Page 26 of Curse of the Midnight Dragon (The Moonlight Dragon #2)

Celestina

“I would prefer it if you didn’t go out tonight,” Trace said when we met in the hallway of his home. “I’m too damned tired for it.”

I tilted my head and studied him. “You don’t have to follow me.”

He barked a tight and angry laugh. “Celestina, my one task for the past twenty-three years has been to keep you safe. I’m not going to let you tiptoe along an unstable cliffside in the dark without keeping watch and making fucking sure you don’t die within the first few weeks of your return to our village.”

I swallowed hard. “I-I’ll stay inside.” Clasping my hands in front of me and with my head down, I started to make my way toward the bedroom I’d been using. “I-I’m sorry, Trace. I didn’t mean to appear ungrateful.”

Even if I did find a way to climb off the plateau—there had to be one since Amaya’s human friend had somehow found her way up here during a storm—I wouldn’t be able to escape, not with Trace watching my every move, counting my breaths.

I hated him.

No, hate was the wrong word.

Other than following me around everywhere, Trace had been nothing but patient with me. He never touched me, not even in a casual way. Every couple of days, he’d bring me a small stack of history books from Gregory’s personal library to read. And when we had meals together, he’d talk in a soft voice, recounting daily happenings in the village as if trying to lure me into his life with his homey stories of families and friendships.

But despite his kindness, my heart remained cold. Toward him. Toward the village. Toward everyone except Amaya, the one dragon Trace had expressly told me to avoid.

“Well, good night then,” I said as I stepped into the bedroom.

“Yes, good—” He gave a little cough. “He’s not coming for you.”

“What?” I spun around. Had Trace done something? If he’d harmed Soren, I didn’t know what I would do, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

“There’s been no sign of him or his warriors in the forest for weeks. Back when you were in Fein, I watched him as carefully as I watched you. He’s a brilliant strategist. Which means he realizes that you’re back with your own kind, you’re back where you belong. He must also realize that if he tries to get close to the village or you, I will end him.”

“You think telling me that makes me feel safe? Makes me feel protected?”

“No, Celestina. I know it does not, dammit. As I already told you, I’m tired. And I know I’ll never have the perfect words for you. I’m not a vampire. I don’t have the magic of charm on my side. I’m simply a dragon trying my best to show you that you can be happy here, if only you would give us a chance.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that other than, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” His shoulders dropped. He turned away from me and walked down to his bedroom. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

After a few tense moments, I closed my bedroom door. And locked it. Not that I needed to. I knew I was safer here than anywhere I’d ever been in my life. Still…

I padded across the room to the small window that looked out over a patch of wild grasses. The room was on the second floor, too high to contemplate safely climbing through. I pressed my forehead to the cool glass and allowed the tears that had been burning in my eyes for days to finally fall. Whether I liked it or not, this was my life now.

The moon had set by the time I’d finally drifted off to a fitful sleep. I hadn’t even bothered to remove my clothes. I’d pulled off my boots and collapsed on to the bed. My temples throbbed from crying too much.

As I’d slept, images of war and death and friends being burned by dragon fire troubled my dreams. And because I was this mythical, long-awaited moonlight dragon, I was the one leading the charge to destroy all I’d come to love.

“No!” I cried out in the dream. I didn’t want this. I never wanted this.

Queen Beatrice, in her rage, bound my hands and tied a long rope to the bindings. “No one wants you,” her sharp words stung. She gave a guard a nod. The hulking beast picked me up and tossed me over the side of the castle wall. I fell until the rope came to a jolting end, nearly pulling my shoulders out of their sockets and breaking my wrists.

“Stone her!” she shouted down to the courtiers who had gathered below to watch the queen’s latest spectacle.

Soren stepped forward. He held a pebble in his hand. He looked up at me, grimaced, and then tossed the small stone.

Ping .

It missed.

He picked up another pebble from the ground.

Ping .

Another miss.

Was he even trying?

Ping .

“I’m going to have to go up there,” he said, and after picking up yet another pebble, he started to scale the castle wall, scraping his boot against the stone with each step.

I woke up with a startled gasp. That scraping noise wasn’t part of my dream. I jolted up and grabbed the heaviest history book from the stack on the bedside table to use as a weapon. My gaze traveled the room and stuttered to a stop when it reached the window. It’d been closed when I went to bed. But now, the windowpane was swung open, leaving a gaping hole to the outside. A cold breeze swirled into the room as a dark, booted leg stepped through.

A scream rose in my throat, I opened my mouth to let it out when a burst of movement blew through the room. A black gloved hand smashed against my face.

“Stay quiet,” came a harsh whisper against my throat made me whimper until the owner of that hand added, “Sky Girl.”

Soren?

He was dressed all in black. Black boot, black tunic, black leather pants, black hooded cloak. His face was shielded with shadows. But I didn’t need to see his face to know him. Not when I’d memorized the shape of his body, the timbre of his voice, and the scent of his embrace. With a gust of excitement, I tackled him in a hug that carried such force, he lost his balance and tumbled on to the bed with me. I pushed his hand away from my mouth as I sprawled on top of him and rained kisses all over his face.

“As much as I like this position and, goddess, I’m starving for those kisses, we don’t have time for me to properly make love to you. Not here.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and stood, bringing me to my feet with him. “We have to move quickly.”

“What? How? How?” In this room. With me. How in the blazes did he get past the dragon patrols and the villagers to be here ?

“I’ll explain later.” He disentangled my arms from around his neck. “We need to go. Now.”

I nodded so hard I felt the stitches in my injured neck pop. “Yes. Yes. Let’s go.”

When I started for the door, Soren caught my hand and led me back toward the window. “Um…we’re on the second floor,” I reminded him.

“I know,” he rumbled, his voice a balm to my nerves. He scooped me into his arms. “Hold on tight, Sky Girl,” he said as he ducked through the window to balance on the sill.

“You-you’re not going to—?” He stepped off the skinny ledge before I could finish the question. His gloved hand covered my mouth the entire way down, muffling my screams. He landed with such a jarring lurch, I knew that if I’d been the one making such a leap, I would have ended up with multiple broken bones in my feet, ankles, and legs.

He lifted his hand and replaced it with his mouth. “Goddess, how I missed your taste,” he murmured between drugging kisses.

“Kiss her later,” Cullen cautioned. Sweat beaded his forehead. “It’s nearly impossible to hold on to my cloaking charm with so many dragons around. It feels as if their magic is pushing against mine, which according to the books shouldn’t be happening. But that’s what feels like is happening.”

“You can write a scientific dissertation about it when we get back to the capital,” Soren said as he started to run with me still cradled in his arms. He moved with blurring speed toward one of the most dangerous parts of the plateau.

“You’re not expecting me to fly us out of here, are you?” I squeaked. I’d fallen off the side of a cliff once before. An angry warrior had tossed me over the edge of a ravine. And I had no desire to repeat that experience.

Soren looked down at me and lifted one eyebrow. “You can fly?”

“No!” I swatted his chest. “I’m still the same as I was before Cullen stuffed me into that dungeon.”

“Except you no longer have that wretched slave collar,” Soren said. “I saw the pieces of it on the floor of what was left of the dungeon after that black dragon flew away with you.”

“Amaya,” I said. “She’s a midnight dragon.”

“That’s what Cullen told me.” He didn’t sound pleased.

We were at the cliff’s edge. “How-how are we getting down?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

“Are you sure you can’t fly us?” he asked. But when I started to fight him, he winked. “Don’t worry. There’s a trail.”

“Not here there isn’t. I looked. Soren! It’s a sheer cliff face!” That he was about to tumble over and at a hard run. At the last moment, he shimmied around a thicket of thorny bushes. On the other side, hidden by those prickly bushes, was the trail I’d spent weeks searching for. About as wide as my bedroom windowsill, the trail hugged the cliffside, zigzagging on switchbacks down the side of the plateau. “Oh my goddess, you found the trail!”

“Didn’t I say that already?” He was smiling down at me. I placed my hand against his chiseled jaw, loving the roughness of his stubble and the warmth of him below it.

He ran as surefooted as a goat down the harrowing trail. There were parts where I buried my face against his shoulder so I wouldn’t have to see how we were often just a step away from plunging to our deaths. As we continued down, he gave me encouraging words for me to cling to like, “We’re nearly to the base,” and “I’ve got you,” and “We’ll be away from here soon.”

After a thousand stuttering heartbeats, we reached the bottom of the trail. Soren kept running. From there, he darted through the forest like an acrobatic deer leaping over felled trees and giant roots. The tree canopy above us made the world seem that much darker, more ominous. I flinched at every sound, certain that Trace would be racing his way across the sky, coming after me.

“We’re far enough away now,” Cullen said as he caught up to us. Soren kept a dizzying pace. “The cloak is holding.”

“Finally.” Soren slowed to a trot and then stopped altogether. He set me on my feet but kept his strong fingers curled around my shoulders as if afraid that if he took his hands off me, I would disappear. He flicked a glance in the direction of his brother. “Find somewhere else to be.”

“I’m not sure that’s—” Cullen started to say.

“Go.” Soren sounded on the verge of committing violence.

Cullen lifted his hands. “Leaving. Not far. But far enough that I won’t be able to see or hear anything you two might—”

Soren dropped his forehead to mine and groaned. “That brother of mine is never going to stop talking.”

“I think he’s moving away, though.”

“Thank the goddesses.”

“I heard that,” Cullen’s voice carried through the trees. But that was the last thing we heard from him.

Soren lifted his head and backed up, putting a little distance between us. His green eyes, eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, crinkled at the corners. “Hello,” he said, a smile coming to his mouth. “I missed you.”

I tossed my arms around his neck, certain I was choking him. But, goddess, I needed to hold on to him as tightly as possible. “If this is a dream, don’t you dare wake me up. Not ever.”

“I’m real.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me so close against his chest that I could feel the way his heart raced. “It took us so damned long to figure out how to get to you.”

“How did you manage to get past the patrols?” I still couldn’t believe Soren had his arms around me and my arms were around him.

“I’ll explain it later.”

Were we already back to his old habit of refusing to tell me anything important? I growled.

But then he added, “Right now I need to look at you, feel you, make sure you’re okay. You are okay, aren’t you? They…they didn’t hurt you?” His body trembled as he pulled out of my embrace. His eyes trained on the bandages around my neck and wrists. “They hurt you?”

“No! I’m fine,” I protested. “The dragons all treated me with extra care.”

“Then why the hell are you bleeding?” He reached up and started to unravel the heavy bandage protecting the many wounds around my neck. I was amazed at how gentle his warrior-hardened fingers could be with me. He muttered what sounded like a violent curse in ancient Eirid under his breath once he had the bandages off. “Did they make you sew your own stitches?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Because the last time I saw such sloppy work was when Gray took a spear through his arm and had to sew himself up to keep from bleeding to death. And he did a piss-poor job of it. But he had an excuse.” Soren’s voice was growing tighter and tighter. “He was bleeding to death and didn’t have a village who were supposedly looking after him. Why wasn’t anyone looking after you? The stitches are all torn out from that wound. You’re bleeding. And that deep wound near your collarbone has become infected. It’s all red and puffy. Doesn’t it hurt? How can you turn your head? Gods, what even happened? Some of these are clearly wounds from the embedded collar coming off. But the really deep gashes look like an animal attack or like—” His expression hardened. “Did one of the dragons attack you?”

“It was a mistake. It wasn’t—”

“A mistake?” Violence glittered in his eyes. “Who? That green dragon? Did he hurt you?”

“No! Soren, please.”

“This is why we almost died, isn’t it? Because the dragons attacked you? Which ones?” He looked ready to return to the village and wreak vengeance on the clan.

“I’ll explain it later,” I threw his own words back at him.

He jerked as if I’d struck him. “Celestina—”

“No, Soren.” I put my hand on his arm. “Don’t fret for me. I’m here. I’m alive. And the clan honestly did their best to take care of me. The act of shifting from one form to another heals a dragon’s injuries. And because they heal so easily, their medical knowledge is limited. The female who took care of me, Juniper, cleaned the wounds and applied a salve. But she wasn’t sure if the injuries were healing or if something was wrong with them.”

“Something is most definitely wrong.” He pressed his palm to my forehead. “And you’re running a fever. I should have gotten you out sooner. I’m sorry it took us so long to rescue you. But I’m going to make it better.” He bared his fangs and tore into his own wrist. “Drink my blood. Let me heal you.”

I stared at him for a moment watching the blood dripping down his wrist and heard Amaya’s snarky voice, Soren uses his charm and his blood to control you . And I couldn’t move.

He seemed to misunderstand my hesitation. “We’re going to be traveling quickly through this forest. We need you to be healthy, Celestina.”

Although the sight of his blood did make me crave him, could I risk it? Sure, I had felt my body weakening ever since Amaya had struck me. And my neck often throbbed. It hurt when I made quick moves. His blood would fix all of that. So, unless I wanted to be carried back to Fein like some fainting damsel in distress, I’d need to take his blood.

“Thank you for not using compulsion on me.” He was giving me a choice.

“If you refuse, I might feel…” He looked at the blood still oozing from his wrist. “I need to know you’ll survive this. But I’d rather you willingly let me help you.” He held out his wrist for me. “Please.”

I don’t know why I kept hesitating. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with him or to have my hands all over him. It was just that niggling voice—the voice that sounded annoyingly like Amaya’s—that continued to warn that Soren was lying to me, that he was using me.

Let him use me.

With a frustrated growl, I grabbed Soren’s arm and pressed my lips to his bleeding wrist. His blood tasted citrusy and spicy and like the best parts of home. I closed my eyes and drank.

The magic in his veins moved through my body, warming me on that chilly night. It pulsed in my neck. The pain I’d been ignoring there started to fade away. For the first time in weeks, I could draw a full breath without wincing. And the feverish buzzing in my head fell silent.

My body was also heating up. Goddess, how I’d missed Soren. I’d missed the way he made my body feel alive. I’d missed how he touched me and how he liked to play rough with me.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him. His pupils had gotten so large, that his eyes had turned black. He was watching me like a predator, and I knew how this would end up. The muscles in his arm tensed as I lifted my mouth from his wrist. He bent down and licked the corner of my mouth where I imagined his blood had smeared.

“Sky Girl,” he groaned with pleasure.

He held me with one arm slipped behind my back as he raised his hand—the one with the still bleeding wrist—so he could tilt my head to one side, inspecting my damaged skin there. The light touch of his trailing fingers over my vulnerable neck made me shiver.

“There’s still some redness, but the wounds have closed. Do you feel any pain?” he asked.

“No.” But even if I were in pain, I would have lied because all I wanted to do in that moment was to climb him like a tree and wrap my legs around him.

He gave a stiff nod and then brought his wrist to his mouth. With his tongue, he sealed up the wound and cleaned off the blood that had spread on his skin. Watching him lick himself with that talented tongue of his made my breath hitch and my heart pound. I knew my mouth-watering reaction to his every movement was partly due to his magic-endowed blood rushing through my body, making me want. But I didn’t care.

“I need you,” I confessed.

“I’d promised myself that I wasn’t going to…that I was going to give you time…”

“No,” I growled. I would do him serious harm if he tried to deny me. “I need you.”

“Thank fuck, Sky Girl, because I need you impaled on my cock more than I need anything else in the world right now.” With vampire speed, he made his move. My back slammed against the nearest tree with enough force that it knocked the wind from my lungs. His body pressed against mine. His hands lifting my ass, pressing me against the hard ridge in his pants as I got my wish and wrapped my legs around his waist.

A second later, he nudged my head to one side and struck.

“Gods,” I hissed at the pain of his fangs digging into my barely healed neck. But then he started pulling my blood into him, and a wild heat replaced the sharp pain. I rubbed against him with a frenzied motion as I chased a release that felt impossible to find.

While still feeding on me, he reached between us and freed his cock from his pants. His hot skin brushed against my naked thigh as he bunched up the pink skirt I was wearing. I helped push my panties to one side as he lined himself up with my opening.

With one thrust, he buried himself deep inside me. I gasped from the sting of being stretched so suddenly, so completely.

He lifted his mouth from my neck and looked at me. The world seemed to hold its breath as neither of us moved.

“Celestina?” His breathing was ragged. His eyes filled with questions. “Are you—are you up to this?” he asked softly.

I nodded. But that wasn’t enough for him. He brushed his mouth against mine. I could taste the bitter tang of my blood on his lips. I could feel his desperate need in his shortened breaths. “I need the words. Is this still what you want?”

“Yes, I want—I want everything from you, Soren.”

Hearing that, he pulled out and pushed in again in two long, torturously slow strokes.

“Hold my shoulders,” he warned. “Hold on as tightly as you can.”

And that’s when it started. He made love to me like a vampire possessed. His thrusts were hard and fast and everything I needed. They reminded me that I was alive, that I was wanted. While he laid waste to my pussy, he bit my neck and shoulder, again and again, blending pleasure with pain. Marking me as vampire-owned.

My release bordering on agony, I convulsed on his cock. He tossed back his head and groaned as he followed me over the abyss.

In the aftermath, a wild piece of me stirred for the first time. I opened my eyes. What did that wild feeling mean? The question faded as fast as it had come. My head dropped on to his neck as I waited for my out-of-control breath to settle. Soren hadn’t simply given me an incredible orgasm with his forceful lovemaking. He’d given me back my world.