Page 20 of Destined By Dragonblood (Blood Born #2)

Dolyn

I ’d followed Ashley after work but stayed invisible as she ate in the same cafe as the week before. She’d sat in the front window again, searching the bustling sidewalks for me as I was sure she sensed my presence.

My old, what turned out to be sickly, dog friend now rested in one of my shelters in upstate New York. Two nights ago and unable to sleep, I’d gone in search of him, allowing my beast to simmer close to the surface so we could scent the animal together.

I’d found him in a dark alley, damp and shivering, huddling in a pile of rubbish.

He’d allowed me to pick him up and cradle him to my chest. My beast had been bothered by the animal’s stench, but I’d kissed the dog’s snout and promised him food and warmth.

A few hours later, he curled in a kennel in the back of a hired van, licking me one last time on my fingers as I stroked his forehead. I’d told him to be a good boy.

He’d woofed his promise.

While I’d have preferred to keep the animal in my own care, my suite and current situation didn’t allow for such a pet. I’d called the shelter I financed and informed the overseer of the dog’s impending arrival and insisted they spare no expense in seeing to his health.

Even knowing he’d arrived and was being looked after, I’d missed his cold nose against my hand as I watched Ashley finish her meal. Same as before, she’d headed northward, entering the doors of Vanni’s skyrise as I’d expected.

I’d waited to enter, not wishing to be all up in her space again where she might be tempted to speak to what she considered thin air.

If she’d simply reach out an arm or wave one quickly around her, she would come into contact with my body, and I couldn’t have that until she first accepted the truth of what I was.

Once the elevator doors had slid shut and hid her from sight, I’d hurried to another, waiting for the people around me to crowd in.

Riding upward to the floor housing the sex club took a bit of time with various ups and downs since I couldn’t very well push past people and excuse myself to exit.

Once finally alone, I hit the button for Vanni’s club, cursing over every minute wasted.

Still invisible, I’d made myself at home in the men’s locker room, the only place I felt sure I could reveal myself without the possibility of a camera catching me in the act.

Seconds later, I’d stepped over a threshold leading to a sinner’s delight.

I moved deeper into the lounge as though I had every right to be there even though I hadn’t paid for a membership.

Surprisingly, or luckily, Vanni hadn’t questioned my presence the last time I’d bent over and presented my ass for his whip.

I expected his need to test my submission had been too great.

Musk, sweetness, and the scent of anxious perspiration slithered up my nose, hardening my already thickened cock as I moved deeper into the lounge.

Humans, dozens of them in all sorts of dress and lack thereof, mingled in the open area as with the other nights I’d been there.

Dim lights teased with the suggestion of what went down in the shadows.

Low music lay like a silken sheet beneath the rising moans and crack of instruments of pain upon supple flesh.

The St. Andrew’s cross held a woman moaning beneath a Dom’s ministrations.

Chains clanked from a man strung to the ceiling directly on my right. Groans rose from two men getting their cocks sucked by kneeling submissives as they lounged by the bar.

My gaze returned to the cross and the woman strapped to it.

Please.

My dragon’s whimper to play hit me hard, the fact he requested to submit rather than dominate pressing even harder. “ Alpha ,” I muttered aloud, my hands fisting at my sides.

A fierce frown dented my brow as I licked my lips, hoping for a taste of Ashley’s sweetness in the air while scanning the room.

Cries of ecstasy jerked my head to the left to the lounge’s far corner where Ashley had submitted to Vanni last week. Once more, she’d given her pleasure to him, and from my view, it appeared his hand still stroked between her thighs.

Slickness oozed from my slit, and I groaned, pressing down against my cock.

What a sight they were together. Both dark heads, hair dampened by sweat, skin shimmering from exertion. My feet moved me forward, and I drank them in, listening as Ashley whimpered and came down from her high.

Vanni pulled his hand away from her pussy and studied his glistening fingers.

The scent of her cum slammed into me with a wave, and my dragon growled a rumble deep in my chest I couldn’t hold back.

Ours.

Yes—she was, and I questioned the lack of jealousy over Vanni touching what didn’t belong to him.

He sucked each and every digit clean, and my mouth drooled for a taste of her. My dragon should have shrieked and clawed at my brain to explode in a mass of muscle, sinew, and scales. We should have torn the building down around the man who dared to taste my mate.

Need .

Teeth gritted over my beast’s whimper, I moved in close, doing as Father would have done.

I grasped Vanni’s bare shoulder, intending to pull him away from Ashley?—

Electrical currents shot up my arm and split toward my brain and chest, allowing my beast full control for a mere heartbeat.

We scented the man we touched, and knowledge slammed into us that couldn’t be written off as desire or mistake.

“No,” my human half gasped as fire swept through us. We dug our fingertips into Vanni’s skin, yanking him around as tension crackled through the air like static electricity.

Hissing, I shoved my inner beast back in his prison, barely able to gain control.

Vanni scrambled to get his feet beneath him, breaking the connection between us, but the damage had been done. Same as with Ashley, the imprint had taken hold in our mind. “What the fuck—Dolyn?”

Our gazes caught, and he stilled.

Green orbs, brilliant like spring grass glared at me.

Yessss .

I growled and shook my head, blinking the sight of what Elijah’s female had shown me clear from my memory.

Vanni DiLoreto stared at me with his usual mossy colored eyes, but because my inner dragon had come into contact with him at the same time as our human half, I could no longer deny who— what —the man before us was.

Even if only a minuscule portion, Giovanni DiLoreto was part dragonblood.

My beast purred, and I broke into a cold sweat as every muscle in my body tensed.

“No,” I growled yet again, my vision going red.

Our alpha.

“No!” I let out roar to assert my dominance and snapped. My fist shot out, connecting with Vanni’s cheek and slamming his head to the side. Rippling currents of awareness pulsed through where our skin had collided for less than a second.

The fucker kept his feet and simply worked his jaw while straightening and meeting my gaze head on.

Fire flared through his eyes, and there was no mistaking the inner beast’s presence prowling beneath sinew and bone.

I faltered, frozen for the space of a heartbeat, as the realization his other half had possibly roused from its deep sleep due to my touch settled in.

Vanni barreled forward, taking me down before I could blink.

I slammed onto the floor, his weight forcing a grunt from my lungs.

My aching cock pressed against his, and a wave of desire stole my breath. “Fuck. Me,” I gasped, the second I could speak.

A cocky grin lifted his lips, and he shifted his hips in a grinding motion that tempted me to unfurl my hands and grasp at the harness strapped to his bare chest. “You know I’m the one in charge here, Dolyn,” he murmured, leaning close to my ear, “but that’s one command I would love to obey.”

His low voice slithered over my skin like an erotic caress.

I shivered, and the bastard chuckled.

Two sets of hands grasped my arms from behind, yanking me from beneath Vanni.

Both men, bodyguards mostly likely, were fully human, their touch lacking the awareness that had crashed into me when my skin had met Vanni’s.

I couldn’t tear my focus off him as he slowly stood, adjusting his bulge.

I didn’t fight. I froze at the flash of green fire in his steady gaze.

Those eyes had haunted my dreams, same as Ashley’s had.

I jerked my focus off Vanni.

My female stood beyond the spanking bench, a blue robe wrapped tight around her trembling body.

Lips parted, she gaped at me, her eyes wide and fearful, luminous in the light above her.

A hint of her emotions slid over my mind like a warm blanket thanks to the small touch we’d shared last Saturday, rousing my dragon’s instinct to protect her.

Need.

I tested the firm grips holding me, aware I could easily toss both men aside, but the desire to pull Ashley into my chest, hide her from the stares licking at every inch of her kept me in place.

“Ashley,” I whispered, the fear of violence and confusion overwhelming her widened eyes.

She shook her head and hurried toward the women’s locker room.

“Ash!” Vanni, her Dom, my beta, called after her but didn’t give chase.

Not beta .

Vanni turned his harsh glare on me, and my inner dragon purred with desire to feel his strength as he punished me for causing our female unrest and a ruckus in his club.

I held Vanni’s gaze, every cell in my human form questioning the authority in his stare.

Even with his minuscule amount of dragonblood, Vanni would never be able to dominate a creature such as myself. I looked forward to owning him, having him on his knees before me, begging for me to claim him.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, drawing near and getting in my face.

Sexual and violent tension radiated between us, and I locked my knees to remain upright. “Your alpha,” I stated my claim through clenched teeth.

His head tipped back, and he roared with laughter, pure enjoyment and disbelief ringing throughout the silent lounge.

I strained forward against the bodyguards’ hold, my body temperature rising as my inner beast echoed his response.

“Oh, that’s good.” Still chuckling, Vanni wiped at the blood dripping from a small cut on his cheekbone where I’d hit him.

He eyed the smear of red on the back of his hand before glancing up at me through his black lashes, a sexy smirk taking over his mouth.

A glint of promise lay in his vibrant eyes.

“Master Vanni?” Someone stepped into my periphery, handing him a towel.

“Thank you.” He cleaned himself, a smile still on his lips.

He will be sweet on our tongue.

Perhaps, but most likely, he would be all fire and brimstone, biting and gnashing as I dominated him.

My dragon slithered sensually inside me, tempting me to fuck and find out.

Fear kept me planted.

I was royalty. A dominant alpha dragon shifter in need of his beta to bridge the gap between me and Ashley.

My dragon sneered at the thought but moaned with arousal as Master Vanni drew close enough that his heat wavered like the sun’s rays over every inch of my skin not covered by clothing.

“You’re my alpha, huh?” His gaze caressed my face with a knowing look.

“Like you, I bow to no man,” he murmured, his eyes glinting green fire as he peered into mine.

“She never told me your name, but I have this strange feeling you’re Ashley’s stalker, the one she finally met last Saturday in a quaint little coffee shop where you enjoyed hot chocolate and Boston cream donuts. ”

I kept my lips sealed even though I found pleasure in hearing she’d spoken of me.

“Hmm, what a conundrum this has become,” Vanni mused. “Tell me, Dolyn, how did you get into my club?”

His club.

Master Vanni.

He might be an admired Dominant, but not nearly enough dragonblood flowed through his veins for my liking.

Our destiny.

I clenched my eyes shut as my dragon cackled in glee.