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“It has to be the honey.” He’d convinced himself that if he removed the soaked material from her body, one to check for any hidden injuries and the other to rid her of the baffling scent, He reached for his blade and then sat up.

As he grabbed the end of the offending material and pulled it away from her skin to keep from nicking her, he quickly sliced upward in one smooth motion.

One fell away, flowing to the side of her body and leaving her half-bared. She was naked beneath the flimsy garment.

Liekki froze. His world drilled down to the one moment, the person, as if he were stuck in a tunnel and she was his only light out.

Not because he’d never seen a curvy and lush body. Hell, no, he was a Drahk, and their females were thick. They had to be to take the fierce pleasure of a male dragon-shifter. They didn’t do anything nice and easy when it came to sex.

No, what had him struck was the potency of her distinct scent that wafted up to him, everything he had tasted. Her.

Mine . “Shiiiit.” It wasn’t his beast this time that declared ownership, but him.

His gaze caressed her body and saw all she had to offer in spades—the delectable beauty of her full shape.

On the one hand, he was grateful that from the center of her thighs to her collarbone, her skin remained unmarred because if he had to put his mouth on any of her intimate places, he wouldn’t trust his restraint. He wasn’t a god.

On the other hand, he would have loved an excuse to bend his head to the center of her thighs, bury his nose in her pussy and inhale. At the thought, all his blood and fire pivoted south, his cock throbbed.

He tilted his head up and blew out more smoke, a white cloud filled with the scent of his dragon.

Not for her this time but for him. Liekki allowed the smoke to drift over him, around his head, until his mind had cleared some, cleared enough to vanquish the rest of her scent so he could care for her hands and arms, which were severely stung.

As the smoke dissipated, he hastily cut the gown into strips that allowed him to pull it away with little effort and drop the shreds to the floor.

He almost lost himself again when he needed to place a hand on her narrow waist and roll her up to tug the material out from under her.

Seeing her plump, perfectly round ass was almost his undoing.

Liekki didn’t hesitate to take care of her hands and arms. He had to be meticulous because there were so many.

One of her biceps was swollen so badly he could not get the stingers out.

When he had to lick the curve of her neck to get a wayward spot, it caused him to bury his face in her hair and feel the softness of the underside of her strands that weren’t coated in stickiness, and it caused a growl to rise out of his throat.

It was that damned ginger, honey, caramel scent of hers.

With the stinger still in his mouth, he shoved away.

He drove his hands into his hair as he stared down at her. He’d begun this mission as her protector, her healer, only to... and now... He shook his head.

Her body became clammy, and she began to shiver.

As his mind struggled with what he just discovered, she still suffered.

“Shit, pull yourself together,” he growled at himself as he walked away toward the fireplace on the other side of his bed. After he sucked in a lungful of oxygen, he shot out a stream of fire into the empty grate. He knew that the flame would remain lit until he put it out.

He stood there staring at the blaze as heat spread into the room. He didn’t move for a moment but kept his head bowed as he tried to collect himself. Her scent was everywhere, making it complicated. He flexed his hands, trying to remove the tension there. It was then that he noticed he was shaking.

It only took him a few seconds to know it wasn’t from fear or chill, but he was awestruck. Unlike Drahk males who desired mates, dragon-shifters, or humans, Liekki had not considered it. He loved his life, including his position in the Thunder and his freedom.

It was because he never even considered that what was plaguing him had anything to do with his yearning for a mate.

Hell, his beast was fucking over the moon. Since he’d landed before the frightened female, the dragon had attempted to tell him she was his.

Liekki had to admit that a part of him was obtuse, refusing to categorize her scent because he refused to give it space in his mind. Now, there was no way of denying it.

She was his mate. Unmated. Unclaimed. But his.

Her sweet taste still bloomed on his tongue, making him force back the groan that barreled into his throat.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. If he focused on the flavor of her skin or the scent of her body for too long, his cock would be at full mast. It was already halfway there, and even if he wanted to slake his lust, the female wasn’t in any condition to satisfy it.

“Best to find a willing drahkelle— Shit!” he hissed.

Before he could even finish the thought, his dragon sunk his damn claws into his gut. A move that managed to make quick work of Liekki’s erection.

Learn to take a fucking joke, beast, ” Liekki growled at it.

When he heard her teeth stop chattering, he stalked back to the bed. She was no longer a strange interloper but his.

Before he returned to the bed, he grabbed an extra blanket from the shelf of his closet.

He snapped the spread open at the bed and then quickly draped it over her body, covering her from toes to shoulders, removing the tempting sight of her full breasts and the dynamic flare of her hips.

He promised himself not to think of the thickness of her thighs hidden under the blue-and-black-striped material.

Some of the worst of the stings had been in her face, and Liekki knew he could no longer put off healing her there.

As he leaned forward, he, once again, allowed the fire in his belly to roll up over his tongue and heat his palate to aid him in removing the remaining tacky streak on her skin and getting the ebony darts out.

He swiped up her temple and over her brow, using his forked tongue to continue to pluck away each stinger as it passed.

Patiently and gentler, he took out the two beside one of her eyes and one on the other.

Her nose had so many across the bridge that he would have thought they were freckles.

At some point, he’d lowered himself to his forearms and was so close to her mouth that the soft flutter of her breaths caressed his lips.

He stared at her lips, distorted but full, and wondered how much of their puffiness was from the attack and what was naturally hers, designed by the Great Spirit.

So many urges filled his mind that he should feel ashamed to think about, particularly with the woman unwell underneath him, but even while he tried to muster up the guilty feelings, he did what he knew he shouldn’t; he unshifted his tongue.

Liekki knew he couldn’t have her, but by the gods, he would taste her.

He closed the space between them, placed his mouth over hers, and began to slide his tongue over her top lip first. He swiped from left to right and back again, licking and tasting and inhaling in the scent of her breath and her body.

The spicy, sweet, smooth blend of her caused heat to fill his belly and a groan to snare in his chest.

As he removed the single stinger and set it on the nightstand where the pile of others lay, he turned his attention to her lower lip.

Even as her lips sat parted, he forced himself to maintain some control and not dip inside her mouth.

However, when he found himself drawing her plump bottom lip into his mouth and sucking off the honey, he refused to judge his actions. This was him showing restraint.

She let out a small gasp but remained still.

He drew back once he removed all the honey and only felt the scratching of three stingers along the tip of his tongue. His tongue wasn’t as dexterous as his dragon’s, so he used his teeth to grasp them and pluck each offending insect's spear out.

It took all his strength to drag himself away and stand beside the bed, but he did.

She wasn’t close to being fully healed, but her swollen skin appeared less red and angry. The deatach glan heyl would do the rest over the next few hours.

Taking in a breath that filled his lungs and stretched them to capacity, Liekki released the thick, dense gray smoke and saturated the room. Because his bedroom was bigger than the healing chamber, it took him four deep breaths to fog up the room properly.

Now that she was on the path to mending, he needed to put space between them. Right now, no answers were coming his way about who she was and why she was in the territory.

Was she a plant by the human government? Liekki didn’t know, but he didn’t need to see the design on her inner thigh to prove she’d been marked. The heady spice in her scent was a dragon.

Kai was an anomaly, but even her sister had been marked, not for their kind but for lupine.

With a clear vision, he snatched the ragged material from the floor and the lonely slipper then marched from the room, closing the door firmly behind him. The only thing he could do right now was radio the security leader.

His mind was at war with itself and his dragon. But until Liekki got answers to his questions, he’d have to resist his beast's urgings.