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My entire body arced upward on a gasp, and Rhodes rumbled a deep, satisfied laugh.

Oh, this was so unfair . But as the vibration combined with his squeezing fingers, I was helpless, writhing and moaning as my body tightened.

He had a fascination for my breasts—every curve and contour of them was soon swollen and aching.

Beneath my buttocks, I felt his shaft, rigid and quivering.

But he was holding himself back while he tortured me .

Enough. Zyair had been ruled by Fate, and Xandros, passion—but Rhodes was all about control. He clearly believed that I belonged to him.

But the assumption fired something inside me, because he was wrong. And so, I set out to turn the tables.

He still had me held sideways across his lap. I reached one hand to his face, and pulled his head down to mine—with the other, I reached past it, to what rose behind him.

His wings.

Absorbed in his torturous teasing, he didn’t realize what I was up to until my fingers grabbed hold of a wing bone. His entire body stiffened, the wing flaring out—but I didn’t let go.

Instead, I ran them along it, my thumb stroking the thin, flexible membrane…

His lips pulled away from mine, and he shuddered. “You are one clever little Draka.”

I stroked again, and he groaned, his hand faltering at my breast.

“You are mine now,” I whispered, drifting my fingertips along where the membrane attached to the bone.

He gasped, his head falling back. Then he took a deep breath, and brought it forward to rest against mine.

“I belong to no one,” he growled. The words were barely audible.

“You are wrong. You belong to me .”

One canine flashed in the lamplight, and his dark eyes flared garnet.

I stroked yet again, and as he quivered in reaction, pushed away from his trembling tail to spin in his arms. Before his tantalizing appendage could react, I managed to wrap his waist with my legs, pinning the hard length of him between us.

I pulled the wing until it curved around his body, lowered my mouth to it, and began to lick.

The cry that emerged from his lips was inarticulate and desperate. His tail thrashed. What lay between us went rigid as rock itself, as his hands dropped to my waist, and lifted me.

Still occupied with his wing, I braced my other hand against his shoulder, holding myself poised above his quivering shaft. He was slick with extreme arousal, and so was I.

But this was about control.

And I wanted it. Instinctively, I knew that Rhodes had only ever yielded to Zyair. Or maybe his elder brothers. But if he were to be my mate, he needed to yield to me .

His hands tightened on my hips. But I suspended myself above him. Rubbed just a little, and felt him inhale hard.

“You will do as I say,” I commanded.

His lips peeled back from his teeth. “You may be my mate. But no one owns me.”

“Ah, you are wrong. You do belong to me.” I placed the tip of his wing bone in my mouth and twirled my tongue around it.

The shudder that ran through him almost unseated me. A long groan, rising to almost a cry, emitted from his clenched jaws. I lowered myself, but only just the tiniest bit. Slipped just the massive tip of him into my warm embrace… and out again.

He inhaled hard—and then, to my shock, he laughed . A big, booming sound filled with both denial, and acceptance.

“All right, my little Draka,” he rumbled. “You win. This time.”

His fingers moved to cup my buttocks, rather than trying to push me down. Resting his face up against mine, he exhaled. “If you do not take what is yours in the next few seconds, I cannot be held responsible for the consequences.”

“You will wait.” I ordered.

“No.” It was half denial, half plea, and all desperation.

“Yes,” I insisted, tracing his wing bone with my fingers.

His lips peeled back from his teeth as his cock jumped like a wild thing beneath me, and his balls were glowing brighter than the lamps around us.

It was me who laughed this time.

He groaned, the sound reverberating through the very air around us. Then he rubbed his face along mine and growled in Drakonian, “ Ah , my little Princess Jazmin. I am yours. Take what I have, before you push me past what I can endure.”

“Say please.”

“You cannot be serious about this request?”

“Say it,” I insisted, lowering myself again until I enclosed his tip, and I rotated my hips.

He uttered something in Drakonian that sounded decidedly rude.

I pulled him out. “English,” I ordered.

“Shaftzian hell,” he snarled. “All right. Please .”

“Nicely. Or I’m leaving.”

His hands on my buttocks tightened, the talons sprouting from his fingertips pricking me.

His breath left him in an explosion of Drakonian words.

“My precious little Jazmine, if you do not take what is yours this very minute, we are about to have a very damp introduction to bonding.” Then he switched to English. “ Please fuck me.”

His words sent a flood of heat rushing through me. I lowered myself, stretching around the girth of him. His groan escalated to broken panting, his hands trembling with the effort of not encouraging me onward, and his hips making little desperate thrusting motions.

I squirmed as he hit every nerve ending. When he sank the last iota home, we both froze for an instant before I felt him kick deep inside me.

He cursed again in Drakonian, and said, “I cannot wait?—”

“You can. And you will .”

The sound rising from his depths was not a growl or a groan, but a subterranean rumble.

I began to move, rising and falling in rhythm until he arched up beneath me, helpless to hold back, his wings spreading.

His breathing came in great gasps and shudders that matched mine with every exquisite sensation.

Faster and faster we went, every fiber tightening as he swelled?—

And then, I stopped .

“No, keep going,” He begged.

“You have to ask me nicely.” I took his wingtip back into my mouth. This time, I sucked on it.

“Ahhh…” The exclamation was more a gasp than a groan.

But the Drakonian words, with their musical lilt, rolled from him.

“You are the most divine woman I have ever known”—he trembled with anticipation, and his voice kept breaking when he panted on every second word—“and nothing would please me more than to be your mate.”

I released his wing. “That’s more like it.”

As I tightened myself around him, all the breath left him in a single, agonized exhalation.

His hips moved, tiny little thrusts that were beyond his control.

I squeezed again, and rode him, hard and fast. His head fell back, the muscles of his cheeks and jaw delineated with the effort of holding on.

My body tightened, the delicious friction undoing my own efforts to hold back. When we hovered on the very edge of oblivion, I ordered, “Give it to me, Rhodes. Now .”

With a roar he shattered, and I went with him. Wave after wave of ecstasy passed through us, until we shuddered slowly to a state of collapse with me lying in his arms.

And I felt the first pulse from him. I thought he was big before, but now he swelled as the lock began.

“Shaftz,” he husked. “That is—amazing.”

I should have been sated, but like with Zyair and Xandros, my body instantly wanted more. I began to move again, and in that instant, his shaft started to vibrate.

It took me to another plane of existence. My brain filled with white noise, I uttered sounds I couldn’t begin to interpret, and his groans took on an intensity that resonated through the air itself. More and more—until I didn’t think I could take it. I would explode…

And then, we did. Wave after wave of pure ecstasy, as we clung to each other and struggled to breathe.

Rhodes’s arms tightened around me, and he tucked his nose against my neck. I inhaled too—and was swept away by his unique aroma of leather and stormfire. I didn’t want this moment to end.

“Stupendous,” I whispered in English.

“I am not familiar with that term,” he rumbled as he nuzzled my throat.

“Ask Xandros,” I suggested.

He sighed, his breath gusting warm against my skin. “If I ask Xandros, he will not only not tell me, but flaunt his superior knowledge.”

“He does flaunt,” I agreed, tracing the tattoo on his arm with my fingers.

“Can you draw me a new one?” he asked.

I smiled. “I have been making somewhat of a study of Drakonian musculature.”

“I want one of you,” he stated.

I opened my mouth to reply, but they came out of nowhere—images of a metal room. A limp body hung from chains a short distance away—I barely recognized Senaik. He had marks all over him. Punctures.

Teeth marks

Rhodes’s breathing hitched, and his body stiffened. “Manticore fang marks,” he hissed.

I met eyes that were blazing garnet. “You saw what I saw?”

He nodded. “We see through Zyair’s eyes.” He took a deep breath and closed his own. “He is alive.”

My heart soared. Zyair was alive . But Senaik?—

“What is she doing to him?” I whispered. “Senaik looked as though he’d been bitten…”

“Manticores are fluid feeders,” Rhodes said.

“Fluids? Like—blood? Are you saying they are vampires ?”

His arched brows drew down. “Vampires?”

“Earth myth of a creature that feeds on blood,” I supplied.

He considered. “Manticores have been frequent visitors to your home world. Perhaps that started the myths. ”

“So, is she going to drain him of blood?” The bite marks had been all over Senaik—but they’d been concentrated in a certain area.

“Females prefer—other fluids,” he divulged.

His mouth straightened as he confirmed what I’d feared. I shivered and closed my eyes.

“It will be alright, little Draka,” Rhodes whispered as he folded his arms around me. “I will get him out.”

I now could sense when he was just trying to reassure me, so as I held on tight to him, my chin lifted.

“ We will get him out,” I corrected.