He could hear the weight of those words in the soft lilt of her voice and feel her concern in the tension in her fingers and how she gripped his hands.

It was his job to protect her and their unborn child and lead his people into victory against any enemies.

The burden of it all was like a massive stone settled on his shoulders.

The difference was that he was used to it. It came with his position and was who he was as a leader. It never left him even in times of peace, because when you shift into the biggest fucker in the world, others were always trying to figure out a way to take you down.

However, the magnitude of the concern was overwhelming to his soft-hearted, human mate. Kai’s only worry had been caring for ill parents and protecting her sister. Now she was the mother of a Thunder, encumbered with fear for helpless humans.

“I feel weak and powerless to stop what is coming.” She sagged back against him.

He tightened his arms. “You are not. You are everything, mate-wife, that gives me strength...” he pressed a hand to her lower belly. “You carry everything that gives our people strength and hope.”

His markings flared cornflower blue, reflecting his love for her. He buried his nose in her dense, wild curls and exhaled smoke through the coils, his dragon marking her. Fuck, they couldn’t do this without her, had been eking out a half existence before Kai.

His dragon stretched inside of him, wanting to curl around Kai and comfort her.

“We still have weeks to go, love.” He shifted to the side to draw her gaze to him.

Once she’d turned her face to the side and gazed at him, he vowed, “If I promise to ensure we devise a plan to minimize the harm to those in the Dispatch District, will you trust me to see it through, and you stop worrying and focus on your main job?” He patted her stomach. “Our offspring?”

She smiled, and his world shattered into dust; he imagined himself hovering before the earth’s ash, basking in her glorious, radiant sun.

Kai raised her hand and placed it along his cheek. “I trust your word, Aodh.”

His vision was tainted with a sapphire haze from the flames raging in his eyes. Fire roared in his core and heated his blood and it dove southward and filled his cock which had relaxed during their conversation of war, only for it to thicken and harden with a fiercer need than he’d woken with.

“You trust my words, do you?” he offered her a wicked smile as he grabbed the ends of the tie holding her robe closed, then pulled, unraveling it. “Then I give you my word that when I have my meetings with the leaders today, I’ll invite Avalore. Khuzaimah was right, she’s got a warrior’s mind.”

And I’m sure Avalore has become Liekki’s claimed-mate by now. So, she’d no longer be an outsider.

Aodh had seen the electricity sparking between the two when he left them at the meeting grounds the previous day.

Good. I like her.

“She can help us understand the setup regarding the Dispatch.”

“Hmhmm...” She stroked along his cheek with her thumb and kissed him on the chin.

“Will you set it all away for now, so I can start our day off right, little flame?” He reached inside the side of the robe and cupped one of his mate-wife’s ample breasts.

“Oh...yes...” She rested her head on his chest and arched into his teasing hand.

Aodh gripped her covering with his free hand and shoved it down her shoulders and off her body.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” He admired her body covered by the dancing firelight. As the robe fluttered to the floor around their feet, he snaked a hand around her hip to caress the top of her thigh.

“You mean mammoth,” she whimpered and arched her ass into his cock as he pinched her nipple.

They were already sensitive, but the pregnancy had made her practically orgasmic when he played with them.

“I mean lush...” He allowed the fire to roll up into his throat and over his tongue as he licked a flame on the cover of her shoulder and down towards her arm. “And sexy. And fucking wet.”

His hand slipped between her thighs, loving their thickness, squeezing his hand as he discovered her dripping pussy.

“Oh...don’t stop.”

Hell, no. He had no plans to stop. He gave her more hot licks, like ants chasing sugar, goosebumps rose along her skin in a trail following his tongue over her shoulder.

Her clit was hard and distended between her swollen, slick folds.

He bracketed the stiff peak between his two middle fingers and stroked.

“Yes...yeees,” she hissed. Her body went liquid against him. She gripped his arms, holding her breasts with one hand and palming the back of his neck with the other, as if needing purchase.

Aodh grabbed her hand which was holding his arm and forcing it to her other breast. He made her play with it as he toyed with the other.

“Do what I do, little flame,” he commanded in Drahk. He knew the guttural dragon language of his people aroused Kai more when he used it during sex.

He flicked her nipple with his thumb. She flicked her other nipple with her thumb.

When he gripped her whole plump breast in his big hand, squeezing it, he watched Kai’s smaller hand mirror his actions.

Damn, it was erotic watching her play with herself. After he brought her to an orgasm, he was going to fuck her while she stroked her clit.

Shifting, his body lower, he pressed his hard length right along the seam of her ass and felt her flex her cheeks against his cock.

He groaned and restrained himself from sliding his dick down until he was at her opening and slamming inside of her.

Not yet , he told himself.

Guiding his hand along her slick slit, he located her divine center, the place he wanted to bury himself in. He pressed his two fingers inside. In and out, he worked along her walls, her cream easing his way.

“More...Mckenna.”

Shit, hearing his title on her lips was kindling to his lusty fire. He knew she begged for his hard, thick length stretching her and pressing deep, but he made them both wait until she came. He was addicted to watching Kai orgasm and fall apart. She was lovely at the height of her passion.

“I know what you need,” he declared, as he slipped out of her tightness and entered again with three fingers, stretching her wide and pressing up far inside her.

He drove into her, curling his fingers forward at the spot as his thumb pressed tight circles around her clit, both actions that would have her screaming.

She bucked and thrashed, fucking his hand as she plowed toward her satisfaction.

“That’s it, little flame. Take what you need,” he growled, still playing with her nipple.

Her hand on her breast, she palmed it hard, no longer able to replicate his touch as she lost herself in pleasure.

Then he felt the flutters quaking in her depths, moments before her walls seized his fingers, and then her world dropped off the cliff of ecstasy.

Kai’s pussy quivered and drenched his hand as she cried out her release.

He kept pumping, forcing his digits in and out of her, even as she squeezed tighter and tighter.

He groaned as he licked his flame over the delicate curve of her neck. He knew all that hot, snug goodness would be wrapped around his cock soon enough.

Aodh .

Shit ! Go away, Liekki , he growled . I’m busy. Hell, you should be busy, too.

Aodh shoved back against his brother through his mind, making sure Liekki understood he didn’t want to be disturbed. The Mckenna was currently off duty.

He turned Kai in his arms, still rubbing her pussy as he captured her cries in his mouth.

Kissing her deeply, he glided his honeyed-fire coating along her tongue.

Aodh began walking backwards towards the single chair by the fire, mentally showing his mate-wife the erotic images of how he wanted her straddling him and riding his cock in the firelight.

Aodh, I need you in the medical chamber , Liekki insisted.

Aodh snatched his mouth away and roared, “Fuck!”

He slipped his fingers out of his little flame’s wet, tight pussy. If his brother was downstairs, something was wrong. Rather, it better be, or he was going to throw Liekki into the sick bed.

I’m on my way , he responded to his brother.

See you soon.

“What...what’s going on?” Kai stared up at him, her gaze hazy and her body languid.

He could see her fighting her way through the lusty fog as she picked up on his change.

“It’s Liekki. He’s in the medical chamber.” He stepped back and gazed down at Kai’s naked, aroused body again. he groaned. His dick throbbed, unhappy at being cockblocked for the second time that morning.

Bending down, he swiped the robe from the floor, kissed her stomach as he rose again before handing her the covering. “I need to go.”

“Wait. I’m coming too.” Kai’s bare feet padded on the floor behind him as he strutted towards the room for clothing.

Turning, he met her gaze. “Are you sure? You should rest.”

“I’ll never sleep knowing someone could be hurt.” She breezed past him and went up the steps. “I may be able to help somehow.”

Aodh didn’t see a need to argue with her, so he quickly dressed in pants, boots, and a vest.

Kai dashed into the bathroom and cleaned up quickly before she went into the closet and put on a small, snug, short-sleeved top that covered her ample breasts, which he had just had his hands full of, before she wiggled into a long skirt and flats.

Her swollen, marked stomach on full display, pregnant Drahkelle style.

“Tell me we don’t have time for me to drag your skirt to your hips and fuck you before we leave,” he declared. His cock was still hard inside his pants, angrily showing how unsatisfied it still was.

Kai stepped closer to him until she had her glorious, voluptuous curves pressed against him.

“We don’t have time. But I give you my word that as soon as we find out what’s going on with Liekki and help, we will finish this, mate-husband.

Even if I must follow you to your office and screw you in your desk chair. ”

She planted a kiss right over his heart before she turned and walked out of the room, lush hips swaying.

Aodh drove his hands through his short hair. As he followed her, he tossed up a prayer to the Great Spirit that whatever was going on with his brother would be settled quickly.