Chapter Fourteen
He chuckled but then sucked in a sharp breath as she bit down lightly on a patch of flesh and then sucked at it, teasing it with her tongue before she released it.
Releasing his hold on her wrists, he skated his palms lightly up her arms. She caught his wrists, pushing his arms down until they were flat on the bed on either side of his head.
He gave her an arch look but he made no attempt to break her hold. She skimmed her hands lightly along his hard forearms and then the hard, bulging muscles of his upper arms, and all the while she nibbled little bites along his upper chest. She slipped her hands back down his arms and matched her palms to his as she wove her way to one turgid male nipple and sucked at it. His fingers laced with hers, curling over the back of her hands. When she’d teased that nipple until his breath was hitching in his chest, she moved to the other, undulating her body and pressing her mound against his taut belly.
He was watching her from beneath half closed lids when she lifted her head, his eyes gleaming with desire. Disentangling her fingers from his, she stroked his arms while she explored his throat and neck, teased his ear until he was breathing raggedly and then moved to his hard mouth, plucking his lower lip into hers and sucking it and then nipping at his upper lip before she slowly traced both with her tongue.
He swallowed thickly when she opened her mouth to thrust her tongue into his mouth. A shudder when through him as he sucked on it. He followed her mouth as she retreated, lifting his arms to wrap one around her waist. He cupped the back of her head with the other, trapping her, kissing her deeply.
She kissed him back, stroking her tongue along his and then sucking at it while she explored his cheeks with her palms, his shoulders.
When he broke the kiss at last, she brushed her cheek along his, relishing the feel of his skin, the rough brush of morning whiskers. He had a faint cleft in his chin, which she explored with her tongue before she scooted back along his belly and worked her way down his broad chest with her hands and mouth until she felt the head of his cock delving into her cleft.
She pushed herself upright then, came up on her knees and grasped his cock. She watched his face as she stroked it back and forth along her cleft until she’d coated him with her body’s moisture and then aligned his body with hers. He caught her hips to balance her as she began to lower herself, slowly engulfing his flesh within hers.
He closed his eyes, tipping his back as she settled fully against him, sheathed him fully. “Rainie,” he breathed raggedly. “Gods! You feel so good, sweeting!”
He sat up abruptly as she began to move. Coiling his arms tightly around her, he nudged her chin up to cover her mouth with his, kissing her ravenously for several moments before he broke the kiss and urged her to move faster. Lifting and pressing her hips to guide her to the rhythm he needed, he watched their bodies merging, his chest expanding to brush hers with the depth of each harsh breath he drew.
Raina moaned as she felt her body quicken, shuddering as the first wave of release went through her and tensing at all over. Holding her tightly to him, he tipped her quickly onto her back and began to drive into her with rapid, pounding thrusts as she gasped and sobbed for breath with the hard quakes rushing through her.
He uttered a choked cry as his own body seized and the spasms of ecstasy overtook him, murmuring her name raggedly as he spilled his seed inside of her.
* * * *
Simon’s face was grim as he stared at the hologram of the battlefield he had chosen. Inwardly, he raged as he listened to Audric recite the latest intel the couriers had gathered from their supporters.
“It is as if he knows every move before we make it,” Audric growled with repressed fury.
Simon flicked a glance at the faces of his men around the table in the basement where they had gathered. “You have scanned the area for any devises?” he asked when his gaze settled on Jorell.
“Thoroughly,” Jorell said grimly. “I have gone over every inch of the island myself. Unless they have something with a far longer range than I have knowledge of, the leak is not here.”
Simon nodded, his expression a careful façade of calm. “He will have spies within the ranks of our supporters. He would not overlook anything so obvious.” He went back to studying the hologram, moving slowly around the large table to study it from every angle. When he had chosen the battlefield where he would meet his enemy, he had expected to have the Fortress at his back, to retreat his men, if necessary, up the single narrow access. He had not expected that he would have to fight his way up the mountain to reach his enemy.
But that could not be helped now, he thought furiously, for Jaelen had seized that position for himself.
He would find another way. Everything had been set in motion. There was no going back, not unless he meant to let Jaelen live out a long and happy life and die in his bed. And he had no intention of allowing that if he had to take the Fortress apart stone by stone. “We will assume, then, that he knows most, if not all, that we had planned for him and act accordingly.
“The fortress itself will be the hardest nut to crack. If he has knowledge, then he has had plenty of time to reinforce the weaknesses.”
Audric studied the fortress. Perched at the pinnacle of Mount Lania, it was bound on every side by nearly sheer cliffs, which was why it had never fallen in the five hundred years it had stood guard over Schalome’s southern boundary. There was only one way in or out and it was a narrow, winding road that would allow no more than five mounted men abreast to pass. “I have never more deeply regretted that we no longer have the knowledge to morph,” he muttered. “Our grandfathers did not foresee such as this or they would not have taken the knowledge with them when they went to their final rest.”
“We have the strength of our fathers,” Simon said grimly. “And those we do battle with will have no more. We do not need wings to take Draken Fortress. We will have the skimmers. We do not need dragon fire. We will have incendiary bombs. Our grandfathers knew the time had come to walk the land and claim it as land dwellers. We would have been extinct as a species before many more generations if we had not treated with the Macedons for their technology. It was a fair exchange, technology far advanced of any other race we have met, including the Earth people, to give up the skies and the territorial wars and become a united people, to be builders instead of destroyers.
“Despite the wars fought since, we have progressed far more in the past hundred years than in a thousand before.”
Audric shrugged. “I did not say that the old ways were better--though I still recall with awe the magnificence of our grandfather on the day of the Signing. He was a glorious sight to behold, far more regal than the Macedons who had defeated him.
“Draken Fortress was built in the days of the great dragons. With all the technology we have developed ourselves, and all that given to us by the Macedons, one dragon could do what it will take an army to accomplish and still leave the Fortress for our sons and daughters. We will have to destroy it.”
Simon lifted his head to meet Audric’s gaze for a long moment. “I know the secret of Draken Fortress. Jaelen does not.”
Audric nodded fractionally.
“It is time to bring the ship in and prep it for our long journey home,” Simon said, turning from Audric to the others. “Tomorrow, Jorell and Rama will leave to retrieve it. Elden and Haig will have watch--leaving us thin. Do not tarry in the retrieval.”
Dismissing them with a nod, he turned and strode to the vid screen on the far wall, staring at the star charts displayed there. Audric joined him after a few moments. Simon said nothing for so long that Audric had begun to think that he had misread the signal Simon had given him to speak alone.
“It will be good to be home again,” Simon said presently, his voice harsh.
Surprise flickered through Audric, but he followed Simon’s lead. “Aye. And in the thick of battle! This place is pleasant enough, but not as beautiful as Schalome.”
Si
mon drew a ragged breath. “We are getting too old for this,” he said, smiling faintly.
“Speak for yourself! I am in my prime.”
Simon said nothing, but every breath seemed to pain him. “It will take no more than five days to prep the ship for the long journey home.”
“More or less.”
“Five, Audric.”
“Aye. We can manage in five.”
Simon swallowed audibly. “Go to her, Audric,” he said on a ragged, pained breath.
Audric frowned. “Now? She is surely abed by now and asleep.”
A muscle in Simon’s jaw worked as he clenched his teeth. “Do not be dense, Audric, and make this harder for me. At first light, go to her and say that I have sent you and the pact is broken. I can give you no more than five days, but I will grant you that for the love I bear you … because I know you care for her and I think that she will need you.
“Take care of her for me. I must be here and … and I am not at all sure that I could do what I know that I must if I saw that it hurt her. You must take her into the city and find a place for her to stay awhile.” He reached into his pocket and dragged out a folded paper and an envelope. “You will give her these. One is the deed to this estate. The other has the number of the account I have set up for her.”
Audric nodded, too stunned speak, taking the papers and pushing them into his pocket.
Simon swallowed with difficulty, dragged in a ragged breath. “I will speak to the others, make certain they know that I will not tolerate any attempt to harm her, but I will still feel better knowing that you are with her--protect her for me in case one of these fools decide they know better than I what is best for all of us.”
Audric stared at his profile in horror. “She is no threat to us or our plans! She knows nothing. She would not say anything if she did. I know her.”
“Aye. You know, and I know, but we are going to war. They will be thinking like warriors and they will not like to leave loose ends, especially when we all know that there is a spy among us. I would far rather be safe than live with regret the remainder of my days because I had failed her.”
* * * *
Raina simply stared at Audric blankly when she had answered his summons on her door, trying to figure out why he was standing on her doorstep so early in the morning. “Good morning, Audric,” she said summoning a sleepy smile as she squinted at him through sleep blurred eyes. “Did I oversleep?”
“It is half past six.”
“In the morning?” Raina demanded, turning to look at the window and trying to figure out if the dimness was actually late evening. She couldn’t seem to get her sleep starved brain to function, however.
“Yes, morning,” Audric confirmed.
“Oh! Well, I don’t have to get up yet,” she responded, staggering back toward the bed and sprawling face down on the mattress.
Audric followed her, staring down at her limp form and finally leaned over and popped her ass with the palm of his hand. She bolted up, blinking at him in shock. He crouched beside the bed. “I am to take you into town, Raina. You can not go back to sleep. You must get up and pack your things and we must go.”
That finally penetrated her stupor and Raina glanced toward the window that looked towards the main house, the window of Simon’s sitting room.
When she looked at Audric again, she saw that his face was taut. “It is time go, Raina,” he said, his voice gruff.
Swallowing with an effort, Riana nodded and climbed out of bed. She stared numbly at her reflection in the bathroom mirror when she’d washed her face and brushed her teeth. She knew she’d been dismissed. She knew she was being sent away, she just couldn’t fully grasp it.
She realized after a moment, though, that the numbness was a blessing.
She might actually have some hope of leaving with some of her pride intact.
She’d never actually unpacked. She’d known from the beginning that she wouldn’t stay long and in any case, it had become a habit over the years to live out of her suitcases. She never knew when she might have to leave a place quickly and she’d worked hard for the little she had. When she’d dressed, she had only to drop her laundry and cosmetics into the suitcase and close it again.
Audric carried the suitcases downstairs for her and loaded them into the back of the car he’d chosen to drive her. She sat stiffly in the front seat beside him as he backed the car out of the garage, staring at her hands in her lap, fighting the urge to look to see if she could get one last glimpse of Simon.
She maintained her stiff posture until they were out of sight of the house and finally leaned her head on the seatback, closing her eyes.
“I am to find a place for you in town to stay.”
Riana lifted her head to look at him blankly. “I can find my own place, thank you,” she said finally, closing her eyes again. “I’ve saved my pay.”
“We will look together,” he said firmly.
She didn’t try to argue with him. She didn’t especially want company, but it was a habit with Audric to rescue her from distress, and, truthfully, she didn’t think she was up to a search for shelter. If left to her own devices, she would simply sit down somewhere and stare at nothing, because she felt too empty to think.
Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the boat dock and Audric pulled the car under the shelter nearby, removed her suitcases from the car, and carried them down the dock to the boat. Raina followed him like a zombie, realizing after all that she was relieved she didn’t have to try to think.
The crossing was brief even though the channel between the island and the mainland was fairly wide. On the other side, they took the car that was always left in a shed there for trips into town.
Raina dozed, wakened sometime later by the sounds of traffic. Even with the windows up and the air conditioning going, despite the early hour, the racket seemed ungodly loud.
She’d grown too accustomed to the quiet of the island. It seemed bizarre that she would have. She’d been on the island for months, true, but she’d lived in the city her entire life before that.
“Are you hungry?”
Raina glanced at him, thought it over and finally shook her head.
He frowned. “I am hungry.”
Raina managed a faint smile. “Then we should stop and eat.”
Audric stopped outside the diner he’d chosen and took a newspaper from the vending machine. “Good thought,” Raina said. “I’ll need to start job hunting right away.”
He ordered breakfast for both of them. Raina gave him a look, but she didn’t feel up to arguing. Instead, she helped herself to part of the paper, flipped to the help wanted section and began studying the possibilities. She felt vaguely nauseated when the waitress brought their plates, but she sipped at the coffee and had a few bites of bacon and toast. She couldn’t look at the eggs without feeling ill.
Audric sent her a disapproving look but forbore comment.
By the time they’d left the restaurant, Raina had circled a half dozen hopeful possibilities. She had very little interest in where she stayed beyond the price, but she quickly discovered that Audric’s idea of where she should stay and hers didn’t coincide at all.
“I can’t afford a place like this!” she hissed angrily when he’d pulled up in the parking lot of an expensive apartment complex. “Don’t stop. Just start the car again and give me the paper.”
Audric shifted in the seat to study her. “Simon is paying,” he said finally.
Raina’s head jerked up. She stared at him blankly while her face changed color three times. “No, he isn’t,” she said after battling her emotions for several moments. “I can take care of myself.”
Audric sighed impatiently. “I am ordered to take care of you.”
Raina’s jaw tightened. “And here I thought you’d come because you were my friend. Stupid of me.”
“I am your friend, Raina.”
She gave him a look.
“I am trying to be your friend.�
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“I don’t work for Simon anymore. You might have to follow his orders, but I don’t. And I am not, nor was I ever, his mistress. I don’t give a shit how he usually disposes of his mistresses. He can take his money and shove it up his ass.”
Audric’s face tightened. “He has never had a mistress. He sent me to take care of you because he wanted to be sure you were alright. I came because I wanted to be sure, otherwise I would have told him to go to hell.”
Raina’s throat closed as she stared at him. The tears she’d been fearing would overcome her stung her eyes. She blinked them back with an effort, knowing if she started she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“I will arrange this for now,” he said gently. “When you are feeling better, if you do not want to stay, then go and find another place.”
Riana nodded. All she really wanted was a bed to lay down on, a room with dark shades she could lock herself into … and maybe she’d never come out.
She dozed off again while she was waiting for Audric, awakening when he opened the door on the driver’s side and got in. Starting the car, he drove around the building, staring up at it until he found what he was looking for and then parked the car and took her bags out. Telling her the apartment number, he allowed her to precede him.
Raina stood uncertainly in the middle of the living room when Audric had opened the door for her. He passed her, heading down the hallway toward the bedroom.
The apartment was fully furnished.
She couldn’t have afforded it without furnishings.
Audric returned from the bedroom after a few moments. Closing and locking the door, he took her hand and led her to the bedroom. Her shoulders slumped with weariness and the weight of her tamped emotions when she saw the king sized bed. Releasing Audric’s hand, she crawled on the bed and lay down, staring at the wall. “Are you leaving now?” she asked when he didn’t move.
“If you wish.”
She flicked a look at him. “Would you stay if asked you to?”
He swallowed audibly. “If you wish.”
Raina’s chin wobbled. She nodded, unable to speak for the hard knot in her throat. He moved to the bed and settled behind her, curling an arm around her waist. She dragged in a difficult breath, trying to hold the tears at bay.
Dragon Lord Page 19