Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
Barbie
While morning light bathed Shades Academy, starlight shone in the dragon realm.
“My dragon wants to fly with you first,” Killian said, kissing my temple. “He wants to show you more of his home.”
I nodded. “Whenever he’s ready—”
Before I could finish, the transformation erupted. One moment, Killian’s arms encircled me. The next, the black dragon gazed at me with pure devotion. His magnificent wings unfurled, their black and sapphire scales reflecting the rippling moonlight across his powerful form.
Mate, he called through our bond, the word resonating deep within me.
Yes, my dragon, I answered, and leaped onto his broad back. Sy should have seen how lithe I was.
Tyson launched skyward, the wind rushing past as we soared over the far side of the mountain. Countless stars crowned the peaks of the snowy range.
It was a breathtaking sight, and the crisp mountain air, scented with winter blossoms, filled my lungs.
Mate is…everything. More than gold. The royal dragon struggled with human concepts. More than sky. A vulnerable pause. This feeling…humans call it love?
Yes, Killian answered, his patience thinning. What else?
Then I... love. Dragon loves MATE.
A grin spread across my face as I pressed against his warm, scaly side. And Barbie loves her dragon back.
Killian had not yet said those words to me. Perhaps I needed to remind him.
Tyson’s joyous roar thundered between the stars as we climbed higher. In this space, there was only the dragon, me, and the endless sky. The sound of his beating wings in the profound silence brought a serenity I rarely knew.
I flattened myself against his back, my arms clasping his neck like an anchor. Two heartbeats drummed beneath me, Killian’s human pulse and the dragon’s deeper rhythm. They beat in sync with my own, comforting me more than anything ever had, until a shot of terror pierced my chest.
What if my father silenced those precious heartbeats forever?
My grip tightened. No! I would never allow it.
I’d do anything in my power to protect my mates, even if it meant betraying their trust and doing what I must do, what I was born to do.
I wanted to stay with them like this forever, but we couldn’t always have what we wanted. I burned this moment with them into my memory.
Tyson sensed my distress and rumbled, his warmth seeping into my skin as a promise of his protection.
I need to be with my mate, Killian’s thought vibrated through our bond. Descend now. Can you not feel her shivering? You might be immune to the cold, but she is freezing!
She has MY HEAT. MY FIRE. Tyson snarled back. Yet he obeyed, diving toward a waterfall that fed a natural spring at the base of a white cliff.
The dragon angled his left wing gracefully, creating a smooth slope. I slid down directly into the spring, its heated waters embracing me.
Another splash followed, and Killian surfaced beside me, water streaming from his chest. He had come naked, his clothes likely incinerated by his impatient dragon’s magic.
This man, this demigod, was perfection from every angle. My gaze dipped to the defined abs that made every woman want to trace them with her tongue, and I was the only woman who got to do that.
The dragon tattoo coiled around his chest and upper arm, its scales seeming to shift in the starlight. His cock jutted between his powerful thighs, massive, hard, and proud. I licked my lips involuntarily.
“You’re very naked, Killian.”
“And you’re observant,” he purred, prowling closer. “Now I have you all to myself, little scorpion. What am I going to do with you?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I said in a low purr. “Or show me.”
He began to remove the armor Sy had created for me after we left the volcano.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you alone like this, all naked and all mine?” he asked, his storm-blue eyes darkening with a lust that quickened my pulse.
I grinned. “You always want to get me naked.”
“When you were gone, I dreamed of having you beneath me, of being deep inside you and making you scream my name until the whole realm knows who you belong to.”
“You don’t need to make me scream since everyone now knows I belong to you,” I said. “However, you should roar my name more often, so the whole realm will know whom you belong to as well.”
It’ll be done, the dragon promised.
Killian chuckled and tore away the armor from my shoulder and breast. His touch sent electricity racing up my arms, heat gathering in my belly.
He suddenly stopped, his gaze fixed on the mark of Heaven’s Arrow between my breasts. The imprint pulsed with a cold light against my skin. So Killian could see it as well.
“What the fuck is this?” he asked, deceivingly calm.
The dragon held his breath too, poised to unleash his own tempest.
“Heaven’s Arrow,” I said. “Sy explained it to everyone. I used it to separate us.”
A storm wheeled in his deep blue eyes.
“It had to be done,” I added, skipping the part about the agony of being burned alive and reborn in the inferno.
Killian swallowed hard and pulled me into his arms, holding me so tightly it felt like he was trying to shield me with his own body.
“I am sorry I couldn’t reach you in time, not even through dream walking,” he said, fury and pain searing his eyes. “We were planning to storm the Underworld, and then you came back to me. I should never have let you suffer alone, little scorpion.”
“It’s over. It’s in the past now,” I said, brushing the tattoo of the arrow.
“Now it’s just a harmless mark.” It was more than that, but I did not want to worry him with the whole truth.
I combed his hair with my fingers to soothe him, and he leaned into my touch.
“But if you want to do me a favor, do not call me scorpion. It gives me a bad reputation. You can call me something badass, like ‘Sharp Knife’ or ‘Amazing Blade.’”
He lifted his head and laughed. “Both are terrible nicknames.”
“But isn’t Cassius’s call sign ‘Silent Blade’?” I argued.
“No one dares to call him that to his face except you,” he said. “And a few items are missing from his room, including a valuable bottle of wine, a set of vintage candles, and rare gold coins. He knows who took them.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Then he should take it up with the house magic. I bet he’d fall on his tight butt if he tried, Silent Blade or not!”
I wouldn’t tell anyone else about the chaos magic that kept me well supplied, but this was Killian, and the house magic, though independent, belonged to his house.
He shook his head and chuckled.
“Well, that’s that then. But you’ll always be my little scorpion.”
With that, he tore away the rest of my armor, and I helped, since some of the clasps had literally melted.
His large hand cupped my breast, sending liquid fire straight to my core. I moaned and arched into his touch.
“I feared nothing before I met you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion he rarely let anyone see.
He was cold ice before I barged into his world, and I had no regrets.
“Fear of losing you nearly undid me. If I lost you…I’d never come back from it.
” His dragon growled as the same fear radiated through the bond.
“When that fucking vortex took you and I couldn’t reach you… ”
“Shush, Killian. I’m here now. I’m yours,” I said, and I crushed my mouth to his, pouring all my longing, passion, and need into the kiss.
This was not like the declaration in the throne room, witnessed by the entire chaos court after he had dethroned his father. This was just us, bare and raw and loyal to each other.
No secrets.
Well, perhaps one.
He growled with equal hunger, his lips moving against mine with reverence, relishing me as if for the first time.
His tongue urged me to let him in, and I parted my lips. He deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with mine in a dominant dance that left me breathless and sent a rush of heat straight to my core.
My breasts pressed against his hard chest, the feeling of skin on skin making me gasp.
We had not been apart for long, but every second without him had felt like an eternity of ache.
I could not imagine another moment away from him, yet my fate was already sealed.
I shuddered, pushing the gloom away. I would not let it ruin this.
Killian groaned, equally affected. The mating marks on our wrists pulsed together, two golden half-circles that completed each other.
“Mine,” he said against my lips, pulling back just enough to cup my breast and let me catch my breath. His thumb brushed over my peaked nipple. “Beautiful. So fucking beautiful.”
“Sy got so offended the last time you said that.” I smirked. “She insists she is the most beautiful, since Rowan told her so.”
“Rowan is a fucking liar,” Killian said. “He would say anything to get into your sister’s pants.”
“It’s more than that,” I protested on Rowan’s behalf. “You know it is.”
“Let’s not talk about another man,” he said. “I doubt he and Sy are talking about us now.”
But I was sure Sy would bring me up. She always did.
“You’re still you, but you’re also different in a way,” Killian said.
One arm wrapped around me, anchoring me, while his other hand traced a path down from my breast toward the valley between my thighs, leaving sparks of fire in its wake.
“Your power feels rawer, more dangerous, little scorpion. The separation from Sy shifted something in you. I saw it the moment you appeared in the chaos court. I never had the chance to comfort you or shield you from the pain and the trauma. How do you feel? You can lean on me.”
“You know I don’t need coddling,” I said.
“There are no words for the agony of the separation, but it was necessary. Sy and I are fine.” Then a sudden doubt took hold, and I narrowed my eyes.
“Are you the kind of man who likes having two women at once? You may have just fucked me, but Sy was always there.”