by Jody Wallace
“I joined because of you. Not that I don’t, or didn’t, believe in dragon equality. I do.” Walking beside her, his clothing as wet as hers, sweating the same as she was, he still seemed so unreachably elegant and aloof. “But I’ve learned enough to realize it’s imperative for Tarakona’s future that you not fall back into enemy hands.”
“Imperative in what way?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. They were reaching a crossroads where she would need to select which way to march. She slowed, reluctant to make a decision. “Are you saying I should off myself instead of surrender to Shula?”
He grabbed her arm and swung her around. “No. Never that.”
They stared at one another for a long, intense moment. No magic transferred between them, or no magic of the standard kind. Now that she was aware of his variant, she could control her power, at least. She was thrall-crystal free. “Nadia, you cannot give up. We must try.”
His touch, his passion, awoke something in her, something tiny and bold, as if not being alone in the world might make a difference. It had with Aiden, who had discovered the location of her thrall crystal. Could it make a difference now? “Trying is, of course, what makes the most sense—trying to fight, trying to be free. Thus trying is no doubt what results in the future you saw.”
He stroked a drying lock of hair off her cheek. She probably resembled a drowned cat, but he was looking at her as if she were the brightest star in the firmament. “There has to be something we can do. I can’t—we can’t lose you.”
There was. She knew how to save everyone. But did she have the courage? “Look, I’m worried about Aiden. About this whole town. I can stop what you saw, and I can stop them from finding out there’s another silver. All I have to do is go with Shula. But I’m not brave enough.”
Right now, only Barnabas knew about Aiden. Though she despised all wizards, she didn’t get the impression he was going to chat up the governors about the male silver dragon on Earth who was theirs for the taking.
“Not brave enough? That’s madness,” he said huskily. “You’re extremely brave. And clever. And resourceful. And—”
She didn’t want to hear any more, for fear she might believe it, so she said, “I don’t even know how long I have before I must choose. Obviously at some point the town barrier fails. Before then would be best.”
“Perhaps alerting the sheriff to the danger is enough,” Barnabas suggested. He hadn’t let go of her arms. In fact, he was stroking them. Smoothing his palms down her skin as if it would comfort her.
Did it? Or did it do something else to her?
“It’s not enough. Steps must be taken. Trust me when I say the future doesn’t like to budge. It’s stubborn that way.” She’d taken great pains to hide her upcoming disappearance from Victoria once Aiden had confirmed the escape plan. Or had Victoria’s failure to glimpse a future without Nadia in it meant that future didn’t exist? Was this merely an adventure, a little oat-sowing, before she returned to the stable? She would be chastised, disciplined, and implanted with eighty thrall crystals to prevent this from ever happening again.
And suddenly she hit upon a way she could defy Victoria should she be taken captive. “Barnabas, I need something from you.”
“Anything,” he said.
She didn’t tell him with words. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
As kisses went, it was clumsy, sweaty, and not very romance-novelly. She had kissed people before, other dragons in the stable or members of the castle staff. They’d been punished when Victoria found out and very displeased with her afterward. It wasn’t worth getting them in trouble. Making them hate her more.
But kissing Barnabas was like pouring herself into a new vessel and discovering her previous one hadn’t been a good fit.
He groaned softly and parted her lips with his tongue, which sent yearning through her in a wave. It did something to her knees, weakening them. It did something to her heart, quickening it. The tighter he pressed her against him, the more she could feel his ardor. And his many talismans and her damp, itchy clothing. But mostly his ardor, which was to say, his hard cock.
He wanted her.
Nobody wanted dragons. Nobody was allowed to have dragons, not this way.
His hands rose to her face and tilted her head. He plundered her without mercy, and she didn’t want mercy. Though she’d begun this, she had already lost control. When he nipped her lip and whispered words of desire, the pulse in her loins confirmed that her choice was the right one.
“I’m throbbing,” she told him. “It figures. A wizard.”
“You’re delicious.” He kissed her cheek, her brow. He nuzzled her ear. His hands roamed over her body. Her skin felt as if the sun was sizzling her, but it was lust. “I never thought… I assumed you’d be a young person. Frightened. Confused. I thought you’d need me. But Nadia, I believe I need you. Badly.”
His hands roamed further. It dawned on her that this might be the time, but it was not the place. “We should take this somewhere private.”
“And ruin the show?” called a piping voice from behind them. It was another gnome, seated in a flower pot outside a restaurant, watching them avidly. He wore a cap that read “Magi-Cab.”
Barnabas stepped slightly away from her and exhaled a shaky breath. “Are you sure about this? This was never my intention. Please understand that. But I admire you so ardently. It’s distracting.”
She smiled up at him and bumped against his hips. His dark eyes gleamed at her. “I can tell.”
“I have never done anything this impetuous,” he continued, but he also slipped an arm around her and steered her back the way they’d come, toward his hotel. At a rather smart clip. “In the middle of a crisis, no less. I feel like we’re in some sort of bawdy fairytale.”
“In this world, fairies are real.” On one hand, his comment about stopping in the midst of a crisis for a tup was on point. On the other hand, his willingness to spend the next hour or three in bed with her spoke of his confidence in the town’s wards.
He might not understand everything from his vision, but if impending doom were directly forthcoming, she would not have been able to divert him. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d comprehended it. He’d have known it was imminent. That was how her magic worked.
They had time.
One arm around her, he guided her through the inn’s fancy lobby, not even acknowledging the friendly clerk behind the desk. They sped across the gleaming wooden floor as if fire wizards were on their heels instead of just the fires of passion. He took the wide, spiral stairs two at a time until she protested. “I am not a race dragon, Barnabas. And I’m not going to change my mind. Slow down.”
He smiled wickedly down at her and hefted her into his arms as if she weighed the same as a human her size. “Allow me.”
“Oh, my heavens. I’m too heavy. Put me down.”
“Faster this way.” He did break a sweat carrying her to the room, but he had already been sweating from the heat outside. Muttering a magic word, he bespelled the door open with one of his many talismans. It slammed behind them, and he deposited her on the bed.
She’d barely caught her breath when he was upon her. He had her flat on her back, his hips between her thighs, in moments.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he murmured. His teeth nipped her shoulder before his lips soothed the sting.
“I’m plain,” she corrected him, even as the silver lattice beneath her skin gleamed with excitement. This wasn’t how she’d planned her official deflowering, but she was past planning anything.
“You’re perfect.” He caught her lips in a series of soul-stirring kisses. Tongues and teeth, sighs and moans. His hips didn’t grind against her in some rough, uncultured fashion, but she was acutely conscious of the proximity of his cock to her pussy. “Darling, are you a virgin?”
“Not…exactly.” She shifted anxiously beneath him, knowing there was going to be a vast differen
ce between small, discreet dildos and what lay ahead.
“Good. Good.” He bit at her neck as if he wanted to eat her alive. Impatient for more skin, he tore at her shirt, completely ruining it, not that the existing tear and its dip in the springs hadn’t done a bang-up job already. Buttons flew in all directions. He stared at her breasts, cupped in a white Earth brassiere, with great admiration. “Do you know what you like or…”
“Surprise me,” she told him, drawing his head down to her breasts. “I want to do all the things, Barnabas.”
His hot mouth closed on her throat, and she raised her knees to press herself against him. She did ache, as the books had promised. She did throb. Her skin tingled. He lowered the cup of her bra and sucked her nipple.
“I like that,” she panted. “Keep doing it.”
The sensations were unreal. So all-consuming, yet they were almost completely dressed. His hands were everywhere, his mouth, tweaking and caressing her breasts, biting her neck, kissing her lips. As he introduced himself to her body, thrilling her with every kiss, she cursed the entire Tarakonan civilization, not for the first time, for denying her this fascinating diversion.
And she was not idle. She freed him of his talismans and his shirt, caressing his smooth skin and dark nipples. She tasted him there, too. He seemed to approve, humming with pleasure. She loved the feel of the taut muscles in his back and his rounded buttocks in her palms. She wanted to clutch them as he thrust into her. She felt such hunger for him, such trust in him to provide, that it was hard to believe he was a wizard.
Their kisses grew more heated, more pointed. He told her things he wanted to do to her, terrible things, delightful things. He licked her glowing skin, and sucked her, and made much of her beauty. She moved against him restlessly, hoping for more but wondering how much of this she could handle.
When his long, clever fingers slid into her shorts, she knew she wanted to handle everything he was willing to give her. The first brush of his finger on her clit nearly sent her over the edge. “Barnabas!”
He smiled against her neck. “Yes?”
She arched against him, pleading. He kissed his way down her torso, his head dark against her pale, luminous skin. She’d never seen her lattice this bright. He slid off her shorts and underwear and spread her thighs like a dinner plate.
She set herself up on her elbows, staring at him. “What exactly do you mean to…”
He answered her question with his tongue on her clit, and she cried his name again. And again. His mouth on her, his fingers inside her, woke a firestorm of need. She climaxed so hard that she saw stars, and he sighed out his satisfaction against her curls.
When he finally mounted her, naked and brilliant, he positioned himself above her and stared into her eyes. But he’d donned one of his talismans. She reached for it. “What’s this?”
“Healing.” The more passionate they’d become, the less eloquent his speech. “No children.”
“Take it off.” She gripped his shoulders, pulling him into her with her heels. His cock nudged her wetness, and she moaned. “Please take it off.”
“That seems unwise.” He blinked. Lust turned him slow, when he’d been so clever before.
She drew his head down to hers and kissed him. “Make love to me. And make me pregnant. I want to be pregnant.”
“But your magic. That would… Oh.”
“Oh,” she echoed, pulling at him. “Come inside me.”
Barnabas rested his forehead against hers and sighed. “I had thought you wanted this because of me. Because of our rapport.”
Did she? Would she have leapt onto anyone else with the same fervor? For a week she’d sought out a sex partner here on Earth, in a land where people were free to mate as they chose, and no one had stirred her like Barnabas did. What did she feel for him?
She honestly didn’t know, so she bit her lip. “Well, you are very skilled at lovemaking. So far. Very, very skilled. Even though you’re a wizard.”
“I have done this before. A few times.” He let the head of his cock nudge into her. It was so good, so so good. She moaned and turned her head to the side, unable to bear his knowing gaze. His organ was hard and hot, and she longed for it to be seated fully inside her. “But if we continue, I’m not taking off the talisman.”
“Please, Barnabas.” She angled her hips and rubbed herself on his cock. The friction threatened to liquefy her bones, and she could only imagine how it felt to him, as he had yet to climax. “It will protect me…against her. For a while.”
“You talk as if your sacrifice is inevitable. It isn’t. You’re not alone in this anymore.” He kissed her slowly, as if they had all the time in the world, but didn’t remove the talisman. His tongue danced with hers. Their lower halves came closer and closer to true union. He taunted her with the fullness of his cock but continued to draw back.
Nadia never cried. Never. Not since the day she’d become a dragon. But tears threatened like burning brands on her eyelids. “I need you. This is what I need from you, and you promised me anything.”
She scrambled at the necklace, but he stopped her. “This is not the way to bring a child into the world. Someday, perhaps. But not like this.”
Nadia flopped back against the pillow and flung a hand over her eyes. “I don’t want to go back to Tarakona.” If she did, she’d never see Barnabas again. Probably because he’d be dead. But he was just a wizard. A wizard who’d lied to her. A wizard who had saved her once already and who was poised naked above her, promising the ultimate pleasure.
Never in her wildest dreams.
And that was saying something, as stabled dragons tended to have extremely wild dreams.
“Look at me, Nadia.” Barnabas kissed her chin, her cheek, his body flat against hers now. “Open your eyes.”
Grudgingly, she did. His irises had gone nearly as black as his pupils. His high, princely cheekbones were flushed, as no doubt hers were, from their passion. His full lips were red with all the kissing they’d done—the kissing he’d done all over her body.
He smelled like her. He tasted like her. Her skin glowed because of him, the magic pulsing with eagerness.
“Do you want me?” he asked. “It’s that simple.”
“I want to be pregnant. I should like for you to oblige me.”
Sadness shuttered his handsome face like a closed window. “Then I will stop, because I do not want oblige you at this time.”
He made as if to dismount, to leave her partly satisfied but himself hard as a rock. She scrambled for him. “No, no. No, don’t go.”
He watched her for a long moment. “Tell me you want me.”
She averted her gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Look at me, Nadia. Tell me you want me. A wizard. Tell me.”
She did. Oh, she did. She wanted him for the pleasure of it. She wanted him because he’d devoted half his life to her, without even knowing her, and for some reason she believed him. She wanted him because she’d never had anyone. She wanted him because…because she did.
“I want you,” she whispered. “I want you, Barnabas. Just you.”
With a groan, he dove into her hard and fast. She whimpered, though she wasn’t experiencing pain, per se, but an aching fullness. Her pussy stretched to accommodate him, and perhaps her heart did a little, too.
They rocked together, kissing and breathing things she never thought she’d say to someone else. Yes. Like that. Love me. Faster. Harder. Barnabas, please!
His speed reached a luscious maximum. He threaded his fingers through hers, pinning her hands to the bed. “Nadia,” he groaned. “My God.”
His thrusts rucked up the bedcovers beneath them and hurtled her over the moon. And still he drove into her. Somehow he’d shifted his angle so that his movements rubbed her most responsive spot, and before she knew what was happening, she was coming, clenching around his cock in a frenzy of yearning. Yearning and magic.
She couldn’t stop the outpouring of silver that fille
d him the way he was filling her. He gasped and froze, guilt contorting his features. “I’m so sorry,” he managed. “I should have taught you how to stop it. I didn’t realize…”
That was when she knew. Her body continued to flutter around him in blissful waves. Longest. Orgasm. Ever. “It’s okay, don’t stop. I want you.” She took a breath and exhaled it. “I trust you.”
He gave a tiny, choked cry and plunged deep, again, where at last he throbbed in a rhythm she could feel in her bones. Her body went slick and wet and satiated and so tired. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and held him tight, her face buried in his shoulder.
She couldn’t understand this feeling inside her. Not his seed—that was biology. But this swelling in her soul. This need to keep touching him. She would not utter some ridiculous confession of adoration. She would not beg him to save her. And stay with her forever. She would not…
Fecking wizard.
“I think I love you,” she whispered. “Oh, my heavens, I did not say that. Ignore me.”
“Nadia. My dearest.” He cupped her face and kissed her warmly. “I have never experienced such utter bliss.”
She closed her eyes, unwilling to search his for returned feelings. “I did it again, didn’t I? My magic just jumped into you, like a bloody frog.”
“You might like me a bit,” he teased, his voice rough. “It increases the chances of involuntary transfer.”
“No. I don’t like wizards.” She opened her eyes, and his tenderness was nearly her undoing. As if she wasn’t already undone. His smile. The crinkles in the corners of his eyes. His cleft chin. Her throat threatened to close up, but she forced the words out. “The magic won’t linger inside you. It’s not like other dragons. You can’t hold onto it, but you can direct it.” She didn’t have long to teach a wizard, whose training and background she didn’t know, how to handle the power of prophecy—an art that had taken Victoria years to master. “I don’t want to move, but you should…”