Heart of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals #2)

Chapter Seventeen

The ritual shower cleansed Lucian’s body but not his mind.

He stepped from the steaming bathroom into the cooler bedroom and conjured clothes. His burns had healed in the travel back to the keep. His reflection in the wall screen arrested him. It was dark—a reflection in black glass—and his black wedding jacket brocaded with golden thread haunted him. There was no time for formalities. Who knew how long he had before turning wyvern for good? If Arabella survived the sealing, they could indulge in whatever ceremonies they wished after the fact, during the two-month pregnancy that would follow. There would be plenty of time to present her to the House, as well as the queen and king—although Leksander said she had already met them. Still, he would give her every formality, every party, every beautiful thing on earth…

If she lived.

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fist to his forehead. He had to banish these thoughts from his head to have any chance of success. The sealing had to be forged in love not fear… but a black sort of terror was all that filled his heart. He couldn’t banish it, no matter what he tried. He hesitated a long time, lingering in his room, but eventually the quiet of his lair gave away a distant, soft knock at the door.

She was here.

He strode quickly from the bedroom, down the stairs, and through the great room, hurrying as if leaving her alone for even a moment at the door of his lair might result in her being kidnapped or whisked away by some dark malevolence that seemed to hunger after him in this cursed life.

But when he opened the door… she was still there.

“Holy mother of magic.” The words had escaped his lips before his thoughts had properly registered in his brain. He had conjured the dress for her, of course, but with her in it… the delicious curves of her body barely held back, only tantalizingly covered, and that fresh-scrubbed smell of hers… “You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” And he meant it.

She smiled, timid and perfect. “The dress is amazing.”

He held out a hand. She took it. He pulled her inside his lair. Inside his lair… exactly where she belonged and where she should always call home from this moment forward.

“The dress is spectacular.” His voice was already husky with the need for her. “But the woman in it is divine.”

She gasped a little, but that parting of her lips was too much temptation. He crashed his lips down on hers, pressing her and her infinitely soft dress against the wall next to his door, which had barely fallen closed. His hands roamed her body, skimming the softness of the dress but seeking out the even more soft feel of her bare skin. She moaned into his mouth, and her hands clutched at the velvet of his jacket, reminding him both that he had far too many clothes on, and that he couldn’t rush this. There were things that needed saying before they started, and devouring her two steps inside the door simply wasn’t acceptable.

He forced himself to break the kiss and pull back.

“Arabella, there are some things…” His breath was already ragged, and the emotion threatened to reach up and choke him. “Things that need to be said…”

“Things like I love you? Because I do. Fiercely, Lucian Smoke. And I want this—I want you— more than I have words for.”

Her words made his heart soar and ache at the same time. He touched her beautiful hair, letting his fingers say what he wanted to express as they trailed softly through. He choked back the lump in his throat. “You’ll get your wish, my sweet Arabella. But you may wish you hadn’t.”

She smiled at him. So insanely brave this woman was. “There are no regrets in this,” she said. “Either I try to love you and succeed… or I try and fail. And if I fail, well, I won’t have long to regret it.”

His chest squeezed, hard. “I was willing to let the world burn to save you, Arabella. I would have done it…”

She laid a finger across his lips, stilling them. “Shh. I know you love me, Lucian Smoke.” Her voice was soft. She had inched up on him, leaning close and peering up into his eyes. “I know you would have given everything, even things you didn’t have any right to give, to save me. I figured that out, even before Cinaed explained it all to me. But that’s not the man I fell in love with. The man I love is the one who is so brave, so selflessly brave, that he would risk losing the woman he loves to save the world.”

“If I lose you, my love… I am done.” He could hardly speak.

Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I know.” She smiled that angelic smile again. “That’s why I have to live. For both of us.”

He pulled her into his arms, ducking to nuzzle against the fresh-washed scent of her hair. “If there’s some kind of heaven as the angels say, then I will see you there. Because I won’t last long in this world if you’re not in it.”

She pulled back to grip his cheeks in her soft hands. “That’s not going to happen. Because I love you too damn much. And if there’s something I’ve learned about this crazy, magical world of yours, it’s that love matters. Love is everything.”

“You are my everything.” Then he reached down to scoop her into his arms. If he didn’t get her to the bedroom soon, they would begin in the entranceway… and that wasn’t good enough for this. Or for her. “Do you remember?” he asked as he started to carry her up the stairs. “Or do I need to explain the steps?”

She grinned. “First, you make mad love to me. Then the sealing. Then I have the best sex of my life—and you should know, Lucian Smoke, I’m going to hold you to that part. So no holding back.”

He crossed the threshold to his bedroom. “No holding back.” And with that, his heart soared, finally unshackled from all the worry and pain and heartbreak. He was all in with Arabella. They would make this love of theirs happen— together —or they would both die trying. She had pledged her heart already in a wholeheartedly way that he had shied from, held back from, avoided, rationalized, and damn near destroyed the world in an attempt to stop.

And she had simply given her heart to him.

He was unabashedly clear about how undeserving he was of her and her love—and yet, it was the very thing that would keep the world going, both his and everyone else’s. And he had finally figured out, not a moment too soon, that he had to save the world in order to have any chance of saving her.

And now, in this moment, there was nothing but her love and his, together, begging for the sacred consummation that raised it to something far beyond sex, far beyond a bodily satisfaction, into a loud pronouncement to the world—magical and otherwise—that this feeling they held in their hearts was True. The kind of Truth that held a world-saving power all its own.

With a flick of his hand, Lucian magicked away his formal attire, and a mere wish made Arabella’s gossamer gown disappear. Her quick intake of breath became even sharper as he laid her back on the bed, sliding his body against hers, skin against skin. His hard-on was already raging, and her perfume—the arousal, the scrubbed skin, the simple scent of her —was all one heady mix that had him ready to take her fast and hard. But that wasn’t what she needed, or really, even what he wanted.

He eased up to gently kiss her on the lips, which were already parted and panting. Then he gently nipped at them, then her cheeks, and her chin. Between tastes, he said, “I want to hear you, Arabella. Every moan. Every scream. I know every inch of your body, and I’m going to make every part of you mine tonight.”

“Oh, yes. Yes.” Her words were a prayer.

He slipped a hand down to her sex, and she was already wet for him. His resolve to go slow was quickly dissolving. When he slipped a finger inside her, she arched up, thrusting her breasts tantalizingly close to his mouth. He dipped down and lavished attention on her already stiff nipples. She clung to him, running those soft hands over his arms and clawing at his back as his thrust a second finger in and picked up the pace. He was still nibbling on her breast, working her sex, and wondering how long he could last like this when she started begging him to take her.

“No, no, my love,” he whispered, tasting his way down her belly to the slick heat between her legs. “You first.”

“Oh, God,” she moaned, but all argument ceased when his tongue reached her nub and circled as fast as he was thrusting inside her. He was building a rhythm that had her bucking underneath him, screaming out his name, and making his cock ache. The sweetness that was her filled his every sense—he tasted her with his fae abilities as well as with his tongue, burying his face and his mind in her body and soul. He’d made her come so many times before in this very bed—he knew her every twitch and moan, the soft whimper right before the shiver and quiver of female flesh that said she was near. He palmed her gorgeous breast, kneading it while he clamped down with his mouth and plunged deep with his hand—he was playing a symphony of pleasure on her body, and the sweet song of ecstasy ramped up and up, finally reaching a peak that had her screaming and writhing and convulsing underneath him. Holy magic, he would never get enough of that sound, that feel of her giving herself over completely to him, letting him take her to her peak and shove her right over it.

“Oh, God,” she panted. “That was just… holy fuck, Lucian.” Her words were a little slurred with pleasure.

He just grinned. “I’m only getting started, my love.”

She swallowed and nodded, but she was limp with the pleasure he’d given her. Limp and ripe and ready for his aching cock to plunge deep. Once he took her this way, the sealing would be next, so no matter what, he needed to take her higher than she’d ever gone before. That meant no rest, no pause, straight on to possessing her body and making her his.

He eased up her body, hooking his arms under her legs as he went and spreading her wide. Now her beautiful body was splayed beneath him, wide open and ready, and by pulling her knees practically up to her chest, he could plunge in deep and hard. His cock was already nudging her entrance, just from the position he was in, but he pulled back slightly so he could piston into her hard and fast and by surprise.

Her eyes flipped wide open. “Oh fuck!”

He’s sunk to the hilt in her, buried so deep it made him groan. “You are mine.” He pulled out and slammed in again. She gasped. “Say it,” he groaned.

“Yes.”

He pulled out and thrust in again.

“I’m yours!” Her hands were in his hair now, clawing as she urged him even deeper.

She was so tight, and he was in so deep, that he was thoroughly losing his mind with this. She was still human, still not sealed, so he couldn’t unleash the full power of what he wanted to do with her, but he sure as hell could take her deeper and harder than he ever had before. He started pumping faster and faster, the tension coiling low and deep in his belly, building hard and fast to a climax that would have him seeing stars.

As he pounded into her, her cries went incoherent and screeched higher and higher. He tried holding back, drawing it out for her, but he was crazy with her scent and her heat and her tightness.

“Come for me, my love,” he panted, barely able to hold himself back.

He pounded harder, and suddenly she was coming undone around him, screaming and bucking and thrashing. He held and kept thrusting until his own climax rushed at him and whited out the world with a blinding rush of pleasure. He emptied and emptied himself into her, knowing that every drop would help pave the way for immortalizing her body. Inuring it to the sealing fire that would come. His seed would comfort and heal her, the pain of the sealing buffeted by the pleasure she had pulsing through her now. As soon as every last drop was wrenched from him, he released her legs, pulled out, and flipped her over to her belly.

Her limbs were loose with pleasure, and she just lay there, innocent and beautiful, her skin a starry sky of freckles under porcelain. He hesitated, just a moment, then he had to start now or he never would.

He climbed on her, sitting on her legs to keep them still and placing his palm flat on the middle of her back, between her shoulder blades. He pressed down to hold her pinned to the bed.

Then he bent forward to whisper to her. “I’m sorry, my love. This will hurt.”

And then he summoned the runes to slide across his skin, up his neck, to his face, preparing for the mating dragonfire.