Page 67

CHAPTER 14

Melissa

It’s hard to have been fucked to within an inch of your life and still decide that you really have to leave your controlling captor of a dragon mate, but I’ve watched enough reels to know that this doesn’t go anywhere good. I need to assert my independence. And I will. Just as soon as my legs work again.

Ornix wants my obedience at all and any costs. He’s going to brutally discipline me if he doesn’t get it. I’ve never come so hard as I did with his cock in my ass. I’ve never felt so completely dominated and claimed, and that is saying something given he’s done nothing but dominate and claim me since we met.

I’m torn. I could sink into this feeling and just give him what he wants. I could settle into my submission and become small and let myself become his willing broodmare and go to classes and be polite to the instructors and debase myself to the dragons and…

Nope. Fuck it. Can’t do it. Just can’t. What he’s asking for is frankly unreasonable, and as much as I love being pinned down and railed, it’s not enough.

I leave the dungeon, doing a walk of shame more shameful than any I’ve done before. There’s cum dripping from my ass, tracing down my thighs. I need a bath.

That’s what I do first. I go to the bedroom, where Ornix is thankfully absent, and I take myself to the bathroom where I opened the portal to hell that one time, and I take a bath.

Then I get myself ready. I take the things I want to take and I go to Nox’s chambers.

This time he doesn’t leap when I enter the room. This time he’s expecting me. He looks ready, too. Like he’s used the hours I was being disciplined for good.

“Believe me now?”

“Yes,” I tell Nox. “I saw the cage. I felt it. He is going to keep me prisoner here, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Nothing except run,” he says. “This time is going to be different. I need you to understand that. I want you to stay with me this time, so I can actually shield you from him. If you stay with me, he won’t be able to feel you.”

“You can do that?

“Yes. I have been working on more than just games, Melissa. I tested it last time I was in the human realm, and it was a great success.”

I keep my mouth shut, but I am thinking about the test. I know exactly what it was. I couldn’t feel the seal until he came backhere. I was in the human realm, and he already had the seal and was hiding it. He wanted to see if his tech worked. I’m impressed—and more than a little concerned. Nox is way ahead of me and Ornix. He has plans in play, and I know that I am one of them.

A funny little trickle is running down my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck is starting to stand up in that way hair does when something really fucked up and weird is happening. Nox is not my friend, no more than Ornix legally owns me. I’m trapped in a game of high-level dragon politics and I don’t understand exactly what’s happening.

What I do understand is that there’s a better chance of escaping when I’m in the human realm than there is while I stay here in the dragon world. I’m going to go with Nox. Worst case scenario, Ornix captures me again, puts me in a cage, and breeds my ass until I have his baby. There’s hardly anything at stake at all.

“Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” I nod. “Let’s go.”

He hits a key on the keyboard, and a shimmering square opens up in the middle of the room. Nox takes me by the hand and leads me through. I go willingly, even while thinking I’m probably making a huge mistake. Fortunately, I’m used to making huge mistakes. They’re kind of my thing at this point.

We step through to the human world. This time, it’s definitely not one of Tempest’s houses. We’re in some kind of corporate stronghold, that’s all I can really describe it as. I’m standing on a brightly glowing square, which I find weird and try to move around from. The second I move, a set of semi-translucent walls zip up around me. They’re sort of holographic. I’m pretty sure I could walk through them if I wanted to.

“Don’t,” Nox says. “Those are very highly electrified magnetic barriers. Touching them will hurt very badly indeed, I’m afraid.”

“What have you done? Why have you done it?” I ask the questions dutifully, as the heroine finding herself finally confronted by the villain.

“The barriers are what keep you from being felt. Safety isn’t always comfortable, and often comes at the price of freedom. Did you know humans used to be able to fly without being fondled by a stranger? It wasn’t all that long ago, but I digress. These barriers keep you firmly inside, yes, but they also stop Ornix from being able to sense you. They give you freedom, in some sense of the word.”

“In a completely inaccurate sense of the word, maybe,” I snipe back. I didn’t expect this to go well, but I thought it would go bad more slowly, in a sort of controlled descent. I didn’t think it would crash and burn immediately. “So you told me about Ornix’s terrible dungeon, then lured me into one that doesn’t even have a bathroom.”

Nox smirks. “I don’t think you’re going to be here long enough to need a bathroom. I think Ornix is going to come looking for you, and once he does, you won’t need to be inside the cage anymore, because he’ll be in one of his own.”

“You’re going to kidnap Ornix?”

“Yes.”

“That’s insane. Do you have any idea what he will do to you?”