Chapter 5 #2
‘I…I was just going to say that my mother told me stories of the place where she grew up. It was an old city, she said. Learning was a big deal there and this just reminded me of how she described all the books. So many that they had to have a system to keep track of them all.’
‘An old city?’ he asks with mild interest.
‘Yes. Somewhere in the far south.’
‘Why did she leave?’
I look up from the book. ‘What do you care?
His shoulders bounce a little. ‘It’s just, if it was a good place… Humans tend to stay put when their lives are good these days, so I wondered if there was a reason she left.’
I shake my head. ‘She never really talked about it. It was before me.’
‘Where is she now? Back in your hometown?’
‘She’s dead.’
‘Right. I’m sorry.’ He looks around the room. ‘Do you want to sit in here and read a while?’
I nod. ‘Is that okay?’
‘Of course.’ He gestures to some upholstered chairs beside a fireplace that looks strangely homey in the middle of the concrete.
Something must show on my face because he smiles. ‘We change things to suit us. The books were getting moldy. A fire dries out the air in here, so it’s lit every few days to keep the damp out.
‘Oh.’
I curl up in one of the chairs and start reading, mostly because reading was my go-to at home to escape reality, and I definitely need that right now. I feel like my life is on a timer and when Tor gets back and they take me to their dragon lair, it’ll zero out.
Brax lights the fire, and soon it's crackling away while we sit together. He reads with me and it's oddly companionable.
‘What about you?’ I ask after a while.
He looks up from what appears to be a gardening book. ‘What about me?’
‘Where did you grow up?’
He stares into the fire for a minute. ‘A place across the world called the UK. Scotland, specifically.’
‘Ah,’ I nod. ‘I’ve seen a globe. It must be amazing to be able to travel that far. I’ve heard stories about when humans were able to move across the world in a few hours. What’s it like there?’
‘It was long ago,’ he murmurs cryptically.
I tilt my head at him. ‘How long?’
‘Hard to say now,’ he mutters with a sigh. ‘At the Fall, it was around seven hundred. So probably about nine-hundred years, now. Give or take.’
I vaguely hear the book that I was reading thud to the floor as I stare, trying to wrap my mind around the bomb he just dropped.
‘You’re…almost a thousand years old?’ I whisper.
He winces. ‘We’re a…uh…long-lived species.’
‘Fuck. I’m…twenty-five.’
He side-eyes me and laughs.
‘Did you know Tor back then?’ I ask. ‘You seem to be pretty close.’
‘Yes, and Drey. You’ll meet him later today.’
Talk of what happens next makes my stomach roll uncomfortably.
I shift in my chair, making it creak.
‘What’s going to happen to me, Brax?’
He looks at me, his expression softening.
‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘You’re ours now and you smell like it.’
‘Will I live…with you and Tor?’
He purses his lips. ‘That’s up to Drey. He’s the boss.’
‘But you know him,’ I persist, needing something to ground me in all these uncertainties. ‘Is he… Does he like humans?’
‘Not much these days.’ He lets out a breath and puts his book down, turning toward me.
‘It depends on some things. There are undercurrents. Politics. Drey hasn’t been in control of our faction for long.
He’s trying to figure out how to get our kind on his side without resorting to violence.
The more we fight, the fewer of us there are.
We never had high birth rates, but they’ve completely tapered off over the past forty years. ’
I blink at him. After giving me little to no real answers, he’s dumped a lot on me over the past few minutes.
‘Why?’
He stands up abruptly with a shrug and the mood in the room changes abruptly.
He looms over me, and I shrink back in the chair a little. He doesn’t look mad, but the man who was telling me about his home a moment ago is gone.
‘Take off your clothes,’ he says. ‘My dragon wants to see you.’
‘Why? W-what do you mean?’ I stutter. ‘Like it’s separate?’
‘Yes,’ he says abruptly. ‘He and I both inhabit this mind, though the body one at a time.’
‘Am I…talking to your dragon now?’ I ask, wondering if that’s the change that I’m feeling?
His mouth sets in a hard line.
‘What happens if I don’t do what you want, dragon?’ I ask, meeting his eyes, trying to show this dominant creature that I’m no pushover.
Even though I think I might be right now.
‘Well, my pretty human, now’s as good a time as any for your punishment for leaving the building.’
My heart pounds in my chest. What’s he going to do with me?
‘But you already gave me a punishment,’ I whisper. ‘Dangling me for the monster in the water—’
‘No,’ he grinds out. ‘That was a lesson so you know what could happen to you if you didn’t follow the rules. This will be discipline for not doing as you were told.’
‘B-but I didn’t even leave on purpose,’ I say, my tone pleading.
He laughs low. ‘Do you want to run again, is that it?’ The growl he emits makes my eyes widen.
He wants me to, I realize, but my body already feels like I ran a marathon today and the thought of Brax’s dragon chasing me to punish me is overwhelming at the moment.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Then take off your clothes and bend over the table, Mari.’
He says my name slowly, like a caress. My skin prickles.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to give you a spanking, and if you take it like a good girl, maybe I’ll let you come afterward.’
My eyes widen as I scramble out of the seat and start to back away. ‘I think—I think I will ru—’
‘Too late, little rabbit.’
He lunges for me, catching me so easily that I know I never had a chance.
He has me bent over the nearby table with my oversized shirt flipped up over my back inside of a second. There’s no preamble and the first slap across my ass cracks through the room.
I squeal, trying to protect my vulnerable flesh with my hands, but he grabs my wrists and holds them, delivering another openhanded smack.
I jump, trying to evade him any way I can, but he just chuckles and licks the shell of my ear.
‘Take it,’ he snarls, ‘or I’ll use something that’ll hurt more, my little female.’
‘Like what?’ I can’t help but gasp.
‘Maybe a wooden spoon from the kitchen.’
That would be worse.
I try to relax in his hold, letting my body rest on the tabletop, and I hear a low chuff of approval.
‘Good little rabbit.’
The next four smacks happen in quick succession almost as if he’s trying to get it over with. They hurt, though, and while I try not to scream, tears track their way down my face.
Without warning, he thrusts two fingers inside me, and I squeal at the suddenness, at how good it feels, how the pain seems to heighten the pleasure.
‘Very wet,’ he says almost to himself
Shame courses through me, and I can’t help the telltale sniffle. How can I like this? How can I let this creature do this to me?
I squeeze my eyes shut and I feel him pick me up, settling into one of the chairs with me straddling his lap. I don’t look at him as he spears me in one smooth motion with an animalistic noise of contentment, but I can’t help my cry as he stretches me.
It feels so good.
And that makes it worse.
He controls the motions, moving me up and down as he fucks me with abandon. The pressure coils deep inside me, and before I know it, my hips are meeting his every thrust, trying to take him deeper.
It’s hard and fast and it’s everything my body has been craving since I woke up, I realize.
As soon as my body crests, and my muscles spasm, my legs jerking, he lets out a low snarl and empties himself into me, biting the side of my neck hard and snarling a word so low I almost can’t make it out.
‘Mate.’
Afterward, I open my eyes, and he blinks at me.
‘Mari?’ he says, confusion in his eyes. ‘Fuck.’
His fingers that have been digging into my hips gentle and his brow furrows in concern.
‘Are you okay?’
I nod jerkily.
He’s still inside me and he seems to realize that at the same time I do because he swears again and lifts me off him, settling me into his lap, cradling me like a baby.
He swears again.
‘Shit. I didn’t mean to— He took over. I lost control of him. I didn’t know he’d…’
He’s babbling as he stares at me. ‘Did I hurt you? Jesus…’
‘I’m okay,’ I whisper, wincing a little because my ass is smarting, and my pussy is clenching around nothing in the aftermath of my orgasm.
He puts his forehead to mine. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘He hasn’t been able to wrestle control away from me like that since I was a youngling.’
Now that it’s over, and I’m calming down, it’s not so bad.
‘I’m okay,’ I say again, this time with more conviction. ‘I was just scared. You changed and I didn’t… I knew it was him. The dragon.’
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘A little,’ I confess. ‘But I think I…’ I cringe as he pulls back. ‘I think I liked it.’
He lets out a sigh, looking slightly relieved but not by much.
‘I’ll make sure he can never do that again,’ he promises, and I relax against him, glad but also, confusingly, a little disappointed.
What’s happened to me?
‘Why do I feel like this?’ I ask in a small voice.
His arms wrap around me, and he holds me close.
‘I don’t know.’
My mind is reeling even as I berate my dragon for what he did. The fucker isn’t the least bit sorry.
You could have hurt her! What if she hadn’t wanted it? What if you’d raped her? We only play the monster. We aren’t really supposed to be one!
I can’t remember ever being this angry with him.
He snorts. Our human loves our touch. She made pleasurable noises even when I punished her. She’s strong and craves our coupling. She was pleasured well. Screamed her release as I took her.
I feel his pride.
Just as a good, strong mate should.