Soon the group came up on a small craft, a zodiac from what he could see underwater. The dragon signaled for the mere to remain below, but Alara punched him out of the way with a sharp jab of her elbow. Refusing to allow her to face the kidnapper alone, Kai rose from a point slightly to her left and lifted his head from the water.
“Oi!” The princess yelled up from the side of the boat. From her vantage point she couldn’t see into the dinghy. When no reply came, she clarified. “Oi! Asshole! I’m talking to you!”
No head presented itself over the rubbery edge and Kai wondered if perhaps the zodiac was abandoned. It did appear to be floating unanchored. He pumped his tail hard, lifting his head out of the water until he saw the figure on the boat.
The man’s sunken, pale face turned toward the dragon. A hint of fang protruded from under his top lip. Kai hesitated as they made eye contact. He’d seen few vampires in his life, but this one looked by far the most pathetic.
Chapter 15
Kai dove below the surface and scooped her up to see. The male appeared unarmed, not to mention half-dead, so Alara shifted to human and leapt from the dragon’s back onto the boat. Despite the harsh rocking at her landing, the dighy’s driver barely moved.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to find me.” The male spoke through parched lips.
Kai’s head rose up behind her. The boat tipped wildly in the waves caused by his beating tail. “Alara! Please return to the water. He’s a vampire!” At that, Alara noticed the fangs peeking out under his lip.
“Well, fuck me! He is a vampire. I’ve never seen one before.” She grasped the male’s shirt and pulled him forward, until their faces almost touched. “If you stole those fry to suck their blood, I’m going to tear those teeth of yours out with pliers…before I tear off other parts of you, that is.”
He raised a shoulder and rolled his eyes. “Eh, you’ll likely drown me first.” Before she could think of a retort, he continued. “I didn’t feed from the kids. I just caught them for Grathers and then brought them back here.”
She back-handed him hard before letting him go. “Grathers is he the ‘bad guy’ the kids talked about?”
Kai slipped back into the water so that only his eyes, ears and the dome of his head were visible. Apparently he’d gotten the memo that she was in control. She looked around the boat and found a blanket stowed beneath a bench. She wrapped it around her shoulders.
“A scientist.” The male didn’t seem to have any qualms about spilling his information. “He studies paranormal creatures and part-humans, but his greatest interest is in mere. Well, it was.” Alara could have sworn that he licked his lips at the last part. It made her want to gag.
“So the girl was right, he’s dead?” Her fingers twitched, wanting to become fists. She needed someone to demand retribution from. This depressed excuse for a vampire wouldn’t even fight back.
“Yeah. But I’m sure the company will find someone else to take his place. Dendric Research made too much money off his discoveries to give up his studies altogether."
Her knee bobbed once. Dang she wanted to kick him. But he just sat there, resigned. “So your company took the kids last summer, too?” He nodded once. Not exactly the teary confession she’d hoped for, but it was enough. “And you, what did you do in this operation?”
He shrugged. “Steered the boat, captured paranormals. I’m not going to work for them anymore, but they’ll just replace me too.” He chuckled, a dry hollow sound. “You know- If the paranormal community could manage to work together a company like Dendric couldn’t just go around kidnapping and killing. But no, every species is fighting for sovereignty or land or some bullshit and Dendric just picks off the stragglers.”
“And what do you mean by that, vampire?”
“Name’s Karon, John Karon…and what I mean is Grathers had the backing of the Dragon Council on this little operation.”
The ocean bucked under them, almost launching Alara out of the boat.
Kai’s three-foot-long reptilian head rose high above the zodiac’s lip. “What evidence do you have, that you accuse the Council of this crime?”
The vampire looked him directly in the eye. “Well, it’s interesting you asked, dragon.” He reached under a bench and pulled out a plastic tube about the size of a man’s forearm, sealed at both ends. “I took the liberty of packaging up some of Grathers’ documents.”
The vampire hesitated before handing the tube to Alara. “I’m not giving you this to start a war, or make mere-dragon relations worse. Just, I thought someone should know.”
Alara held her hand up to silence Kai’s non-stop roars. “Thank you, John. I appreciate this more than you could know.” When the vampire met her eyes, she noticed he was handsome, in a rugged, wind-weathered way. He smiled like someone who knew terror and had survived it. “If you ever need help, the mere of Murrough Island have got your back.”
* * * *
She knocked on his door once, then twice. Silence met her raps, but Alara knew he was in there. Stewing. Or maybe moping. Kai seemed a little too straight-laced to truly brood. She tried the handle, and it gave way immediately. The heavy door swung forward, revealing a room dominated by a coiled black dragon with his head tucked over his tail. He huffed when he saw her.
“I did not invite you in, princess.” Definitely moping.
Alara removed her shoes, climbed onto his back, and laid her face against his silky scales. “I’m not really sure what you’re so upset about, dragon.”
A low growl erupted around her, vibrating her whole body. “Everything that vampire suspected proved true. The Council Chair betrayed your triton. He betrayed us both. He risked the life of children! No—he sacrificed children! For money!” He shook beneath her, and Alara wondered if it was with fury or with tears.
“Kai, you must know that dragons have been using mere for financial gain for a long time, right?”
Kai’s big head rose, and he breathed a large waft of damp air in her face. Her forehead creased in disbelief. “Oh gods, Kai, how could you not understand that?”
His head thumped back down in a gesture of such misery than she shut up.
“I thought my kind were noble, that we were saviors and protectors. Now I find…”
“That you’re just like everyone else?”
She thought he would growl at her observation, but instead he just sighed. “Perhaps we are worse.”
Her hand stroked his back, smoothing the scales. She scooted back and rubbed at his shoulders as she would if he were in human form.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m giving you a back rub.”
“Dragons don’t get massages.” He grumbled, but she could tell he enjoy it.
“Well, do you like it?” She rubbed more firmly at a shelf of muscle behind his forelimb, and he groaned.
“Yes. I do.”
“Then who cares what dragons are
supposed to
like?”
* * * *
The feel of her tiny hands pummeling his muscles wrought a groan from his lips. Without Kai’s conscious direction, his body began shifting to human. Alara remained on his back the entire time, her weight a comfort as his bones moved and his tissues morphed. When he reached his human state, she lay on his back still, and pressed as kiss into his neck.
Kai rolled her off and stood. He walked a few feet and turned his back to her. “My apologies.” Embarrassment poured off him. The accidental shift to human was bad enough, but to do it in front of a woman—his woman—gods, she must think poorly of him.
“What for?” Her forehead creased, and she looked around the room like she was searching for answers under the furniture.
“For taking my human form…”
Alara’s looked at him as if he were unbalanced. “And I would be upset about that, why?” She came close, and pressed her body into his back. She resumed her rubbing at his shoulders and then lower, down his back. His head fell forward at the feel of it, and she urged him toward the bed where he lay on his belly. Her strong legs straddled his hips, and she pressed all her weight into the heels of her hands. The extraordinary pleasure of it wrung all thoughts from his mind. “Oh, mother of all the gods, that is wonderful.”
She responded with a warm chuckle. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
Her quip reminded him of their differences and their different worlds. “To a dragon, accidentally shifting to human is a humiliation. It shows weakness. To accidentally shift to dragon signifies a loss of control, and is a bit embarrassing, but under normal circumstances it almost never happens, as we spend most of our time in that form.”
Alara’s hands kept kneading, shaping his muscles, loosening his joints. “Hmm…Interesting.” He’d been expecting more judgment. It was rare for his female to consider ideas not her own. “Mere don’t have that much control so we don’t think much about it. Like, I couldn’t grow a tail now if you paid me.” She paused, still stroking him in a mesmerizing rhythm. “Do you shift without meaning to often?”
Heat rose from his neck to crawl across his face. “Apparently, only with you.”
Alara grasped his shoulders and struggled to roll him over. He allowed her to pull and pant because the exertion tinged the air with her scent. When she finally slapped his shoulder and said, “Oi! Roll over, you big lug!” he complied, and wrapped her up in his arms for a kiss. She opened her mouth and allowed his tongue to plunder before pushing him back onto the bed.
He was confused. Her aroma screamed for him, but she kneeled by his side, still fully clothed, stroking her hands down his torso. His nudity felt more pronounced with her still in her sweaters. The thick stalk between his legs bounced as her fingers neared.
She wrapped her hand around it. He moved to hold her again, but this time she pushed back even more firmly. “You’re a bit of a giver, I’ve noticed.” Her strokes sped up.
He wanted to respond, but his voice hitched in his throat. Her fist drew his eyes; it was so tiny and white compared to his large black one. The look of her slender fingers gripped on his organ sent shivers down his spine. He knew if he ever took himself in hand again, he would imagine exactly this moment. She bent to lick across his nipple, and he arched off the bed.
Alara paused, her fingers tightly clamped at the base of him. “I admit, I do like that about you.” She bent at the waist again, this time to swipe the tip of her tongue at the crease of his helmet. He muttered a curse, part of his new vocabulary from knowing the princess. She did it again, and he feared his essence would spurt onto her face. He wasn’t sure if the image disgusted or excited him.
Her low purring voice continued, though he could barely process the words. “But I want to watch you, find out what you like.” That wicked, wicked tongue stroked his flat nipple again, and then her mouth drew it in, while her fist slowly pumped. Despite the haze of sensation, he couldn’t help thinking how blessed he was to make love in human form. Dragons displayed a certain beauty, but they didn’t have soft lips, or gentle fingers, or nipples.
Alara climbed over his thigh, to position her body between his legs. She lowered her face to his erection and licked it from base to tip. Her lips parted wide. She tried to cover his tip in her kiss, but he jerked away. “Alara…” His panting breaths made speech difficult. “You can’t…I might…”
She broke into a smile that could topple empires and bring monsters to their knees. “Of course you will.”
* * * *
Alara suckled the head while stroking the length in her grip. Kai struggled and moaned, she suspected trying not to shoot in her mouth. Her gaze drifted up his body, following the thin line of sweat forming in the crease between the defined muscles of his abdomen and chest. The tendons of his neck strained as he held his head up to watch. His mouth hung open. Every inch of his charcoal-black skin shivered at the edge of orgasm.
He looked so powerful, and yet so vulnerable. A profound wave of joy hit that she was the one to usher him through this rite of passage. Still stroking along his length, she lowered her tongue to tease his balls. His growl-laced curses filled the room, and a moment later ropey spurts of semen filled her hand. He bucked back, too sensitive now for her grasp. Obligingly, Alara released him, and wiped her fingers on a tissue from the bed stand.