“For what, exactly?” Conor’s voice was reserved. He wished to hear the words from Graeme’s father himself, though he already knew what would be said.
“We dragons are raised on a certain sort of isolation; hatred even. We are taught that everyone in the world despises us, and so we grow to despise them. I suppose that my son understood better than I did that this is not an essential attitude. He accepted you where I could not.”
“And now?”
“And now,” said Lord Ramsey, extending a hand to clasp Conor’s, “I welcome you as a sort of son-in-law. My home is yours. My dragons at your disposal. You have proven a far more worthy military leader than I.”
“Hardly,” said Conor, stifling a laugh. “I believe it’s our Lady Lilliana who is the leader.”
“She is rather impressive,” said Lord Ramsey. “It must be the dragon in her.”
“Of course.” This time Conor suppressed an eye roll. Baby steps, he told himself. The man is set in his ways.
The wall of fire died down slowly and Conor’s army made its way across in tentative steps, taking in the sight of dragons milling about on the ground. Most had never encountered a dragon, and any who had had been fortunate to live to tell of it. But now the déors seemed docile, accommodating even.
“We’ve somehow altered the course of history,” said Graeme, sitting up as Merriman inspected him for serious injury. Barnabas had reverted to his comfortable owl form, the man disappeared again, perhaps forever. “I don’t know how, but we’ve done it.”
“I’m almost frightened to head back to the modern era,” laughed Lily. “God knows, there might be dragons flitting about in downtown London.”
“Wouldn’t that be a sight?”
“For the record,” said Merriman, “I recommend not flitting around in dragon form.”
As always, he spoke as though he already saw the consequences of such an action, and so Lily and Graeme went quiet, exchanging only a silent smile.
“Well, young Lord Ramsey, you seem fine. You have the wind knocked out of you and you will find yourself a little bruised. But not surprisingly, you are a rather strong lad.”
“Thank you, Merriman. For everything,” said Graeme. “I suspect that you had a hand in this, though of course you’ll never admit it.”
“I’ll leave it to Lady Lilliana to fill you in,” said the old shifter. “Meanwhile, you three know how and where to find me, and I’ll be expecting a visit very soon.”
“Consider it done.”
* * *
That evening, Graeme’s parents hosted an impromptu feast, intended originally as a victory celebration. All shifters were invited, as it was agreed that the day had proven a victory for all of them—though many of Conor’s army were still reluctant to set foot in the lair of a dragon, and so it ended up a relatively intimate affair of only several hundred guests.
Graeme and Conor were decked out in elegant silk embroidered tunics, Lily in a gown of gold. When she sat down between her mates for their dinner, Graeme leaned towards her.
“How did you know?” he asked. “How did you know what to say up there, on your wall of fire?”
“I didn’t,” she admitted. “I suppose that I had faith in you two.” Her eyes moved between the two men. “You, Conor, would have read your army’s minds. You would have known that they would follow you to the ends of the earth, so they were the easy ones; all I needed was to persuade you to halt and they would halt as well. But as for you, Graeme, I could only hope that you had a firm grip on your dragons. I knew perfectly well that they could have flown over that wall and gone for the jugular, so to speak.”
“But they didn’t,” said Conor. “Why is that again?”
Graeme laughed. “Because their leader is a devious, controlling bastard,” he said. “And I have to admit that I loved being that man.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to start mind-controlling me in bed,” said Lily. “Trying to get me to have sex with you at all hours of the night; expecting me to let you go down on me again and again, like some sort of slave.”
“I’m intending to do exactly that,” said Graeme. “But last I checked, mind control wasn’t really essential for that particular activity.”
“Good point,” said Lily. She looked down the table towards Graeme’s parents, who were engaged in eager chatter with a couple of the Beorn soldiers.
“What a strange turn of events,” she said. “Who knew that peace could be attained so easily?”
“If you call that easy,” said Conor, “I’d really fucking hate to see difficult.”
“You raise a good point. So listen,” she said, taking their hands in hers, “I would really, really like to spend a little time with you two, now that we’ve all bathed and brushed our teeth.”
“Agreed,” said Graeme. “If I had my way, we’d skip this whole meal thing and get straight to dessert.”
“I’ve missed your cheekiness,” she laughed. “And I’m in absolute agreement.” She turned to Conor. “What say after the toast we skip out on this feast and have one of our own, in private?”
Conor smiled. In her mind, Lily heard his voice utter the word yes approximately one hundred times in a row.
81
Dragon Wars, Chapter Sixteen
The scent of salt air filled Graeme’s room, the breeze drifting in from outside, hints of the sea carried across the winds from far away. Lily was taken back to her childhood at Dundurn, days spent looking out at the coast and wondering what the future held.
As she took in the sight of the two men standing before her she wanted to laugh. Never in her younger years had she envisioned this: her two mates, a Dragon Lord and his mortal enemy, a man who could shift into a gigantic bear, together in peace, bonded through their mutual adoration of her.
Weeks had passed since the three had last been together in Edinburgh, and Lily’s pregnancy was finally beginning to show. Both of her lovers found themselves entranced at the thought of her belly’s new roundness, eager to see, to touch.
As the two men looked on from a few feet away, she turned to them and silently pulled her loose dress upwards, revealing the bulge in her belly which gave it an enticing curve. This was evidence of their child, one created during their Rituals; one who would share their love.
But as their eyes explored her form, each man felt slightly embarrassed to note a welcome twitch in his trousers, as they saw that she hadn’t been wearing panties under her long silk gown. The soft triangle of gently tangling hair between her legs had darkened into what seemed an even more welcoming spot than usual, arousing their thoughts as they both stared, their mutual hunger for her body mounting by the second.
“Is it all right?” asked Graeme, taking a hesitant step forward. “I mean, to be with you…Will we hurt you in your state?”
“It’s fine,” Lily said, a coy smile inhabiting her lips. “We just averted a war; I think my body can take a bit of love-making. Or a lot of it.”
To confirm her words she lifted the dress over her head and let it tumble to the floor, stepping away from its fabric constraints, her naked body reflecting flickering candlelight in the dim glow of the chamber.
Her breasts had grown larger and rounder; the beautiful curves of a woman whose body was preparing itself for motherhood. Her nipples blushed a dark rose shade, sculpting themselves under the cool breeze into excited, swollen peaks.
“Dear Lord,” whispered Conor as he took in the sight; she remained the most exquisite creature he’d ever seen, and seemed even to grow more so by the minute.
Every risk he’d taken had been for this: for this moment when their lives would begin again.
Both men stood almost politely in wait, each allowing the other a first chance at her, or awaiting her command. But each ached physically to feast immediately on her skin, her scent, her touch. Patience was chafing at their insides, trying their every impulse.
It was Graeme who moved first, starved for her touch in spite of his b
attered muscles and bruised body.
He approached slowly, first laying a hand tentatively on either side of her waist, tenderly stroking the soft skin as though to remind himself through his fingertips that it was even real.
“She smells so good,” he said, addressing Conor as he smiled down at Lily with his bright eyes fixed on hers. “I can’t quite believe that we are all finally together in this place, safe from pursuit.”
Lily bit her lip in anticipation of his mouth, her need causing the pink flesh to swell under the pressure from her teeth. The men weren’t the only ones who felt starved. This moment was a dream, one from which she worried that she would awaken into the reality of the previous day when war had been inevitable; when they had remained wrenched apart from one another.
But no—this was real. Those fingers on her white skin were no dream. The man who watched from a few feet away, delight all over his face—he was real, too. They were hers; her reward, and she was theirs.
As though reading her thoughts, Graeme surrendered to his own desire and to hers, claiming her with his mouth, their tongues entwined in a long-overdue embrace, dancing against one another in need and want, only just beginning to quench a building thirst.
Conor, watching them, couldn’t resist any longer. Crossing the few feet between them to move behind her, he swept away her long hair and kissed her neck, his tongue taking in her salt flesh.
“It would seem that our lives are finally beginning,” he whispered between soft caresses of his own lips on her porcelain skin. “Our life.”
“Yes,” said Lily when she and Graeme had separated temporarily. She bent her head to the side to allow Conor access to her. “And now to decide where we’ll raise our children.”
“Children?” Conor’s head shot up with the violent interruption in his train of thought, which had been focused entirely on his mate’s erogenous zones. “Do you mean…?”
He tried accessing her mind, but found no answer to his question. Had the wonderful Lilliana figured out how to block him out completely?
“You’re a twin—are you telling us that you’re going to give birth to more than one baby?”
“Relax,” she laughed, her arm reaching behind his neck and prompting him to return to his task, to kiss her again. “I simply thought that after the first we would have another, and another, and another…or at least try. I do so enjoy the act of trying. Speaking of which…”
Conor’s mouth moved once again to her neck just as Graeme’s hands began to journey along her curves, cupping her heavy breasts in his palms, his thumbs circling the nipples, teasing them into tightly protruding stones before bending to suck gently on one, rolling the tip between his lips, toying at it with his skilled tongue.
Lily’s body responded as always to the men, but it seemed that her sexual deprivation was causing something approaching impatience to stir inside her. As they tended her, she felt herself tighten to a painful level, the place between her legs aching violently, pleading with her to be infiltrated by one or both lovers. And it seemed that pregnancy did nothing to quell her desire; if anything it increased it.
“It seems that you two have forgotten how to get naked,” she growled, noting that they were still fully clothed as she pulled away from both men. “Perhaps you need some coaxing, or bribery, to get you to take off those damned clothes.”
She made her way over to the bed, leaping up onto it, and knelt to face them both as she crossed her arms over her chest in protest, her knees apart.
“If you want this,” she said, “Take it all off. Now.”
It was as though she’d shot off a starter’s pistol in a sprinting race. Within five seconds, each man had managed to fling all of his clothing to the floor.
And each had revealed a body that screamed for her attention:
Conor’s, hard, muscular, beaded with perspiration and tense with need; his cock offering itself to her to do with as she wished, an attentive and loyal servant to her body.
Graeme’s torso was indeed bruised, but beautifully strong and whole. And nothing of his altercation with Kormag had affected his ability to perform, it seemed, his thick shaft standing eager at attention, its tip glistening with need, swollen with desire.
Lily lay back on the bed, offering herself to them as she slowly parted her knees to reveal her own glistening evidence of unrelenting lust; the delicate pink flesh that she knew they’d missed as she’d missed the bond that they shared when all three were together as one body.
As she heard the simultaneous intake of breath come from the two men, Lily smiled. To be so wanted by two such creatures never failed to blow her mind; this was the most pleasant dream of in the world.
Dismissing the notion of politeness in favour of satisfaction, Conor leapt up onto the bed and wrapped strong forearms around his lover’s thighs, pulling her unceremoniously towards his waiting mouth. He needed to taste her, to smell the heady scent of her delicious pussy before easing inside it, feeling the grip of her tight channel surround his vein-ribbed cock.
He needed her to come, and his mouth had no intention of offering her a choice in the matter.
Inhaling deeply, he issued hot kisses to the insides of her thighs, to the dark hair that shielded the soft roundness of her mound. His nose teased her as its tip slid repeatedly over her delicate petals, each time causing Lily to squirm under his touch, her center tightening in anticipation.
Graeme eased quietly onto the bed, his body moving at her from above her head as he knelt over her, long arms reaching over her face to toy lovingly with her breasts as he watched his companion pleasure her. His touch was perfect: gentle and careful, in synchronicity with Conor, whose tongue was making its first appearance, delicately stroking her clit as her every neuron was charged under its skillful flicking.
Lily reached her hands above her head, grasping Graeme’s hardness between interlocking fingers, and he obliged her by pulling himself further towards her face. She arched her neck backwards, licking the underside of his shaft as he let out a series of soft moans, her hand grasping him gently, slipping along the long ridge of veins engorged with his desire.
“Careful, my little Firebird,” he rasped. “I would love almost nothing more than to explode on your beautiful breasts, but I would very much appreciate if you would allow me to do so inside that gorgeous arse of yours.”
“In that case I’ll be gentle,” she said, her tongue flicking him softly in punishing little lashes.
Conor, meanwhile, intermittently dipped his tongue inside her tight slit, then licked in gentle strokes, rolling the tip about her swollen bud and savouring every aspect of this moment as their new lives began in the most extraordinary conceivable way.
This was absolute pleasure, for the first time unmarred by outside forces. If they so chose, this could be how they spent the rest of their days—with breaks for meals, of course. And the thought was one that he didn’t want to allow to pass from his mind too quickly.
The other two could feel his sentiment, and they found themselves filled at once with warmth and affection at the thought, almost too good to consider.
Conor’s tongue and lips went at Lily with a gentle determination, eager to allow himself a little selfishness, to bring her to climax, to feel her pelvis thrust forward, her heady scent coating his features, and then to plunge his cock into her depths as her muscles pulled him in without mercy.
But he was selfless, too: watching and enjoying her body’s gyrations under his touch as Graeme looked on, holding off on his own body’s greatest pleasures while seeing to hers.
On occasion Conor backed off and stroked her, feather-light, with the moist tip of his index finger, watching her flesh move under his touch as she moaned in delight. His cock, in turn, throbbed with a searing ache, intensifying with each moment that her pleasure increased.
He thrust two fingers inside her and licked at her dark pink clit as he took her in gentle thrusts, pulling strong fingers out and re-entering in pulsing rhythms.
His tongue accompanied them in this play of music and sensation, focusing on her hot bud in soft strokes, increasingly assertive.
And from Lily he heard small, quiet moans of approval as her hips moved up and down under his touch, her body shifting with his guidance, her own lips grazing Graeme’s shaft, fingers torturing his tight balls which ached to shoot their cream into her beautiful body.
It was when she froze and went silent, her hand stilling for a moment, that both men knew she was near. Graeme slowed his fingers’ movement on her breasts, tracing the outline of her nipples, and Conor focused entirely on her delicate bud, his tongue pressing into her as he felt the first wave of ecstasy come over her tremulous body.
As he released and licked her again she cried out, bucking under the two men’s hands and mouths, her body exploding for them in a chemical cascade of light and pleasure.
Conor kept at her as the convulsions continued, his face buried deep in the wonderland that was her pussy.
It was Lily who stopped him at last, taking his head in her hands and saying, “Please—You know what I need.”
Indeed he knew just what this meant: she wanted them both, and now, before her body had settled into its post-orgasm glow. She wanted to feel herself imprison a hard cock between the walls of her chamber, and so Conor thrust himself onto the bed on his back, offering himself as Lily climbed atop him, her thighs parted, knees pressing in on either side of his hips.
His cock was so impossibly thick, throbbing for her, aching with want as she pulled her body over his, reaching a hand for Graeme, who was moving behind her to position himself, legs bent, cock twitching with anticipation in his hand.
Conor could feel the ebbing waves of her orgasm around his shaft as she eased her way down onto him, swallowing each inch, squeezing tightly, her own body daring his to feel as good, to revel in the sensations of their love-making.
Leaning down for a moment, Graeme lashed with his tongue at the delicious cleavage of her backside, then slid a thick finger into her as she let out a thrilled cry. He thrust his head forward, towards hers.
Seeking Her Mates Boxed Set: A Shifter Menage Serial (All Five Parts) Page 43