Chapter 9
I am getting updates from Igliana, Wreylith spoke into Syla’s mind as she leaned against Vorik, returning his kiss while he stroked her hair. She longed to do more with him. Much more.
Could she? She’d told Fel and the major that she would be in here interrogating Vorik, something that might take hours. That dishonesty disturbed her but not as much as the thought of an exuberant stormer-hating military officer actually interrogating him. With knives, not hydra-scale powder.
Eventually, her people would check on her, but the threat of succumbing to Candles of Serenity ought to keep them away for a time. She could have a few hours with Vorik. She was sure of it.
But what would she say when she didn’t walk out with any information? She needed to find those shielder components, and someone who knew their location stood in her arms, kissing her and making her forget that need.
Drugging and questioning him would be a poor way to reward him for saving her life—again—but wouldn’t it be a betrayal to her people not to learn everything she could from him? The fleet had driven the stormers away from the harbor but not the entire island. The Kingdom was far from safe.
As you may have observed, Wreylith continued as Syla enjoyed kissing Vorik while mentally wrestling with herself, the Freeborn Faction dragons are resting on this end of the island, within range of the weapons platform.
They’ve informed me that the stormer dragons are perching and scheming on the other end of the island, occasionally slinging telepathic threats at them.
Meanwhile, Igliana and one of her kin have been scouting the rest of your island chain, suspecting your enemies are up to something else.
Are they? Syla slid her hands over Vorik’s shoulders as he trailed his down her arms, fingers grazing her waist through her dress, waking her nerves—her entire body.
Though he stood in shackles, there was nothing prisoner-like about him. No, he radiated the power of a great predator, as he always did, danger coiled beneath the calm. He could flex his magically enhanced muscles and break those shackles at any moment.
The stormers, Wreylith said, were in the process of bringing many more dragons to the Island of Eliok—or perhaps another destination within the Kingdom—when they saw your ships and attacked.
I assumed their scouts relayed to them that we were coming with the weapons platform, and that was why they sent reinforcements.
A dragon would not be able to speak telepathically all the way from here to either of the mainlands. A scout would have had to fly much of the way there before sharing that information, and then numerous wings of dragons would need to have been gathered and fly all the way back to the islands.
Something that would have taken longer than our sailing from Castle to Harbor Island. Syla assumed that was what Wreylith was saying. Jhiton and his squadrons had been heading this way before they’d known the weapons platform was on the move.
Yes. They were prepared for another incursion.
They may simply have intended to bolster their forces here. I’m sure they’d heard about the weapons platform. But would they have guessed that she would carry it to another island on a ship? She was less certain about that.
Vorik’s hand brushed the side of her breast, and a zing of pleasure swept through her body.
Syla didn’t want to be ungrateful to her dragon ally, but couldn’t she have a couple of hours before musing about what the stormers were up to?
As Vorik’s capable hands stroked her, one sliding past her hip and down her thigh to lift the hem of her dress and graze bare skin, thoughts of enemy plots slipped from her mind.
Two dragons have left the western end of the Island of Eliok, Wreylith said.
Syla didn’t answer. She was too busy relishing the feel of Vorik’s warm calloused hand trailing up her thigh and the delicious taste of his lips against hers, teasing, stroking, nibbling. Eyes of the moon, that was arousing.
He lifted his arms over her head long enough to pick up the key to his shackles.
With scarcely a pause in their kissing, he unlocked himself.
Maybe she should have second-guessed her decision to give him the key, but she didn’t.
She wanted him to be unrestrained, fully capable of using his hands to touch her.
“I was waiting for you to break those,” she murmured.
“You kept the key and even pushed it toward me. I assumed you wanted me to use it, not rudely destroy another set of shackles.”
“Seeing you rudely destroy the first was kind of…”
“Hot?” Vorik smirked and flexed his muscles.
“A little.”
“I can break something else for you later, if you wish.” Wrists free, he lifted his hands to either side of her face, tracing her jaw as he lowered his mouth to kiss her again.
Yes, that was wonderful, and she leaned forward, enjoying his touch, his taste, and not saying anything else to Wreylith.
Even if Syla hadn’t wanted to spend this time with Vorik, what could she have done about the comings and goings of enemy dragons?
Fly over and try to scout with Wreylith?
That hadn’t gone well the last time. Besides, her people were collecting refugees from Hazel Harbor.
They would need time before the fleet could go anywhere else, and she didn’t even know where she would go.
If she left with the weapons platform, the dragons would return.
And until she knew where the shielder components were, she couldn’t venture off to collect them.
“We have to be quiet,” she whispered even as stimulating sensations swept through her body. Already, she wanted to groan her pleasure. “I’m interrogating you.”
Vorik’s eyes gleamed with humor as he stroked her. “I understand.”
Syla slid her hands down his chest to the hem of his shirt, pushing it up so she could run her fingers over his muscled abdomen.
He obliged her by pausing his ministrations long enough to tug the garment over his head and toss it onto the desk.
She reveled in his taut contours as she traced her fingers over them, nails brushing him, raising gooseflesh on his skin as he shifted into her touch.
The lamplight and shadows created hills and valleys out of his musculature, and the urge to explore that terrain with her tongue swept over her.
Anticipation and heat coiled within her, and, lips leaving his, she brought her mouth lower.
Tongue venturing out, she tasted the curve of his pectoral, aroused by exploring his lithe athletic form.
She remembered him fighting on the deck, striking with lightning-fast power as he deflected Lesva’s attacks while keeping the captain from reaching Syla. Everyone aboard would have happily shot him, but he’d been fearless, defying his people’s wishes on her behalf.
And now he was here with her, breathing in her scent and stroking her as she explored his body. He leaned into her tastes, her touches, as if he wanted nothing more than to be with her.
Maybe she should have been plotting and scheming and trying to wheedle information out of him, but she hated the idea of betraying him.
She wanted to support him and to appreciate him, not to trick him into revealing anything he held dear.
It was the wrong choice for her people and her kingdom, but she couldn’t do anything else.
Not with Vorik. He deserved to be more than a prisoner, to be honored as the loyal warrior he was and that she longed to be with.
“Syla,” Vorik whispered hoarsely as her tongue trailed lower, and she reached for his belt.
She dropped to her knees, and he kneaded her shoulders, her neck, and her scalp, his deft fingers lighting her nerves on fire, awakening pleasure in her whole body. Pleasure and anticipation.
As she unfastened his belt and lowered his trousers, she looked up at his face and caught lust burning in his eyes.
When she brought her lips to his hard cock, his head lolled back, taut abdomen flexing.
She ran one hand over the ridges of his muscles, nails scraping to arouse his pleasure, then curled the other around his shaft to hold him as she kissed along its length.
“Syla,” Vorik said again, a groan of desire this time.
“Quiet,” she murmured even as she teased him with her lips and grew more aroused herself.
Hearing her name spoken with such feeling and need excited her, and she slid her mouth around his shaft, tongue stroking and teeth grazing ever so lightly as she took him in and out.
He stiffened, almost thrusting into her, but he made himself stand still, desire and tension radiating from him.
Holding and touching him aroused her, as did his taste, his heady scent.
Feeling her own need building, she quickened her pace.
Vorik looked down at her again, drinking her in as she worked him, and he kept rubbing her scalp, the hot tingles driving down to her core, intensifying her desire even as she focused on pleasing him.
Just being near him always made her long for him, and being able to stroke him and taste him…
it made her hot and wet with desire of her own.
She envisioned him lifting her and striding to the bed, pinning her down and plunging deeply into her to satisfy her.
She almost begged him to do exactly that.
But he liked this. His body quivered as his need built, and his breathing quickened as his hands lowered to grip her shoulders. She smiled around his cock, satisfied that she could affect him so.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he said at one point, his words almost pants.
Mouth full, she mumbled an agreement but didn’t stop. Later, they could amend her clothing situation, but now…