frightening enough without having to contend with a giant dragon penis. Make that two giant dragon penises, she corrected herself.
“Do you have wish to touch my crown?”
Nope, not really. But Fensa quickly brushed those thoughts aside. She should at least try. And it’s not like she’d have the chance to decline because Xenon’s body was already on the move. Gallons of warm water displaced, sloshing onto the dry ground surrounding the spring, as he stepped back, and back some more, until he was once again nearly submerged.
Turning his head fully to the side, the dragon stretched his neck out with his cheek hovering over the water. Fensa waded forward, one hand outstretched towards his “crown.” The water reached up to her shoulders before she was finally able to rest her palm against the top of Xenon’s huge head.
His crown spikes felt like rough wood, but with the same imperviousness as his skin. Fensa found herself rubbing down one of the spikes, seeking out cracks or splinters with her curious fingers.
Xenon emitted another raspy snort, and the resulting steam hit Fensa’s bare skin with the heat of several Swedish saunas.
“You honor me with your touch,” he began in the overly polite tone he usually employed before issuing a correction or pointing out a mistake. “But my crown is also very sensitive…”
Uh…ok. Wow. And once more, Fensa thanked god Xenon’s huge size, and biological programming made it impossible for him even to attempt to get with her in dragon form.
Fensa was in the process of casually removing her hand from Xenon’s spike when she felt something slide over her naked mound. Something hot and wet—well, more hot and wet than the luxurious waters of the hot spring—and forked. She could feel her eyes go wide with shock. What the—?
Before she could step away from Xenon, or even formulate any of the obvious questions that immediately sprang to mind, he said, “You will allow me to honor you in this way, Reverence. You will prove you understand I am your drakkon.”
Whoa…whoa! Paralyzed with shock, Fensa stood rooted to the spot while her mate’s large forked tongue gently explored her vulva, her slit, and her various openings from front to back. Exploring, she reminded herself. He’s just exploring. He hadn’t done anything like this to her since their very first months together at the glacier station. But no need to freak out. Nothing at all unusual or…or unsettling about having one wide tip of a dragon’s forked tongue probe her pussy. Dragon’s. Tongue. Inside. Her. Pussy.
Fensa closed her eyes against the single red eye that watched her intently, while the long tongue continued to work her below.
“You may close your eyes if you wish, Reverence. Perhaps it will help you to feel more comfortable. But soon I will ask you to gaze upon your drakkon when he honors you in this way.”
Oh, God. As wrong as his tongue felt—nasty, abrasive, way too thick—Fensa could not control the rising tide of her orgasm. Soon her legs trembled. Not with the contempt of natural born enemies, but with an orgasm as huge and as strong as her dragon mate.
By the time she finished, her face was covered in a sheen of sweat that had nothing to do with the hot spring. Only then did Xenon withdraw his tongue tip from her. Warm water rushed in to fill the now-empty space, lapping caressingly against her still pulsing vagina.
“I do honor you with this bath,” Xenon informed her, scooping up water and pouring it over her head like a blessing. Voice formal, but calm. As if he hadn’t just fucked her into an intense orgasm with his dragon tongue. “I will remain unshelled, and we will return here tomorrow. And then every day after until you burn for your drakkon as you do for his shell. Until you believe my solemn vow. Until you come to understand your drakkon as I understand my wolf…”
Understand? She could barely talk after that, much less comprehend how she’d managed to come so hard thanks to the admittedly talented tongue of a fucking dragon! A dragon who could very well slaughter all whom her father held dear.
“Shame,” he observed, voice laced with curiosity.
Fensa stiffened.
“And now…pride.” His tone was more disappointed than curious now.
“Xenon, I can’t help
how I feel—” she started to protest.
“Reverence,” he interrupted.
“Yes?” she asked.
“No, Reverence. I address you not. Instead, this is how you shall address me going forward. Not by my name, but by those titles available to you as my mate. My Revered. Reverence. Treasure. Prince. Fated. Fated Mate—any of these titles may you use. But I will not hear my name cross your lips again. You will understand my nature. You will properly address my nature. And you will learn to revere me as I do you.”
“What?” she demanded. “But I thought that was something only males do on your planet!”
A beat passed, and then he reminded her, “Only when our females die in childbirth. If they live, then does a female owe her male Reverence, too. I did not demand such honor from you before because you are not drakki.”
“And I am still not drakki,” she reminded him bluntly.
“No, you are not,” he agreed. “But as you pointed out, Reverence, we are not on my planet. And here will our mateship, unorthodox though it be, adapt to new rules.”
IV
“Forgive me, Treasure”
29
So that was how Fensa ended up dating a dragon.
At least, that’s how it felt. They were already mated. And both he (in dragon form), and Eos (in whatever form he decided to take), slept in the cave with her wolf every night.
But each morning, before he and Eos left to hunt, Xenon escorted her to the hot spring. He’d set her down at the bottom of the mountain, and they’d walk the two-hour journey side-by-side.
To Fensa, it felt an awful lot like how she’d envisioned the traditional Viking courtship, thanks to the detailed descriptions her papa had once shared with her. Having always preferred his wolf to his man, Papa hadn’t managed to connect with any one village girl. So he never took part in such rituals. But Fensa’s grandmother, Chloe, Ever the Wise, frequently sent her son in wolf form to “escort” the young wolves on their courtship walks to the village’s local hot spring.
In fact, the only reason Olafr survived the morning dragon attack that had killed his family, was because he’d been escorting a young couple back from their courtship in wolf form. His wolf had jumped into the fight without thought of shifting, since he didn’t have a sword nearby anyway. And his wolf’s speed and dexterity was what kept him alive, even as burnt corpses began to pile up in the large field where the people of his village had gone to fight the serpent enemy.
But then he’d been struck by a silver arrow, and effectively turned back into a man. And the last thing he remembered was his beloved brother, FJ, shouting at him to run up the mountain toward the gate, so that he could say the words that would send hurtling him through space and time to his fated mate…right before he made a killing blow at one drakkon, only to be burned alive by another.
Her papa would disown her and never speak to her again if he knew she had not only mated a dragon but bore his child. And yet…the feeling of being courted by the dragon during their dawn walks was impossible for Fensa to ignore.
Their first few strolls were mostly silent. But sooner than expected, Fensa began sharing things with him. Little things, at first. Stories from her childhood, descriptions of future technologies. Foods she missed, along with numerous failed attempts to describe concepts Xenon didn’t understand, like video games, spices, and reality TV.
In turn, he described his first two thousand years on Drakkon. Which to Fensa sounded like a cold, antiseptic, motherless affair. It mostly involved training, and servants, and “Game of Thrones”-level palace intrigue. Xenon did a much better job of explaining Drakkonian concepts like how his kind derived nutrients from a planet devoid of animal life, the label system, and their stunningly low infertility rates.
It was funny. Though they’d been mated for over three years, they’d never really had much time to talk with one another. Life in what she still referred to as Beringia had been…well, very full, very active, and very cold. When he wasn’t hunting for food, Xenon worked. And shortly after Eos’ birth, Fensa had fallen into the role of weirdest stay-at-home mother ever. Which meant handling all the child rearing, and eventually focusing on her own “work” of figuring out where the hell they were, and—more importantly—how to get the hell out of there, and down to the Arizona gate. Then there’d been that epic walk/escape into hiding towards the west, across the remainder of the land bridge they called home. Through Alaska, down the California coast, before cutting east when she spotted the Channel Islands.
Fensa had been far too busy navigating, and praying/hoping/pleading to engage in much chit-chat with Xenon. And truth be told, the thought of making small talk with the mate she would eventually betray felt like a pretty shitty thing to do, even though she had her reasons—very good reasons, she’d thought at the time. But over the course of the first three months in their new Arizona home, Fensa and Xenon talked to one other more than they ever had in the past three years.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. And that’s what eventually happened with their long walks together. By the fourth month, instead of walking awkwardly beside her, Xenon began setting her down farther and farther from the cave. Gradually flying them both closer and closer to their hot springs destination, until one morning he carried her the full distance, and set her down on the bank next to the spring, neatly reducing their two-hour trip to mere minutes.
At the hot spring, Xenon the dragon would “honor” Fensa with a sizzling underwater orgasm. But as promised, he only allowed her to keep her eyes closed for a little while. Less than a week after he began flying her the full distance, he commanded her to sit on the bank of the spring and watch. “Observe what your drakkon does to you.”
The sight should have repulsed her. And as she watched his long, oversized tongue extend forward, and push into her sex, she felt a sudden urge to grab it with both hands, and shove it away from her.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, she sat with a dazed, lust-filled expression on her face, watching the forked tongue work its magic in her pussy with helpless fascination. Until she was hit with the biggest orgasm she’d ever had outside her heat. And though she didn’t black out this time, stars still radiated at the edges of her vision as she watched the dragon clean the milky white release from her dark pussy—
“Oh fuck,” she cried, throwing her head back, and coming a second time, just from the cleaning.
It wasn’t enough. After the first few days of watching him fuck her with his tongue, she begged him to shift. “You can’t be happy with this arrangement!” she pointed out. “Please shift, and fuck me. Please!”
But he wouldn’t give in. Only invited her to bathe with him in the hot springs before they returned to the village.
After her bath, he did exactly as he’d done every morning prior: dropped her off with the other women at the bottom of the mountain. To sew and, depending on the season, gather various plants, nuts, and berries to go with whatever the males brought back from the hunt. Although the food was far more plentiful here, they ended up having to hunt more often, since they could no longer rely on ice and snow to make otherwise highly perishable food last for long stretches of time.
“I must away, Reverence. Thank you for the honor of your company this morning.” Xenon bent his head slightly, and then held up a massive, taloned forepaw.
“And…ah, thank you for the honor of yours,” she answered awkwardly, holding up her hand and moving her palm forward to touch his.
“Other way, Reverence,” he reminded her.
Fensa stopped the forward motion of her hand, holding it still and elevated until Xenon’s much larger dragon palm pressed into her way smaller hand.
The whole concept of reverence continued to stymy her. Which meant she was frequently at the receiving end of lessons on how to accept address in a reverent manner, and how to initiate address in return. Fensa now knew she should cast her eyes downward when making a request, but always meet his gaze directly wh
en asking a question. They must touch foreheads upon seeing each other if more than a few “wing hours” had passed since they last spoke. And press palms when parting. Unless, of course, they were parting for more than a few wing hours. In which case, they were supposed to touch forehead and palms together. Or something like that.
It was seriously more confusing than that one year of high school German she took before wisely deciding to switch to Spanish. The little details kept tripping her up. For example, if they met “in the heat”—which meant during the day in drakkon speak, he touched his forehead to hers. But if they met “in the cold”—at night—then she touched her forehead to his. However, the hand thing was the complete opposite. He touched her palm when he left for the hunt; she touched his before she left to shift with the moon. And she still couldn’t say for sure when she was supposed to use her right palm, and when she was supposed to use her left.
But Xenon remained patient. Resolute in his insistence that she learn his customs, even if she’d eventually die in what to him would seem like the blink of an eye. Assuming he ever blinked.
“Farewell, Reverence,” Xenon said before taking off for the hunt with a great downward flap of his huge wings.
Note for next lifetime, she thought to herself as she watched Eos burst out the cave to join his father. Never get into a fight with somebody who’s going to live fifteen to eighteen thousand years longer than you. Just don’t.
Xenon’s patience game was beyond tight. And though Fensa knew what she knew, she found herself wondering how long it would take before she cracked.
NAGO, His Mississippi Queen: 50 Loving States, Mississippi (The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy, Book 1) Page 36