Chapter 39
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KATALENA
We crashed down into an open courtyard filled with curtains flowing in the breeze. Zovai did not wait, shifting and catching me before carrying me into a bedroom that reminded me of Skalisméra. But more. Larger. A bed that went on for miles.
Endre took Varí from me and they disappeared for a moment.
I was still reeling. “What just happened? How?”
“Later,” Zovai said. “Later we’ll talk and answer all your questions.”
“Why later?”
He moved away, tearing at the remains of his clothes and Sirrus took this place, knocking my legs apart with his. “Because you are our mate,” he growled. “And every moment we wait to truly claim you is one that burns.”
Sirrus’s mouth came down on mine in a bruising kiss. Endre was there taking his shirt back before the dragon on top of me pinned my wrists to the bed. “Please say yes, Princess.”
I laughed, breathless. “Did you think I would say no?”
“Stars, I hoped not.”
Endre leaned down and kissed me. And kissed me and kissed me. Sirrus kissed me between my legs and Zovai’s mouth landed on my breasts, and now I was burning once more, but it wasn’t with fire.
“How is this possible?” My murmured words disappeared into Endre’s lips.
He just smiled. “Later.”
Searing heat pooled between my legs. Pleasure that had my back bowing off the bed and arching into their mouths. I’d never felt anything like that before. “Did you just breathe fire on me?”
With one long, slow stroke of his tongue, Sirrus came back to me. “An experiment. Now that I know you’re fireproof.”
His flames beneath my legs had made that happen. Oh, fucking stars, that would change everything.
But now he was there, the length of him hard and pressing at my entrance. I swallowed. “I’m told it hurts.”
“It might.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “But not forever.”
Endre laid beside me, tangling our fingers and turning my face to kiss me. “I should have known. When we couldn’t bear the thought of your harmed, I should have known.”
Zovai ran a hand over my hair, silent, but there was such love on his face…
“Eyes on me, Princess.”
Ice blue flooded my vision as Sirrus pressed in. The fullness stole my breath, and it did hurt. Not like I thought it might. A stretching and a tightness that had me gasping. My eyes closed, and suddenly Sirrus’s lips were at my ear. “Breathe with me, Lena. I’ve got you.”
I couldn’t speak. It was never going to work. It was never going to fit. He was too large, and it hurt and?—
He slid in deeper. Like the tightness in my core had eased to let him deeper. There was no breaking or shattering. No tearing like my grandmother had told me.
“Stars.” I choked on the word.
“A little more,” he murmured.
I reached, my hands gripping his shoulders. “There’s more?”
The rich sound of his chuckle was musical. The world seemed starry and bright even with my eyes closed. Like I’d drunk too much wine. Like I couldn’t tell up from down.
Sirrus moved, and that fullness grew. It was impossible. Impossible to be so full of him like this. Every rock of his hips eased him a little deeper, and he gripped my thigh, lifting it so—I gasped as he slid the rest of the way. His hips pressed against mine. There was nowhere left for him to go. I couldn’t take a full breath.
“Fuck, Princess.” Sirrus groaned as Endre kissed the back of my hand.
“I don’t know what to do now.”
Zovai turned my face to his. “Nothing. You’re not going to do anything but rest for a moment.” He smiled a little. “We have to be gentle with our mate if we want to fuck her the way we’ve been imagining.”
My mouth went dry. “What have you imagined?”
“The better question would be to ask what we have not imagined,” Sirrus said. “I want to devour you on every surface. I want my tongue on every inch of your skin. I want you to taste my cock and I want you to come screaming so loud as I fuck you the whole city hears you. And those are only the thoughts I’ve had in the last few moments.”
He kissed me, sliding his arms beneath me so I was entirely cradled by him, inside and out. It still felt hard to breathe, but it was getting easier, my body relaxing under their attention. “Does this mean we’re mated?” I asked.
“You are our mate,” Endre said. “But no, this is not becoming mated.”
“How do we do that?”
Sirrus laughed and rocked his hips, making me gasp at the new sensation. It didn’t hurt, exactly. Everything felt more sensitive than it had ever been. Entirely different from their mouths on me. It didn’t feel good either, but I could tell it might. Like a flicker of light hovering at the edges of my vision.
“We must mark you,” Zovai said. “In our dragon forms. But I, for one, want to take my time with that. Tonight I am not patient.”
“You all seem very patient.”
Zovai pinned my wrist to the bed and kissed the inside of it, drawing a trail all the way down to my elbow. Slowly. “I am one movement away from snapping, Princess. The only thing stopping any of us is the desire to make you feel good. I do not want my mate in pain.”
Moving his hips again, Sirrus tested. It was—I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I don’t want you to hold back.”
Hands gripped the side of my face. Endre. “Nothing will ever be more important that you, Lena. It was already true, though we couldn’t explain why. Now we know. We love you. And there is no instinct or desire that will override what you need, mate.”
Tears pricked my eyes. I reached as far as I could with my head, asking, and he smiled before he kissed me. “It doesn’t change that I want it,” I whispered. “The fire… from before. Would that help?”
Endre’s eyes turned hot, and he smirked. “It might. Want to find out?”
I nodded.
Cupping his hand in front of his mouth, I watched. They’d never summoned their fire like this in front of me. The most I’d seen was smoke and sparks because they thought it would hurt me. Now I watched as Endre lit up from within. Both his scar and the opalescent skin on his lower body glowed like jewels, and the rest of him looked like he held embers inside him. Even his eyes contained fire. The heat washed over us, and it didn’t hurt. It lived on his palm, and the stroking of those flames as he stroked them across my body—down my stomach and between my legs where Sirrus had lifted to make room—erased every pain and tension.
Pleasure bloomed and my body eased, giving way to what this might feel like when my body was used to it. “Oh.”
“There you go,” Sirrus murmured, moving just a little more, and now it felt different. Now it felt good.
“Why does it feel like this?”
Zovai drew his tongue above my skin. It made me shudder. “Because you were made to be a dragon’s mate, and that means every part of us.”
Capturing my lips, Sirrus kissed me hard, tangling our tongues together and stealing every last breath before releasing me. “I’m going to move now,” he said. “You tell me if it hurts.”
“Please.” Now that all discomfort was gone, my body asked for something it didn’t fully understand.
Sirrus pulled back, and when he pushed into my body again, it didn’t hurt. Not at all. The power of their magic protected me from the discomfort of it, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I laughed.
These dragons—these beasts—who were so gentle with me were the subject of such hatred. And yet the prince I was meant to marry would never have shown me such kindness. He wouldn’t have cared about my pain or my pleasure.
He wouldn’t have waited.
The pleasure they taught me felt different, sparking deep inside me. Larger and wider. Gathering me up and holding me. Where their mouths gave me delicious sharpness, this felt like drowning beneath a perfect wave. And maybe without their flames it would have taken longer.
I was glad it didn’t.
Showers of sparks glowed behind my eyes. Only the pounding of my heart in my ears and the feeling of falling into infinity every time Sirrus joined us together. Harder and faster.
No matter that pleasure had already found me, the friction of his body in mine drew it out. The rhythm he’d had went jagged. A low, feral growl buried in the curve of my neck as he held himself deep inside me.
Sirrus kissed my neck slowly. Softly. “Mate,” he murmured into my skin. Then he smiled. “When I am not so desperate for you, I will last longer.”
“What was wrong with that?”
“I want you dizzy and desperate and wanting,” he nipped at my jaw. “I want you to have more than one orgasm on my cock.”
I shook my head. “We might have to work up to that. One is plenty.”
Teeth grazed along my throat with his growl. “Never. One is never enough.”
I smiled at him, both of us gasping as he pulled away from me. One orgasm already seemed more than my body could handle at a time, but if my mates wanted to give me more pleasure, I would not say no.
“We will build up to it.” Zovai rolled me onto my stomach and dragged flames down my back. “Because there’s so much more.”
“Like?”
His hands gripped my hips, carefully arranging my pleasured, boneless body where he wanted it, and I was happy to let him. “Like us taking you together.”
More flames rolled down from my back to my legs, drenching me with a need for more beyond what I could voice. His mouth grazed my skin, hands spreading my ass apart so he could reach?—
“One of us here, when you’re ready. One of us in that mouth I can’t stop thinking about.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Very possible,” Endre said.
I looked at him and Sirrus, who laid behind him, chest still rising in falling while he caught his breath. “Have you done that with others?”
“No mate.” Zovai fit himself against me from behind. “We’ve never wanted anyone the way we want you. It’s only you.”
I wouldn’t have blamed them, but there was still relief in knowing I would have something no one else had with them. And it was the last thought in my head. Zovai thrust into me. Arousal still burned in my veins and every movement felt like too much and not enough.
Z’s arm snaked beneath my ribs, lifting me, holding me against his body as he fucked, and all I could do was feel. Delicious, ruthless pleasure that only built on itself. His flames blew hot on my neck and made everything shatter.
I was beyond noise or speech. All I did was sink into him and the dizzy, heady ecstasy that was him and them and his flames on my skin. He licked them across my shoulders and back. Dragged them over my ribs. Made it so every time he drove deep it felt like coming all over again.
His pleasure fed mine, and when we sank to the bed together, I was nearly spent.
Until Endre pulled me close. “Can you take me, Princess?”
“I think so.”
Easing my leg over his hip, he held me as close as he could, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and closed my eyes. I fell into him. Soft, slow bliss. No explosions or fire, just the sweet, rolling pleasure of being loved. Even as exhaustion took over my body from both pleasure and terror. I clung to Endre, hearing his murmured words, and let almost everything fall away.
When he finished, he still held me close. Lips warmed my temple.
“I’m sorry.”
“Never be sorry, mate. Just sleep.”
And so I did.