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FUCK

I dodge Mikkel’s opening blast of poison as he comes for me. His big, black drake is fast, but I’m faster; lithe and small, I’m a barbed dart of snarling ruthlessness as I rush through the air, on his ass inside the lightning-stone amphitheater.

Storm Dragons growl all around now as they watch our fast, furious fight. Even though Mikkel towers over me as we seethe through the air on black wings, we Blood Dragons are still much smaller than Storm Dragons; it impresses them we can fight so viciously despite our size.

And it means Mikkel and I have room to breathe in their massive amphitheater as we look for an opening; room to rush in, swipe at each other, and bite. That’s just what we’re doing, as we take each other’s measure like mean black cats.

Then truly hammer in—to fight.

Mikkel and I crash together in a tumble of wings and talons, snarling and ripping at each other now as we try to take out chunks of flesh. He scores me with a rake of his talons, but I get a massive bite on his chest before we break apart, hammering each other with our magic now, rather than our physical prowess .

He shoots a jet of vivid, chartreuse-green poison at me and I block it with the blackest wall of Bloodwind I’ve ever made. It’s more like a hurricane of Bloodwind, as it goes roaring around the space suddenly, thundering into the grandstands.

It’s only prevented from harming the Storm Dragons by a shimmering lightning-blitz barrier that spins it back. I’ve never made anything so ruthless before, however; shock fills me as I pause in midair, astonished.

But Mikkel takes the moment to rush in, hammering a volley of poisonous chartreuse-black Bloodspears at me with his tail, scoring a bright line of pain over my heart.

Even as I dart out of the way, I know he got me; I snarl as I resist the pain eating like fire-ants through my flesh and scales now.

Mikkel’s magic is like acid, blistering me; I know his intent wasn’t to kill, however, because it’s not gone deep. My own Bone Magic is already countering it, as I feel the pain subside. It wasn’t a volley to kill, only to test my mettle.

What it does, however, is piss me off.

I come for Mikkel in a torrent of Bloodwind now, life-mating be damned, as I put him on the defensive with my livid might. He throws up blistering black-green Bloodshields, turning my cyclones of Bloodwind back as I roar and whirl in, trying to get him.

I cast a hundred black Bloodspears at him now, hurling them like a porcupine, as I try to break his shields. He combusts his shield and makes it mushroom out around me, trying to close me in.

I roll and dive, evading him as I flip sideways and slam another volley of spears at him with my wings. He hammers them back at me with a fast swipe of his tail, cracking through the air like a whip.

All those spears shatter into the lighting-barriers protecting the grandstands, making them bulge and strain with a wallop of thunder now from our vicious power. Blood Dragons are the pinnacle of rage and wrath in a dragon; we’re the reason the term Berserker was coined, and it’s appropriate, when we fight .

Because more than any other dragon Lineage, we fight to the death. And even though Mikkel and I don’t want to kill each other today, things are heating up hard now between us as we rush, dive, and clash.

We’re roaring, livid with the wrath shared between our bond as we roll, swipe, and dodge, trying to get each other with physical talons and fangs again.

I feel how Mikkel thought he’d have this fight in the bag and how frustrated he is now that he just can’t best me. He thought he could conquer me, being a big, bad drake like he is.

But even though he’s killed I-don’t-know-how-many dragons over the years, I’ve been a career warrior my entire life. Trained in the King’s army, promoted to his personal Palace Guard, then furthering my career as the Guard Captain of the Red Letter Hotel Paris, I’ve got skills.

More skills than he does, as I pull a trick and whirl a concentrated strike of Bloodwind right at his furthest wingtips now, in just the way I know will ripple his wing-harmonics and destabilize his flying.

It does; with a surprised roar, Mikkel crashes down to the sand in a tangle of green-black scales and wings. I’m on him, smashing into him as I pin him on his back.

Digging my talons into his belly, and roaring like thunder into his face.

I’ve won. This wasn’t a fight to kill, only to prove who is master and who isn’t, in our Bloodbond. I’ve mastered him now, making Mikkel crash-land onto his back on the earth and pinning him belly-up.

Even as I sear a cyclone of Bloodwind all around us now, white sand whirling up into my oilslick-black madness, I seize Mikkel’s neck in my jaws. Digging in with my fangs, I draw blood, snarling and making my growl vibrate all down his spine as I show him who’s boss in our bond.

What I didn’t count on is how much me dominating him makes Mikkel heat, however. Wildfire fills his veins suddenly, as everything inside him roars up not to master me now with fighting.

But master me in a different way—with fucking.

It surprises me as his scaled dragon lips nuzzle my neck. As I snort, everything inside me clenches to his heat. Mikkel feels me respond to him; he seizes the moment and flips me to my back on the sand now.Towering over me, he heaves hard breaths, staring down at me with his hot, dark eyes as our blistering resonance to mate devours us. No more poison fills him as I see a wave of bright copper sear through his scales now, along the lines of his chartreuse Bone Magic.

Mikkel’s eyes blaze a sparkling copper-green suddenly, rather than black, so vibrant they stun me with their incredible beauty. As shock fills me to see what he should look like, with all that inner brightness flooding his scales, I feel him suddenly struggle with it.

Because it’s not brightness he’s used much in his life, being a pirate bastard as he has been with his empire of clubs over the years. As Mikkel pauses above me now, however, heaving hard breaths, I feel something beyond desire in him.

Aesa’s silver Truthstone blazes like wildfire on my chest, searing with crimson and gold runes, as I feel my dragon-instincts suddenly understand the deepest ache of Mikkel’s life.

Because some banished, ridiculously suppressed part of him wants to be a part of something bright, like my budding band of heroes. He wants to shine with goodness, nobility, and honor, like I can do with my other drakes. He wants to be that, and take all that brightness in his talons and into his bed at night.

But we’re a long way from that, as his beautiful eyes darken back to black. Even though he’s got me tangled up in his scales and talons, our hearts beating in a frenzy and our togetherness sparking something bright inside him, I understand Mikkel will not let himself go there just yet.

He will not allow himself to hope that things could be better for him, being with me and my little band of heroes. As Mikkel stares down at me with his black mamba eyes back in full, I feel him banish his brightness.

Our dark passion sears through me again as I feel our bond push my darkest magic to the forefront once more. It wants to do disastrous things, despite how I felt something deeper and brighter inside Mikkel just now .

Lowering his head, Mikkel submits to me now—even as he keeps me trapped flat on my back. Running his scaled lips sexily over mine, he leans down more, truly making contact and opening his fanged jaws.

Kissing me.

I feel his dark magic rush into me as we kiss, making me want disastrous things as his long tongue snakes into my mouth, coiling mine up. As he kisses me harder, a thundering, dark pulse of desire from him wallops me.

A black heat devours me then—for the fuck now, rather than the fight. As a towering dark wildfire takes me, I feel Mikkel get swept up by it. His own inner desire to be bad is roaring now, crushing me down to the white sand as his strong body pins me.

And I’m opening to it, wanting him, too, as I push my head up hard, kissing him back with ruthless abandon in the way only dragons can manage. As he positions himself at my opening now, ready to thrust in and seal this deal between us, a crackling storm-blitz of lightning suddenly rips through my cyclone of Bloodwind.

A new presence entering the fight-ring, interrupting our near-coitus.

My cousin Rhennic Erdhelm, King of the Storm Dragons, strides through that crackling break he’s made in my winds. I see him shift up into his beautiful brute of a dragon; lithe, strong, with wings five times bigger than any Blood Dragon, he’s storm-blue and bruised purple, with sparkling lines of gold running through his scales from his Royal Dragon Bind-mate, Layla Price.

Rhennic’s a Dragon King; you don’t get that way by being weak. With one blast of storm-lightning channeled right down from the bruised summer skies, he shocks both Mikkel and me back to our senses.

A powerful—and painful—reminder of who rules this place we are in.

Rhennic’s lightning thrusts Mikkel and me apart. Pain blitzes through my veins as I’m interrupted with my Third Bloodmate; I snarl at my cousin before his look pierces me to the quick.

With rivers of lightning coursing through his storm-purple and gold dragon-eyes, not to mention his entire body, he flaps his wings, jutting his elegant head at the grandstands all around.

I’m suddenly, horridly, reminded of our audience, as I see the Storm Dragons still around us. There are even more now, dragons and people filling the grandstands to take in whatever massive magics were happening here.

As I realize I was just about to have dragon-sex in front of hundreds of witnesses, I coil up barbs-out in a tight, hissing ball of confusion and rage. Dragons are far more public in their attentions than people, but I’m still a very private soul. Rhennic knows that, as I realize he just stopped me from an embarrassing event that I would never live down.

I’m grateful and relieved, as I finally get my wits back and nod to him. Mikkel is growling at our coitus interruptus —but one look from Rhennic silences him.

Rhennic is a King, and Storm Dragon King; though Mikkel and I have power, my cousin could kill us with a single channeling of lightning right down from the high summer skies, and we both know it.

Blood Dragons can protect themselves from Storm Dragons, but not from power like Rhennic’s. There’s a reason my cousin has won every one of the fifty-plus dominance battles that have been lobbed at him ever since he ascended to his Kingship.

Rhen knows it, too, as he casually shifts down now, gesturing for Mikkel and me to do the same.

We’re guests in his house; we both shift down, putting our dragons away, though we’re heaving hard breaths from our brutal fight and near dragon-sex.

It leaves Mikkel and me naked before each other now, however, as Rhennic receives a royal storm-blue robe from an attendant, embroidered with gold thread in a fanciful fleur-de-lis.

Lightning flickers along the path of those threads. I don’t know if it’s my cousin’s power making the garments shine or their own imbued magic, but I know those are the raiments of the Storm Dragon King, as he fixes a few toggles so he’s no longer bare before us.

Rhennic’s gaze is alert as he glances between Mikkel and me; he can see dragon-auras, and he’s attuned to the sparks still flying between us. At a wave of his hand, another attendant moves forward to give me a dark purple robe, embroidered with gold like Rhennic’s.

I know it’s a robe intended for royalty, as I let the attendant slide it on me. Mikkel gets nothing, though he steps over to his own pants shed to the sand and hauls them on.

He doesn’t bother to don underwear, however, and I get a very nice view of his rock-hard cock as he puts it away, silken, long, and fully erect. But the Storm King’s gaze is still on us—and so is his energy. I turn to Rhennic, as Mikkel does.

Ready for an earful from the King of the strongest Dragon Lineage in the world.

It doesn’t come, though. Instead, relief takes Rhennic’s eyes, that he got here just in time to stop our near sex without any fight. As Rhennic sweeps to me now, gathering me into a massive bear hug in the way of our family, I clutch him back, hard.

My elder by a few decades but still young by dragon standards, Rhennic is elegant; it shows now as he and I peck cheeks in the French fashion, effete.

He’s a warrior to his marrow, however, as his energy roars. I can’t recall my origins right now, thanks to my cursed Excommunication by the Black Dragon Knights, but I know we’ve been like siblings since I was young.

Chambord feels like home, and Rhennic is the core of that home for me. A knight in shining armor for those he loves, my cousin is tall with broad shoulders, but of a slender build from his late mother.

Drop-dead handsome, his high cheekbones, cut jaw, and level brows are arresting like a Storm Dragon, but his gladiator-short, wavy gold-blond hair and trimmed reddish blond beard are all Blood Dragon.

Not a Storm Dragon color, Rhennic’s vivid lavender eyes flicker with intense lightning now at what nearly happened here, even though he puts on a calm, cordial face out where watchful eyes are in public.

My cousin is not just a monstrous brute in a fight, he’s also smart, and was a cunning battle general for his late mother, the former Storm Queen Justine Toulet. It’s partly how he secured his position as King; he doesn’t let his emotions drive him, and knows when to talk about things in private, so it doesn’t impact the relationship his people have with any other dragon Lineage.

Especially when things involve the family of another notable Dragon King.

“Rikyava, cousin. Good to see you,” Rhennic says amiably now as he stands with me, not a trace of ire in him. My cousin’s deep baritone is a soothing rumble, purring with the slightest French accent, though some trick of the magic-imbued amphitheater carries his voice to every vault and ear. “You’ve provided a lovely demonstration of Blood Dragon skill in battle this afternoon, but this fight-rotunda is needed now, unfortunately, to be readied for a special aurumglow event this evening. If you both would accompany me? I’d love to get a bite of dinner before I’m needed for the show.”

As he speaks to me and my Third Bloodmate, I’m highly aware of the fact that Rhennic just stopped me from doing something not just embarrassing, but truly against my nature. He’s giving us the most elegant out now, not even mentioning what was about to happen, but brushing everything off as a demonstration of Blood Dragon prowess.

Though thunder still rolls through the clouds from eager Storm Dragons watching the spectacle, he’s even excused his interruption as nothing more than a need to ready this hall for some Storm Dragon event later. It’s impressive, and I’m reminded again of why Rhennic is King.

Not just for his battle-might, but for his vast wealth of smarts.

His forethought shows as he gives me a kind smile now, taking up my hands; though his blitzing purple eyes tell me the truth of why he interrupted us today. Rhennic is a white knight, and he was protecting me .

Not from Mikkel—but from myself.

It makes me realize then that Mikkel’s bond has done something to me. Not just to my magic, driving it dark like his, but making me careless in the way that only utter wrath can.

The fact is, I nearly did something here today that I never would have permitted before. As I glance at Mikkel now, I see his dark eyes shine without remorse.

He doesn’t give a damn. Not only would he kill anyone who opposes him, and has, he has zero scruples about where and when he fucks, or with whom. I’m far more private, and that’s bad news if his power is driving my choices.

Far more than mine is driving his.

The only thing that gives me hope as I stare into his dark eyes now, is how I saw him shine so brightly, just a moment ago. For one brief moment, I saw the better man Mikkel truly is, or perhaps could be, way down deep beneath his poison.

When he shone vivid copper, rather than the vicious chartreuse of his dragon, I felt a yearning in him, a buried desire to be good. It’s the only thing that keeps me from cutting him loose from my Bloodbond now, even though Aesa’s Truthstone sings hard upon my chest to keep him.

Because Mikkel has power, and it’s power we need if we’re to go up against the Black Dragon Knights, not to mention the Black Dragon itself, plus our enemy Bone Mages directing it.

But it’s power that comes with a price—a price I’m still not sure I want to pay, as I nod to Mikkel and take my cousin’s hand.

Letting the Storm Dragon King lead me from the hall like the proud warrior I am.