Chapter 24
Yalina
Jah’ruud rushes Kaelun up the stairs, and I almost rush after them until Aurelion’s hand closes around my arm. “Where are you going? I believe we have a date.” I have never heard his voice so cold.
I stare at him. “Now?”
“You agreed.”
I grind my teeth together in frustration. He’s right of course, I just thought he might have some compassion. I’m about to reply when the healer rushes over and drops into a bow. “Forgive me, Light of the Sun. I must complete the serum.”
I turn to her in distress. “Then do it.”
She clutches a small glass vial in her hands. “It needs the prince’s venom before it is complete.”
I give Aurelion a pleading look. “You will help, won’t you?”
His wings—recently released from their ties—flick impatiently. “You wish it?”
“Of course.”
His expression darkens, but he holds out his hand for the vial. “You will come to my rooms later.” It is not a request.
With a sigh, I nod. Anything to save Kaelun.
The healer hands him the vial, and Aurelion delicately slides one long fang into the nozzle, biting down until a stream of clear liquid is released. She swirls the vial and the clear liquid turns a bright purple color.
“It is complete. Where is Prince Noreth?”
“I will take it.” I hold my hand out for the vial, and she hands it over.
“He must drink it all immediately. Leave nothing in the glass.”
I nod to show I’ve understood.
The healer hurries away, darting an anxious glance back in our direction.
“I have to see that he’s alright,” I say to Aurelion, who is glaring daggers at me.
“He flouted your rules!”
I straighten my spine. “As did you. There was to be no risk of serious injury.”
He growls. “If he had not made me believe he was merely human, I would have been ready.”
I sigh. It seems I will be soothing ruffled feathers as well as saving a life today. “Let me go and see that it is delivered to him and that he is safe, and then you may claim your winner’s prize.”
At this he seems to relax. “Be quick, then. I can tolerate the indignity if I know you will truly come to me tonight.”
“I have said that I will.”
Leaving him, I hurry up to Kaelun’s suite and knock. A moment later Jah’ruud opens the door, surprised to see me. I hold up the vial. “The antidote. How is he?”
He lets me into the room, but I pause just beyond the doorway to see Kaelun sitting up in bed grinning at me. “Have no fear. A small thing like a dragon bite cannot stop me.”
I frown. “But both Aurelion and the healer said you would need the anti-venom.”
He coughs. “Yeah, um, turns out my ah… advisor had some handy. So nothing to worry about.”
I look between them. Something is off here. I wish I had more time to get to the bottom of what it is. “Was it magic?” I ask. “Did you really use magic to cheat in the contest?”
Kaelun’s eyes widen. “Look, I can explain…”
My mouth drops open. “Then it’s true!”
“It’s not like that.”
I throw up my hands. “I cannot believe you sometimes!” And I cannot believe I just bargained myself away to win anti-venom from Aurelion for someone who would cheat to win me. Anti-venom it turns out he did not even need.
“Yalina, I’m sorry—”
“Forget it. I must go now to spend the night with Aurelion and give him whatever he wants. I have promised, and unlike you I keep my promises. Just know that I did it because I thought I was saving you.”
“You do not know the full story,” says Jah’ruud.
This makes me pause. “The next time I am alone with you—both of you—I’d very much like for you to tell me the full story and leave nothing out. And Kaelun?”
“Mmm?”
“This is your last chance!”
I spin and storm out of the room to dress myself for dinner, leaving him staring at me. I cannot seem to stick with whatever decision I make for more than a few hours before something new changes my mind. Is it just that I do not wish to decide? Am I looking for excuses?
What kind of monarch will I make if I cannot put aside my feelings to care for my people? But the honest truth is that it is not that simple. I must live with whomever I choose for the rest of my life. So why are they both making it so hard to choose them?
I may as well see what it would be like to be with Aurelion. If I felt any guilt about it, the fact that Kaelun is still holding back secrets erases it.
With this in mind, I select a thin dress with a simple belted waist and two slits up the front of each thigh reaching all the way to the belt.
The dress is low cut, and the overall effect bares almost as much skin as it covers.
That suits my purpose tonight. I am through with holding back and doubting myself.
Tonight I will be the one taking what I want, starting with my pleasure.
Aurelion answers the door to his suite himself, and when he ushers me inside, it is clear he has dismissed all his servants to their quarters on the floor below. “Congratulations on your win today,” I tell him, though it comes out stiff.
“You are angry with me still.”
I open my mouth to reply, but I’m not certain how much to say. I sigh.
He chuckles. “Go on, chide me for breaking your rules like I would not break every rule and every person in my path to get to you.” He steps closer, and despite myself a shiver runs through me at his words. “You will be mine.”
Taking advantage of my silence, he cups my cheek and leans in, dipping his head.
Blinking, I break away and move to the sofa, sitting and brushing a hand over my skirts to cover the way I’m flustered at his words and his touch. Unfortunately, that draws attention to the way the splits in the dress leave both my thighs completely bare.
Aurelion’s gaze flickers to my naked skin. “Prince Noreth will recover. I will not if you reject me,” he says.
I shake my head. I hadn’t picked Aurelion as the overly dramatic type. “Well you have me all to yourself for now. How would you like to spend our time? For now I am all yours.”
He smiles and the motion extends far enough to make his mouth wider and more dangerous than any human mouth. “Not all mine yet, Yalina. Not bitten and claimed, but you could be if you so choose.”
My heart presses high against my collarbone, and I sit forward a little, unable to help myself. “Dragons bite their spouses, then? That seems like a strange custom. How is a human to survive?”
“We do. Not like the bite you saw today, though. That was done in aggression. A mating bite contains a different makeup of venom. I’ve heard the experience is quite euphoric.”
I’m curious despite myself. “Really?”
He grins. “You may tell me when you have experienced it for yourself.” He sits beside me, slinging an arm around my shoulders and drawing close.
I think he is about to kiss me, but when he leans in, it’s to push aside my hair and run his lips along my neck in a way that sends a shock of awareness straight to my core.
I gasp.
I feel the hint of his teeth. “Right here,” he purrs against my skin. “This is where I will bite you.”
Pushing his head away, I frown. “Not yet. I still have a choice to make.”
He rolls his eyes. “Why keep playing? We both know who you will choose.”
“Do we?”
He huffs. “Then why did you agree to this wager? Why come to my rooms if you do not wish to have me?”
I chew my lip. This question is more difficult to answer. “I did not say that.”
His brow lifts. “Then you do want me.”
I do not answer, but when he approaches again, I do not push him away.
“And I want you very much. What would you have from me tonight, then?”
I cannot help tilting my head to one side as he leans in again to kiss and nip at my ear.
Despite the danger, despite knowing what his bite could do—or perhaps because of it—it sends a thrill through me.
I’m mesmerized for a moment, succumbing completely to the drugging pleasure of it.
“A test I suppose,” I say honestly. For myself? For him? I do not know anymore.
He hums. “You would like me to demonstrate how I would please you as your husband?”
I know it’s probably wrong with Kaelun only just recovered and all my questions about both of them unanswered. Despite all that, the words slip from my mouth. “I think you should.”
Unexpectedly he drops to his knees and crawls forward until he is kneeling with his chest pressing against my knees as if begging for entry. “Then open your thighs for me, rkhash.”
I frown. “I do not know this word.”
“In your tongue it roughly means sweet one, but it is a word a dragon reserves for his mate.”
A burst of sweetness explodes inside me, and it’s impossible to tell if the center is my chest or lower down. Slowly I part my legs.
Hunger flares in his eyes. “Have you shared such things with others, Light of the Sun, or would I be your first?”
I search his face, trying to discern how the truth will be received, but I have no wish to lie to him. “I have.”
His grin only spreads wider. “As is your right. But rest assured, I will do it better than any you have given yourself to.”
I cannot help laughing at his assurance, though I should have expected no less from him. “Will you, now?”
“Shall I show you? I do not wish you to think I am only boasting. I will not leave you wanting.” Aurelion hooks a clawed finger beneath the front panel of my dress, pulling it aside, and as he does so runs his knuckle along the flesh of my thigh.
He makes no further comment about the fact that I have shared my body with another, and I am glad he doesn’t press me to tell him who.
That would be difficult to explain. I wonder what the culture for dragons is.
I do not ask, though, because soon I am distracted.
He has clearly been with other females, and I find I’m not sorry, since he knows well how to light my body up with sensation.
I wonder if any of them were human and if there are differences which matter.
He strokes lightly up and down my thighs until my legs are trembling. I thought he would rush toward the goal, but instead he takes his time, finding new areas to tease, pulling my dress aside more and more until he is sliding his knuckle along the crease between thigh and pussy.
I shiver.
Aurelion chuckles. “You will be ready to tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had before I am through.”