Amethyst Storms (Primordial Protectors #1)

7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Alex

Why was dining with him quickly becoming my favorite part of the day?

That…could prove to be a problem.

I was already enamored with his dragon. I’d wanted to press my cheek to his scales for far longer than just a few minutes or even an hour. Resting on his belly or cradled in his tail, I could have napped and dreamed wickedly erotic dreams while I was doing it. If I kept sharing moments like this one with the man, I’d never want to leave this place.

And I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t.

I hadn’t been lying when I’d told him I’d heard of fated mates before, I’d read a great deal about them in legend and lore. Mates: the great, all-encompassing obsession. The only thing I’d ever cared enough about to become obsessed over were the rocks I loved climbing and the caves I loved to explore. It wasn’t just that I’d never seen myself becoming a baby factory, it was that I didn’t want to be responsible for leaving a little life behind for someone else to care for if I should die fueling my obsession.

Like my parents did to me.

Even in mythology mates had been rare. Mostly the gods just screwed their way through the rest of the pantheon and went to war over slights that weren’t as serious as the damage they caused seeking retribution.

How did that even work, anyway?

He was a dragon, I was a human, could our species even crossbreed that way?

As a mate, did that make me his possession? Did he have a hoard somewhere that he intended to lock me away in, a bauble to take out only when he wanted to play with me?

As I stared out at the sunset, his hand reaching for mine across the table, I inched it away, because it wouldn’t be fair to keep giving in to the impulse to touch him when I knew I wouldn’t be sticking around.

Not when my scent was getting stronger and the ache between my legs was growing to the point where I wanted the meal to hurry up and be over so I could return to the shower and blast a couple more gallons of cold water all over myself like I’d done after we’d come back from exploring the caves.

I knew which twists we had taken and which we hadn’t, and the angle I’d entered the uppermost cave in when I’d first wandered into his domain. Today he’d taken the tunnel to the right when he’d taken me to the underground springs, which meant that one of the left twisting tunnels would lead me back to the entrance again.

Or in my case, the exit before I sprawled naked on the table and spread my legs right beneath his nose.

Would the table even hold me?

Did it matter? He was a dragon, if the table broke he’d just pick me up and keep going. Ohhh Goddess, I hoped he kept going if he ever got his tongue on me.

Which was why he couldn’t!

Shivering, I blew out a shaky breath and sipped from my glass of ice water, wishing I could pour it in my lap. I wanted to know more about him, how he spent his days, how long he and his brothers had been living in this place, but questions led to answers and answers led to affection and affection led to an attachment I couldn’t afford with someone who’d already determined that I was meant to be their mate.

What was that he said, about only dragons and their mates being able to share the ability to communicate with one another mentally? Instead of jumping to the conclusion that I was his mate, was it possible that someone in my family had some dragon genes?

I thought about the family affinity for rock hounding and spelunking, the joy Gramps and I got whenever we stood atop a peak and tilted our heads back to feel the sun on our faces. Gramps claimed to have gotten his love from his father and had always talked about how much my parents had loved it, too, and how my father had a backpack carrier he’d put me in when they hiked the trails.

He took you up mountains before you ever took your first steps.

What if all of that was because somewhere back in our ancestry someone had mated with a dragon and the genes got passed on to me? That would allow us to communicate without the whole complicated entanglement of mating.

I got slick every time I thought about it, and if I scarfed my food without hardly taking the chance to taste or even chew it, then it was what it needed to be to hasten me back out of his company. Oh my Goddess, I couldn’t take it!

My chair scraped and wobbled as I shot up out of my seat so fast I nearly sent it crashing to the ground. My cheeks heated up and I knew I was blushing as I steadied it and inched away.

“This was awesome, thank you for an amazing day, but I’ve really got to crash. I was so excited to go exploring that I woke up super early this morning and now I’m just exhausted and in desperate need of sleep.”

I started to fake a yawn, which turned into a real one and let me save a little bit of face as I scurried from the room.

Holy shit, the amount of alpha pheromones he’d been sending out had been suffocating. Talk about intense, I was dripping as I slammed the door to my room and raced for the shower.

Seconds later I was sprawled on my back beneath the icy spray, whining and stroking myself, the smooth stone basin beneath me was slick with water and the fluid my body was producing.

I needed to be fucked, filled, and I didn’t even have a toy handy. His scent was on my skin and in my hair, clinging to strands the water washed across my face, intensifying every sensation of longing.

Coming didn’t sate me. After so many years of refusing to give in to my bodies’ urges it was making me pay for shoving its needs aside. I ached. Throbbing, I stroked myself, then rubbed my fingers around my hole, sobbing when a fingertip slipped inside, offering the promise of relief.

I needed his tongue and his fingers to truly get off, though. The angle was wrong, my wrist started cramping, while my cock bobbed, leaking precum the icy spray constantly washed away, but through all that cold my erection never went down.

I closed my eyes and pictured him the way he’d looked when he’d stepped naked out of the underground pool, that thick, glorious cock I’d wanted to crawl from the water and worship. I could only imagine what it would feel like, stretching me the way none of my toys ever had.

Crying out, I pressed my fingers deeper inside and raised my hips, rocking against my hand, seeking some semblance of the pleasure only a proper mating would sate.

Gods, I hoped the walls in here were soundproof, because there was no holding back the whimpers, moans and whines that poured from me while I continued to pleasure myself until I was exhausted and sprawled on the floor of the shower, letting the cold water beat over me.

It wasn’t nearly enough to bring my body’s urges back under control, but it had cleared my mind a little. If I was going to have any chance of escaping here before offering up my body and begging him to do with it as he wished, then I needed to rest up a little and gather my strength.

It should be okay to nap here for a little while, I thought as I plugged the drain and let the icy water fill up the stone basin around me, glad I was small enough that for me it was a proper tub.

Only once the shower was off did I let myself drift into an uneasy slumber, occasionally startled awake by the feel of the water lapping against my face. The cold kept me from dreaming of Ionus’s body and his dragon’s sleek scales, but images of them were forever burned in the back of my mind, lurking as I closed my eyes again.

When I woke next, I was shivering, my lips were numb and trembling as I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to warm up a little as I wiggled around. The drain, shit, I’d need to reach for it, not that I was creating any warmth for myself while I was still sitting in the water. I could barely feel anything below the waist, mission accomplished on one hand, but oh my Goddess, the cold hurt all the way down to my bones.

It took effort to climb to my feet, my limbs shaking like a newborn fawn as I reached for my towel, only drying myself enough that I wouldn’t soak my clothes when I put them on. I shoved the rest of my things back in my backpack and crept from my room. A still silence had engulfed the house, and no sliver of light shone underneath the door of the room beneath mine when I crept past it to make my way back to the tunnels.

Stealth was key, even with my body still quivering from how long I’d spent immersed in cold water. I wished for my helmet with its lantern, but I’d had to discard that before wiggling through the final crevice that had led into the cave with the gemstones. The best I could manage was the mini Maglite I carried for emergencies, but it’s beam was week, a reminder that I hadn’t checked the battery in a while.

As soon as I was no longer worried about being heard I quickened my pace. The quicker I could get away from here and away from the scent that was driving me crazy the better off I’d be. How could the stone walls even smell like Ionus? What the actual fuck was that about and why did I keep seeing his dragon in my mind, head lowered, no longer looking like the regal beast I’d stroked? Why did it hurt my heart to see that and make my body twitch each time I ignored the urge to turn around and go back to him?

If I did it now, he never had to know that I had tried to leave. But if I did it now, what would that mean for my future? Would the mountain I climbed to get here be the last one I’d ever be able to explore? I couldn’t let him take the only connection I’d ever had to my parents away. I needed to get home to Gramps and never even think about exploring this mountain range again.

My fingers itched to touch his scales again and stroke his dragon’s neck until he squared his shoulders and stood proud and preening for me. Why did he look so sad in my head now and why had there been a hollow pit forming in my stomach since I’d entered the tunnel? I was struck with a sense of grief and sorrow as I reached the end of the tunnel and the wide canal of water bracketed by stone on the opposite side. I could tell by the flow of the current how the water got in and see a shimmer of light on the other side.

I should have felt elation, instead, I was disappointed that it had been so easy to find the exit. It made no sense, but I wasn’t about to waste time analyzing it when I still had a short swim in front of me. Fortunately, it was not too deep. I waded until I neared the wall, then ducked under, kicking like a frog as I made my way toward the shimmer of daylight I’d glimpsed.

Yet even as I passed beneath layers of thick stone, I was bombarded by a sense of wrongness. If I hadn’t been soaking wet the hair on the back of my neck would have been standing on end. My heart started pounding and my chest grew tight as a roar filled my ears, his roar.

My dragon.

Mate!

I floundered, trying to turn myself around in the tight confines of that tunnel, but I felt like I was going to go mad if I moved one more inch farther away from him. My backpack made the turn difficult, as did the fact that I was reaching the limit of how long I could hold my breath.

The tunnel behind me was dark, and when I kicked my feet to propel myself farther, it resulted in my hands hitting the wall. Scrambling and close to panic I shoved away from it, scraping the side of my face against the stone and gashing the hell out of my arm as it scraped across sharp rock.

Desperate, I sucked in a lungful of water, reared up, choking and trying to cough it from my lungs only to bash the back of my head against the lip of the tunnel as I burst out.

Staggering, stumbling, I coughed, choked, doubled over and face planted in the water, half crawling and half floundering my way out of the canal to flop panting on the rock edge of the tunnel, three bulky dragons taking up all the space in the cavern around me.

The center one was Ionus, and he didn’t look pleased with me, especially not after he shifted and knelt, naked at my side.

“That wasn’t smart, human. You’ve set off half the wards in the mountain and on top of that, you’ve hurt yourself.”

“Only half…” I wheezed, trying for cheeky, but I really had come a hair’s breadth away from passing out. “I’ll have to do better next time.”

“There will be no next time!” Ionus growled, his dragon roaring as he got a good look at me. Everything was still a bit spinny and spotty as I rolled onto my side and attempted to expel the rest of the water from my lungs. My cheek stung as I pushed against the ground beneath me in an effort to propel myself back up to my feet, only to have my arms give out.

I’d have bashed my face on the rocks and wound up breaking my nose, again, if he hadn’t managed to catch me and drag me into an upright position. The moment he did, I could feel blood flowing down my arm, and I knew he could smell it, because he sniffed, hard, and his dragon rumbled in my mind again, and he did not sound pleased.

“You’ve really done damage to yourself, that is unacceptable.”

“Tell that to the rocks,” I muttered, wishing he’d stop jostling me so much and slow down as he propelled me along beside him.

“They’re too set in their ways,” Odem, or at least, I was almost certain that was him bringing the sarcasm from behind us. “I guess he figured it would be easier to reason with the person trying to crack them open with his head.”

“Ha. Ha,” I grumbled, though I smiled a little bit, too. “How come you got all the humor and Ionus got all the grumpy?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for decades.”

“No answer yet, huh?”

“None he’ll accept.”

I tried laughing at that, but laughing made my head start to pound harder and really, I shouldn’t find anything funny about this. Hormones and my stupid body had betrayed me into desiring Ionus, and somehow my feelings had gotten involved and pushed me to nearly drown myself attempting to turn back when freedom had been right there in my grasp. A few more inches and I’d have been able to touch the sunbeam and warm my face in it when I popped my head up out of the water.

“I find nothing amusing about you doing harm to yourself in a foolish effort to run away from me!” Ionus snapped. “I’d find you, human, no matter where you went, no matter how far you attempted to run or what cave you crawled into!”

“Bro, you might want to bring it down a notch.”

“I don’t know what notches you are referring to and I have told you repeatedly not to call me bro!”

“Ionus…”

“Do not tell me how to speak to my mate right now!” Ionus snapped. “Until you have felt the betrayal of your mate abandoning you…”

“And now you are being dramatic,” Odem said. “Him leaving doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have come back, hell, he did come back. Maybe you should focus on that and getting his arm looked at before he bleeds all over your floors.”

Turning to glance over my shoulder was a bad idea, I stumbled even as I tried to flash him a grin to thank him for being on my side. Ionus’s firm grip kept me from running into another wall as we finally exited the tunnel.

He scooped me up then, carrying me back to his house the way his dragon had just two days before. Why did it feel like longer, and why did I truly feel a flush of shame when we stepped inside the house to see Raven standing there with her arms crossed, one foot tapping a furious beat on the floor?

I wonder what that’s about.

“Really? I’ve got to reset the wards again?” she grumbled.

Ohhh, wards, not warts, okay, that made our first meeting make a little more sense. Guess I’d really inconvenienced her by messing around in the cave. And here I’d thought I was being slick. It would have been wise to remember that not all alarms make sound.