Chapter 11 #2
This time, I’m the one who almost gasps. Biting my bottom lip, I manage to suppress it. Draven’s gaze flits down to my lips, and that dark fire of lust fights with the hatred in his eyes. Lying on his back underneath me, he drags in a deep breath and flexes his hand.
I deliberately let the moment stretch before I finally close my eyes and start trying to figure out how to open the gates to the flow of my magic and release my grip on it.
Since I’m not sure what to do, I just begin by reaching for my magic. I can feel it there inside me, flowing through my body. On a whim, I try to visualize a pair of doors opening in my chest.
It doesn’t work.
I try to visualize the door somewhere between my mouth and my chest instead.
A soft breath escapes me when a feeling of openness washes over me.
“Can you stop breathing on me?” Draven huffs. “It’s distracting.”
With my eyes still closed, I keep the mental image of the open door while answering, “No, unfortunately I do need to breathe in order to remain conscious.”
He mutters something under his breath, and every word caresses my lips. It makes my heart flutter. Suddenly, I realize what he meant by distracting. But I don’t pull back. Instead, I imagine myself holding my magic in my hand inside of me and then unclenching my fingers so that my palm is open.
A sudden feeling of detachment ripples through me.
I grin.
“Would you hurry it up,” Draven complains. “You—”
I crush my lips against his and breathe out.
Magic pours out of me like a flood.
Draven gasps.
Keeping the gates open, I let my magic flow into Draven’s body. I don’t know how much it will take to heal wounds like that, so I continue to give him more while I move one of my hands from the ground to instead rest on his cheek.
A dark moan comes from deep within his chest.
Then his hands are suddenly in my hair as he abruptly sits up.
The sudden move surprises me so much that I break the connection to my magic, but Draven doesn’t appear to notice.
With me now straddling his lap instead, he curls his fingers in my hair and tilts my head back while his lips at last respond to mine.
Fire flickers through my veins as Draven kisses me back with such furious desperation that I forget how to breathe. His lips ravage mine. Hungrily. Desperately. As if he’s starving for my touch. For the feeling of my mouth on his.
I roll my hips and slide my hand down to the back of his neck.
Another dark moan rumbles from his throat.
My heart pounds as he dominates my mouth. The desperate, furious passion in every kiss makes me lightheaded, and I hold on to his muscular body as I kiss him back with every ounce of my soul.
And my chest thrums.
No. Not my chest.
The mate bond inside me is thrumming. Vibrating in tune with my pounding heart. And through it, I can feel… him.
I can feel the burning lust. The desperate hunger. The confused craving. And the searing hatred. All of it mixed into a raging inferno.
Draven shoves me back.
Disoriented, I topple to the side as he practically throws me off his lap.
The sudden end to the kiss and the loss of his lips against mine and the way our mate bond abruptly cuts off again, which happen all at the same time, are so jarring that I actually gasp.
Blinking repeatedly, I try to get my mind to focus again as I push myself up from the ground.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” Draven demands. Panic and desperation lace his voice, and his eyes are wild as he stares me down.
I look up as I get my body into a sitting position. Draven is already on his feet. His powerful body is now completely healed, and his muscles shift as he raises his arms and rakes both hands through his hair while he towers over me.
“I could feel you,” he continues, his voice still edged with panic, as he holds my gaze with wide eyes. “I could feel… what you feel.”
A surge of hope washes through me.
The mate bond.
It was trying to rebuild.
Backing away, Draven shakes his head at me in what looks like both disbelief and warning. “Stay the fuck out of my head.”
Before I can reply, he turns around and rips off the scraps of my shirt right before he shifts into a half-shift, which also engages the magic in his bracers.
His black dragon scale armor returns to his body with a small puff of black smoke, and his now fully healed wings rustle restlessly on either side of him.
Without another look back, he stalks out of the cave while raking his hands through his hair again.
Still sitting there on the cold stone ground, I stare after him for a few moments. Exhaustion tugs at my body after being drained of so much magic, but I can barely feel it. Because I can still feel Draven’s mouth on mine. Lifting a hand, I brush my fingers over my now thoroughly kissed lips.
Draven still hates me. I could feel that massive flame burning mercilessly in his chest when our mate bond briefly reconnected. But by Mabona, it reconnected! Even if it was only for a few short seconds, it was there. I felt him. And he felt me.
That tiny speck of hope that flickers in the dark ocean inside me grows a little stronger, and I dare a small smile. I will find a way to fix this. I will find a way to get him back.
I climb to my feet with a renewed sense of determination.
After getting dressed, I stride out of the cave and join the rest of my companions again.
To no one’s surprise, Draven and Orion are arguing.
Again.
“I’ve already told you,” Draven says, hard eyes locked on the Unseelie King. “I don’t want to carry any of you.”
“Tough luck, you brooding beast,” Orion replies with a vicious smile.
“Grey doesn’t know where we are. So we either fly all the way back to my court and then portal back from there.
Or we just fly straight to the Purple Dragon Clan’s homeland.
Which, as I’ve already pointed out, is much closer than my court. ”
“Stop calling me brooding beast.”
“Stop calling me preening princeling.”
“Stop arguing,” Isera snaps, cutting them both off. “Or I swear to Mabona, I will kill you both myself.”
Draven cuts her a look. “You’re one to talk. All you and he ever do is argue.”
“Like you and Selena,” Orion interjects with a pointed look at Draven.
“Like you and him,” Isera snipes back at the Unseelie King.
I heave a deep sigh.
This is going to be a long day.