Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
With alliances decided, I was forced to sit through another agonizing hour of small talk—a form of torture, I decided.
None of it meant much of anything to me. I knew many of the names and Houses mentioned, bits of gossip that created a map in my mind—who had mate bonded to whom, who had left their House for another—but if Nerezza had ever instructed me in the fine art of being pleasant over nothing, I’d long since forgotten it.
Instead I remained curled at Rhylan’s side, picking through a small bowl of sugar-crusted berries and nodding where it seemed appropriate.
He kept his arm around me, his presence making me feel…if not like I belonged, then at least like I had the right to be there. That I wasn’t an intruder in a conversation that had nothing to do with me.
But I still couldn’t bring myself to contribute anything. I had no gossip to share. No amusing stories. No friendships to speak of.
These were Rhylan’s friends, not mine, and I didn’t feel I would ever be able to fully relax around them. I could not see myself forming any sort of true friendship with Maristela, no matter how deeply I craved a relationship that wasn’t based on what they could for me.
But he spoke for me, understanding that I was frozen at his side. He made sure there were no dropped silences, no empty places where I should have said something and didn’t, and I knew it was because he knew that I would rather cut my own tongue out than fill those gaps.
I appreciated it more than I could say. I was what my mother had made of me.
And finally, he saved me.
With a barely-concealed yawn and a stretch that pulled me tightly against him, Rhylan hinted that the night was getting old—and Maristela, that paragon of graciousness and beauty, took the hint.
“Down the hall, last door on your left,” she told him. “I keep a guest room well out of my mother’s way. You won’t have to worry about her.”
Rhylan nodded goodnight to Elinor and Doric, and I measured my footsteps to the door, unable to hide the release of tension in my shoulders as relief filled me.
It was…difficult to pretend that I felt I belonged. None of it came naturally to me. I was far more comfortable behind locked doors, alone, where I didn’t need to wonder what the other dragonbloods were really thinking when they spoke to me.
“Your torment is over,” Rhylan whispered to me as we walked down the hall, his hand in the small of my back.
“Oh, is it funny to you? It is a torment.” I glanced at him sidelong, peeking up under my eyelashes. “You have no idea how hard it is for…for someone like me to be liked.”
We reached the end of the hall, and the last door on the left was plain and unmarked. Rhylan pushed it open, gently nudging me inside.
My heartbeat stuttered as I took in the open windows, the thick, fluffy carpet underfoot, and the soft drape of gauze indigo canopies…surrounding a single bed.
Oh, gods.
I froze in place, only several steps into the room, but there was no time to escape. Rhylan had already closed the door and bolted it behind us.
“Finally, we’re alone.” He stretched, shedding his shirt as he crossed the room. The Bloodless servants of Kirion had left our saddlebags at the foot of the bed…the bed I would have to share with him.
My mouth had gone strangely dry. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Rhylan turned, the dim glow of the eyrie’s light crystals shimmering over his golden skin. “That’s all you have to say about it?”
I licked my lips, taking one wooden step forward, then another. “I just…I forgot that we would have to share a room here. That’s all.”
There had been no way around it, but I couldn’t sleep in a room with Rhylan. I couldn’t even sleep on top of a bed at all—and the last thing I wanted was for him to see me crawl under it, where the insidious fear that crept in during the night would sit on my chest and crush me under its weight.
Rhylan raised a single brow. “We probably should have practiced that a little more, eh?”
Some of the ice in my limbs thawed as I narrowed my eyes at him. “I bet you’d like that.”
I would simply stay awake all night and keep watch. We were in enemy territory, after all; Kirion’s dragonbloods could only be considered neutral in the vaguest sense of the term.
He threw his shirt aside, thumbs looped in the waistband of his pants, and I grabbed my saddlebag, desperate for something to divert myself with.
Even so, I heard the sound of cloth sliding over skin as I dug through my neatly-folded clothes.
His pants joined the shirt on the floor, right in my line of sight. Something akin to terror quivered inside me.
With growing desperation, I fumbled through the stacks of leathers and my small toiletry bag, but there was nothing for it: I had not packed this bag. Whoever had been responsible for that particular task had apparently believed I would want the little slip of sheer silk to sleep in, right next to the supposed mate who I had no intention of touching whatsoever.
I shoved the handful of silk back in the bag and snagged Rhylan’s shirt off the floor, disappearing into the bathroom.
When I emerged, he was laying in bed, a sheet pulled up over his legs and stomach. He looked me up and down, taking in the oversized shirt that reached nearly to my knees, and the spill of hair that hung past my hips in lazy waves.
“Oh, I like that quite a bit.” A slow, syrupy grin spread across his lips as I dropped the messily-folded riding dress on my bag. “It’s even better than that little silky thing.”
I scowled at him, arms folded defensively across my chest.
It had been a gamble. The little silky thing was a come-hither, a blatant invitation that said I wanted more than sleep in this bed.
But wearing his shirt, with his scent all over it…dragons were possessive.
Clearly, I’d chosen wrong.
“Well, it’s not about you.” I climbed into bed, keeping a solid three feet between us. “Or what you like.”
The light crystals dimmed on their own; soon we were both cast in shadows, illuminated only by the stars outside the window. I would wait for him to fall asleep, then creep to the chair in the corner and watch the mountains and snowfields outside until sunrise.
This was a dangerous place to be, so soon after he’d…tried to seduce me. Tried to convince me that there could possibly be anything between us but this lie, when we both knew perfectly well that there couldn’t be.
The Ascendants’ arguments echoed in my head as I yanked a blanket up over my bare legs.
But they were still wrong.
And Rhylan was not falling asleep.
“Why do you think you’re so hard to like?” he asked in the darkness, and with my mind still on the Ascendants, on what Erebos had said—you believe he is not worthy of you—I answered without thinking.
“Because I’m…cold. I’ve never had friends. You already know that.”
There was a rustle, and in the dim glow of the night I could see Rhylan had shifted his head towards me. Even in the dark, the coals of his eyes were luminous. “You’ve never had friends because you can’t make them, or because you were told not to? Maybe you should start there.”
My mouth twisted as I stared up at the ceiling. “Both.”
“I don’t think you’re cold.” His eyes flashed. “I think you’re afraid. When you were on Mistward, all your energy went to staying alive. There was no time to think about anything else, was there? And now that you’re safe…as safe as you can be…you have all this time and energy to let the fear in.”
My breath caught in my throat. Did he know? About the crushing fear that sat on my chest like stones, about the little parasite inside me that fed and thrived on all the fear I could give it?
“Yes.” It was easier to admit this in the dark, my gaze fixed overhead. “I am afraid. But I won’t let it break me.”
“Of course you won’t.” Rhylan snorted. “But you’re using it as an excuse to push people away.”
“The hell I am—”
“To push me away.”
I rolled over on my side to glare at him. “How am I pushing you away? This is all in the spirit of the agreement, Rhylan. You don’t have to pretend—”
He put a finger to my lips, rolling onto his side as well. Facing each other in the dark, with nothing but the sound of our breath between us, we stared at each other.
“I don’t have to pretend,” he agreed quietly.
I stayed silent, not trusting my own voice.
“As I said, I don’t think you’re cold.” Rhylan took my hand, moving slowly, like he was taming a wild creature. Our fingers locked together and remained between us, bridging the gap of empty bed. “I think you’ve gone so long without someone else you’re allowed to lean on that you don’t know how to handle it when you do. I think you find it easier to build a wall between yourself and whatever you want, so you can tell yourself you never had it in the first place, therefore it doesn’t matter.”
There was a horrible ring of truth to his words. My brows knit together in a frown. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“See?” Rhylan smiled without humor. “You’d rather push it away than face it. But Sera…you do have me. I’d like to think that by this point we could call each other friends, at least.”
What he’d said…it was like having someone reach inside me and pull out all my fears, holding them up to the unforgiving light to be seen in all their repulsive awfulness. But he didn’t lie.
And I couldn’t handle that. Not right now.
“We are friends,” I growled. “Against my better judgment.”
There was an edge of true humor in his quiet laugh. “That’s all I wanted to hear—that you acknowledge that you’ve got at least one true friend in the world you don’t need to hide from.”
A faint grumble escaped me as I moved to extricate my hand, but Rhylan kept my fingers firmly linked in his. He squeezed lightly, two times, keeping my hand captive.
We laid in silence, gazing into each other”s eyes for several long moments, the small gulf between us seeming to shrink as the seconds ticked by.
I wanted this dragon so terribly that my need for him was a fist in my chest, squeezing my heart in uncaring hands. I couldn’t sleep next to him.
I couldn’t have him, and that was the true torture.
“I need air,” I whispered, feeling naked and exposed by how deeply he saw the truth of me, and pulled my hand away. I threw back the blanket, crawling out of the bed for the window, but I had only made it a few steps to the window—to the relative safety of distance between us—before he caught me.
“You don’t need air,” he rumbled, gripping me around the waist and throwing me back into the bed. I landed on my back in a tangle of pillows and sheets. “You just want to run and hide again.”
Rhylan prowled towards me, climbing onto the bed with the lithe grace of a predator and grabbing my wrists. He pinned them above my head with one hand, lowering his forehead to mine, the coals in his eyes brightening into flames.
I gazed up at him, watching the flames flicker, the scales spilling over his chest and shoulders, aware of every inch of skin that touched.
My breath came shallow, my heart hammering against my ribs, but not with fear.
Rhylan pressed his lips to mine, deepening the kiss as my body flexed involuntarily.
I knew that he was hunting; that his scent, clinging to the shirt I wore, marked me as his in the primal way of dragons—and I didn’t want to stop what came next, hidden under cover of darkness.
“You do know I want you, Sera,” he said roughly, breaking the kiss, his tongue flicking out to taste my lower lip. “Are you still going to run from this?”
With my hands held above my head, the length of his body along mine driving me to madness, I shook my head. Heat coiled low in my belly, driving through my veins like fire as his lips moved over the soft scales on my cheekbones, moving down to the sensitive spot under my ear.
He was everything I wanted in a dragon…and tonight I would prove to myself that I didn’t run from everything.
That I could have a sliver of what I craved, with no regrets.
And I would not acknowledge the tiny wellspring of hope inside me for more than that.
Instead I tilted my head as Rhylan’s lips moved down my throat.
He gently pushed the shirt I wore up, revealing all of me. His lips tickled my sensitive scales, drawing a gasp from me as his head ducked lower, tongue tracing the curve of a breast until he took my nipple in his mouth.
“Rhylan, I’m not…I haven’t…”
Sharp teeth grazed the hardening nub, sending prickles of desire over my body in a wave that took my breath away.
“I know. I won’t hurt you.” His mouth roamed further, moving to my other breast and teasing me with teeth and tongue, groaning low in his throat when he felt the peak harden on his tongue.
My body seemed out of my control, moving against him in a natural, primal way. Wrapped in the comforting sense of darkness, giving up shame and fear, I let it have its way.
My back arched towards him, legs opening, and he settled between my legs. He kept my hands pinned above my head, but I tore loose from his grasp, letting out a snarl of my own.
“Let me touch you.”
Moving tentatively, like this was a dream I would shatter if I allowed myself to be too eager, I raked my claws through his hair, letting myself luxuriate in the sensation of thick curls under my hands. Then I allowed them to roam further, moving over the heated scales on his shoulders, finding smooth flesh.
When my fingers touched one of his round, knotted scars, he rose up, nipping the skin on my belly. “Not there. Let me take care of you first. So you can see it’s not all pain.”
His cock pressed against my inner thigh, hot and silky, big enough to worry me. He knew I had never done this before, and I trusted Rhylan not to hurt me, but…I couldn’t hide my unease.
But he gripped my waist, holding me in place as his mouth kissed a slow, sensuous trail over the contours of my stomach, moving lower and lower...anxiety took me in clawed hands, digging in deep.
“Rhylan, I can’t—”
“You can and you will.” His tongue laved my lower belly, sending another wave of heat coiling through me, and then he ducked his head down.
His soft tongue parted my lips, slipping over my clit in a smooth, slow spiral.
My hips bucked, a cry escaping me before I could leash it.
“What is that—”
“Shhh. Let me show you what can happen, Sera.”
Rhylan’s hands shifted to my hips, his nails on the verge of becoming claws. Pinpricks dotted my flesh as he adjusted his grip, keeping me firmly seated and splayed before him.
“I told you that you’d be fucking delicious,” he growled, pressing a kiss to my inner thigh.
This time, as his tongue swept over the sensitive bud of nerves, I was a little more prepared. My hips jerked again, but his claws kept me in place, a slave to the torrent of heat that rushed through me.
My breath came in short gasps, my claws digging into the mattress as he wrapped his lips around me and sucked, the heat and wetness becoming almost too much to bear.
His tongue dipped into me, letting me catch my breath, and then he ran it over my clit again, curling around and laving over the tingling nub with a rough stroke. The feel of his breath panting against me, the dark, masculine groans of need, made my hips rise against him, meeting him with my own relentless craving.
I slid my fingers through his hair, gripping a handful as he gave another harsh, panting stroke, his own hunger growing—this was the meaning of fucking, the raw primal need of it, something I’d never given into before.
And when he sucked again, teasing my clit with the tip of his tongue, I came undone.
The pinpricks in my hips became sharp, bright points of pain as he gripped me, refusing to let me writhe away from him, my muscles straining as I shattered and came together and shattered again.
When my muscles had stopped fighting, he retracted his claws, cheek pressed to my thigh.
“Let me…let me do that to you,” I gasped hoarsely, but Rhylan kissed the cleft between my legs, stalking over me again like a hunter with cornered prey. His cock, already hard and ready, swung between his tree-trunk thighs, and my center clenched with anticipation.
“Like I said, this is about you. So you’ll come for me again and again. I know the first time can hurt.”
“You can’t hurt me.”
He paused, gazing into my eyes like he was searching for something, and I felt the hot, thick shaft press against my wet folds.
“Do it. I want you, Rhylan.”
My breath hissed between my teeth as the large crown pushed against me, slowly pushing into my core. Inch by inch, moving so slowly it was like torture, real torment, when I wanted all of him and knew I couldn’t yet take him the way I wanted to.
There was pressure, hot and terrifying, that melted into sudden pleasure. I pulled him down onto me, taking his full weight, and kissed his neck as I arched against him.
The kiss became a bite as he slid in fully. I panted against his shoulder, my teeth sliding over scales as he made a sound between a growl and a groan.
It felt right. A little painful, frightening, nerve-wracking…but right. The moment in time when two became one, when a beast took his other half and mated her, making her his, and his alone.
I moved against him, undulating my hips, and Rhylan exhaled against my ear. “Gods, I’ve wanted this for so long.”
“You have me here now, so take me,” I breathed, rocking against him.
He withdrew, just as slowly as he’d pushed in, making me hiss in distress—until he thrust in again, pinning me to the bed.
With my center still sensitive from the attention of his mouth, I felt another wave of heat rise…and I flung myself towards it, moving with Rhylan’s thrusts, kissing and biting as he took his pleasure in me.
I felt him throb, his breath catching in his throat as his cock plunged in deep.
Chasing that high, my hips ground against him, bringing me to the edge of another bright abyss, my body in flames, and he released himself, growling, teeth against my throat.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, catching my breath quietly, the flames between us cooling into contented embers.
Words were not needed. What we needed to say to each other, tonight in the darkness, we said with our skin.
Rhylan kissed the red patches where his teeth had marked me, but he didn’t allow me to move. I found myself moved on my side, the dragon curling around me protectively—no, possessively.
With his heat at my back, my muscles unwound into loose ribbons, I plunged into a sleep so deep there were no dreams at all.