Love Bites Extra Hard (Mated to the King #5)

Chapter 3

three

AVERY

I peeked through the windows every time we passed a cell. All of them were empty.

When we reached the very end of the hall, we found a man and a woman sitting in camping chairs just outside a cell. There were three set up, but only two were occupied. The man had a book in his hands, and the woman sat with her legs crossed, her expression dark as she watched us approach.

“Arthur, you can go,” Talon said.

The man nodded and vacated his chair, disappearing in the same direction we’d come from. I looked over my shoulder, watching him leave.

“So you’re the siren,” the woman in the chair said, studying me. Her skin was the same shade as Talon’s, her tight, natural curls tied up in two puffs on top of her head. They looked a hell of a lot more put-together than my bun did after our flight and my shower. I probably should’ve fixed it, but I didn’t.

Despite the way I was shivering, all she had on was a pair of athletic leggings and a tank top.

She was definitely a dragon.

“Stella, this is Avery,” Talon said, stepping up to the bars in the door Stella seemed to be guarding and peering through. “Avery, this is my little sister, Stella.”

“We’re less than two years apart, but he still insists on calling me little.” She rolled her eyes at me. If I hadn’t been so cold, and concerned about whatever was in the cell, I would’ve smiled.

“What’s in there?” I asked her.

“Not what. Who. Sylvester Aught.”

“Should I know that name?” I asked, stepping up next to Talon so I could peek into the cell with him. Leaning against the back wall, there was a man. A man covered entirely in dark blue scales, and chained to the wall in multiple places. I couldn’t see even a sliver of his skin.

He didn’t seem to be able to see us through the bars, either.

“No. He doesn’t exist anymore, according to the records in Mistwood,” Stella said.

“What did he do?”

“Raped and dismembered seventeen unmated female dragons.”

My gaze jerked toward her.

Her expression was dark. “It took us a decade to catch him. I ran the team that tried to find the killer, and he was a part of it. I lived with him. Slept with him. He?—”

“He’s a fucked up bastard who deserves to die slowly and brutally for what he did,” Talon growled. “But he shifted his skin to scale the moment he was caught, and scales are impenetrable. All of our best fighters have spent days grappling with him, trying to find an opening, but the fucker is too strong.”

“And you think I can do something to help?” I asked, my voice raising in surprise.

“Force doesn’t work on him. We’re hoping that if you use your magic to make him feel lust, you can make him shift back.”

“My magic doesn’t work that way,” I countered. “I can’t control minds or force someone to do something they don’t want to. I can only make them want me.”

“He can’t get himself off in this form,” Stella explained. “So theoretically, if you make him want you enough, he would have to shift back to deal with it.”

“That sounds like a pipe dream.” My voice was skeptical.

“It took us a decade to catch him, and we’ve spent the last ten years trying to break him,” Talon said in a low voice. “Torture doesn’t work, because we can’t get past his scales. Drugs don’t work, because we can’t get the needles through his skin and our fire can burn through anything in the air. He can’t drown, either. He doesn’t care when we try to use his family against him. He’s fucking untouchable. A pipe dream is our only shot at ending his life to make sure he can’t hurt anyone else ever again.”

I studied him through the cage. “I’m going to need time to come up with a plan,” I finally said. I already had an idea, but it would put my life at risk.

“We’ve got all the time in the world.” Stella patted the empty chair next to her. “Sit. We’ll brainstorm.”

“Does he know we’re out here?” I asked, taking the seat.

“No. My magic has his cell silenced and blacked out. He thinks he’s alone,” Stella said.

“What kind of magic is that?”

“Dragon magic. We can all do parlor tricks, but some of us can do a lot more. Forcefields. Influencing weather. Telekinesis. Stuff like that. Our family is the strongest by a long way, hence Talon’s role as our representative. No one really knows what powers it or why it exists, but everyone’s magic seems to have a limit.”

She called him representative . Not king.

I filed that information away for later, in case it ever became useful.

“Stella’s magic is stronger than mine, she just likes to pretend otherwise,” Talon grumbled.

I looked at her.

She scowled. “I don’t want to be the one Mistwood’s paparazzi are always talking about.”

It was a fair point. My sisters were in the newspapers as much as their kings were, and it did seem like it could become overwhelming sometimes.

“And the other kings are a piece of work. I’ve met a few of them, and I’ve never been interested in dealing with their bullshit on a frequent basis,” she added.

They were pieces of work, but my sisters had tamed them a little. Then again, maybe our family were the only ones who saw them that way. To everyone else, they were still just as big and bad.

“Does Sylvester have a mate?” I asked them. “Mated people aren’t affected by siren magic. They can feel it, but it doesn’t actually work on them.”

“No mate bond,” Stella said, shaking her head.

“Has he met his fated mate? I don’t know for sure if that would affect it, but it seems important.”

“Nope.”

“Still, I’d better make sure my magic can actually affect him before we bother trying to come up with a plan.” I stood. “It’ll work best if I’m in there with him.”

“No.” Talon’s voice was hard. He was still standing at the door, his fists on the bars and his gaze on the caged monster.

I looked at Stella for help. Her expression was hesitant, like she couldn’t decide which of us to back up.

Finally, she shook her head. “It’s too much of a risk. You’ll have to do it from out here.”

There wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d be able to charm the scales off a serial killer with a door between us. Not even a small chance.

But I supposed I could hit him with enough magic to find out if he was affected at all, even with the door closed.

“Alright. You’re both going to want to walk to the back of the hall,” I said, slipping in front of Talon. There wasn’t much space between him and the door, so I had to squeeze in. I wrapped my hands around the bars in the cell’s window. I needed to see Sylvester, to know if my magic was affecting him at all.

I assumed the sudden pressure of my ass against Talon’s half-mast cock would make him step back to give me space. Instead, his hands caught my waist, and gripped tightly. “You don’t go anywhere near that bastard without me, Ave .”

He shortened my name like I’d shortened his. That meant he’d realized what I was doing, when I was trying to piss him off.

Maybe he was even more dangerous than the men I’d been with in the past. A male who could put off his anger and tap into it again later was more deadly than one who reacted blindly. Wasn’t he?

I needed to be careful with him. Even if every part of my body was warming with him pressed up against me like he was, his cock hardening quickly against my ass.

“You’re going to get a show if you stay where you are, Stella,” I warned. “Your brother isn’t going to be strong enough to fight my magic.”

“I’m plenty strong enough to handle you,” Talon rumbled.

I smiled, but there was no humor behind it. “Sure you are.”

“I’m going,” Stella said, and I heard her soft footsteps on the stone.

When I couldn’t hear her anymore, I fixed my attention on the man in the cell again, and tapped into the magic in my middle.

“I’ll need to feed after this,” I warned Talon. “You’ll have to find me a dragon to sink my teeth into.”

“The only throat available to you here is mine, Ave.”

It was a figure of speech, but he knew that.

Sirens were basically emotional vampires. We fed on emotions, and we did so by kissing, not biting.

“You’re going to change your mind,” I said, absolutely confident.

I finally pushed my magic forward, slowly at first. I didn’t want to alarm the prisoner. I didn’t want him to realize what was happening, at all.

Talon’s fingers dug into my hips lightly.

Sylvester’s eyes hooded, slowly. The scales on his lids lowered, and his body relaxed slightly.

My lips curved upward, just the tiniest bit.

The one time I ever had power over anyone was when I used my magic. And it wasn’t healthy, but it was always intoxicating.

I never let myself use it as much as I wanted to. I had never told my sisters the way it affected me, or the way I enjoyed it. They didn’t know my magic was stronger than theirs. They had no idea that I only allowed myself to feed once a week because of it.

I had quietly gotten a list of men who would be discreet from Egan, Hale’s right-hand man. I had to be particular about who I fed on. Who I fucked. Because when I fed, I became something and someone different.

But Talon?

He obviously liked to be in control. He hadn’t even been willing to let me sit on the roof of Vamp Manor because there was some tiny amount of risk.

When I drank from him, he would lose control entirely. And as soon as it was over, he’d regret letting me call the shots. I’d seen it happen far too many times for there to be any other outcome. Hell, I’d been abused for it in the past, even after I was forced to go through with it.

Talon’s nails sharpened to claws as he gripped my hips tighter. He didn’t break the skin—but he was close.

I’d barely let my magic loose at all, and he was already being affected.

The bastard didn’t know it yet, but he was mine.

Mine, for the moment.

I thickened my magic slightly, and the prisoner sighed.

Talon pressed me into the cell harder, wedging his cock between my ass cheeks. My loose sweats didn’t block his access in the slightest.

His nails broke my skin, and I smiled.

His breathing grew ragged as I pushed more magic.

And more.

Talon snarled against my back.

I watched Sylvester closely. He slowly sank to the ground, spreading his legs wide. Everything was covered in a thick layer of scales, including his cock, so he wasn’t flashing me. If he was affected physically, he didn’t let it show.

I ramped up my magic a little more, and he groaned.

Talon cursed viciously, and I sucked in a breath when he shoved his hand in the waistband of my sweats.

He couldn’t resist my magic.

Just like I expected.

His claws were gone as his big, warm palm pressed hard against my abdomen, but he didn’t let it go any lower. His other hand was on my ribs, his body literally shaking with the effort of resisting me.

He wasn’t going to manage it.

When my magic hit him at its full strength, he was going to give in.

I pushed myself harder, and Sylvester bent over, his body shaking the same way Talon’s was.

Talon’s teeth brushed the place where my throat met my neck, and my eyes widened.

Was he going to bite me?

He couldn’t while my magic had control of him.

Could he?

I forced the rest of my magic free, pouring everything I had into it. Sylvester gasped out a curse. He was on all fours, crawling toward me as he swore and gritted his teeth.

Talon grabbed my center with one massive hand, grinding his palm against my clit in a way that made me bite my cheek to stop a moan.

His fangs sank into the place my neck met my shoulder as I bit down hard. My teeth cut through my sensitive flesh as the pleasure of his bite hit me.

Hard.

Far harder than the soothing magic of a vampire ever could.

It felt like electricity. Like life. Like everything .

I barely held back a cry of pleasure as my hips jerked through my climax, and I sucked in deep breaths. My magic faltered, then disappeared, as the satisfaction of controlling two deadly males vanished. I was left with nothing but the pure bliss of the best orgasm of my life.

I panted, still gripping the cell’s bars as I watched Sylvester recover from my magic.

Talon’s tongue dragged over the bite he’d given me, making me hotter. Saliva couldn’t heal wounds, but those ones—the bite of a possessive male—were meant to close fast anyway.

They were love bites, and our bodies reacted accordingly.

“Sylvester almost shifted,” I said. Ignoring what had just happened was probably for the best. I had no idea what it meant, and didn’t want to talk about it there. “My magic works on him.”

Talon growled, and didn’t release my hips. Not until I pulled back my magic entirely.

Even then, when he stepped away, he dragged me with him.

“Did it work?” Stella called, as she strode back to us. “I could feel a little of your magic, even from the end of the hall.”

“I’m strong for a siren,” I admitted.

It felt good to admit it to someone. To share what I’d known for so long, and had kept from my sisters.

As the remnants of my magic slipped back to the place they resided in my chest, my energy faded with them.

It was the middle of the night.

I had sacrificed myself to the dragon king, to protect my sisters.

And I’d had the best orgasm of my life when said dragon king bit me—while I tried to seduce a serial killer covered in scales.

The whole situation was more than a little screwed up.

Exhaustion was officially setting in, but Talon’s grip on my waist didn’t falter.

“She needs to sleep,” he told Stella, and she nodded.

“We can try again tomorrow. He’ll be more vulnerable to the magic, then.”

“Or he’ll be ready for it,” I mumbled.

“Do people usually get better at ignoring a siren’s pull over time?” she asked me.

“Depends on the person. And the siren.” I closed my eyes, letting out a long breath. “We’ll make a plan. If I go in there naked, he won’t be able to resist me. I can deal with him touching me for a few minutes for the sake of?—”

“No.” Talon’s voice was hard. “You’re not going in his cell. That’s not on the fucking table.” He swept me off my feet and threw me over his shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but I made a noise of protest anyway. “I’ll bring her back down in the morning. Keep an eye on him and let me know if the bastard does anything different after feeling her magic.”

“Will do. Don’t forget to feed her.”

He didn’t respond, simply carrying me up the stairs.