by Cara Bristol
She left, and T’mar knelt. Helena’s color did appear better, but the blood staining her skin made it hard to tell. He filled a basin with water. Gently, he eased off her bloody clothing and bathed her then dressed her in a robe he found. After emptying the basin, he returned with fresh water and washed and dried her hair.
A’riel would pay. It would be a long time before she emerged from the dungeon. “I am so sorry, my mate,” he murmured.
We must claim her, the dragon said.
We will.
Now.
She is injured. Unconscious.
Now!
Had he lost his mind? No. I am not going to mate with an unconscious female.
You insult me! I did not say mate with her. I said claim her. Mark her as ours.
Helena was theirs; he no longer doubted it, but had she realized it? The last time they’d had contact, she’d believed he’d rejected her. Shame coursed through him. He had. But his fyre burned for her; he finally understood his yearning, his attraction to her, his lack of desire for his concubines. Helena was his mate, but he believed she should be awake when he marked her.
We must wait until she gets better and wakes up. She would get better. She had to. She would come out of this, he would claim her, they would mate, and they would produce many offspring together.
What if she doesn’t? The dragon voiced T’mar’s worst fear. What if she doesn’t survive? If we claim her, at least we will have that.
If…she does not…live…she won’t know we had claimed her.
He’d forsaken her, denied to others she meant anything to him. He needed to correct the wrong he’d done to her. Claiming her would announce to everyone she belonged to him.
She should be awake for the claiming. She should be awake period! He removed the respirator and set it aside. She could go a little while without any negative effects; the nanobots in her bloodstream would do their job.
He brushed his mouth over her lips. “Please, be okay,” he whispered.
Dragons mated for eternity, so the selection of one’s mate had to be undertaken with great care. Once he marked her, there would not, could not be another for him. If she survived this ordeal, her life would still be very brief by Draconian standards. At worst, he might have only hours or days with her; at best, a few short decades. In claiming her, he would consign himself to being alone for eternity after she passed.
Worth it.
He turned her chin to the side.
His fangs elongated.
Helena’s eyes popped open. “T’mar?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The human is badly injured, A’riel’s dragon commented as they flew toward the Temple of the Eternal Fyre.
She was much more fragile than I had expected, A’riel replied. She hadn’t intended to kill the human, only teach her a lesson. A Draconian would have suffered mere scratches, which would have healed quickly, but by the time A’riel realized how deep the wounds were, it was too late. The human kept bleeding and bleeding.
She deserved it. She should have known what would happen by invading our territory, the dragon said.
Agreed, A’riel replied. Fyre, territory, treasure. Dragons valued those three things in that order. Fyre was life, territory brought security, and treasure conferred wealth. With all three, you had power. Her stench infiltrating everything, the human had trespassed. The intruder coveted T’mar—she reeked of lust for the prince.
We’re in trouble, said the dragon. It’s not fair.
No, it’s not. That’s why we’re seeking sanctuary in the temple.
T’mar had claimed the human meant nothing to him, but his scent, though faint, had been on her. He’d fucked her.
She had a hunch he would be angry, but it was K’rah’s wrath A’riel feared most. The prince’s vengeance would be more measured. He would punish her, probably by imprisonment in the dungeon. But the king? Although his loathing for humans was no secret, for some inexplicable reason, he’d ordered another female to be brought from Earth. If the human died? Well, nobody crossed the king and lived.
But in the temple, A’riel would be safe from the monarch’s retribution. He couldn’t touch her there. Maybe the human wouldn’t die, but even if she did, eventually, the king’s wrath would cool, and A’riel could come out of hiding. With the human gone, perhaps T’mar’s affliction would pass, and she could proceed with the plan to be claimed as his mate.
Princess A’riel. T’mar, as the eldest son, would inherit the throne. As queen, A’riel would be wealthier and more powerful than she’d ever dreamed. Her sisters would gnash their fangs with jealousy. The other two concubines would be dead. She’d order their executions.
The dragon landed at the base of the temple steps and shifted to demiforma. A’riel picked up the drape the dragon had carried and wrapped it around herself before climbing the steps. The temple guardians stood as still as gargoyles as she passed between them.
Never devoted or observant, A’riel couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited the temple—it had been hundreds of years, at least—but it didn’t appear to have changed much. In the rotunda, the sacred flame floated in the center of the room.
Gazing into the Eternal Fyre supposedly brought peace, but she would derive comfort from being safe from the king’s vengeance.
“I’ve been expecting you.” Out of nowhere, the keeper of the fyre appeared in woman form.
A’riel had heard whispered blasphemies the priestess was so ancient, she’d lost the ability to shift and was locked in that state forever. She shuddered. She’d rather be dead than live like that. The priestess’ hair and gown were whiter than marble. Only her amber eyes and the huge yellow diamond pendant she wore showed any color.
Her covetous gaze fixed on the diamond. That single perfect gemstone was worth more than all of A’riel’s treasure. What a waste. The priestess never left the temple. “You were expecting me?”
“How do you account for your actions?”
“My actions?” Did she mean in general? She couldn’t be referring to the attack on the human, could she? How would she know? The body might have been found, and a message might have been delivered to the king and T’mar, but the news couldn’t have gotten here yet. Why would anyone bother to tell her at all? Royal and secular matters did not concern her. Ariel took a surreptitious deep breath to sniff out a clue, but the priestess emitted no scent. “I don’t understand,” A’riel said.
“No, you don’t. But you’re about to.”
* * * *
A’riel believed herself smarter and craftier than everyone else, yet she stared death in the face and didn’t realize it. Nor did her dragon, who shared culpability, who’d urged her to teach the human a lesson, inciting her to greater violence.
In horror, the priestess had felt her daughter’s life force dimming. Even she couldn’t reignite a fyre once it had extinguished. She’d gone weak with relief when Helena’s fyre regained strength. Not fully, but enough so her daughter would survive. But at the hand of this dragoness, her daughter nearly had died before learning her heritage.
Slowly, the priestess walked around the Eternal Fyre. Circles had no beginning and no end. But circles could be broken. She completed the rotation and then thrust her hand into the sacred flame and beckoned to one tiny fyre. She captured it and withdrew her hand.
Her finger a candle, the flame flickered on the tip. She brought it up to her face, the closer to examine it. Such a strong fyre. Glowing bright orange and red. Healthy. Alive. Robust. “Do you think I brought my daughter to Draco so you could attack her?”
“Y-your…daughter?”
The priestess blew out the flame. A’riel’s body crumpled to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“T’mar?” Helena croaked, her throat raw from screaming his name. “You came.” She shifted in the bed and winced. Her arms, legs, torso, and face hurt.
“Almost not soon enough,” he said grimly.
“A’riel at
tacked me.”
“I know. She will pay.”
“She already has.” The words popped out of her mouth, and she frowned. No, she’d dreamed she’d seen A’riel’s body crumple to the floor, watched as a dragon hauled the body away.
T’mar cocked his head as if confused, but then he focused on her. “I am so sorry. What happened to you was my fault. I didn’t make your position clear to A’riel and the others. In fact, I gave them the wrong impression.”
“What was that?”
Shame rolled off him in a cloud of scent. Is he really here? Or is this another dream? Her mind fuzzy, she wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. She’d had some weird hallucinations…
“That you meant nothing to me—”
She flinched.
“When you’re my mate. You’re the one I’ve been waiting for.”
Oh, yeah, he waited all right—waited for me in his harem! But warmth kindled and spread from the inside out.
“I heard you scream. You almost died, and I wanted to die, too.”
“How could you hear me scream? You weren’t here—were you?” Had he been in the compound?
“No. I was at my father’s palace.” He tapped his head over his ear. “I heard you in my mind. My dragon heard you first and made me shut up so I could listen. We flew here as fast as we could. You’d lost a lot of blood; you were on the brink of death until Princess Rhianna gave you some of hers.”
“Rhianna came back? I sensed her presence, but I thought I’d imagined that part.” Her dreams had been bizarre. A’riel’s death still felt real. A woman in a white wedding dress with unbelievably long hair had reached into a big fire, pulled out a little flame, and then blown it out and killed A’riel. Weird. She felt so disoriented.
She plucked at the sleeve of her robe and frowned. This wasn’t what she’d been wearing.
“I bathed you and changed your clothes,” T’mar said. “Why did you enter A’riel’s section? Didn’t B’kah warn you not to venture into another dragon’s territory?”
“B’kah sent me there!”
He spewed a cacophonous string of syllables her implant couldn’t translate. Swear words, she surmised.
“I asked her the way to the servants’ section, and she pointed to A’riel’s area.”
An intense sour odor flooded the room, and his yellow eyes flashed red for a moment. B’kah would regret her role in the attack. She didn’t feel sorry for her at all. She almost got me killed.
“Why were you looking for the servants’ area?”
“You said there was an exit. I wanted to visit Patsy and Henry. I’d asked the donatta to take me, and she kept putting it off. I was getting concerned about them, and I knew they would worry about me.”
“B’kah has a lot to answer for. And she will,” he said.
Some “guardian” the donatta had turned out to be. She’d set her up, deliberately sent her into A’riel’s area, knowing she would likely be attacked.
As soon as Helena realized she’d ventured into the wrong area, she’d tried to leave, but A’riel had cornered her. She didn’t know why the other concubine hated her so much, but she hadn’t needed a dragon’s olfaction to sense the rage. The concubine had grown fangs and claws. With her talons, she kept slashing and slashing.
In terror, she’d screamed for the one person who mattered the most to her. She truly had believed she was going to die. In that moment, she regretted she’d never admitted her feelings for T’mar—to him or to herself. She swallowed and sought his gaze. “I love you.”
A smile spread over his face, and a fragrance of cloves and spice scented the air. “I love you, too, mate.”
“You do?” A barrier had fallen away, revealing love and light and all things good and wonderful.
He nodded, but his smile faded a bit. “When you cried out for me, when I realized you were in danger, nothing could have kept me from you, but I feared I wouldn’t be in time. That I’d contributed to the attack by refusing to acknowledge you will haunt me for the rest of my days. I promise it will never happen again. I will always be there for you.”
Tears welled in eyes. She couldn’t believe how ridiculously happy she felt, but one thing, no small matter, still bothered her. “What about your harem?”
“As soon as you’re well enough to travel, I’m moving you to the palace. You won’t be returning here.”
But would he? “I don’t share,” she said. “I can’t be your mate if you’re still going to keep concubines.”
“I have not been with any of them since I met you, nor for some time before. The dragon sensed you would be coming and forsook all others. I have no need of or desire for a concubine when I have you.” Yellow eyes glowed. “They will be released from service.”
The way he phrased it, it sounded like they were being fired. “Do they at least get a severance package?” she quipped.
“They will receive a goodly amount of treasure—except for A’riel. She’ll be in the dungeon for a long, long time.”
She still had the strong feeling A’riel was dead. Her gaze shifted to their joined hands. They’d put something on her wounds to close the skin, but the lacerations were red and ugly. Her arms had taken the brunt of it—along with a deep gash to her abdomen—but A’riel had slashed her face, too—had seemed to be aiming for it. “Can you get me a mirror?”
He hesitated. “There isn’t one available here.”
She started to sit up. “There’s a big one in the bathroom.”
“No, mate. If you are not well enough to fly, you are not well enough to move around. Besides, there is something more important we need to attend to.”
“What’s that?”
“I must claim you, mark you, so everyone will see you belong to me, and no one will dare to hurt you again.”
“Mark me, how?”
“I must bite you. It will leave a permanent mark identifying you as my mate. No two dragon bites are alike.”
“The dragon is going to bite me?” No, no. Oh no. That huge creature with fangs as long as her forearm? Deal breaker!
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fear spiked in Helena’s scent. “Not the dragon—me,” T’mar said quickly and shifted into man form to reassure her further.
“Is that necessary?”
“It’s the only way to seal our union and prove we are mates.”
“On Earth, we wear wedding rings.”
“Would you like jewelry? I can provide you with whatever you desire. Diamonds, emeralds—” His treasure hoard was quite extensive. She could have her pick.
“That’s not what I meant.” She hesitated. “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”
“I’m told the mating bite is pleasurable,” he said tentatively.
“You’re told? You don’t know?”
Biting, which almost always occurred between Draconians during sex, was extremely pleasurable, but the purpose of this bite would be to seal the mating contract. And she was human. What if it did hurt her? But it still had to be done.
“How about if I bite you instead?” she suggested.
His blood heated. Blunt human teeth couldn’t pierce like fangs, but the idea she might want to bite him hardened his cock. “I would like that very much,” he said, “but for us to be mates, I still must mark you.”
When two dragons mated, their fyres merged, and each one forever carried a small spark from the other. That couldn’t happen with Helena, but at least she would belong to him for the short period of her life. And no other male would dare to touch her.
She stuck out her wrist and averted her head. “All right. I want to be your mate, so go ahead. Bite me.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
It could not be done under duress with her dreading it. And it wasn’t her arm he needed to mark. He tucked a finger under her chin and turned her face. “How about we start with a kiss?”
Her eyes flew open. “All-all right.”
He lowered his head and slanted his mouth against her
s. Their lips parted, and their tongues met in gentle exploration. She sighed into the kiss, and tension released from her body. Desire coiled and snapped, but he continued to coax and tease with multiple light, intimate kisses.
He cupped her neck, stroking her jaw with his thumb. Her pulse leaped, and he detected the honeyed scent of arousal. She stroked the side of his face, drawing her fingers over his skin, tangling in his hair. He was dragon through and through. On himself he preferred horns and thorns to hair, but any touch from her thrilled him. And her hair was glorious, fiery in color and silky soft.
He eased onto the bed and stretched out beside her, the better to press his lips to her closed eyelids, then her cheeks, taking care not to disturb her wounds. If Helena had been a dragoness, her fyre would have healed her already. Only the most severe battle wounds left scars—or a dragon’s own tears. He’d shed some before he learned she’d survived.
Her eyes popped open, and she scanned his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You tensed.”
“With desire for you,” he said. Not a lie. He wanted her more than anything, but his needs would have to wait until she’d gotten better. But not one second longer. He smiled.
“You have the cutest dimples,” she said.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“For a human, you mean?”
He shook his head. “No. You just are.” Beauty came in many forms, shapes, and sizes.
“Your eyes are amazing. They’re like topazes. When you shift, they remain the same. It’s how I know it’s you.”
They would never be linked via a telepathic bond, but there was no doubt she was his mate. She’d been the cause and the cure of his ennui. He’d been waiting for her. She filled him with contentment when they were together and longing when they were apart.
The rascally dragon had recognized her from the beginning.
His cock ached, desire drumming in his veins.
He kissed each wound on her face then trailed his lips to her arms to treat each slash, before moving upward and burying his face against her throat. Her pulse thrummed a fast rhythm, and the scent of her desire sent his lust spiraling. He nuzzled her soft skin and then shifted enough for fangs to descend.