Bonus Epilogue
Bonus Epilogue
Maxim
When I wake, it is nearly dawn.
And we are no longer dragon.
Vasili and I are sprawled in a snarl of cum-splashed furs in our special cave, beside the steaming warmth of the volcanic spring. Milky light streams through the jagged entrance to lap at our tangled forms.
Every limb in my body is heavy with a drugging fatigue. The repeated friction of Vasili’s genital slit (and, later, every orifice he possesses in human form) has rubbed my spent shaft until I am raw. The dull throb of his mating bite brackets my throat in a crescent of pain.
Still, I have never felt so sated.
Or so content.
I manage to raise a heavy arm just enough to push a swath of gilded hair away from my mate’s sleeping face.
At the first touch, one eyelid lifts to reveal the suspicious ice-blue slit of Vasili Romanov’s basilisk stare.
I will never say this to him, but he looks like I feel. Purple shadows rim his arctic eyes. His mouth is puffy and swollen from the savage onslaught of my kisses. His narrow jaw is dusted with a diamond glitter of stubble.
Even the sinuous line of his naked hip is dotted with tiny finger bruises from the savage way I gripped him, during the night’s final joining, when I pounded into his—
“If I’m bruised, you brute, whose fault do you imagine that is?” he snaps, sharp with spite.
With a start, I realize this warlock can now hear my thoughts. My hand moves guiltily to the mating bite at my throat.
“You were not unwilling,” I rasp through my sleep-clogged larynx. “By that point.”
“Is that so.” Both glacial eyes flash open to survey me coldly, head to toe.
As I am full shifter, the various scratches and nips and contusions from our violent mating that decorated my body last night have already healed.
Except for his mating bite, which aches so abominably—
With an impatient huff, he brushes my hand aside and leans in to nuzzle the wound. Delicate as a kitten, he licks at the half-moon bite. Soothed by the biochemicals in his part-shifter saliva, my lingering ache recedes. Slowly the tension drains from my body.
Vasili is tending my bite like a proper alpha.
My alpha.
That thought is so strange to me.
Until now, I have always considered myself to be his alpha. Surely, after last night, that dynamic will not be changing anytime soon.
While my hand rises to cradle his gilded head and stroke his silky hair, encouraging him to prolong these sweet attentions, I ruminate comfortably over our clutch of eggs. I wonder how much time his dragon will require to incubate our dragonets before they—
Without warning, V’s wandering fingers find my pierced nipple and give my silver barbell a vicious twist that makes me yelp like a kicked puppy.
“For fuck’s sake!” His face snaps up from my bite to glare at me. “You’re insufferable. Stop feeling so self-congratulatory. In case you’ve missed it, darling, I don’t have a uterus.”
“No. But your dragon does,” I point out, eyes watering from the pain, and resist the urge to cover my abused nipple to protect it from his clutches. “Sweetheart, if you will only allow her… them… I am not certain of the pronoun you wish me to use for your dragon—”
“Refer to me as female, ever, and I’ll ensure you regret it.” He uncoils from the furs to rear over me like an Egyptian asp. “I identify as male in both forms. Are we clear?”
“Very well,” I say humbly. “It is for you to say. I was only trying to explain that I trust your dragon to keep our eggs safe.”
“Our eggs ? Sweet fuck. This breeding kink of yours is truly getting out of hand.” My mate still looks and sounds pissy.
But at least he stops looming over me and scrambles gracefully to his feet. “I hope that horny black beast of yours can still hoist himself aloft, Rasputin. Zara needs us this morning, in case you’ve forgotten. Our Academy suspension ends today, so we can finally start our fucking finals.”
Indignant, I push my heavy body up to sit. “What kind of insult are you trying to make? I can always fly—”
Without waiting for me to formulate a proper defense, Vasili levitates like a naked Tinkerbell and zips out of the cave into the blazing sunrise.
Scowling after the infuriating creature, I climb to my feet, extricate myself from the tangle of furs that reek of our mingled scents, and rake my tousled hair away from my face.
As I stalk to the cave mouth and peer into the crimson glory of the sun rising over the distant sea, my scowl slowly fades.
Instead, my sex-drained body tingles with an invigorating rush of anticipation for the coming fight.
I will never say these words aloud to him, but Vasili is right.
My Zara needs us.
Home.
Now.
My sovereign needs us at her side.
By the witching hour of noon, our entire polycule must return to the Icarus Academy, poised to embark on another hunt.
The hunt for the witching world crown.
In this affair, Vasili and I are one.
Like him, there is no place in this world I would rather be than at Zara’s side. Defending her. Loving her. Breeding her. And supporting her in her quest.
In this sacred mission, I swear, I will never fail her.
My sovereign has a crown to win, a rival to vanquish, and a queendom to claim.
As for Vasili, his genderqueer dragon, and those fertilized eggs of ours that dragon is surely carrying…
We will deal with that also.
Later.