Chapter Eighteen
Arabella knew it was coming, but the first lance of fire still made her scream.
Lucian held her down, pinning her to the bed, her face buried in the rumpled comforter they hadn’t bothered to take off, and it was a good thing… she couldn’t help flinching and flailing against the pain that was splitting down her back. After the first shock of it, the burning settled into a steady fire that was searing a slow, twisting line into her. She tried to bite back the screaming because while it definitely fucking hurt, it wasn’t unbearable. He wasn’t gouging bloody chunks out of her back or anything. She’d never had a tattoo, but she imagined it was like this—only with dragonfire not tattoo needles drilling into her skin and injecting his magic there.
Lucian’s magic.
He was infusing her body with it, and just that reminder of what was actually happening to her settled her down so that she could stop the screaming and just keep it to a steady moan. She couldn’t see a damn thing—her hair was tossed over her face and sucked into her mouth as it lay open, panting and moaning with the pain—but she felt every inch of him touching her. The hand that held her hard against the mattress. His legs on either side of hers, encasing her in the powerful masculine muscles he possessed everywhere. And that dragonfire kiss, the one slowly working its way down her back, literally tattooing his love and his magic into her.
He kept going and going, tracing a curved line, and just when it had gone on long enough that her moans were starting to get away from her again, starting to ramp up to screams… it ended.
“Oh, my love, my love,” Lucian was whispering across her skin now. His hand had moved to her hair, but he was still holding her motionless on the bed. Only now he was kissing her… no, he was licking her. The velvet feel of his tongue was painting hot, wet stripes of pleasure across her back, bringing a blessed relief to the burning serpentine stripe he had painted with his dragonfire. He was using his dragon kisses to heal her.
Her breath was still heaving, but this time in relief. He quickly worked his way from top to bottom, and then went back for another pass. By the third one, the pain was a memory, and the feel of him kissing and licking her skin was gushing wetness between her legs.
He finally came up to her ear, brushing the hair away from her face. “Speak to me, my love. Tell me the pain is gone.”
“It’s gone,” she said, her smile fighting the bed since her face was still half-mashed against it.
“Tell me the truth.” There was an agony in his voice that she could hardly stand. “I can continue with my tongue, but if dragon tears are what you need, I have plenty of those.”
She frowned and twisted to see him. Sure enough, tear tracks were racing down his face. She tried to reach for him, but he still had her pinned to the bed. So she used her words instead. “Lucian, the pain is gone. Whatever you did, it worked.”
Relief was visible on his face. “Then look, my love. And see your seal.” He eased to the side of her body but kept his leg draped across her bottom, keeping her flat on her stomach. He brushed more hair from her face and tipped her chin for her to look up to the ceiling. In the mirror above his bed, she could see his hot naked form sprawled next to her… and on her back was the most gorgeous dragon tattoo she’d ever seen in her life. It was serpentine, drawing a long, curling S along her back that started with a dragon head on her shoulder blade and ended with a flicking, pointed tail on her behind. And it was definitely flicking… the entire magical tattoo writhed along her back! Almost like it was alive, but it wasn’t something separate from her… she could feel it.
Arabella blinked, amazed. The soft whisper of her sealing dragon didn’t just pulse along her skin. She could feel it seeping into her body, racing through her veins. Her entire body was heating up, like a fever was sweeping across her, raising every hair on her body.
“Lucian,” she said, breathless and a little afraid. “What’s happening?”
He snuggled in next to her, pulling her body up from lying flat on the bed so that she was chest-to-chest with him now, side by side. “It’s my dragonfire,” he said, amber eyes blazing into hers. “It’s flushing through your body.” He ran a hand along her dragon, tracing it down her back with his gentle touch. “I infused you with my magic, but it will take a few minutes to spread completely throughout.” His face was intent on hers, his hand ghosting up to touch her face. He leaned in to kiss her gently on the lips, once, then twice. “It will feel like a fever consuming you for a few minutes.”
And it did. The heat just kept growing. She wasn’t sweating—but her skin was radiating heat like a thousand degree oven. “How hot will it get?” she asked, gasping a little because the heat was suffocating.
Fresh tears glistened in Lucian’s eyes. “Very hot.” Then he pressed his lips together, but he still held her gaze, petting her hair. “I’m here, my love. I’m right here.”
Oh, God, this is it, she thought. This was where she would either survive the sealing… or burn up with it. And her skin kept heating, every part of her burning like a white hot sun had suddenly been born deep in her soul. It was burning her from the inside out. Only the heat didn’t hurt—it was more like she’d stepped into the Mojave desert with an endless dry-heat expanse overwhelming her with its deadly blaze of sun.
Every part of her was on fire now, straight down to her fingertips. She pressed them to Lucian’s cheek, marveling at how he suddenly felt cool… when his touch had always been sexy hot.
“You better look out,” she said, her breath wheezing from the fire down deep in her lungs. “You’re not going to be the only hot dragon in this bed anymore.”
He smiled and almost laughed, but it looked more like crying.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, tracing her fingers over his lips.
He just shook his head.
She slid one of those red-hot fingertips up to the corner of his eye—the coolness of his tears was like a balm of relief. “Dragon tears,” she whispered, then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his eyelids, kissing them as he closed them. She kissed the tears as they flowed down his cheeks, each touch bringing more coolness to her lips. Then the cool feeling spread to her face and neck and further down. When she’d dried all his tears, she touched her lips to his. “Kiss me,” she whispered against them.
He did, so gently that she could hardly feel their whisper touch. “Harder,” she said.
He pulled back and blinked. Once then twice. Then he pulled her closer and kissed her like he meant it. The touch of his mouth cooled the heat in hers. His tongue was a darting relief inside her, and everywhere he touched brought more balm to her raging fire.
“More,” she gasped. “Here,” she said, pulling away from his kiss and baring her neck.
He moaned and feasted on her neck, taking the heated flesh in his teeth, running his tongue along it and cooling it with his wet kisses.
“Oh, God, yes,” she cried. “Everywhere, Lucian. Touch me everywhere.”
His guttural moan and fervent kissing—down her chest, across her belly, over her arms and out to her fingertips—was exciting her like nothing ever had. He was covering her in wet kisses, and while it was quenching the too-hot fire of the sealing, it was also sparking an urgent need to have him ravish her, claim her, finish the sealing by planting his seed deep inside her.
When he’d reached the soles of her feet and kissed his way back up over her bottom and her back, Lucian pulled her around to face him again. There was such radiant joy on his face, it made her want to weep.
“Oh, my love,” he cried. “You are mine.”
And she didn’t have to ask what he meant— she knew. She had survived the sealing. The danger was past, and there was nothing left but the urgent need to complete it—to join their bodies together and create a baby from the pureness of their love.
She grabbed hold of his rock-hard cock looming between them, giving it a quick stroke. “Take me.” Her words were breathless with need. She kept pumping him, hard. “Claim me, Lucian.”
His groan was half roar. He ripped her hand from his cock and roughly turned her over on the bed. He hauled her up on her knees, pressing his hand to her dragon seal and pushing her face into the bed. It was rough and demanding and sexy as hell—her body was thrilling to every touch. She could feel a new strength pulsing through her, a toughness in her body that was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She craved the full strength of his hands gripping her hips, and when he plunged his cock into her, taking her from behind so hard she had to clutch the mattress to not be hurtled forward, she had only one thought: harder.
“Yes, my love,” he cried.
She must have said that out loud.
She smiled, but it only lasted a second as Lucian gripped her hair in one hand and her hip in the other and began slamming into her like he never had before. He was unleashed, wild and roaring and driving his enormous cock into her, filling her completely. Every thrust sent an insane spike of pleasure through her, driving her to climax again and again until she was awash in an endless series of waves pulsing through her. The joyful abandon of his lovemaking thrilled her heart as much as her body. She had done it! She’d survived. And in surviving, she had healed this broken man so that he could love—he could love her —again.
Another guttural cry ripped out of him, and he plunged deep inside her one more time, holding still. His hot seed gushed, and she could feel it in a way she never had before—his magic was bonding with hers. His seed was quelling that final fire, the one still raging deep inside her, and together they were forming a new fire. A new life.
A baby dragon made of pure love and magic and ecstasy.
Lucian panted above her, still buried deep and holding her, but spent. Her orgasms had been so endless, her entire body was one giant buzzing pleasure zone… and that was before the baby. Now there was a quickening inside her, a humming that brought a new sense of aliveness to every fiber of her being. Even when Lucian left her body, a piece of him remained behind. And forever would.
He slumped to the bed beside her. “Holy fuck,” he breathed.
“I completely agree.” Her smile felt like it could never be big enough to hold all her happiness. She snuggled into him as he lay prone on the bed staring up at the mirror above them.
Then he turned to her with a look of awe. He held her cheek for a moment and stared into her eyes before kissing her so tenderly she thought her heart would melt from the love of it.
When he pulled back, he searched her eyes. “Do you feel it?”
“The baby? Yes. He’s beautiful. I can feel it already.”
Lucian’s mouth worked, but no words came out. His eyes glistened again.
She curled into him and touched his cheek with her fingertips—they were now the same temperature, hot on hot, or cool on cool, she couldn’t tell which. But it didn’t matter where his body ended, and hers began. They were one now.
“Hey, no more tears,” she whispered with a smile. “I don’t need any more healing.”
He pulled her in for a fast and fervent kiss.
Impossibly, his cock was already growing hard between them.
She pulled her leg over his hip, grinding the wet heat of her core against the silky steel of his shaft. “However, I can definitely use some more of that.”
He suitably groaned and moved with her. He gave her a half-lidded look filled with lust and love and an illegal amount of hotness. “You know what pregnancy does to a woman who is mated to a dragon?”
“I’m pretty sure it makes her crave hard and hot sex.”
He grinned. “It makes her almost as insatiable as her mate.”
“You mean I can finally keep up with you?” She bit her lip, but she could already feel it was true. “God, we’re never leaving this bed, are we?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Before she could say another word, he rolled her on her back and took her with one swift stroke, burying himself deep inside her. He had her hands pinned above her head and was pounding into her before she could even take another breath. In an instant, she was moaning and writhing under him, begging for another of what promised to be an endless number of orgasms.
When she was merely human, he was able to satisfy her like no man ever had.
Now that she was sealed with his dragonfire, it was as if her body were made for the kind of lovemaking only he could dish out. She let herself get lost in the first crashing orgasm, floating away on the pleasure he was giving her. Even in the bliss, she knew this wasn’t the end of the danger—it was only the beginning. She would have to survive the pregnancy, give birth to a dragonling, and never once stumble… never once doubt.
She couldn’t merely love this man—she had to make sure that, in all that time, her love was True. And for a woman who had never known the truth of Love before, that scared her… and not just a little.
But at this moment, joined with Lucian, floating on the bliss of being with him, she couldn’t imagine anything that could take the happy dream of True Love from her. And if anything tried…
…she would fight it to the death.
She would protect her love and her baby with every last breath she had.
“It involves a witch, a curse, and a lot of sex. And it’s a story for another day.”