Chapter 25 #2
“You only get one truth, Delilah,” he said dismissively. “Fuck the game, Titus, and tell me why!” I demanded.
“Why what, Delilah?!” he snapped, voice echoing down the cave system.
“Why did you want to kill your best friend when you thought he was raping me, and murder your own sister for trying to poison me?” I fired back.
“Why do you call me names and make sure I sit far away from you? You say the most awful, degrading things to me, and yet the way you touched me when you healed me… it felt like—”
I stopped. Doubt grabbed my tongue and made me choke on my own insanity.
“Like what?” he asked, low, stepping closer.
If he’d had his magic, flames would’ve been gathering on his shoulders. My directness agitated him. His tone sounded like anger, but I could see through it.
It wasn’t anger.
It was vulnerability.
“Act like you feel something for me!” I shouted; my eyes locked fiercely on his.
“Because I fucking do,” he confessed, raw and aggravated. “You do… what?” I asked, frustration in my tone.
“Say it,” I demanded. “No more games, Titus. I need the truth.”
The next thing I knew, he grabbed my arms and pressed his mouth to mine with the force of a starving animal.
His lips were warm and wet.
His hand slid behind my head and pulled me closer. His tongue plunged deep into my mouth. Even on my tiptoes, our height difference was too much—so he lowered, hands catching the backs of my knees.
I jumped into his lap, wrapping my legs around his thick, muscular frame.
He turned us and pinned me to the cave wall, thrusting against me like he had that glorious night in the lounge.
I moaned into his mouth, and he bit my lower lip gently yet possessive.
My fingers threaded into his beautiful wavy red-brown hair and tugged his head back so I could lick his neck. He let out a satisfied groan that made the cavern vibrate.
My boots crunched gravel as he lowered me and squeezed my breasts. He pinched my nipples—firm, then soft—teasing me with extremes until a fire built within me.
I wanted him physically, yes… but I could have had that at any point.
I wanted his affection. His admiration. His kindness.
His hands were rough from years on dragon-back, and the abrasiveness added another layer of sensation against my delicate skin.
His hand slipped beneath the band of my leggings. His fingertips found the warmth between my thighs, and I knew he realized how badly I’d been aching for his touch.
“Fuuuck,” he groaned. “You are so wet for me, princess.”
He thumbed my most sensitive spot in the way only a Fae High Lord could. A way that made me see stars deep underground.
Of course the Lord of Flame had unnaturally warm hands. His heat made me melt.
Then he dipped a finger inside me, the most delightful stretch. The friction I’d been aching for made my body sing.
“Fuck, princess.” He grinned, devilish. “Your human pussy is far too tight for me. There is no way I am going to fit.”
With his finger coated in my glistening need, he trailed up, parting my swollen flesh to my center, and then he rubbed gentle circles.
Every muscle in my body contracted and shuddered in agonizing bliss.
He repeated it—back to my opening, plunging in again—until, in a breathy, needy voice, I pleaded, “I need more.”
He chuckled darkly. “Good girl.”
He drove a second finger in and began a hooking motion that filled me with icy heat. The sudden stretch pulled a sound from me— equal parts yelp and moan.
His hands were better than any toy: warm, strong, large, and skilled. He moved like he wanted my soul to leave my body.
He increased the speed and intensity, and a hot internal pressure began to build and climb.
Then without warning, a third finger pressed in, and this time my cry was more yelp than moan.
“Good fucking girl,” he muttered. “You’re getting so close to being able to take my cock.”
The stretch sent sweet pain twisting with pleasure until I couldn’t untangle it—I only understood ecstasy.
He pumped harder and devoured my mouth, my moans swallowed by his kiss. My pelvis tightened; the pressure climbed to an unstable high. Then he spoke.
“The moment I met you and inhaled your scent,” he confessed against my lips, “I wanted to fuck you. That is my truth.”
He thrust his fingers harder. Everything about him, his words, his touch, his scent, his sounds made the pressure climb impossibly higher.
“Titus,” I moaned, approaching my pinnacle.
“And falling for you,” his lips grazed my ear, “when I know I shouldn’t…” His breath tickled my skin. “That is my dare.”
The low vibration of his voice, the filth of his words, sent me right over the fucking edge.
I drenched his hand in a sweet release.
My body convulsed, and my cries, more scream than moan, blared into the dark caverns, echoing his name down every level of the mine.
Suddenly, the ground beneath us trembled. Dirt and rocks fell around us, pelting our backs.
Reality ripped us out of our daze. His hand yanked free and covered my head.
“Get down!” he shouted, and we hit the ground. When the shaking stopped, we were still alive, and the cave still stood, remaining intact.
When the dust settled, Titus looked around—unnerved. “What was that?” I whispered, terrified.
“I don’t know,” he said, voice full of trepidation. “But let’s find the crystals and get the fuck out of here.”
I could tell Titus was far more nervous without his magic. We agreed and hightailed it down the sloping path.
We made it to the bottom-most layer of the mine. A small bioluminescent blue stream pooled across the ground, illuminating the chamber. The trickle echoed from the impossible height overhead.
We searched, but neither of us found anything remotely spherical—let alone melon-sized. So I explored a dark nook off one of the main alcoves. Half sunken in dirt, I spotted three sphere-shaped rocks.
I wiped one with my sweaty hand, still flushed from the earth-shattering orgasm Titus had just given me. Beneath the filth, a crystalline blue sphere lay hidden. “Titus! I think I found them!” I shouted.
He rushed over.
“They fit the description,” he said, relief in his tone. “Great job, Delilah.”
We locked eyes, and the moment felt odd and foreign. His praise caught me off guard, simple kindness I wasn’t used to receiving from him.
The look on his face said he felt it too.
His hand grazed mine as he picked up two melon-sized crystals. I carried the last one.
We turned to exit the cavern, and the ground trembled again—this time far, far worse.
The ceiling and walls cracked. Chunks fell. Dust swept up, stinging my eyes.
We ran.
The very real possibility of being trapped or buried down here forever made my pulse surge.
“Hurry—this way!” he shouted ahead of me.
Then my body went paralyzed with fear at the most nightmarish roar. Deafening. Like an avalanche of train cars.
My ears rang. I coughed violently through the dust, still clutching the crystal.
Just beside the opening where we had entered, a massive object tore itself free from a jagged rock wall.
Out of the darkness, a giant dragon made of sharp rock for scales took form.
“Delilah, RUN!” Titus shouted. It charged.
We fled—only getting a short distance before it cornered us in an alcove.
A Lithovore.
The crunching roar echoed through the entire mine.
The beast was a thing of nightmares—its body a brutal mosaic of obsidian-like rock and raw, unrefined ore. It was so colossal it nearly filled the entire chamber.
A plume of hot, sulfurous vapor hissed from fissures in its chest. The steam blistered my skin.
It stared at us with recessed geode eyes as it approached. “Uh, Titus… do something!” I cried frantically.
“I don’t have any power down here, remember?!” he barked.
The Lithovore looked at the crystals in our arms and roared again. This time, it made my ears bleed.
I couldn’t hear Titus well over the ringing, but I could read his lips: "But you do."
“What? No, I don’t. I’m just a weak, pathetic mortal, remember?” I shot back, shaking my head.
The ringing sharpened like a knife, then suddenly eased, and I heard him clearly.
“Delilah, listen to me. I need you to trust me. Try to communicate with the Lithovore. I know you can. I believe in you.”
“No!” I panicked. “I can’t, Titus. I’m not even sure that’s a dragon!”
“It is,” he insisted. “And you can. Your ability—it isn’t of this realm. This mine won’t affect you like it does me. I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“No shit!” I spat back.
“You are more powerful than you know.” His confession sounded almost remorseful.
I took a deep breath.
I reminded myself I’d been living on borrowed time for a while. I’d been ready to die many times.
So, if today was the day, then so be it. I would not die a coward.
I would not die afraid. I would not die weak.
The last thing I felt in this life would not be fear.
With bravery I didn’t know I had, I reached my hand toward the Lithovore.
A familiar tingling prickled my palm.
I placed my shaky hand against the cold rocky surface of its body.
To my surprise, the beast allowed it. And in my mind, I heard her voice:
Lithovore: Return my eggs!
Steam blew from the cracks in her body. “Eggs?” I said aloud.
Titus’s brows pinched together in confusion as he studied the spheres in his arms.
Lithovore: Yes. Those are my last three eggs!
She rumbled, threatening.
Lithovore: I am the last of my kind. Return them, or I will be forced to end your life!
It didn’t make sense. If I could communicate with dragons, why didn’t I sense life in these eggs?
When I touch a dragon, my palm tingles, it’s how I sense their life force.
It's a current of some kind that allows telepathic communication.
But when I pressed my hand to the eggs, there was nothing—no current, no pulse, no living energy within the shells.
I looked around the cavern, then back to the Lithovore, and it clicked.
She was the last of her kind, so these “eggs” must have been unfertilized and over time, crystallized. The Fae had mined them for magic and mistaken them for rare stones because like Titus, they probably thought Lithovores to be myth.
She wasn’t a monster. She was a mother.
She was protecting her last three eggs. I filled Titus in on my revelation.
“But if they would never hatch,” he whispered, “why protect them?”
“I don’t think she knows,” I whispered back. “I think being down here alone for so long has… confused her.”
All this time, the Fae had been taking her unfertilized eggs, leaving only three behind.
If we were going to get out alive, I needed to play into her delusion without setting her off.
She needed to believe they would still hatch. That she wouldn’t be alone.
My heart broke for her. It had been hope that kept her alive all these years. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a false hope.
Think, Delilah. Think.
I thought back to my first encounter with Draxxinar—how I’d fed his ego, and he decided he loved me for it.
So, what could I say to a mother dragon?
I didn’t know the first thing about being a mother, because I never really had one.
But I knew this: if I were a mother, I’d be proud of every little thing my child did.
I spoke out loud so Titus could follow.
“Your eggs are beautiful,” I said kindly. “Eggs this exquisite shouldn’t be dirty.”
The Lithovore’s head tilted. Her posture softened.
“My name is Delilah,” I continued. “And I would like to do something kind for you. I want to take your eggs to that pool over there and clean them, because eggs this beautiful deserve to shine.”
Titus stared at me with wide, worried eyes. Then her voice slid through my mind again.
Lithovore: And then you will return them, unharmed?
I scrambled for the truth stone in my pocket and held it up. I sensed she recognized it by the way she relaxed.
“We will carry your eggs to the pool in the alcove you can’t reach,” I promised, truth-stone steady in my hand. “We will clean them, and then return all three eggs to you right after. Unharmed. Would that be alright?”
She hesitated… then nodded.
Steam vented from her chest cracks again. We flinched at the heat.
Titus and I hurried to the alcove with the bioluminescent blue water. Her body was too massive to access it, which meant we were safe for a moment.
He whispered, “So we’re going to take them and run, right?
That’s the plan?”
“No,” I said calmly. “We’re going to give her the eggs back.”
“What?!” he hissed. “I did not come all this way and—” “The crystals multiply,” I cut in. “Do they not?”
His eyes lit as he understood. A hint of pride flickered there.
“Indeed, they do,” he said, grinning, admiration tugging at my heart.
We submerged the crystallized eggs in the glowing water until they shone.
He held one in both hands, touched it to another, and it began to glow.
“Multiply by three,” he commanded. Three new, identical crystal eggs appeared.
We quickly loaded the new eggs into our packs and returned the originals to the Lithovore.
Lithovore: My eggs. My babies. They are beautiful.
Her voice softened.
Lithovore: Thank you. You have a pure soul, Delilah. I knew I could trust the child made of ancient blood.
Because of your kindness, I will let you live. Now leave my nest and never return.
Ancient blood? What did that mean?
The Lithovore gently carried the eggs away in her mouth and retreated into the ancient darkness from which she came.
Titus and I ran—and did not stop until we were all the way back up top just in case she changed her mind.