Chapter 11
Magma
I hold her close.
She’s shaking against me; her sobs wet against my chest.
“I’ve got you, Carla,” I murmur again. “You’re safe now. He’s dead. He can’t hurt you.”
She burrows in deeper. Her scent floods me. It’s sweet like ripe berries with hints of vanilla. She smells fucking delicious. I pull in another lungful before I realize what I’m doing, my nose dropping toward her hair.
I stop myself, because what the hell!?
She’s practically naked and plastered against me. Her breasts are mashed against my chest with only a scrap of lace between her skin and mine. I feel the soft give of them every time she pulls in a breath.
My dragon stirs.
Fuck!
He uncoils inside me, slow and deliberate, and pushes up against the inside of my skin, and what he wants comes through crystal clear.
Take her. Now!
Mine.
He thinks we won her in the battle and that she is now ours for the taking. I gently push Carla away from me, patting her on the side of the arm twice before letting her go.
My dragon can go right to hell.
I stand there with my hands at my sides, staring at a point somewhere over her head, because I cannot look at her and I cannot explain what just moved through me.
I haven’t felt anything like this since my mate died years ago.
My beast has never so much as lifted his head for a female since. Not once.
My dragon is back, and he’s making it known.
Pity about the timing. I am also going to blame it on this fucked-up situation.
It’s a combination of things, and that’s all.
He’s been caged by those drugs for so long, and now he’s free, and there’s blood in the air and a female pressed against us.
He doesn’t know what to do with himself.
His blood is fired after the fight. His instincts are all riled up.
I know that has to be it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “We need to get going.”
I keep my gaze pinned on the trees behind her. I’m trying hard not to look at her tits encased in soft pink lace. Her underwear is so sheer it may as well not be there. Her nipples are dark through the fabric, and the shadow of hair between her legs is visible through the lace of her panties.
My balls pull tight.
Fuck. No. Stop!
Shit. I can’t do this. No! I will my dick to stay down. To stay flaccid. This is the last thing this female needs.
I drag in a deep breath, trying to get a hold of myself, and that turns out to be the dumbest thing I’ve done all day because all I get is another nose full of her.
Fuuuuck!
She’s just been through an ordeal, and here I am getting turned on. I’m an asshole. A huge asshole. The biggest there is.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because once isn’t enough for what’s going on in my head right now. “Forgive me.”
“Why? You saved my life.” Her voice is small, but it’s steady. “I’m grateful, Magma. I don’t even have words for how grateful I am.”
My dragon wants me to put her on her knees and to rip her underwear off. It makes me just as bad as him…as that male.
“Don’t thank me yet.” I make myself look at her face, to keep my gaze there.
“We’re a long way from safe. I need to get us out of here and back to Draig.
I need to take a look at what we’re dealing with first.” I point at the ground between us.
“Stay right where you are. Don’t move from this spot.
I’ll be back in a minute. I need to get us out of here as a matter of urgency. ”
She nods. Her arms come up to wrap around herself, and her eyes are huge and glassy. She looks petrified, which makes me feel so much worse.
I jog a short distance to a gap in the canopy, and I let the shift take me.
It rolls through fast – bone and wing and scale – and then I’m climbing, punching up through the branches and into the open sky.
The coastline is, as expected, still a war zone.
Reds are still fighting Reds for as far as I can see in both directions.
It’s a churning mass of marked scales, claws, barbed tails and fangs.
The feral males are rising from the jungle and trying to cross the water.
The Mistveil guards are knocking them back, only to have more shoot out from the canopy. It’s mayhem.
I watch a big male take a hit to the wing and drop, spinning, and the canopy swallows him whole, maybe two miles from where I left Carla. Another gets driven back by three guards working together and crashes down into the green in a spray of shredded leaves.
The guards have red running through their scales, same as the convicts do. Red on red, every one of them, all the way down the line.
And then there’s me.
I am a bright iridescent green, the same green as my eyes, and up here against all that red, I might as well be a signal flare.
There is no version of this where I fly out over that water unnoticed.
A Draiger, deep in Mistveil territory, with a female clutched to his belly.
They’d be on me before I cleared the mist. The chances of me getting her out by air are slim to none.
Fuck!
Maybe later, or tomorrow, but not right now. In fact, the air might be too risky, period.
So I search for another way. I bank in a tight circle, low over the canopy, reading the land.
The mountain spine running inland. The river cutting through the valley to the southeast, silver where it catches the light.
And there, far off in the haze beyond it, the gray smudge I’m looking for.
I’m pretty sure that’s a castle in the distance with a town and civilized Reds.
We need to make it there.
Two of the fighting pairs are wheeling closer, so I fold my wings and drop, plunging back down through the trees before anyone sees the green dragon in their sky. If they haven’t already.
I hit the jungle floor, pull the shift back in, and jog back to Carla. I had hoped that shifting and flying would calm my beast down, but it hasn’t. It’s almost worse than before.
She hasn’t moved from the spot. She has, however, found what’s left of her skirt and tied it around her waist like a loincloth, knotted at her hip. At least her pussy is covered. That’s something.
Unfortunately, her tits are still straining against that lace. Full and lush. I want to free them and suck on them. What the hell!? My scales rub, so I tamp down my beast all over again.
I need to stop.
Fuck.
I lock my eyes on hers and keep them there, but my body doesn’t get the memo, because my balls are pulling tight and there’s heat gathering low in my gut.
My dick stirs. It thickens…rising.
What the fuck!?
No!
I try to think of other things. I look at the tree. I grit my teeth, clenching my jaw.
“Are you okay?” she whispers. “What’s happening out there?” Her eyes lift when a dragon screeches to the right of us. There’s an answering screech further away.
She sucks in a breath, clearly traumatized, and then jumps when there is a loud crash, then a thud followed by more screeching.
Her gaze drops. Her eyes go wide, and she takes a half step back, her arms tightening over her chest.
“Why are you…?” Her eyes narrow on my cock, her mouth falls open in shock. “What is that?” She points at my dick, and it only makes me harder. That coiling in my gut gets worse.
My dragon wants to fuck.
Good thing I’m in control. I’m not a feral Red.
“Hey. Hey, look at me.” I keep my voice as even as I can manage. “You are safe with me, Carla. I swear it on my life. My dragon is right at the fore right now; that’s all this is. He’s in fight mode.”
“That doesn’t look like fight mode to me.” She shakes her head.
“He’s feeling possessive of you.”
“Why?”
“Because I had to fight for you. I killed for you.” I blow out a breath. “To a dragon, fighting and fucking are not that far removed. They run on the same fuel.”
Her throat moves as she swallows. “What are you saying?” She takes a step back. “What do—?”
“I won’t hurt you! I won’t lay so much as a finger on you.
I swear.” It comes out as a growl, and I rein it in fast. “I’d never do such a thing.
My beast is a little confused right now, that’s all.
Ignore him. I am.” I hold her gaze and put everything I have into the next part.
“I have full control over my beast. If we’re going to survive this, we need to work together.
You will need to trust me, Carla. Flint is my friend.
I’ll get you back to him. Back to your life.
I just need you to do everything I tell you and to ignore…
my dick. It doesn’t mean anything, I swear.
I like you as a friend. My dragon is confused, that’s all.
I haven’t been off the Mainland drugs for long.
” I shrug. “I’m fine, though, I promise you. ”
She studies me for a long beat. “You’re making it sound like you’re two beings in one body.”
“When we disagree, we sort of are.” I lift a shoulder. “But I’m ultimately the one in charge. Not him. Please believe that. You and Flint are great together. I’m not attracted to you. I mean, you’re beautiful, but it isn’t like that.”
It’s exactly like that.
A little white lie can’t hurt. Not right now. She’s just been through an ordeal.
She nods, slow, still looking at me like I might sprout scales and lunge at her.
“I’m not feral,” I tell her. “I will keep you safe. I will get you home. You have my word.”
She pushes out a breath. “Okay. Good. I get it. I’ll ignore…it. When are we going to leave? Are you going to shift and fly us out of here?”
I shake my head.
“I’m afraid that it’s too dangerous. I don’t have red markings.
If I attempt to fly us out of here, they’ll see me and know I’m a Draiger.
They’ll come for me. Especially if I have you.
There are hundreds of unmated males in this jungle and over that coastline.
They’d kill me and probably kill you too, in the process. ”
“Then how are we going to get home?”
“We will have to hike.” I point southeast, toward the river valley.
“We’re looking at two to three days in that direction…
there’s civilization. A Mistveil town. We technically still have a peace treaty with them.
At least, I hope we still do, after today.
We need to go there and ask for help. It’s our only chance. ”
Her eyes get even wider, and then they start to fill.
“Two to three days’ hike.” Her voice cracks on the number. “Through a jungle that is crawling with feral Red Dragons.”
I want to tell her it’s going to be fine.
I can’t.
Because it might not be.
We’re in big shit.