11. Fight to Win
~ VOSKI ~
I’d known pleasure could be torment—but only for the purpose of delaying fulfillment. I’d never imagined it would make me wish for death.
This pleasure tortured me as surely as an enemy. And far more successfully.
I’d learned to endure pain. Discomfort. Privation.
I’d been warned and educated and tested.
I knew how to protect my mind against infiltration, and my heart against the despair borne of ruthless treatment.
I’d been prepared for the day I was uncovered by a foe and handed to someone determined to break me.
Yet, no one ever told me pleasure, desire, the need for another human being, could ignite such suffering.
I’d imagined a matebond as a thrilling, unique connection.
A unity. But never this all-consuming need, as if every stifled instinct, every curbed appetite, every swallowed word of the past awaited release, deep within me.
And now, the bond between the dragons had ripped down the walls I’d constructed to keep myself safe, and controlled, and human.
Leaving me bare.
Vulnerable.
Feral.
I was unequipped. And frightened of the creature that the gaping hole in my chest threatened to reveal.
Grace… Grace… Grace… Her name pulsed in my ears alongside my heartbeat until I wanted to scream it.
I’d felt her climax. Felt her wanting me. Felt her drawing closer.
I’d done everything I knew to deflect, to misdirect, to send a false trail. And still she’d found me. She was… inescapable.
No. No. Not her. The bond.
Her dragon, Koa, the feral female that had Chosen her—a mind-boggling miracle all on its own—was my dragon’s mate.
Men’s dragons had been bonding for centuries.
And though the link drew their Bonded Ones closer, I’d never heard of two dragon riders sucked into the bond.
Not in the same manner as the dragons themselves, with this consuming, undeniable hunger that threatened to strip sanity.
That was an animal’s instinct. Not a man’s.
Wrong, a tiny voice in the back of my head argued. There were signs. Clues.
Our Furyknight general, and Battle Commander, Donavyn Arsen—to whom I’d sworn allegiance—had suffered this. His dragon, the Primarch of our herd, had bonded the dragon of Bren, my squad sister, and the only known female dragon rider.
The only other female dragon rider, I reminded myself.
Holy shit.
Timid, proper, scheming little Lady Grace was a fucking dragon rider. She was Flameborne now. A trainee. She could become a Furyknight.
It was unfathomable.
I coughed with derision at myself, and shook my head, shook the sweat out of my eyes that continued to pour down my cheeks and back, turning my riding leathers into a slick cocoon.
Even though I hadn’t moved from this spot in over a day, I fought a battle as surely as any in war.
Even the few, blessed hours my body finally failed and I’d slipped into sleep, I was tortured by dreams of her, of needing her, of taking her, of fighting for her.
Of hunting her through the trees, dragging her to the clearing where the dragons coiled together, pinning her to the ground and—
The pang of hunger—for my mate’s body, not for food—was so acute, bile rose in my throat.
I wanted to weep. And that thought only disgusted me further.
Brute. Animal. Evil.
I was admired among my brothers. Promoted young, used to train men older than myself.
Inducted into the Shadowfang before my superior officer.
I’d proven my worth and determination, I’d been recognized, used as an asset, trusted.
And the whole fucking thing was about to crash down around me because I couldn’t keep my hands off a woman when her dragon was in heat.
A shiver of fear skated down my spine to join the tingling need that sent me pressing against the bonds I’d had the good sense to place on myself before I lost my mind completely.
What the fuck was happening to me?
‘You denigrate yourself, make yourself small, and resist the bond?’ my dragon sighed in my head.
‘Ignore me,’ I bit back at Kham. ‘Focus on your mate.’
‘My mate is grieved. She says you haven’t even told her Chosen your real name? You harm my mate by your rejection of her Bonded One.—’
‘Don’t start.’
‘—while I am forced to listen to you shatter your own mind to avoid facing the truth of your past.’
I spat a curse and shook my head. ‘Don’t!’
‘I am not your enemy, Voski.’
‘Then do as I say and enjoy your mate and shut me out. We’ll be over this in days. Her heat won’t last more than five days… right?’
I mentally begged him to tell me it would be less than that. A female dragonfury’s heat could last anywhere from four to seven days, though it tended to ease as the days wore on.
We were already more than a day into this. I could endure just a few more.
‘And what would you gain?’ Kham asked, shocked. ‘What would be added to you that outweighs the beauty and blessing of a divinely appointed mate?’
I scowled. But then a high, piercing blast sounded and my heart sank.
She was awake. Kham’s mate, Koa, was awake. Which meant, they’d return to their union—
Kham groaned, and his call echoed over the misty forest. He would take her again. I gritted my teeth and braced for the onslaught as his body began to respond to her warming scent, and his arousal and joy leaped in my chest.
A strangled cry broke in my throat as my belly clenched, and my body went taut.
God, would this never end?
‘You can end it in moments. She’s moments from you—’ Kham panted in the link as he crooned to his mate and drew his snout, nostrils flaring, from her shoulder, along her neck, his body quivering with the intensity of his desire, and heart swollen with love and admiration for the female that was made for him—
I did everything I could to shut him out of my head, to dampen the link—just to ease the drive. But I was weak. Exhausted. I had nothing left. And his want could burn stone.
He let me see and feel every last spark.
‘Kham… stop. Please.’
‘She is made for you. Designed for you. She is your One, and you would deny her?’
With a roar that shook the forest and sent me to my knees once more, Kham reared over his mate and took her, the two of them twining necks and tails, becoming one as God intended. And he let me see and feel every prickling, delicious sensation and—
I gulped at the air, heedless of anything but the sensations coursing through me—the unsated heat, the shriek of a soul left hollow, the aching space in my chest, the jangling pain in my belly because I’d denied my body the satisfaction and release it yearned for.
The pressure in my head was so intense, my skull ached, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
When he thrust into her, my vision blurred, and for a moment I feared I’d actually damaged myself in the fight to resist—until I heard the pat-pat-pat… and to my horror and embarrassment, realized there were tears falling from my eyes, dripping from my cheeks.
I hadn’t cried since I was twelve.
What the fuck is she doing to me? How the hell am I supposed to—
‘Your sentence is self-induced,’ Kham growled, his voice a strange mingling of anticipated satisfaction, eagerness for his mate, and disapproval of me. ‘Soldier you may be—man you cannot claim if you would deflect blame to one weaker than you.’
Those strange cries kept coming. I coughed, and sobbed, and fought the bonds that were now so tight on my wrists, my hands went numb.
I couldn’t injure myself. I would still have a job to do when this was done.
As Kham reveled in his mate, I groaned with pure despair and tried to slam that door closed in my mind.
But though the channel between us narrowed, and the sense of him was dampened a hair.
It wasn’t enough. I had no strength left.
I could still feel him. Still sense him. Still hear him if I let myself.
But I wouldn’t let myself. I couldn’t.
‘You can.’
‘I can’t, Kham. Please… you know… don’t ask me to—’
‘The Creator brought you a female. The female. Your One. And you would abandon her to another?’
I snarled in response to the irate indignation that rose in him as he fought the very idea, taking his mate with frantic joy, screaming, and his voice echoed for miles.
Writhing against the leather straps that held me in place, I shook my head, shook him off, my body trembling in protest of my own burning skin and aching need.
‘I’m not abandoning her! I’m leaving her free! She’s a fucking noble! She’s innocent and inexperienced and unequipped for any man—least of all me!’
‘And unprepared for your rejection,’ he shot back.
I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached. ‘You and I both know, in a few days, she’ll thank me. When she realizes what I fought to avoid. For her.’
‘Voski, you are not—’
‘You told me that, Kham. You told me a mate should be protected. And upheld. And sacrificed for.’
‘Yes—not tormented by your pride!’
‘Pride? How is this pride?’
‘You reject her to avoid revealing yourself.’
A strange, hacking laugh started in my chest and coughed out into the forest. Again and again. I sounded like a madman, but I couldn’t stop it. ‘Pride? You think that’s pride?!’
‘Voski…’ his tone was dark with warning.
I shook my head and laughed again. ‘This isn’t pride, Kham. This is leadership. I’m making choices for her good.’
‘You make choices to soothe your own fear. It will lead both of you nowhere good.’
Then, before I could answer, he lifted his head and screamed, leaving me to lie in the dirt, laughing like a crazy-person, while he wallowed in the pleasure of his mate.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until I had no energy left for laughing.
I couldn’t make any sound at all.
I counted the heartbeats and tried to calculate how many it would take to reach the end of these torturous days.
The problem was, I wasn’t sure I could count that high.