Page 54

His mouth was hot, demanding, and the sounds clogging my throat came from pure, stinging pleasure.

The abrasion of his skin against mine had me squirming, and he hissed a breath between his teeth as I stroked low enough to find him, hard against my palm.

The vein tightened against my clenching fingers. “Do you like this?”

He growled with a strangled sound of pleasure.

“I would have you, then,” I said against his mouth .

From the table, we rolled to the floor. My back rubbed against the thick rug; he crouched over me, magnificent. “I will have you first, witch.”

“So greedy,” I managed, as his mouth closed around the tip of my breast. His teeth grazed the sensitive nipple, pulling a moan from my lips. Fire licked through me.

“Kion Abaddon…” I panted the litany. “Angel of Death, the almost…king.”

“Senaria Wraithion,” he murmured, his lips moving against the mage star that marked me. “Guardian between realms. High Mage of the Stone Tower. Bewitcher of the Draakon…”

My back arched. “I would not bewitch you. I’ll have you willingly.”

“As I will have you.” He pushed my legs wider, his hand stroking along my inner thigh, sending the hidden nerves zinging. Muscles tightened. My lips parted as I writhed, trying to breathe as his finger slid inside, stroked and withdrew.

My knees jerked. His palm pressed against my hips as he leaned in and penetrated again. Two fingers, a delirious stretch while his thumb rubbed, pressed, flicked.

“I love watching you,” he said. “Your body trembles. Your hands clench, helpless. But your lips part and you moisten them while you let me touch you, deep where you’ve never let another man trespass.”

My breath came in jerky spurts but I managed, “A power trip for you, Draakon?”

“I would have you, High Mage. On your back. On your knees. Open and begging. ”

I arched into his stroking, opened my eyes, and rose to rest on my elbows. My lips parted at the sight of his hand, his fingers plunging…

“I would have this pleasure,” I taunted. “Seeing you, the flex of your arm, the way your eyes close halfway. How your breathing deepens, and your mouth curves with concentration. Do you love the dominance with your fingers, thrusting into me? Don’t you want more?”

“Wicked, wicked witch.” He pressed harder. Deeper. “So far away from Silk.”

“I could get into your head. Make you do things.”

“As long as I was in you, I wouldn’t care,” he challenged.

My head tipped back. “By the Gods, Kion…”

The curl of his fingers was upward and as he stroked, a deep throbbing clenched every muscle in my body.

“Breathe,” he ordered. But his mouth was wicked…

so wicked against my swollen flesh. His tongue stroked with perfect pressure while his hand pumped and erotic need was a fire waiting to explode and consume us both.

But he held me on a sharp cusp of pleasure.

Breathless, I surged my hips against his rhythm, wanting him entirely. Panting out words of need, begging…

“You’re not even close.” His voice was husky with sensual dominance, low and heated.

The logs in the fireplace snapped, fell apart.

Waves of sparks swirled upward in a magic-driven storm, glinting with mage power—his and mine—entangling, swirling like streaming ribbons.

Like the dragon fire flowing through my veins.

His veins. He was the Draakon. No other dragon lord held his power.

And I was his equal. Skyborne. The guardian between realms.

We tore at each other, hands and lips, bodies and wounded souls.

From the floor to the bed. Tables crashed around us.

Pillows flew apart and lay in pieces. Lights flickered.

The music stirring my blood, beating in my head, was ancient, an erotic mix of strength and need and dominance.

Of touch and taste and pounding hearts, the low sounds of want and desire and ecstasy.

Of standing on an edge and holding on with my hands tight around him.

With his arms enclosing, protective, possessive as he plunged into me, over and over, claiming…

demanding…as we stepped toward that edge.

As we fell.

And kept falling.

I woke alone in a tower room that was in shambles.

The sheets smelled of Kion, but they were cold to the touch.

He was standing on the open terrace. I wrapped a sheet around myself and joined him.

The stones were frigid beneath my feet. Neither the moon nor the malicious blue orb was visible in the sky; both hid behind the storm clouds churning above the mountains.

When flashes of lightning illuminated the clouds, tiny hairs on my arms rose. I sensed the evil in the air. The blood lust of some monster waking.

“The night is restive,” I murmured, standing near Kion, not touching him .

“You feel it?”

I tightened the sheet around my shoulders, turned my face into the chilling breeze. Against the clouds, the flash of vivid light silhouetted the dragons, their wings outstretched as they circled above the sharpest granite peaks. The illumination left afterimages that floated like ghostly mirages.

My pulse thudded. “Something is coming.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Kion…”

“There’s a reason people like us can’t love,” he said, still watching the tumult over the horizon.

“There’s only one purpose for our existence—the survival of those who made us.

Dragons or mages, it doesn’t matter. They need what we provide and demand the sacrifice.

Your mother must have known the cost. She didn’t run from a forced marriage—she ran from the obligation of the Skyborne.

Just as my father once ran from the obligation of the Draakon. ”

His features turned harsh in the lightning flashes.

“Those are the sins we carry, Sen. The sins of our parents.” He brushed his fingers over the curse tablet suspended on its leather thong, then pressed his hand against the sheet where it covered my mage star.

“Those are the true sins engraved here. The failures that cursed us. And cursed we will die.”

“But not tonight.” I pushed at the hair that had fallen against his face. “Come inside, Kion.”

“You matter to me,” he said hoarsely. “But I can’t love you, Sen. My heart has forgotten how.”

“I can’t love you either, Kion. My heart won’t survive it. ”

He turned his head, staring into the distance. “There are monsters in these mountains.”

I understood what he meant, that we—he and I—were the monsters.

“Draakon,” I murmured, rising to kiss the curve of his jaw. “Tonight, we let them sleep.”