“Yes, you are.”
Zala shook her head.
After a couple more quiet minutes, Salena sighed and left.
Zala pushed herself onto a boulder, her shoulder giving a twinge and her scabbard bumping against the rock. She sat on the top and wrapped her arms around her legs, looking toward the stars, but not seeing them. She ought to be sleeping. The unit had to march tomorrow, and it was late. Few voices drifted up from the tents, and most lanterns had been turned out for the night.
She had almost convinced herself to go to bed when movement caught her eye. It wasn’t up in the sky, but behind the camp, farther up the canyon. The shadows were thick along the rock walls, but she thought she spotted something stirring back there. She shifted to face in that direction. Yes, there. She squinted into the gloom, trying to pierce it with her eyes. A dark, shadowy form separated from the wall, its size far too great to belong to some bird. She swallowed, spotting the outline of wings at the same time as her sword hummed against her side.
The perimeter soldiers hadn’t raised an alarm yet; the dragon was coming in sneakily, from the canyon rather than from the sky above. Zala slid off the boulder, placing her back to it, and rested her hand on her sword. She needed to shout a warning, to call everyone to arms. As much as she wanted it to be Talon, chances were it was some other dragon, a dragon that had malicious intent in mind.
No intent, a voice spoke softly into her mind. It’s me.
Zala stood straight, her gaze locked to the approaching figure. For a second, she thought she glimpsed the twin glow of violet eyes. Talon? she asked, though she recognized his voice—what other dragon had ever bothered speaking to her except to threaten her? She just had a hard time believing it was truly him.
He sprang into the air and coasted toward her, wings still as the air currents carried him toward her outcropping. You look like you’re waiting for a ride.
Giddy excitement such as she had not felt in ages filled her, and she grinned foolishly. He was alive!
She ought to have been concerned, if not disgruntled, that her soldiers hadn’t spotted a dragon’s approach, but she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it, not for this dragon.
I convinced them to look the other way.
Zala should have found the notion of a dragon tinkering with her people’s minds alarming, but she couldn’t manage to feel alarmed about that either.
That’s because you find my tinkering charming. Talon folded in his wings and dropped to the earth under her rocky outcropping.
Oh really.
A tingle of heat rushed through her body, as if Talon were standing behind her in human form, running his hands over her breasts and down to even more sensitive areas. She gasped, remembering the last time he had done that, when he had kissed her in the tunnel. Her body throbbed with an intensity that left her bracing herself against the boulder.
Really.
Talon disappeared from view, blending into the sagebrush and manzanita so fully that he must have changed form. Even in the darkness, she was sure she could have spotted a dragon down there.
Pebbles shifted and clattered free on the front side of her rocky outcropping, and she crept forward to peer down the steep slope. The form climbing toward her was indeed human. He moved agilely and did not appear injured; his flying hadn’t seemed strained either, not from what she had seen.
I was injured, left for dead in the rubble, but nobody bothered to finish me off. My kind evacuated quickly after those explosions started. They worried the entire mountain would fall on them, so battles and grudges were forgotten.
“I’m sorry,” Zala whispered, guilt bubbling to the surface of her mind. She had wondered about him as she had been helping Salena back to meet the others, but she’d had far too many injured soldiers to worry about, especially since they’d had to wind all the way back through those tunnels again to escape. She couldn’t have gone back to look for him, even if she had known a way to reach him.
“Don’t be sorry.” Talon reached the top of the outcropping, and he surged over the ledge with a push from his powerful shoulders. Without hesitation, he came forward and wrapped her in a hug. “You couldn’t have reached me, and I knew you had your own people to look after.”
She returned the hug, pulling him tight and pressing her face into his shoulder. His bare shoulder. She almost laughed, because he had been pushing through pokey brush and climbing past thorny cactuses naked to reach her. But her amusement faded as she felt the contours of his muscled body beneath her arms and rubbed her face against his warm skin, inhaling his scent. The urge to lick him filled her mind, and she shook her head, laughing at herself. Lust wasn’t the reason she had missed him. Not the only reason anyway. Admittedly, she had thought of him often while lying in her cot at night, but she’d missed having someone to talk to, as well, someone she had considered an equal from the beginning. Yes, he had been a prisoner most of the time she had known him, but even in chains, he had never acted like a prisoner.
“You smell good,” Talon murmured, his lips brushing her ear, his fingers curling about her neck and massaging her. More heat flowed through her body, this time from his touch instead of from his mind.
He made contented noises as he held her, rubbing her. Maybe he had been thinking lustful thoughts while he had been recovering too. Zala felt sad at the idea of him hiding in a cave somewhere alone, with no one to care for him while he tried to regain his health. She wished she had known where he had been. She would have found a way to sneak away from her duties for a couple of weeks, to come to him and tend to him.
“I would have liked to have you there with me,” he said.
“Do you know everything I’m thinking now?” She kept her voice neutral, but she silently admitted to a little concern. People had dark and selfish thoughts lurking in their minds, thoughts they usually kept to themselves. What might he find in her brain’s recesses that wouldn’t flatter her? Would it repulse him? Or did he understand about dark thoughts?
“Not everything,” he said, moving his lips to her throat and kissing her.
She shivered, leaning into him further. Even if her brain was busy thinking about this mind-reading ability, her body was more concerned about being touched—and responding to that touch.
“Generally speaking, male dragons aren’t as capable in that area as females, but I can sense what you’re thinking in a given moment, what you’re feeling, what you want.” He lifted her chin to gaze into her eyes, their lips scant inches apart. “I’d like to think I would be a less inept lover if you were willing to give me another chance.”
“Inept?” Zala’s own gaze snagged on his lips, thoughts of kissing them dancing through her mind. “You were hardly that.”
“At the least, I could warn you now if some plucky soldier was about to walk into your tent while you were… inspecting me.”
“That would be convenient.” Rising on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips to his. She ran her tongue along them, enjoying his taste, his warmth.
“Wait,” Talon whispered, drawing back and clasping her hands between his. He looked up, taking a deep breath. His cock stood at attention, not interested in waiting. “I was going to take you somewhere.” His gaze flicked toward the tents behind her. “Somewhere private where we wouldn’t be heard.”
“My soldiers might miss me if I’m gone for long,” she said, though she knew she would go anywhere with him.
“I can bring you back at dawn.” His eyes fixed on her again, briefly flaring with that inner glow, their intensity leaving her knees weak. “If you wish.”
“All right.” Zala stepped closer, extricating her hands so she could link them behind his neck. She kissed him again. “Take me anywhere you like,” she spoke against his lips.
He kissed her back fiercely, his body pressing into hers again. “It’s all I can do not to take you against that boulder,” he said.
“That would be...” She shifted against him, wanting his thick shaft between her
legs instead of prodding her in the stomach. “Acceptable.”
For a moment, he merely kissed her, his hands roaming hungrily, and she thought he might agree, but then he groaned and stepped back. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and he seemed to be struggling to keep his hands at his sides instead of on her. Though she did not want to stop, she enjoyed seeing his struggle, knowing that he wanted her so badly that he had to fight hard to rein himself in.
“I want to give you what I promised,” he said, his eyes locked onto her.
She looked down at his cock.
“I meant the ride,” he said, taming his lust enough to manage a dry tone.
“Of course. That’s what I was thinking of.”
He backed to the edge of her outcropping, faced the drop off, and crouched, one knee and his knuckles resting on the ground. She was tempted to move closer and slide her hands over his bare, muscular back, but she restrained herself. Who knew what happened if one stood too close when a dragon changed shape?
You would just be knocked over. Talon’s form shifted, melting before her eyes, then transforming, scale taking the place of skin. It only took a few seconds, and the dragon crouched on the ledge before her, his tail stretched outward, long enough that it ran past her and curled around the boulder. But I would prefer my passion knock you over, not my haunches.
Zala regarded the sleek scales of his back, a strange thrill going through her at standing so close to a dragon and being able to admire him instead of trying to kill him—or trying to keep from being killed by him. His form had a beauty and elegance to it, though of course, she did not find it arousing in the way his human form was.
No? Talon looked back over his shoulder at her, his eyes closing to slits.
Heat raced through her nerves, coming together in a sunburst of intensity between her thighs. She gasped and touched her chest. She almost slid her hand between her legs, to rub herself and answer the intense throbbing he was somehow stirring within her. Magic. Or the power of his mind. It hardly mattered. She groaned his name, only his eyes upon her keeping her from touching herself to relieve the throbbing ache building within her core.
I wouldn’t mind, he informed her, sounding slightly smug.
Seeing me... It wouldn’t arouse you, would it? Not when you’re like that. She would have spoken the words out loud, but his ministrations were leaving her short of breath.
No, but it pleases me to see you so affected by me. If dragons could smile, he did.
He also eased back with his touch. That was probably good if he wanted her to be able to walk, much less ride, but she felt an ache of disappointment that she was hot and moist but hadn’t found satisfaction.
Soon, he promised, regarding her with those intense eyes. His tail curled up, the tip pointing toward his back. Climb on.
She glanced toward the boulder, thinking she would need to gain some elevation before jumping over to him, but his tail lifted slightly, curling further, offering itself as a hook, or a seat. She sat astride it, a fresh twinge of sensation pulsing through her core as it pressed between her thighs. As Talon lifted her onto his back, she flushed, as much from embarrassment as from arousal. While being attracted to a dragon shape-shifted into a human might be somewhat odd, it seemed far more normal than finding a dragon sexy, even if he was using his mind to tease her. Weren’t there rules against inter-species romance?
If there are, I won’t tell anyone we’re breaking them. Talon spread his wings as she settled on the ridge of his back. Hang on.
Hang on to what, she did not know. Dragons did not come with handles. As he lowered himself, preparing to spring into the air, she dropped to her belly, draping her arms and legs to either side of his spine.
I’ll keep you on, he promised, then leaped into the air.
Even though she had fought more than a hundred battles, her life at stake each time, a moment of sheer and unaccustomed panic clutched her as they left the ground. Air rushed past her face, and the world seemed to blur. Certain she would fall, she clenched herself to him as tightly as she could.
As they reached the height of his jump, his wings started flapping, great powerful beats that created windstorms, stirring the leaves on bushes forty feet below them. Through magic or some science she did not understand, that wind did not batter at her. Her perch on his back remained stable, and even when he banked and tilted upward, toward the sky, she did not slip.
Gradually, Zala relaxed, coming to believe that she would not fall. A sense of wonder came over her, and she immediately decided she wanted a ride again during the day, when she could more easily see the world spread out below them.
That can happen.
Talon flew up the canyon, not cresting the walls but sailing along even with them for a mile. That mile disappeared quickly, the dark cactuses and bushes sweeping by at amazing speed below them. The creek was too small to see from their height, but she could hear the gurgle of the water, the banks flushed after the earlier rain.
Talon turned toward the canyon wall, and a twinge of fear quickened her pulse again. It looked like he would crash right into the rocks.
“You know what you’re doing, right?” she asked as the dark cliff grew larger and larger, filling her vision.
Of course. Talon stopped flapping his wings, and they coasted toward the wall. No, they were heading toward a ledge, one she could barely pick out in the night’s shadows.
He landed in the center of it, scarcely jostling her. Even though she had enjoyed the ride, she slid off his back quickly, eager to feel solid ground underneath her again. She spotted a blanket that had been spread out, the corners weighed down with rocks. Other blankets were stacked nearby, waiting for them, and a tiny rock circle had been laid, with wood brought up for a fire. To her delight, a coffeepot rested on one of the rocks, with a canteen and a small sack of ground beans resting beside it.
“Talon,” she blurted. “That’s so thoughtful.”
“Most people would admire the view before the coffeepot,” he said dryly, stepping up behind her, human arms wrapping around her waist.
“Oh. Well, I’m sure that’s nice too.” Zala leaned back against him instead of walking over to the edge. By night, she doubted she would see much, but she imagined it would be amazing to watch the sunrise over the canyon, especially from halfway up one of the walls.
“It will be.” He nuzzled her ear. “Assuming I’m not keeping you too busy to notice the sunrise.”
“Feeling cocky and sure of yourself, are you?” She grinned over her shoulder at him, hoping he would go back to what he had been using his magic for before. With him back in his sexy human form, she felt much more comfortable lusting over him.
“Very cocky. I’ve been practicing.” He leaned over her shoulder and kissed her before she looked away, his hands sliding up from her waist to her breasts, stroking her lightly through her uniform jacket.
“Practicing?” she asked against his mouth, a surge of jealousy arising at the thought that he might have found some other woman to mate with.
“Just opening and closing shirts.” His eyes gleamed with humor, and as his warm hand brushed the bare skin of her stomach, she realized he had unbuttoned her jacket much more deftly than before. “You’re the only woman I want to mate with.”
He kissed her hard, his lips growing more demanding as he molded his body against hers. She thought to wriggle around in his grip to face him fully, but he touched her again with his mind, instantly arousing her with the most exquisite of sensations between her thighs. All she could manage was to twist one arm around to grip the back of his head as they kissed over her shoulder.
Her jacket and shirt fell away, and his hands stroked her breasts, tweaking her nipples and eliciting pleasure from them even as his power teased more sensitive parts. It was like nothing she had ever experienced, and all she could do was grip him, returning his kisses with ones so hungry, so full of need, that he couldn’t have possibly questioned how much she wanted him. His ministra
tions would have brought her to her knees if she hadn’t had his support, but his strong arms kept her upright, pressed against him. Great throbs of intensity coursed through her, and all she could think as she groaned and squirmed in his arms was that he had better not stop this time.
Finally, unable to bear it, she twisted in his grip, grabbing him with both arms and hooking a leg around his hip, thrusting herself against his hard cock. She still wore her boots and trousers, but she ground herself against him, needing a release.
This time, he gasped. He gripped her ass and rocked into her, a thumb hooking into her belt. She thought he would remove her trousers and take her there, but the power eliciting those intense sensations deep within her increased, quickening as it swept through her, rubbing her in all the right places. Trembling, she looked up at his face, and his eyes flared violet, so intense, so aroused, that she came for him with a deluge of passion, as if with that glow, he had commanded her to do so.
As the aftermath bathed her with pleasure, she fell against him. Her entire body was limp, so relaxed she could have melted into a puddle, but he still gripped her close, his body tense and hard. Hungry.
“Seeing you—feeling you writhing against me arouses me like nothing in my world or yours ever has,” he said, his voice hoarse as he rocked into her, rubbing his shaft against the bared skin of her abdomen.
He seemed to realize what he was doing and stopped, sweeping an arm under her legs and carrying her to the blanket. Zala struggled to pull herself together, though it was hard to think of more when a warm glow still filled her. But when she thought of him alone in some cave, wounded and hiding for weeks, she could shift her focus from herself to him. He had been injured, nearly killed, fighting for her. She wanted to thank him, to show her appreciation by pleasuring him.
He was laying her on her back on the blanket, coming down above her, his lips finding hers again, but she stopped him with a hand to his chest. A slight furrow creased his brow, and she imagined herself with her mouth around his cock, trusting that he was watching her thoughts. How else could he have known just how to touch her with his power to leave her trembling in his arms, more sated than she had ever been before?
Dragon Bond Page 20