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“I did not tell you to sneak down to the dungeons and learn to perform magic that not only undermines my orders, but once again causes a serious problem with porous events in the human realm.”

“It’s not completely her fault. She came looking for me because they didn’t feed her.”

“Excuse me?”

Melissa whimpers in agreement. “I woke up and nobody would even talk to me. There was nothing to eat. So I came down here, and Equinox shared his breakfast with me and taught me how to make bread and water. The rest of the dragons in this pile of rocks wouldn’t care if I lived or died.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes. I asked someone about where the kitchen was and they wouldn’t even answer me. So I came down here. And then…”

“And then naturally you ended up exploding the castle wall.”

“That was an accident!” she says, her tone very much indicating she was as surprised as anyone. “All I did was swear. It wasn’t even a spell. I don’t know how that happened.”

I sigh, and cancel the ward on the cell door, opening it. “You may as well come out,” I tell Equinox. “You do as much damage in confinement as you do outside it. Besides, I believe I will need your help. I was not able to find the seal.”

“I won’t be able to find it either.”

“Why not?” My voice is clipped as I try to maintain patience in the face of extreme provocation.

“Because it attuned to your mate. It will only speak to her.”

“That makes… that’s impossible. It’s the wild seal. It belonged to the Bear. And you are telling me that my human mate, who has not only grown wings in the human world, is also attuned to the wild seal?”

“I suppose, yes. It is a little overpowered a build, but she has no control over any of it, so it’s not really all that useful,” Equinox says. “I’m not sure how any of this is happening.”

I am not sure how any of this is happening, but I do realize now that my advisor was right. Melissa truly cannot be trusted out of my sight. She invites chaos wherever she goes.

“I’m not taking her into the human realm. Her wings will regrow, and god only knows what else will happen. But we need to regain the seal before the humans find it. You and I will go, Nox, once I have dealt with my mate.”

Melissa

We all know what that means. I am picked up, tossed over Ornix’s shoulder, and taken to the bedroom where Ornix’s cock slides inside me in one smooth stroke, like he owns me, like my flesh was made for him. Like I am his human fuck toy.

“You’ve been so bad,” he growls in my ear, his fingers finding my clit and landing a slap on it. “You’ve been plotting withthe enemy, you’ve been working behind the scenes. And you’ve forgotten who you belong to, and what can happen to this pussy.”

“Who is the enemy?”

“Equinox was my prisoner, and you consorted with him.”

“I did not! I asked him for some breakfast because they were gonna starve me and you abandoned me here.”

He slaps my pussy again, his scaled fingers stinging my sensitive clit.

I am flushed with desire, need, and everything I cannot help but having when he fucks me. Ornix can do what he wants with me, because my body is absolutely calibrated to him. I find what he does incredibly hot. I also find what he does incredibly unethical. But I am not the only one of us who has some kind of objection to the other’s behavior.

“My very own mate, stealing a seal, attuning to it. Learning the deep magic with little effort when it takes those of our own kind many hundreds of years of continuous study to even begin to attain a sliver of mastery over. I took decades to attune to my seal. You claimed yours within moments of touching it. It shouldn’t be possible.”

I wonder if he’s angry at me for my many disobediences, or if he is truly furious because he is afraid, because as much as he tries to control me, he can’t. I wish he’d learned from the beginning, when he saw my records, when he knew who I was.

“You’re never going to make me good.”

“Is that right, little human? I think I can make you very good. I think I can make you leak with my seed and swell withmy whelps. I think I can make you everything you were ever destined to be.”

“No,” I moan. “You can’t.”

He bends me over the arm of the chair and starts hard fucking me, thrusting deep, ravaging my pussy as if fucking me hard is the way to make me submit. But it’s not really about submission. It’s about trying to control chaos, and that’s just not possible.