Page 18

She tilted her head and stared at him. “Trust me. Pregnancy information was rampant in the Dispatch. It was the main commodity people lived on. The government wouldn’t even allow a woman to test until it had been at least two weeks since she’d had sex or a week after her expected cycle day.”

However, what Kai didn’t say was that with the problem of malnutrition, a lot of women in the district had inconsistent periods, and some lost them for years, making it harder for them to conceive the first time and get the government stipend.

“No.”

“No?” She shoved at his shoulders. She hated it when someone doubted her knowledge.

There wasn’t much for her to do when she wasn’t caring for sick family or working, so she filled her mind with information from the archive center.

Most of it was random, but it was still knowledge. “Trust me, Aodh, I know—”

“Nothing of Drahks.” He leaned in and placed a loud kiss on her mouth. “Sorry, little flame. I will work to rectify your ignorance of my kind, but as I do, you must agree to believe my words. I am the Mckenna, after all.”

She felt Aodh’s arms wrap around her as he pulled her close. There was a light tone to his gravelly voice, but she knew even as he teased her, all the power of his authority was in his words.

“You are Mckenna.’ She squeezed his bare hips with her knees, fully aware of their nude state and the heft of Aodh’s semi-erect cock along the top of her thigh. However, as much as her body always craved his, she needed answers. “So, tell me, Mckenna, what makes you think I’m pregnant?”

“Not think. It is how my dragon claims his mate.”

Absently, her fingers glided along the curve of his shoulder to his neck. “Didn’t that happen when he let me touch his heart?”

Kai recalled the heat radiating under her palm from the dragon’s chest and up along her arm until it built inside her.

Aodh leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose, then a corner of her mouth. “That was only part of it, little flame. His acceptance and trust in you as he offered the most vulnerable part of any dragon, their heart.” His large hand caressed her back and drew her closer.

“Then what?” Her ass hovered on the edge of the cool marble counter. Her sex pulsed and clenched at his touch, but she wouldn’t be distracted.

“Then we claimed you in the only true way and made you our mate.” Aodh’s hands slid beneath her cheeks and hoisted her up off her seat and against his body.

The smoke had dissipated, and she could see the bathroom clear again. However, the only thing she focused on was Aodh. She frowned and wrapped her thighs around his waist as he held her tight, her sex pressed to his stiff shaft.

“Through sex.”

“Yes.” He ground against her, and her slickness made his glide easy.

She moaned and couldn’t stop herself from rotating her hips and pressing her clit along his thick cock.

If she didn’t discover what had happened from Aodh, her mind would be too far gone to think.

She bit down into her lip to make herself focus.

“We’ve had sex many times, Aodh. How was this time diff—? ”

As the words came out of her mouth, she knew.

Her mind replayed everything and the sensation she felt when Aodh was making love to her.

Not just the flame, even though she couldn’t wait until that happened again.

She could spend a lifetime having flame-induced orgasms. However, it was the part that happened after that, when Aodh was deep inside of her. There had been something more. Deeper.

Aodh leaned back and cocked a brow at her as if he was waiting for her to figure it all out.

Like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, her mind began to fill the pieces in. There had been pain, pressure, then euphoria.

“He was... Your dragon was inside me. My womb.”

“Yes.” He licked the side of her neck.

She shivered in response.

“Will this happen every time we are together now?” There may have been an abundance of pleasure she derived from it in the end, but she wasn’t too keen on being impaled so deep every time they had sex.

“No, little flame.” He blew a small stream of smoke over her breasts.

The heat of the smoke made her nipples pucker.

“My dragon’s stem only extends to breed you.”

“Oh.” Phew. “That’s how you knew I was pregnant.”

“Yes. Or we would still be joined together.” Aodh squeezed her ass as he made long, slow strokes along her labia.

Kai locked her ankles at the small of his broad back as her toes curled from Aodh’s actions. “What about the design? Will it always be there now?”

Aodh turned until he was sitting on the counter. “That one will.”

“How many will I have?” She took in the sight of his chest and arms. His markings were now a deep indigo hue, combining lust and joy. She wondered if her whole body would soon look like those in his Thunder.

“Your markings will follow the growth of your womb. Once the scales cover your swollen belly, it will be time for you to give birth.”

“Well, that is a neat trick,” she winked at him. “Takes all the guessing out of when the baby will arrive.”

She was still trying to process what was happening in her body.

She had never really given much thought to getting pregnant.

Kai spent most of her life caring for her family and couldn’t think of adding another mouth to feed into the mix.

Even for the government stipend, she didn’t want that to be her only way to build her fund account.

In the Dispatch, it was a slippery slope.

Once a woman started having children for account credits, it became a crutch and the only way she could earn more to provide for the multiple mouths.

Now, a new life filled Kai’s womb, and she and her sister would have food and shelter regardless. Kai knew there were more implications surrounding this child, but right now, she didn’t want to evaluate it. She just wanted to let Aodh’s joy surround her right now.

“Are you alright, mate?” Aodh pulled her close, and his gaze beat back the flames there as he searched her face.

She appreciated his concern for her. She smiled at him, running her fingers through his short, thick, black hair. “Yes, Mckenna. I am well.”

“Are you happy to carry my seed?”

A little late to ask a girl. However, she didn’t feel anger at the situation. “I’m stunned but happy.”

“Good. Your happiness is my happiness.” He claimed her mouth. The kiss wasn’t as fierce and consuming as the one he’d given her after she’d met his dragon, but still potent.

She moaned in his mouth and ground against his length, wanting him inside of her. Pulling her lips away, she pleaded, “Aodh...”

“I can feel how wet you are, little flame. How much you need me.”

“I need you,” she confirmed as she clutched at the back of his neck.

Aodh took one of her hands and guided it between them. He wrapped her hand around his thick cock.

She stroked him up and down, feeling his hot shaft and the traces of her wetness coating him.

Still covering her hand, he drew it up to the crown. With his thumb, he led hers to the tip.

Aodh groaned. “Feel him.”

For a moment, she wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Then she felt the small bead-like impression along the pad of her thumb. Shifting back, she peered down until she could stare down at the tiny raspberry formation barely peeking out from inside the opening of Aodh’s cock head.

She recalled rolling her tongue over it when she took Aodh into her mouth. Her lips curled into a smile—Aodh’s dragon. The beast was indeed a part of the man.

Kai liked that there was a tangible part of his dragon she could connect with at any time, even though she looked forward to seeing it fully materialize before her again.

When she pressed and stroked her thumb over it, Aodh growled, and his big form shook violently.

Evidently, this was a sensitive place for them. Her smile broadened, and she filed the bit of knowledge away for later.

“Aodh, fuck me.”

He grabbed her hips and lifted her higher with ease as if all her lush curves barely weighed anything.

When she was at the point where his crown was nudging her clit, he said, “No, you claim us, mate.”

She squeezed his length before she stroked her aching, stiff clit with his tip. Her body trembled with the need to have him inside. She was slightly nervous. Even though she played an enthusiastic participant during the times she and Aodh had sex, she’d never led in the act.

However, she wanted to. She needed to show Aodh she could be his equal in what was happening between them. Perhaps in other ways, too. Like many others swarming around in her mind, she left that thought alone.

As she glided the broad head of his crown between her lips until she notched his cock at her entrance, she kissed him. Sliding her tongue into his mouth, she savored the hot, honey glaze that coated his tongue. Reveling in the spicy sweetness of his taste pressed into her.

Unable to hold back the gasp at the feel of him stretching her walls, she continued to lower herself along his length.

She clutched his shoulders in her hands and used his solid body as leverage.

Up she went until, again, his head was the only thing inside her.

When she lowered herself this time, she took in more of him.

Even though Aodh held her ass, he didn’t assist her in getting his hardness inside of her. She deepened their kiss as she worked herself up and down, up and down, up and down. Tremors wracked her body, and needy whimpers fluttered from her mouth into his from her efforts.

His felt so good stroking against her walls as her pussy stretched tight around him.

The further inside of her he went, the more wetness her sex showered down on his hardness.

She increased her efforts, feeling the building of her climax.

However, she was determined to have all of him inside of her before her release claimed her.

“Aodh, please,” she begged as she rained kisses along his squared jaw. Her nails dug into his back as she rocked against him.

Other than squeezing her ass to part her thighs wider, he remained still. “I am yours, little flame. Take what you will.”

She was no longer convinced she had it in her to take him on her own, with a little less than half of his massive cock still outside of her body.

Ready to throw in the towel and convince him to lay her on the floor and fuck her hard, she glanced beyond his shoulder and saw her reflection in the mirror.

The image of Aodh’s muscled form illuminated within the circle of her brown arms and legs surrounding him made her see the beauty of their union and how the two of them had produced a life that would rule this land.

She was the mother of what could most likely be the next dragon king.

Those words. That knowledge caused a strength and determination to rise inside of her.

Her doppelg?nger locked eyes with her, and the fierce stare shook something within her.

She pressed her face along Aodh’s and held him tight.

She flexed her thighs and drew herself up and then relaxed her walls as she pressed down purposefully and allowed her sex to slide further, taking more of him in. She did it again and again.

Before she knew it, she was riding his entire length.

Dragging her gaze away from the duplicate image, she met Aodh’s stare. “You’re mine.”

“I’m yours.”

She kept up her declaration as she rode him. “Your beast is mine.”

“He is yours.” Aodh gritted his teeth as his indigo gaze swirled into sapphire. “We’re yours.”

She rode him. Kai kissed him deeper. She took his confession and gave them both absolution.

Aodh came first with a growl that shook the room. His release set off hers as she clung to him.

Their hearts pounded against each other in the same rhythmic pattern. Boom boom. Boom boom. Boom boom.

Kai’s body quivered inside and out as she curled into Aodh, drained and limp.

She barely lifted her head when he rose with her still wrapped around him.

“You’re making carrying me a habit. I can get down.” She saw him walk them toward the big tub.

“No, stay.” He wrapped an arm around her back, leaned over to the handle, and turned on the water. “I like you in my arms.”

She smiled.

The rush of the water flooding through the faucet greeted her. She was looking forward to a bath.

Whoosh.

She didn’t even flinch at the sound of Aodh casting a flame into the rushing water.

Soon, he lowered them into the steaming bath. Not until then did Aodh shift her body off his firm length, then settle her between his legs.

Kai sighed and snuggled into his big, warm chest as a yawn overtook her. She struggled to keep her eyes open. “I need to check on my sister.”

He held her tighter as he caressed along the side of her face, brushing back her wild curls. “In the morning, mate. Now rest.”

Mine .

She couldn’t help but smile at the sound of Aodh’s claim on her as she drifted off to sleep in the comfort of her mate’s strength surrounding her. His declaration filled her with joy and peace as if he’d said those three words her heart longed to hear.