Chapter 2 Jewels
JEWELS
VALE
The dragon flew through the night, wind battering against his large body as his wings carried him to his den, where his mate could be protected and out of sight.
Good.
She was small and cold, shivering against him. He stayed his purrs, knowing they hurt her. He never wanted to hurt her.
His slitted eyes peered into the darkness, expertly dodging the cyclones of air as they ripped through the stormy night, converging upon his castle behind him.
Stone could be rebuilt. It could be replaced.
But she could not.
Finally, the small island off the coast welcomed him. His wings beat faster, carrying him with renewed vigor toward his den.
It was private, a tall rocky expanse set in the middle of nothingness—far away from the coast, no one would notice, but close enough he could fly there within an hour.
Dragons loved to make their dens private and quiet, places no one could go. Dark and small and safe.
His den was all of those things, but not too small—he was a King, after all.
It was a towering collection of rocks, jagged edges of the cliff falling straight down into the ocean, where tall, deadly waves crashed against it.
As if made just for a dragon, there was a wide open expanse in the very middle, a lip of stone at the cave’s mouth.
His claws gripped the rock, sending tiny pieces scattering down into the sea.
His mate’s fear washed over him. He tried to send her assurances.
Gripping the stone that jutted out past the cave entrance, leading deep into a cavern of darkness, the dragon slowly unfurled his talon.
His claws kept her steady, and he watched with amusement as she stayed unmoving, knees splayed out by her sides at awkward angles.
The ends of her white wings brushed his scales.
He huffed smoke at the soft, downy feel of them.
Go, he urged into his mate’s mind.
He retracted his claws as best as he was able, keeping them out of the way as he made a small plank for her to walk upon.
Safe, small, protect.
Mine, mine.
Ours.
His mate teetered to a stand, holding her hands out on either side as she stood on her tiptoes. Peculiar creature.
Slowly, she walked, her feet barely making a dent on his fiery scales. She hopped onto the lip of the cavern mouth, falling to her knees, fingers digging into the stone as if grateful to be back on solid ground.
The dragon huffed, blowing grey smoke right in her face and ruffling her rain-soaked, windblown, white hair.
From deep within, he felt his other side beckon, desperate to reassure her with more than mere thoughts, but words.
The dragon’s green eyes narrowed as he stared down at the fae female. Contemplating.
Finally, he relented, wanting her to be safe and pleased and warm just as much as he wanted to hurry back and collect her other mates for her. Let them surround her and keep her safe, too.
The process of shifting midair was a skill he had mastered with grave effort. The dragon felt his bones shrink, flesh replaced scales, as his wings folded back into his skin. Everything grew smaller.
Until he was, once more, a male.
Cold air whipped against Vale’s skin as he fell toward the raging sea. He knew how to do this. He propelled his body forward at just the right moment, expertly landing on the lip of the cave, one foot hanging off the edge. His ribs and shoulder slammed into the stone ground, and he groaned.
Not his best landing. But he had been distracted.
Vale could not stay long—he had a promise to uphold and males to save.
He pushed himself up, side aching from his rough fall. The wind that filtered in through the exposed cavern mouth chilled his nude body.
He braced a leg under him, kneeling with a hand braced on his knee to gain his bearings after being beholden to his dragon. The shift had been another hard-earned battle. He had wondered if his beast would have allowed him to break through, to grant his Vincire comfort before he left.
Thank the gods he did.
Because she needed it.
Her fear flowed to him. Pain and… kindling fury. The embers had grown, rising from the ashes of her changed life and upended past.
Luella was sitting back on the stone, hands behind her. The wind had dried her hair, leaving it wild and untamed—the soft feathers behind her were fluffy and full; Vale wanted to run his fingers through them.
He stood, the muscles in his thighs and bare backside flexing as he pushed himself up. Her wide blue eyes dipped to his cock, and he felt it stir at her attention. But the frigid air nipped that in the bud. It was too cold to get hard—rain misted his skin, chilling him to the bone.
Vale took a step toward her, holding out a hand. "I will let you look your fill anytime you want, darling. Just not when it is so cold."
Luella’s cheeks bloomed with precious pink, and his dragon pushed to the forefront of his mind, happy that she felt content enough in his den to do something as innocent as blush. A rumble tore free from his chest.
"Vale?" she questioned.
He shook his head, and hesitantly she took his hand, allowing him to pull her to stand. A small furrow was etched between her brows, and pain lanced down their bond. He smelled blood. Had smelled it for some time.
Smoke escaped his mouth in thin curls. "You’re bleeding."
Luella gave a tiny shake of her head, leaning into him; though, he knew it was because she was too weak to stand on her own—not because she wanted him or the comfort he could give.
"I will survive. They… will not."
The rain increased in tempo, steadily falling into the turbulent ocean below. Every crash of waves against the rocks was a war drum, the beating of time against his back.
But as she said it, she wavered, skin pale as moonlight.
Vale grabbed her wrist, speaking before he thought it through:
"You’re in no condition to walk. I’m carrying you." It was neither a question nor a call for her obedience.
He shifted his hold from her wrist to her hips, banding his arms around them as he lifted her in one fluid movement.
Her thighs hooked around his naked waist, her hands settling on his shoulders.
The ruined feathers of her dress rode up her thighs as he held her against him, and her silk-wrapped core brushed against his hipbone. Fuck.
"This is not necessary," she said, but she made no move to get down. Rather, one hand curled behind his neck, fingers tangling in the ends of his messy hair.
All Vale could think of was how easy it would be to shift the lace of her panties to the side, grip his aching cock, and drive himself up into her tight, wet heat. He would not. He could not.
He had made a promise: anything he obtained from her would not be stolen, but given freely with wanton desire and slow, aching wetness, dripping down the pale flesh of her inner thighs.
He would build her up and show her how good sex could be.
He would drive the vestiges of naivety from her with each pounding of his hips, feeling her inner walls stretch and flutter against him as he—
"Vale, are you okay? Is it your dragon?" A small hand touched his jaw, tugging his face down to meet her eyes. "Don’t let him take control right now. Please."
He hadn’t even realized his fingers were digging into the supple flesh of her hips so tightly that it could bruise. She did not shy away from him—even when most would, finding the way his eyes shifted from elongated slits back to normal disconcerting.
Vale released a strangled groan. "Give me a moment."
He felt her hand shake as she moved it to cup his face fully. "Stay with me," she uttered.
Protect. Her.
No blood. Do not let her bleed.
Furs, den, safe. Light a fire.
All orders from his dragon.
Claws clicked as they ran over the bars of his ribcage.
Vale seethed, I will protect her now, then you may finish the rest.
Slowly, he gained control, keeping her flush against him. She grounded him. She was his control. The perfect bargaining tool to dangle over his inner beast.
Then, Vale moved.
He ventured deeper, the smooth stone walls shrouding them in darkness, and he followed the large paths—large enough he could walk through them in his dragon form—down into the belly of the rock. His den.
Luella was quiet in his arms. Her hands no longer touched his face, but she held them to her chest, as if scared to touch him, never mind that her legs were wrapped around his hips, his cock digging into the soft flesh of her inner thigh.
He felt himself grow hard at the soft feel of her, the creamy strawberry scent of her. A perfect temptation.
Luella gasped. "V-Vale?"
It seemed she felt him, too.
She wiggled against him, and he stilled her with a hand at her nape, gritting out, "Quit moving." Every shift of her against him rubbed against his sensitized flesh. He was walking a thin line, suspended over nothing but embers and ash and desire.
The top of her head brushed his jaw as she tilted her head down, tucking it against his neck. Still, she did not touch. Her cheek hovered above his chest, breaths cool against his overheated skin.
He felt her shame, and as the smooth walls opened up into the heart of his den, waves of wonder washed over him through their bond.
Vale rumbled, pleased.
The heart of his den was a warm, dark space. Small enough that his dragon could curl up and touch the walls as if cocooned, but large enough that, as a male, Vale was dwarfed by the towering cavern of stone.
Stalactites dripped from the ceiling, their ends wrapped with shimmering chains of gold that reflected the mountains of jewels scattered in the corners. Ruby, sapphire, emerald, diamond, and small chunks of gold heaped in piles, casting flickering strips of light on the walls and floors.
The center of the room dipped naturally in a soft concave shape from how often his dragon had lain, curled up, on the ground. The edges were flat, the difference startling.
Vale walked the circumference of the room, staying away from the impression in the center as he headed for the thick pile of furs nestled between a stone hearth and a case set into the stone wall, filled with even more of his possessions.
Stolen crowns, daggers, velvet cases stuffed with coins lined the bottom, but on the top shelves…
possessions his dragon had been accumulating since that godsdamned day he had been called to the Fate’s lair.
It had started with a small ring he had taken from a visiting noble when he had been a youth, growing as the centuries passed. A rose gold ring, a shimmering necklace made entirely of diamonds that dropped from the delicate chain like snow.
Sometime between growing into the King he was, killing his father, and watching as Caliban had fallen prey to love’s tricks—or so he thought—he had felt less of an inclination to steal jewelry for his future Vincire. But, when he had seen her…
Most of the additions that graced the shelves were new.
Because he had finally had a face to envision when he coveted jewelry. Imagined Luella’s skin, draped with deep sapphire, amethyst, and white gold.
"Oh," she breathed, "all of this jewelry… It’s yours?"
Vale tapped her hip, signaling he was going to let her down.
"Yes—my hoard." He bit back the urge to ask if it was pleasing to her.
"Can you stand?" She nodded, and he gently slid her down his body until her feet touched the floor, gritting his teeth when she pressed against the source of his desire.
"I must make haste and return to the castle. You will be safe here alone."
He bent, exposing his naked back to her. He didn’t care to wrap a fur cloak around him, not when he was going to shift again soon. Shifters did not care for such things as nudity. It was as normal as night and day.
And she would know his flesh as well as her own—one day, he hoped.
He closed his eyes as he knelt over the hearth, calling forth his dragon fire.
Puffing a great breath of air, he allowed the flames to seep from within him and light the hearth.
The orangish glow chased away the chill surrounding his furs, and he stood, finding her watching him, wavering with one foot balanced on her tiptoes and the other awkwardly stretched behind her on her heel.
"Turn around. Let me see your back." Vale did not wait for her to obey, but simply walked to her back, staring at the pure white of her feathers, and the glamored bandage he knew wrapped around her midsection. The air was filled with the iron tang of her blood. But it was less than it had been.
Gods, he was scared to even touch her.
Luella turned her head and peered up at him, her windswept hair falling around her face in frizzed curls.
"Do not worry about me." She looked down, lashes casting shadows on her cheeks as the fire warmed her profile.
"Go get them. Now." She took a teetering step away from him, and his hands lashed out to catch her, but she righted herself without him, chest heaving.
"Do not let them die, Vale. I will… never forgive you for any of it if you do," she told him.
Vale nodded slowly. He had too much to prove to her. And barely any time to do so. "I will bring them to you," he said. He looked at her, then his furs. "Try to get some rest. It may be a few hours."
He lamented the fact that he did not have food or water stored in his den. Usually, he would leave to hunt.
Protect her. Don’t leave.
Stay.
She is ours.
Vale knew he must leave now, or he would never be able to go.
He drank in the sight of her—delicate wings, wind-tossed hair, the female who had stolen her way into his heart of stone—and turned away before his resolve could crumble.
Every step away from her tore at something sacred. The cave trembled with his fury as he let his beast free. He had a promise to uphold.
The dragon dove into her storm.