“What were you thinking about, just then?”
She felt a blush tinge her cheeks. “Uh, nothing.”
The lines around his eyes deepened but he didn’t speak. It was almost as if he could see into her thoughts and knew she’d been daydreaming about him. His long hair was wet. He’d returned to the waterfall this morning. He stared at her for a long moment. She returned his gaze, startled by the wild emotion that flickered in his eyes.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice no more than a whisper. He straightened and the strange vulnerability was gone. Something had happened to make him pull back at the waterfall. He’d wanted her. She wiped her damp hands on a dishtowel. “I didn’t know what happened to you last night,” she said briskly.
“I walked the valley.”
Lorran nodded. She didn’t know what else to say. “Would you like something to eat?” she asked, desperate for something to do to ease the unusual tension in the room. Kei agreed and within moments Lorran placed a hot meal in front of him. He watched her as she moved around the cabin, his eyes sending streams of heat through her body. She mentally braced herself and collected her parchments before sitting down across from him.
He glanced up but quickly returned his attention to wolfing down his breakfast. Tielle St. Clare
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“So, I think we should start.” She said opening the paper and inking her quill.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
The crisp answer was wholly unenlightening but Lorran noted it. “Do you sense any changes? Any strange thoughts you can’t account for?”
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth, then continued. After he swallowed, he shook his head. “No.”
Lorran marked down his answer but wasn’t sure he was telling the truth.
“We’ll need to track your emotions.”
“Why?” He finally met her gaze.
“As the dragon’s awareness grows, that’s where you’ll notice changes. Your emotions will intensify. Hatred, anger, pain, humiliation.”
“Arousal,” he added.
She schooled her expression to show nothing. “Yes, I suppose arousal would be one of the emotions that would appeal to the dragon.” She cleared her throat. “Particularly given the dragons’ reputation. In that area. But no one has ever reported a transition, during, uh—” She wasn’t good at this sort of discussion. Her family hadn’t discussed relationships between men and women. Her wedding night had been quite a surprise.
“Well, during intimate relations.”
“Sex,” Kei supplied.
She felt herself blush again. She had to get the conversation back under control.
“Yes. Observers have reported that the human begins changing, at least mentally and in their behaviors, long before the dragon physically appears. The person’s emotions become very erratic.” She kept her voice distant and impersonal. It was strange. She’d never spoken with a man who was going through the process. He appeared so calm about the situation but she’d seen the rage inside. She had no way to ease his anxiety. Though she barely knew him, she dreaded the next weeks. Tears pricked the edges of her eyes.
“What causes the final transition?” he asked. His emotionless voice matched hers. His ability to maintain control inspired hers and Lorran forced the tears to retreat. She sat up in her chair.
“We don’t precisely know but it appears these emotions are the gateway. The human—” It helped if she thought of it in general terms instead of the specifics of Kei changing into a dragon. “Displays erratic emotions. Usually building up to an outburst that releases the dragon onto the world.”
“And that’s when it becomes physically present?”
She nodded. “You’ll probably notice the mental awareness much sooner.”
“Once the dragon appears, is there any way to return to the human state?”
Lorran was sure he knew the answer but she replied. “No. There has never been a case of a dragon reverting back to a human state.”
Kei nodded and thought for a moment before tilting his head to the side. “If emotions are the key, can I keep the dragon away if I succeed in suppressing all emotions?”
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“Theoretically,” she agreed cautiously. But Lorran felt compelled to tell him the truth. “I’ve never heard of that working. As the dragon grows, the struggle for control will become more difficult. A few men have succeeded in delaying the transition. But they’ve been much more mild mannered than…” She let her words trail away. He put his fork on the table and stared into her eyes.
“Than your average dragon slayer,” he said, finishing her sentence with just a touch of mockery.
Lorran couldn’t look away. “Exactly.” The air between them grew heavy. With just a look, he took her back to the waterfall—the searing sensation of his tongue inside her passage. She shifted in her chair.
Kei’s gaze dipped down to her chest, rising and falling with each struggling breath. He swallowed deeply.
“I have to go.”
He pushed back from the table and was out the door before Lorran could respond. She stared at his back for a moment before racing after him.
“Kei!” she called. He didn’t stop. The moments of sympathy evaporated at his arrogance. He couldn’t keep disappearing like this. He’d agreed to her study. “Your Majesty, you can’t keep walking away.”
He kept moving until he reached the woodpile. He bent and picked up the axe. She wasn’t frightened. The man might be a dragon slayer but he wouldn’t hurt her. Lorran followed and stopped between him and the splitting stump. She propped her hands on her hips and glared up at him. Kei stared back, his eyes blazing but with fury not lust. Lorran refused to be intimidated.
“We have more to discuss. I need to get your initial information so we can track the changes.”
“We’ll do it later.”
“If we do it later, I won’t know where we started from,” she pointed out sensibly. Kei paused for a second. She watched the muscles along his jaw line tense, like he was holding back a growl.
“We’ll do it later,” he insisted.
“You’ve been out of the trance for almost a day and a half and I’ve been able to observe you for less than three hours.”
He leaned on the axe handle and flashed her a smug smile. “But you got an eyeful last night, didn’t you? Did you stick around to watch in the name of ‘observation’?”
So, he had known she was there. She had two choices. She could blush and stammer or she could respond to his arrogance in kind. She chose the latter.
“It seemed like an opportunity to observe you in your natural state. But I can’t monitor your progress if you spend all your time in the forest or breaking logs into splinters! May I point out that you agreed to let me study you and to do that I have to physically see you?”
“Well, may
I
point out that spending the night in the forest was the only option I saw to spending the night here fucking you until you couldn’t walk.”
His words were like a vise around her throat. She took a short step back. Tielle St. Clare
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“W-what?”
“You heard me.” Kei let the axe fall to the ground. “You’ve been through this before. Is it normal? Is this what’s supposed to happen? That all I can think about is fucking you and licking your wet little cunt? My Gods help me. I can still taste you and I want more.” He stalked forward, stopping directly in front of her. For a moment she thought he would reach for her but he kept his hands clenched at his side. “So, tell me, is this normal?”
Lorran had difficulty finding her voice. She knew his words should have repulsed her but they only succeeded in re-igniting the hunger between her legs. She wanted those things—wanted his cock and his mouth.
“To some extent, yes. Brennek spent his last days in another town with the town women.”
“Fucking anything that moved.”
Lorran felt her cheeks redden but nodded. “Yes.”
“Well then you know what I’m going through so while you might want to observe me, I somehow doubt you’re willing to fall into bed and spread your legs in the name of
observation
.” He turned around and picked up the axe. His long hair obscured his face as he stared at the ground. “So, until I get this
thing
under control, I suggest you let me work off some of this energy.”
Lorran stared at him for a moment and then turned away.
She had no answer for that.
* * * * *
Kei stalked back toward the cabin as the sun began to set. His long hair dripped uncomfortably down his back. He’d returned to the waterfall. Three baths in twenty-four hours. By the time the dragon appeared, Kei would be exhausted, crazed by sexual frustration, but very clean. Though it wasn’t much, bathing seemed to ease the ache for sex just a little. Nothing worked for long. Everything seemed to inspire thoughts of fucking. And Lorran. Staying in the forest away from her hadn’t helped. Even working himself to exhaustion chopping wood had only dulled the ache for a while. Then something—
anything it seemed, a scent, a color, the shape of the axe handle which reminded him of the curve of Lorran’s back—would re-ignite the memory and he’d be back hard and desperate.
And he wouldn’t find relief any time soon. At least not with Lorran. She’d all but flinched when he’d told her of his desire to fuck her. Unfortunately, while she’d pulled away, his body had leapt in agreement and that thought had occupied hours. Being inside her, riding her pussy until she whimpered with need, until she was totally open to him. Until she was bound to him by unbreakable ties.
He stopped on the porch and waited, hoping his cock would calm down before he went inside. He could have masturbated again but while his body ached with need, the feel of his own hand did little to satisfy it. It only made it worse. The voice in his head repeated its plaintive cry.
Mine.
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Kei ground his teeth together. The voice was growing in strength if not vocabulary. Even without the words, the beast was pushing him—filling his mind with crisp clear memories of Lorran.
He stared at the door and realized he had only one choice. He had to leave. Had to return to the Castle. Despite what Lorran had said, returning home was the only option now. There were women in the Castle who would welcome him, even eagerly. With a dragon’s legendary sexual appetites, there were bound to be a few women who would agree to occupy his bed for the next three weeks. It seemed like the only workable solution. He couldn’t stay, not without fucking someone. And the one person he wanted was Lorran.
It had to be proximity. There could be no other reason he was craving her so much. Surely another woman would do.
He opened the door and stopped. The smell of warm fresh bread filled the room making his belly rumble. He welcomed the gnawing pain. It was some feeling besides arousal.
Lorran sat beside the fire, her hands clutching a book but her eyes stared at the flames. She turned as he entered. Concern marred her serene gaze. Dammit—he didn’t need her pity.
She slowly rose from her chair.
“Would you like some dinner, Your Majesty?” she asked primly, though she didn’t insert the sarcasm into his title this time. Her back was straight and stiff and she looked ready to snap. He waited, preparing himself for another reprimand. Lorran wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. He decided he liked that. In the past year, too many people had learned to agree with him—for no other reason than he was King. It was too bad he’d only met Lorran now, when he’d be dead in three weeks. She would have made a wise advisor.
She moved with quick efficiency, brushing past him to the counter without saying a word. Kei wondered for a moment if she’d given up but the tense line of her spine told him she was simply storing up her words. Probably until after he’d eaten. Her delicious scent combined with the rich smell of the dinner she’d left warming in the oven.
Kei followed her as she placed his dinner on the counter. His cock surged upward. In all the Hells, he’d never imagined a torture quite like this one. He wanted her. All of her. The smell of her pussy added spice to the room, subtle and seductive. He wanted to lick it, taste it. Drink from it. Pour himself into it until they blended into one being. There was no way to stop himself. Whether it was the creature that grew inside him or his own natural desire, he didn’t question, he simply knew—he had to take at least a taste of what he desperately craved. He gripped her elbow and spun her around, accepting her startled gasp in his mouth. Their lips touched, and instantly the ache inside him eased and then exploded. It was sweet and he needed more—he needed all of her.
She seemed to hesitate, but Kei couldn’t stop. He drove his tongue inside her mouth, surrounding himself with her flavor. She moaned and he took that as well. He Tielle St. Clare
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wanted everything she gave. In the corner of his mind he recognized that she wasn’t pushing him away, she was accepting him. The world painted itself red in his mind as he settled against her, drawing from her mouth, pulling her body against his, until she cuddled his aching erection between her legs.
Mine.
He circled his hips, pressing against her mound, his body lost in the movements, even if he couldn’t yet be inside where he belonged.
Lorran ripped her mouth away, gasping for breath. Kei held her hips and rocked against her. He kissed the column of her neck, distracting her from any chance of clear thought. A brief glimmer of sanity warned she should break the spell. She ignored the warning and sighed as common sense faded.
There was no way to fight the pleasure he gave her. She wanted this. She wanted him. She slid her hands up his chest, needing to hold him. He captured her mouth with his and this time she claimed him in return. She wrapped her arms around his neck. She flicked her tongue against his, mimicking his seductive movements. He groaned, and turned his head, fitting their mouths closer together. He held her hips, almost lifting her as if he wanted inside her body. She’d never been needed like this.
Fucking you until you couldn’t walk.