by Mary Auclair
Looking up sharply, he made sure she was still asleep, then positioned himself so his face was close enough for him to smell her intoxicating aroma. Desire rose inside him and he leaned closer. He willed his breath hot, much hotter than a human could, as he blew on her secret place. Endora moaned and moved, parting her legs wider, revealing the tender pink color of her sex.
He cast one last glance at her sleeping face before returning his attention to the partially exposed lips of his mate. His fingers reached up, then parted the lips of her sex, exposing her pink, moist core. He leaned forward, closing his mouth on her nerve bud, then sucking hard. Groans of pleasure escaped her mouth and she pushed her hips forward, augmenting the contact. Following her lead, Aldric let one finger find the slick opening of her channel, then pushed inside.
Endora moaned loudly, then stirred, widening her legs and arching her back under the pleasure.
Aldric knew she was awake by now. He reached with his free hand and flattened it on her lower stomach. “Don’t move,” he growled, “I want to feast on you.”
Endora relaxed back on the bed, her chest heaving in a fast, chaotic rhythm as Aldric dug back in. Her taste filled his mouth as her pleasure reached new heights. She tasted wild and delicate at the same time, and it drove him crazy. His lust for her made his fatigue vanish and replaced it with a desire that filled his veins with fire and fury.
Endora was shuddering under his touch, her pleasure driving her to move despite his order not to. He pressed on her stomach, forcing her to lie still as she moaned and groaned. She was ready to unravel, he knew it. Her channel was squeezing and convulsing, trying to suck him in deeper. He added another finger inside her then pushed against her nerve bundle.
Endora screamed, her pleasure tearing through her as he kept up his unrelenting assault on her nerve bud. Long and deep, she rode the successive waves of the pleasure he gave her.
Finally, she stilled.
As he withdrew from her, she started to move.
“No!” Aldric pushed her back on the pillow. “Don’t move.”
He looked into her eyes of dark velvet, cloudy with the remnants of her pleasure. An inferno spread through his body and he restrained the instincts of the beast inside him. Barely.
“Turn around. Lie flat on your stomach.”
Her eyes sobered as she locked gazes with him. He could almost feel the waves of the erotic bond between himself and the woman. She didn’t nod, didn’t utter a word, but she bent to his will, turning her back to him, raising her shift over her hips as she did so.
Aldric stared at her, the fullness of her hips, the soft, plump surface of her ass as she lay perfectly still for him.
He leaned over her, reaching around her hips with both hands as he spread her legs apart with his knees. His cock throbbed and ached with a pulsing need, his balls tight against his shaft, but he allowed himself a moment to observe how sweet she looked, perfectly under his control. She was all his.
He leaned down, allowing his weight to push the tip of his shaft at her slick entrance, piercing her wet walls. She moaned as he entered her, the sound feminine and full of need. He pushed all the way down until she was impaled to the hilt, her ass under his abdomen. He reached for her nape, grabbing her firmly, asserting his control.
Then he withdrew almost completely, only to drive in fast and hard. The contact of their flesh made a wet sound in the room, and that spread oil on the fire of his desire. He drove in, harsh and fast, again and again, until Endora started to squirm and moan, small little sounds that made him crazed.
“Stay still,” Aldric ordered.
She didn’t answer, but stopped moving. The only proof of her arousal was the slickness of her walls and the tortured sounds coming from her mouth, higher and more filled with pleasure with every blow of his hips. He could feel his release coming, furious and hot, but he needed her to have a second orgasm before that.
Aldric’s free hand reached under her hips, finding the hyper sensitive nerve bundle. Right then, Endora’s moans turned to screams and her walls clenched and squeezed around him. He drove into her, hard and deep, as savagely as his own pleasure pushed him.
His release came and he roared, his member deep insider her body, for a long time until, finally, he collapsed at her side.
Gently, he cradled her in his arms, pulling her into the safety of his body. She didn’t talk, only allowed him to surround her with his presence, snuggling her head into the crook of his neck. The intensity of their exchange didn’t allow for words, there wasn’t space between them for anything else other than their skin against each other’s, and the slow exhalation of their breaths.
There, in the dim light of Endora’s bedroom, he understood.
She was the center of everything, the reason for his existence. He would do anything to keep her safe and happy, sacrifice everything to keep her at his side. In such a short time, his entire life as the High Lord of Katanie, the most powerful kingdom in the entire North America, had become insignificant in the face of this one woman.
He moved to be able to see her profile, then brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face. Her eyes were closed and her features were relaxed, giving her a delicate, childlike appearance. He felt the corners of his mouth curl up, and a new feeling rose inside him. It took him a long time to understand it was tenderness, an emotion he’d never felt for anyone before, except during the tender years when his sister was still alive. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he placed a soft, long kiss on Endora’s temple. She chuckled softly at the touch, but her body’s relaxed state told him she was already falling back into the arms of slumber.
For a long time, Aldric watched her before his own exhaustion forced him to surrender to sleep.
Chapter 12
The next morning, Aldric walked into the throne room after visiting Rhyl in his lair. It was already mid-morning, at least a good four hours after dawn. He’d had six more hours of sleep than usual, but the rest had done wonders for his constitution. Rhyl was no longer drawing his vitalem away, and that was a relief. Aldric still wasn’t back at full strength, but at least his mind was clear and he could focus again.
Rhyl was recuperating from the effects of the poison, hiding away in his the darkness of the lair. The dragon’s mood was dark and he still fumed from the attack. Aldric spent a long time with his friend and Myral, and knew the beast’s outrage at being hurt ran deeper than the poison’s effect. Rhyl hadn’t sensed the danger, hadn’t smelled it on the body of the Knat-Kanassis acolyte, and that infuriated him.
The acolytes were no ordinary foes. They knew how to disguise their smells, their intentions. They had infiltrated his house without sounding any alarms, even with his guards on high alert. They had a poison of extraordinary rarity, one of the only ones that could injure and kill a dragon.
After all these years, after all he had done, Aldric was afraid for the first time. Not afraid for himself, nor even for Rhyl. He was afraid for Endora and Shari. Afraid for those dear to him.
The thought made him pause. Did he mean it?
Closing his eyes, he brought back Endora’s image as he’d seen her last night. Her face sweet and her velvet eyes overcome with passion. No, she wasn’t dear. She was life itself, giving meaning to his world. She had brought warmth and smiles where there had only been a frozen landscape of duty. The loneliness of his past life seemed so remote, so unbearable now, that he knew he could never go back.
That meant he had to understand why the Knat-Kanassis were back, and why they’d picked him as a target.
The purpose of the last attack was unclear. They’d planted a bomb in the heart of his house, wounding and killing Delradon and humans alike. This was nothing like the attacks in Yrno and Hylberia, targeting Delradons and humans who didn’t respect their bigoted ideas about race purity. No, this was an attack on his power, on his opinion of human and Delradon integration. This was more than just the restrictive, petty view of some religious zealots living in the rem
ote wilderness.
He was the ultimate target, he was sure of it. Endora couldn’t be. It was only sheer bad luck that she had been present at all. Then why the bomb? It couldn’t injure a dragon.
What do they want?
He growled with frustration.
The door to the throne room opened, and Aldric turned to see Dalgo walking toward him, followed by two guards. The two guards, young men barely old enough to wear the uniform, carried a wooden box between them. They had the haunted looks of men who saw horrors they weren’t prepared to see, and yet could never forget.
“What is it?” Aldric asked, immediately alarmed by the sullen, drawn look on his friend’s face.
Dalgo stopped him from asking more with a small gesture of his hand, then motioned to the guards, who placed the box at the bottom of the throne steps with a revered care that immediately set his nerves on high alert.
“Leave, and do not utter a word of what you saw to anyone,” Dalgo ordered his guards. “Disobey and you’ll spend a year in the dungeon.”
As soon as the guards’ hands stopped touching the box, they withdrew. They half ran out of the room, not looking back once as they did. They were afraid. A dark, heavy dread descended as Aldric watched them close the door to the throne room behind them. Whatever was in that box, it wasn’t good.
Dalgo locked eyes briefly with Aldric, then moved. In a few quick steps, he reached the box, then slammed it open. The hollow, dry sound of wood bouncing on stone filled the air as Aldric’s eyes latched onto the blasphemy laying inside.
The room morphed into a hushed coffin as Aldric looked down, the rush of his own blood drowning out any other sound as his heart beat in a horrified frenzy. He couldn’t make himself look away, couldn’t even blink at the small, opalescent blue form that lay still over the crude wooden planks, wrapped in a white blanket. A dragon—a baby, by the size of it—dead. Its face, soft juvenile scales and ears, were peaceful as if in sleep, but the large stain that ran blood red against the white of the blanket told otherwise.
This was the unspeakable vision that had traumatized his guards. Dragons were sacred creatures, pure and strong, at the heart of the Delradon civilization. To injure or kill one was a sacrilege.
To kill a dragonet was an act of inconceivable evil.
His eyes traveled the length of the dragon’s lifeless body. Knowledge weighed on both Dalgo and himself, a knowledge that made his stomach fill with rocks.
“Do we know whose child this dragon was linked to?” Aldric’s words echoed on the ceiling, uncomfortably loud in the hushed horror that filled the air. He couldn’t look away from the dragon’s soft face.
“Not too many young Draekon born these last five years,” Dalgo answered. “We’re bound to find out soon.”
Aldric nodded. The link between a dragon lord and a dragon ran deep, to the very life force that united both lives at their first breath, and ran out at their last. Somewhere out there, a child lay dead too.
He looked at the dragonet’s face. It wasn’t older than two years, three at the most. He tried to remember whose great family had a child born in that time.
Then something caught his eye. He bent over the wooden box and lifted the side of the white blanket covering the body of the dragon. The blood drained from his face and his fingers tightened on the fabric, wet and heavy with blood.
A crest was embroidered on the white material—wool, he realized absently. A green dragon opening its wings, flanked by two columns of twisting smoke.
“The Donos crest.” Aldric turned to meet Dalgo’s stare.
“Shari.” Dalgo spoke with a normal voice, but under the softness of his tone was a frozen landscape of rage so furious, Aldric felt it in his bones. “They want Shari. I’ll die before I allow any harm to come to that child. She has suffered enough as it is.”
“You and me both, brother.” Aldric straightened, leaving the blanket down with the dragon. Somehow, the idea of moving the body seemed wrong.
Dalgo looked at him, gauging his seriousness. His friend thought Aldric viewed Shari as nothing but an added responsibility. A burden. How wrong he was.
“Shari is mine by law.” Aldric spoke the words slowly. “You are not the only one who cares about her.”
Dalgo sustained his stare for another moment, then nodded. His friend’s eyes left Aldric, then went back to the still figure in the wooden coffin.
“When and where?”
“This morning,” Dalgo said, his voice a fading whisper, like he didn’t want to speak out loud. Like the dead could hear him. “The box was left at the front gate, sometime during the night. The morning patrol found it.”
“It’s ten thirty, how come it wasn’t found sooner?” Aldric returned his gaze to Dalgo, a quick anger rising up, replacing the stunned dismay from the vision of the dead dragon. “I ordered round-the-clock security, it was beyond obvious that I also meant the front door.”
Dalgo peeled his eyes away from the dragon and locked gazes with Aldric. His eyes gleamed and his mouth was clamped shut in a rare display of anger.
“With what guard? We’ve placed double our regular numbers inside the castle, ordered a permanent shift for Endora and Shari, and sent protection for all the important families with human matings to the kingdom. That’s not even counting the six men you had me send to escort Endora’s family from Helbon. Ten more of my men were injured during the bombing.”
“That’s your excuse?” Aldric’s tone turned cold as he faced his oldest friend. “Your men are overworked?”
“We’ve been stretched thin since the attack on Hylberia.” Dalgo shook his head, his eyes still gleaming and his shoulders stiff with tension. “I can’t have my men work twenty-four hour shifts, it would be dangerous and reckless.”
Aldric stared hard at his captain of the guard. The telltale signs of weariness were there, from the dark circles under his eyes to the lines creasing around his eyes and mouth. His anger lowered and he breathed deeply. Dalgo and his men were doing the best they could, but they were only men. Amongst them, only Dalgo was a Draekon, and just like him, Myral had stopped feeding him her energy to give whatever she had to Rhyl.
“I know.” Aldric nodded. “We’ll need to hire more men, train them fast.”
“That we will. But can we trust them? The Knat-Kanassis managed to get inside the castle walls, they poisoned Rhyl, and now this?” Dalgo pointed to the dead baby dragon. “Hiring more men won’t be enough. You need to call in the Council.”
Aldric sustained his friend’s gaze for a while. He inhaled deeply. “Yes.” It was dangerous but he had no choice. However perilous the future was, the present still represented a bigger threat. He looked up to Dalgo. “Where is Endora now?”
Dalgo reached for the commu-link at his wrist, then snapped his eyes back up.
“The Lady Endora is at the main entrance, waiting for her daughter’s arrival. Shari is with her.”
“This wasn’t a message.” Aldric’s face grew numb. “This was a diversion.”
He turned and started to walk.
Endora and Shari together, out in the open.
His footsteps resonated on the vaulted ceiling. He ran.
She couldn’t stop smiling. Her cheeks ached and her throat was dry, but her lips refused to move down. A giddy laugh escaped her, and she realized she was light headed.
They’re coming. They’re really coming.
Upon waking, Junco had handed Endora the note from Aldric informing her that Tallie and Henriette were about to arrive at Whispering Castle. She had been so afraid she would never see her child again after accepting Aldric’s permanent mating, it felt like she was being given Tallie back. Happiness was growing inside her like a balloon, making her steps lighter, threatening to make her explode with joy.
Beside her, Shari skipped and hopped, humming the new song Endora had taught her, closely followed by her emerald baby dragon, Rasha.
Mistress Hael hadn’t been happy about it, but Endora had for
ced the woman’s hand. Shari deserved to be there for Tallie’s arrival.
Ten paces behind was the new guard assigned to her safety, Raeg. His silent presence was a sobering reminder of the dangers in the castle, and of those who believed humans shouldn’t breed with the Delradon, much less the Draekons.
“Will she like me?” The girl stopped her song and shot Endora a quick glance over her shoulder before resuming her walk.
Endora blinked a few times, staring at Shari’s shiny black ponytail, moving up and down as she walked. She smiled indulgently. Shari’s question took her by surprise but it shouldn’t have.
“Of course she will,” Endora answered with a soft chuckle. “She will be thrilled to have a friend here.”
“You mean a sister.” Shari stopped and turned. “If you’re my new mother, then Tallie will be my sister.”
Endora stared at the girl. Her large silver eyes sparkled in her tiny face, and she bit her lower lip gently, waiting for an answer. Endora’s smile spread wider on her lips, easy and true. Her feelings for Shari had grown fierce and deep, more than she could have anticipated. In the span of a few weeks, the orphan had become her charge, and she felt increasingly protective of her.
“Yes.” Endora crouched in front of Shari, then took the small hands inside her own. “Tallie will be your sister, and Henriette will be your grand-maman. That’s grandmother in French.”
“I didn’t know you were from across the great ocean.”
“I’m not.” Endora chuckled. “My family lived in a small part of a country humans once called Canada. They spoke French there, but only in one part of the country.”
“I never had a grandma.”
“She’ll spoil you with her cakes and cookies so much, your tummy will be so big you won’t be able to put on your skirts anymore.”