Dragon Fate (20 page)

Somehow he kicked his jeans away and centered himself at her core. He straightened both arms to stare down at her, his biceps flexed as if holding himself away from her was nearly impossible even for his powerful flight muscles. The lustrous gleam of his tattoos marked him like shooting stars across his skin, too wondrous for her to do more than gaze in delight.

“You are in my aerie and in my arms, and you are in my heart too,” he murmured. “You are more than a solarys, more than the light and heat that keeps me alive. You are a magic I never hoped could be mine.”

Her hands slipped down to center on his chest. “Maybe we
were
fated.”

But he shook his head. “Not fated. You fought. Against me, for me. And you won.”

He sank into her, so slowly she thought she might come apart before he was even all the way inside her. But he never looked away, his dark violet eyes locked on her and he wouldn’t let her fall.

Not until he was ready to fall with her.

She raised her hips to meet him, stroke for stroke. The slick friction of his cock in her hidden passage was like the delicious rasp of a sensual firestarter, flames licking up behind, about to engulf her. And still she clung to him, wanting to go higher.

Every nerve in her body shimmered like a heat mirage slowly coming into focus.

Or about to explode.

“Claim me, Anjali,” he growled. The rumble that vibrated in her core was no sound of a man. “Make the dragon yours.”

The entreaty and command slammed through her just as his hips pounded into hers. The swollen nub of her clit might as well have been a nuclear destruction button—she went off with a scream matched only by his roar of satisfaction.

She convulsed around him, her vision blackened except for the sparkles dancing around the edges, her body coming alive in the center of his fire. A magic that would never die.

For an eternity, they clung together, breath heaving one to the other and back again like they were tossed on a stormy sea. Finally, he eased her down and collapsed beside her, as graceless as if he’d been shot through the heart.

And maybe, she thought smugly, he had been.

She lifted one trembling hand to cup his cheek. “How can you still want me after everything that happened, everything I did?”

Lightning glittered in the velvety night of his eyes. “I will want you through everything that comes next,” he swore. “Your fire, your ferocity. You are a true mate to a dragon.”

“True mate,” she whispered.

“Mine.” The muted thunder in the word was a warning to any who might try to come between them.

She drew his mouth down to hers, inhaling the mineral tang of the beast, and kissed him deep. She’d found her place at last.

In the heart of her dragon.

Turn the page to read Chapter 1 from
DRAGON FALL
, the next story in the Masters of the Flame series.

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MATING FEVER

Masters of the Flame: Book 3

DRAGON FALL

She fell for a dragon half turned to stone.

Now the mating fever will turn them to ash – or let them fly.

As lord of the Nox Incendi dragons, Bale Dorado is supposed to protect his people within the exclusive Keep casino in Sin City, but the curse that plagues the clan has all but turned him to cold stone. Only by finding the powerful, burning heart of his treasure will he survive to lead them against a deadly magical threat to dragonkin. Instead, he finds himself falling for a wounded, delicate…virgin?

Esme Montenegro fears everything about the broken, disfigured dragon lord—including her wild, feverish attraction to him. She too is falling…and if she can’t find her wings, they and all the Nox Incendi are doomed.

Chapter 1

“She is my true mate.” From a wary distance, Bale Dorado eyed the frail blonde slumbering against a stalagmite jutting up like a dagger in the center of his cavernous throne room.

Which was really his prison.

His dragon had been guarding her restless sleep and had known—known—what she was. Even though the beast was barely contained within his tortured skin, it had taken longer for the truth to well up to his consciousness. Because he hadn’t wanted to believe that Esme Montenegro was his solarys mate. It wasn’t just hard to believe; it was—

“No,” Rave said.

The flat denial from his brother made the dragon in Bale rear up in defiance. Pain spiked through his spine, sending lashes of black lightning to the ends of his nerves. He bit off the urge to scream and only hissed out a slow breath.

Finally, the worst of the agony passed. “What did you say?”

Rave paced the edges of the circle of light cast by the low-burning brazier near Esme. “It’s impossible,” he said tightly. “There must be something else going on. Why would the dragon choose her?”

“That’s not what you said,” Bale prodded.

His brother stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his chest, straining the sleek black linen of his dress shirt across his broad shoulders. As general manager and public face of their exclusive Las Vegas casino, he looked the part: half stylish, half ruthless. But the beast within was pure savagery in defense of the Nox Incendi dragons.

And the warlock’s wounded pawn was a danger.

Huffing out a breath, Rave dragged one hand through his thick, brown hair. “I said no,” he admitted. “Forgetting for a moment who I was talking to.”

“Your reyex,” Bale needled. “Your liege lord.”

“My brother. Who’s always had a softness for hard-luck cases.”

At the note of warmth in Rave’s voice, Bale closed his eyes. With the stone blight spreading through his body, slowly stealing his life, any heat or light was pain. And still, the petralys was nowhere near as bad as the grim reality his brother’s words invoked.

“To be dragonkin is to know hard luck,” Bale said softly.

Rave grunted noncommittally. “You’ve been watching sleeping beauty over there for a few nights now. I’m wondering if that might have something to do with the rock-hard thing.”

Bale choked on a laugh. Their sire would’ve roasted a dragon for such presumption. But the only reason the Nox Incendi clan—and Bale himself, for that matter—still existed was because of Rave Dorado and his determination to keep their treasure and their shapeshifting secrets hidden from the human world.

Now Rave had claimed his solarys mate, and his dragon thrived. No wonder he felt confident about challenging his liege.

Plus, as a younger brother, he’d always been in a pain in the ass.

“We’re close to a treatment for the petralys,” Rave said as he started pacing again. “The cereus flower extract we liberated during the raid on Ashcraft Antiquities’ imports is showing results. Piper purified the extract, and she’s searching for a way to synthesize it in bulk. Once we do that, we can dose everyone in the clan, keep the petralys at bay until each dragon finds his true mate.”

Despite the jagged ache in all his joints that worsened with every step, Bale slid closer to the one lit brazier. On the other side, Esme lay curled, only the shallow lift and fall of her flank evidence that she wasn’t a pale lump of flowstone. The cold, dark cavern that eased the petralys symptoms had protected her from Lars Ashcraft’s attempts to control her, but she’d been badly hurt before they’d cut off the warlock’s link to her. “I’ve found my mate.”

Rave scowled. “Not that one.”

“The Nox Incendi have only one solarys.”

“Then,” Rave said with strained patience, “make sure you don’t let the dragon claim her.”

“Without a solarys mate, I will die.” Bale fought against the twist in his spine to lift his head, studying his brother. “Or is that what you want? To become reyex yourself.”

Rave snarled, the guttering embers of the brazier blazing in his storm blue eyes. “I don’t want to be reyex. I don’t want the treasure that is yours. I have everything I want.”

“You have your solarys,” Bale said.

“Piper.” At the sound of his mate’s name, the angry flames in Rave’s gaze dissipated with an iridescent burst, as if merely the thought of her ignited his ichor. “She is my everything.”

The ichor—the essence of the Nox Incendi that gave the dragonkin their light and flight and life—was a tarry sludge in Bale’s veins, pooling in his limbs, clogging his heart, slowing even his thoughts.

“I’ll be stone-bound soon,” he said softly.

“And likely you’ll still last longer than her.” Rave sent a pitying glance toward Esme. “The drug shipment scandal we manufactured to bring down Ashcraft Antiquities has the ash-hole on the run. You broke the hold he had over her through that zombified engagement ring. But she’s still a wreck.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if she’ll live with her mind intact. And if you claim her as mate, you’ll both die.”

The assessment—cruel but true—hit Bale harder than a dragonslayer’s spear. The beast in him writhed, leaving no room for him to inhale, and his breath rattled.

Rave stepped forward in alarm. “Bale. What—?”

As if the noise had roused her, Esme stirred. The flames in the brazier flickered higher, widening the circle of light.

Bale edged back, squinting. “Take her,” he said through gritted teeth. “Ashcraft can’t reach her anymore. Get her out of here.”

“Bale—”

“Now. Before she wakes.” Before she sees me.

He didn’t say that aloud, praise all the stars in the night sky, but Rave must know what he was thinking. Though it had been a long time since he’d allowed anyone to see what the petralys toxin had done to him, Bale knew his brother was aware of the blight’s progression.

The fire reached higher yet as Esme pushed herself up onto one elbow. Tangled, pale blond stands knotted around her face. Even when she brushed back her hair, her dark eyes were still hazy.

But not so blind that they wouldn’t see him for what he was.

The beast halfway out of his skin, and the stone halfway in.

Wingtip dragging over the rough rock, he retreated further into the black cavern, though the dragon raged, wanting to go to her. Wanting to claim her.

The congealing ichor in his body pulsed, ravaging his bones like a pack of rabid wolves was tearing him apart from the inside. He gasped, though the sound came out as a growl.

Rave stiffened, turning his direction but unable to see past the fire.

Just as well. As much as the surging flames tore at him, Bale wanted no one to see him like this.

Except when Rave lifted Esme to her feet, urging her toward the elevator that would spirit her away from this penthouse prison, she lifted her head and stared. Her gaze, too dark for her delicate coloring, seemed to reach Bale through the shadows.

Seemed to touch him.

Worse than the flames of the brazier, the feverish gleam in her eyes seared him. The part of his skin unprotected by scales or the creeping blight felt as if it was blistering, bubbles of pain sinking into his flesh.

He groaned, a low, tortured sound that rolled between the rocks and brought Rave to a halt. Esme cringed against his side, both hands fisted in his fine shirt as her wild gaze swept the darkness, searching for the monster she must sense.