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Chapter Seven

A m I willing to be hers? Marked. Branded. Bonded? Corey’s mind ran through all the things she’d told him the mark meant. She admitted she hadn’t told him everything, just what mattered.

He’d always imagined the day he would ask a woman to marry him.

He’d get down on one knee, hand her a ring after saying something particularly eloquent that he could never have thought up himself.

There might be music playing and champagne.

And ideally, they’d have been together long enough that he knew all her secrets well enough that there would be no surprises.

This isn’t the same thing, not by a longshot , he told himself. But somehow it was. Commitment wasn’t something he was shy about. Hell, he’d come on this expedition, hadn’t he?

Yet every moment of this expedition had been a surprise, and Racha was just the cherry on top. Fate was telling him something and maybe, for once, he ought to listen.

Corey looked down at the petite beauty, finally letting himself hear what it was God or Fate or whatever power existed out there wanted for him.

He answered her question with a kiss, sliding his tongue in deep.

Every ounce of hesitation or reluctance disappeared with the stroke of her tongue against his.

He spent a second vaguely aware that when they kissed, her tongue felt as solid and fleshy as a human tongue. As human as all the rest of her now that the power had ebbed and her skin had regained its normal pink sheen.

Except this is not normal for her. What I saw before is closer to what she is. The idea didn’t bother him as much as it might have the day before. On the contrary, it made him want her more.

He held still while she traced her mouth down over his jaw and throat, closing his eyes at the silken caress of her lips and tongue. She paused at his chest and pulled back. A gentle fingertip traced a pattern on his pec just over his left nipple, leaving a tingling sensation in her wake.

Corey looked down just as she darted her forked tongue out to redraw the same pattern with swift, stinging strokes.

The sting didn’t bother him any more than any of his other tattoos had, nor did his understanding of what it meant.

She had explained that the glowing magic that infused the mark protected him, and established their bond—one that would not be broken until one of them died.

The gravity of the small ritual hit him when she gazed up into his eyes.

Her fingertips dug a little harder into his naked chest. She seemed to be waiting for his reaction.

He didn’t feel any different, however. The abiding need to be with her hadn’t changed, only now it was accompanied by a sense of permanence.

Far from frightening, the feeling was a comfort.

“You’re what I’ve always wanted,” he said.

Racha raised up on her knees and wrapped her arms around him. He embraced her and carried her back down to the bed with him. Even the sounds she made were perfect breathy moans as he explored her body with mouth and hands.

She tangled her fingers in his hair when he lowered his head between her thighs for the first time, tongue flicking out, eager to taste the sweet place his cock had been deeply buried in earlier.

She spread her legs wider and tilted her hips to meet the thrust of his tongue deep into her hot, velvet depths.

His head buzzed from the tangy flavor and heady aroma of her sex.

He had to taste the flood of her climax before he made love to her again.

She writhed and cried out when she came and Corey braced himself for a violent, spectacular surge of energy, but all that happened was exactly what he’d hoped—the drenched folds of her pussy spasmed against his lips, coating them with even more of her sweet flavor.

He lapped it up, ignoring her giddy twitches and stuttering breath until he’d had his fill.

“Are you ready for more?” he asked, rising up onto his knees and gripping her hips. He tugged her toward him until his hard cock slid against her well-attended pussy. He smiled when her eyes rolled back and she nodded.

With a slow, deliberate thrust, he buried himself deep into her. He fucked her as slowly as he could endure, watching her face with each stroke to gauge where she found the most pleasure. She quickly reached the point of quivering need for release again.

“Touch yourself,” he said gruffly, pushing her legs a little wider and hooking her thighs over his arms.

Racha acknowledged him with a fleeting smile before her face drifted back to a mask of pure enjoyment. She slipped her fingers between her thighs and Corey groaned at the way she gripped him at first, squeezing the base of his cock while he pistoned into her.

Her gorgeous, small breasts thrust up when she arched her back in response to the first touch of her fingers on her clit. She rubbed in tight little circles, obviously adept at pleasuring herself, but seemed to lose rhythm the deeper and harder he fucked her.

He sucked first one pert nipple into his mouth until she moaned, then the other. The tight squeeze of her pussy became more than he could endure.

Her hips bucked hard into his. He yelled her name and bent over her, fucking her with an erratic, pumping rhythm while his climax gripped him. The shuddering pull of her muscles surrounded his cock and milked him dry.

The glow that accompanied her climax was subtle at first, then grew brighter, coursing through her in tiny ripples across her skin. He watched, enthralled until it subsided and her eyes opened. She gave him a sleepy smile.

“You’re glowing,” he said.

“So are you.” She gestured at the mark on his chest. He looked down to see that it was, indeed, glowing with a faint green light.

“Does this happen every time?”

“Now that the ritual is finished, when we please each other like that, we share our energy. You give me your Nirvana and I give back some of my magic. It protects you. It also reminds other dragons that you belong to me.”

“Oh?” he asked with a cock of one eyebrow. “And who in their right mind would steal from the Queen? Not that I’d go with anyone else, of course.”

“No one would, but the mark will ensure you’re treated with the level of respect deserved of the Queen’s Consort.”

Consort . Corey let the title roll around in his head, not sure how he should feel about it.

It sounded a little fancy for a guy raised by a traditional, blue-collar Catholic family like he had been.

He brushed it off as yet another convention her kind had that they’d learn to outgrow once they acquainted themselves with the modern world.

But if the mark gave him an advantage over other dragons, that was a good thing, right?

A thought occurred to him. “So what’s to remind other people … or dragons that you belong to me ?”

She tilted her chin at his chest again. “That mark means I’m yours. Dragons can bond with many humans, but a number of us choose only a few as true mates. Some only choose one—the fewer we choose, the stronger our bond is.”

She seemed to grow a little pensive and turned away from him, burying her head in her pillow.

“Well, that’s good, right? We both got pretty lucky, I think.” He lay down beside her and brushed his palm down her back.

“It depends on what the world is like out there now, and if you can endure a lifetime with me.”

“Hey, what’s this talk of ‘enduring’? I’m in this for the long haul. The world’s mostly pretty great. Confusing as fuck a lot of times, but you’re a bright girl. You’ll get the hang of it.”

She turned back to meet his gaze, her lips pursed. “I’m not concerned about adjusting to your world. It’s you adjusting to our world that worries me.”

Something niggled at the back of his mind as he attempted to comfort her, though. The whole lifetime thing.

“Wait, you’ve been asleep in here for how long? Five hundred years?”

She nodded solemnly.

“So, when you say ‘lifetime,’ how long are we talking?”

She eyed the mark on his chest again. “My magic …. As long as I share it with you, you will live as long as I do.”

Corey narrowed his eyes at her evasive answer. “Spit it out, Racha.”

“Another five hundred years, give or take.”

He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “?‘Give or take,’ she says,” he muttered. “What about the others?”

“It works the same for them, though the more mates they collect, the shorter their lifespans. Some consider it worth the sacrifice, others don’t.”

Corey had never in a million years considered he’d walk away from this expedition with such a confounding gift. But it sounded like she was hedging on something.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“It means we are bound together for the duration. Some mates can’t endure it. After the first century, they go a little mad. Some commit suicide rather than go on.”

“So, we can still die …”

“Yes. Did you think we were immortal?”

“Well, from my perspective, it sure seems that way. But wow … Imagine the things you can see in five hundred years.”

Racha grimaced. “My mother told me it was easier living in the monastery. The world was cruel when I was a child, and crueler still during the lifetime before Mother awoke. She always said it never changed much between generations.”

Corey tried to recall all he knew of ancient history. Half a millennium ago wasn’t precisely the dark ages, but it may as well have been. She was going to be overwhelmed by the changes, and he was only too eager to show them all to her and see how she reacted.

“Everything moves a lot quicker now than it did when you were young.”

“But you weren’t even there. How do you know?”

“Erika and the others can tell you—it’s their specialty, not mine.

All I know is that in this lifetime, two people can speak to each other instantly from opposite sides of the planet, and it takes about a day to travel that far.

But humans haven’t changed all that much.

We still eat and shit and fuck. We fall in love and we make babies and we try to raise them to be like us and fail miserably.

My point is the world is changing faster than even I can comprehend right now, but at the same time, it’s not any different at all.

Having centuries to absorb it all could be a lot of fun. Especially with the right person.”

Racha smiled at him. “I’m glad it was you who came into my chamber today.”

“So am I,” he said, laying a kiss upon the swell of her creamy breast.

She rose abruptly, and with a breath was pristinely coifed and clad in a much more solid piece of clothing than she’d worn for him earlier. If it were possible, she looked even more stunning.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“It’s time to meet the brood. You should dress. I can hear their eagerness to leave—they are already assembling in the Grand Hall.”

Corey grabbed her hand before she could walk away.

“No matter what happens, I’m with you,” he said.

“Thank you.”