Chapter 13 There Was A Kiss?
There Was A kiss?
Less than two hours later, Diarmuid came through our shared wall door.
I guessed I should call it his door. He walked in at the same mid-morning “top of pause” every day, but I hadn’t been able to get the green rectangle back since that first time I’d stumbled into his office.
When I asked him about it on the second day, he’d said, “We fear you are too clever to be given access to our working quarters.”
Yet another clue that he had a job, an actual reason for being here on Earth. But so far, I hadn’t figured out what it was.
Diarmuid was especially brutal that day.
My new least-favorite exercise, wall sits, until my thighs shook.
Agility sprints back and forth across the glen until I lost count.
Then back to wall sits, because apparently the word of the day was MISERY—as in complete and utter.
We jogged around the bog with him directly behind me, setting a blistering pace that meant he shoved into me like an eight-foot train whenever I dared to slow down.
Sparring was usually my least favorite part of training, but that day I let out a breath of relief when he finally called me over to the peaty and damp piece of land we used as a mat for falls when we sparred.
Well, I used it for a mat. So far, I hadn’t managed to so much as nick Diarmuid with my knife, much less take him off his feet as he often did to me.
But anything was better than endless drills. I got into the fighting stance he’d taught me: knife arm extended, blade angled upward, weight low, and back foot planted.
“Do not ever lunge. Control the burn of your frustration and anger. Wait for your opening to attack our underbelly, where we are most vulnerable.” I’d been given the instructions so many times, his voice played like a Pavlovian recording as soon as I adjusted my body.
And he got into position a few meters away from me so he’d have enough room to shift—or, as he called it, unshell.
But not before he got in one last dig. “Your temper burns especially bright this training. Attempt to stay on your feet more than a few sun ticks by not letting it get the better of you.”
This guy…
I lowered my knife.
“Question: are you being three poop emojis in a row today because of the kiss?”
He froze, his head tilting to the side.
“There was a kiss?”
I squinted. Was he eggplanting with me? Sometimes he goaded me because he claimed learning to regulate my temper was a drill of its own.
He could just be baiting me.
If so, it was working.
“You know good and well there was a kiss!” I growled back with my wolf in my throat. “A good one. Don’t act like it wasn’t memorable. I don’t…”
The rage that had sent my mother running to Scotland when she believed I’d killed my birth father threatened to spike. To take over, like it did that day at the lake with Naomi. The moment that started all of this.
Rule number one… Kiwi reminded me.
“I don’t like it,” I told him, struggling to keep my voice level.
His face fell. Then reset to a block of ice.
“That kiss should not have happened. It was…” His mouth twisted into a disapproving frown. “Unwise.”
Unwise.
Something that had been carefully, stupidly building over three weeks shattered in my chest.
I was so sick of this. Sick of him switching personalities on me. Evading my most important questions, or just refusing to answer them at all.
Going warm and cold on the daily.
And knifey on the nightly.
My rage didn’t just spike this time. I lunged, leaping at him wolf first.
“No.”
Just that single word.
And then my back slammed into the ground, and Diarmuid’s heavy weight was on top of me, my body pinned beneath his, one hand wrapped around my wrist so tightly that I had no choice but to drop the knife.
The strange bulge inside his stomach pressed into me. Even now. Even pinned and furious, that fact registered with an inconvenient clarity.
He supposedly had no relation to a snake, but his eyes flickered and he let out a hiss that reminded me of one. “Do you wish to kiss us so badly that you would attack us while we are still shelled?” he taunted.
I growled. I wished I could say I was fighting to get free, but he had me pinned so thoroughly, all I could do was flex under his hold, my hips shifting beneath that thick bulge.
Not on purpose.
“I hate you!” I growled so he’d know it wasn’t on purpose.
“That is not what we asked.” His emerald gaze flicked over my face. “Do you wish us to kiss you?”
“Why should I when you won’t even admit—”
“Answer the question, Dorie.” His breath steamed between our mouths, a sweet cloud of forest and peat. No hiss. Only command.
I so badly wanted to say no. One word. Two letters. But it wouldn’t come.
I couldn’t be vicious, so I settled for petty. “Why should I answer your questions? You’ve barely answered any of mine, especially when you’re in so-called training mode. Why are you keeping me prisoner? Why can’t I see the rest of the castle? What do you think you’re protecting me from?”
“Dorie…” His voice took on a note that was half amused, half censuring. He lowered his face, lips hovering. “If you wish to kiss us, you may do so.”
The amusement faded from his eyes. “Reverence. We are yours.”
Mine?
Was he serious?
“How could you say that? Just a minute ago, you were claiming kissing me earlier was unwise!”
“Stop this stupidity! I refuse to engage in this topic with you until you answer my questions!”
“Okay, be straight with me, are you currently undergoing treatment with your alien therapist for a split personality disorder?”
That was what I should have said.
But I couldn’t because, suddenly, my lips were occupied. I kissed him, picking back up where we left off. But not really….
The first kiss had started as a question and slowly caught fire. This one skipped the question entirely.
His mouth crashed down on mine with the force of something that had been held back too long and had finally broken through. There was no gentleness in it. Only want. Immediate, undisguised, and… honest. It felt like this Diarmuid version of my fated mate was being honest with me for the first time.
“We will touch you further now, Reverence.” He trailed his kisses down to my neck, forked tongue flicking against the sensitive skin there. “Taste you as we have so fervently wished since your arrival.”
“Yes,” I agreed. My body was on fire. The knot coiled in my belly so tight it verged on pain. “Touch me. Taste me. Do whatever you want.”
His hands pulled apart the front of my jumpsuit, causing my breasts to spill out since I no longer bothered with a bra. But he didn’t lick me there.
Instead, his tongue slithered beneath my panty line in an ambidextrous way a human one never could.
The forked tip found a nub that I’d read about in books but suspected might be a myth.
Like dragons, it was not.
I cried out, my back arching against the grass as his tongue wrapped around it while his emerald eyes continued to hold me magnetized in his stare.
There was no more talking. Yet, I still felt like he was giving me commands.
His tongue slithered inside of me, swirling and working, until I had no choice but to come apart for him. “Diarmuid!” I cried out his name while the waves of pleasure rocketed through—
SKYRYYYAA!!!
I was still shaking when a sharp sound rent the sky.
Like the megafauna version of an American movie eagle. But louder and more aggressive. Something that could screech and roar.
My blood curdled with an ominous feeling. “What was that?”
Diarmuid’s tongue retracted, and he bounded to his feet.
“Get behind us,” he commanded, pulling me up the same way he did when I claimed I didn’t have enough core strength left to do one more sit-up. Or even stand.
“Do not use what we have taught you.” He yanked the edges of the jumpsuit he’d pulled open back into place.
Then picked up the knife he made me drop and handed it back to me.
“You are not ready. Stay behind us. And no matter what happens, do not come out from your hiding spot. He will not be able to see you if you keep your burn hidden behind ours.”
He?
This was the first time I’d ever heard any of his personalities refer to another person—even though he had three.
I stowed the knife in the pocket opposite of the one where I kept the huge key, even though it weighed me down during drills. But I had to ask, “Who’s he? What does that mean—aghhh!”
I broke off when he unshelled into the twenty-foot emerald-green dragon he’d called his true form and whipped his tail toward me.
Apparently, his order wasn’t up for debate. I found out firsthand how agile his tail could be when it curled around my body all the way to my neck, trapping me behind him. And leaving me with no other direction to look than up.
That was when I saw what had put fear into a twenty-foot dragon for the first time since I’d arrived.
Another dragon appeared on the horizon. His skin shimmered dark blue underneath the sun. He began his descent, and I couldn’t see him anymore.
But I heard and felt him land. The ground beneath my feet tremored with a huge BOOM, like a rocket ship setting down.
There came some kind of exchange then. Hisses, low shrieks, and that Predator clicking I did not love from the surprise visitor.
Diarmuid answered with a simple set of hisses, then his spine curved when he lowered his head.
I didn’t understand…. Was this deference or fear?
The “Let’s go investigate!” holoscribe instinct lit up in my brain, but Diarmuid had me wrapped so tight in his tail, I couldn’t have escaped his hold if I wanted to.
And my wolf was telling me I didn’t want to.
I discovered then that while I might despise Diarmuid’s drills, I trusted him completely when it came to danger. He’d been saying he needed to protect me since I got here, and whoever this other dragon was, no matter what kind of respect Diarmuid showed him, I needed protection from him.
It would be fatal to reveal my presence. I sensed that on a biological level. This midnight-blue dragon wouldn’t just put me beneath his foot, he’d crush me with it.
SKYYYRRRIIII!!! SKYYYRRREE!!!
The world darkened as two shadows appeared directly above our heads, blotting out the midday sun so I couldn’t quite make them out until they alighted with a couple more landing booms. One on each side of Diarmuid, like they were his bodyguards.
Were they his bodyguards? Or maybe his brothers? They were both dark emerald-green, like Diarmuid, but while Diarmuid’s horns were dark green, the one on his right had brown horns, and the horns of the one on his left were gold-tipped.
They, too, bowed, and I wriggled inside Diarmuid’s tail, unsure if I should be hiding from them as well.
They rose back to their full heights, and the one on the left immediately started speaking in their language of screeches, clicks, and hisses. Meanwhile, Diarmuid stepped back carefully toward the rock wall where I’d been made to do so many sits earlier, while keeping me curled within his tail.
At first, I thought it was an action of deference, him ceding the talking to the green dragon on the right.
But then Diarmuid’s tail unfurled, freeing me with a scraping slither against the grass.
I didn’t understand until I sensed a sudden nearby vibration.
A door. A small square glowed within the wall, so small I’d have to duck my head to escape into the confines of…
actually, I wasn’t sure. We were on the side of the castle facing south, so I had no idea where this new door led.
Under different circumstances, that would have been the most interesting thing that had happened all day.
But it was obvious Diarmuid wanted me to go through it. The triangular tip of his tail poked me squarely in the back. Like, Go, already.
So I turned to go.
But as I did so, I felt a set of eyes on me, hot as flames.
Green flames.
When I looked up, I found the eyes of the other non-speaking dragon.
His head was tilted toward the conversation now taking place between the midnight-blue dragon and the one on the left, but he was surreptitiously peering down at me in a way that reminded me of that sideways look Aengus gave me from his great height when we walked across the cavern together to get my first glimpse of the Pleistocene Age outside.
Wait a minute.
My heart stuttered. This dragon looked exactly like the one I’d been sparring with for two weeks. Exactly like him. Save for the brown horns.
Then I turned my head and saw that the other dragon also looked exactly the same. Other than the horns, there was no discernible difference.
And that was when I realized…