Page 17 of Storm of Blood and Shadow (Merciless Dragons #3)

She lets me come all over her skin. She yields herself to it, welcomes the creamy fountain of my release. The sight of her lovely body glistening with my cum is the most exquisitely intimate thing I have ever seen.

I lie on my back, shuddering with the overwhelming force of the pleasure, until the discomfort of my position prompts me to move. When I start to turn over, Jessiva lets go of my softening cock and slides off my belly.

She glances down at her cum-slicked breasts, stomach, and thighs. “I’ll need to wash up.”

I’d rather have her walk around naked, scented with my seed, for an indefinite number of hours, but I understand her preference for cleanliness. Dragons are generally a tidy race, despite the fact that we eat most of our meals raw and shit in the forest.

There is no water source in my cave, but I have a large, shallow clay bowl made by Grimmaw, which I borrowed from Kyreagan, and I push it near the cave entrance to collect the slanting rainwater. Once the bowl is mostly full, Jessiva washes herself, and that process is also an exquisite sight.

With my help, Jessiva empties the basin of the remaining water and we put it out to refill. When the hard rain stings her skin, she hisses sharply and retreats back into the cave. I’m about to follow her when I hear the voices again, breathless and mystic, twined with the shrieking wind and the shattering rain.

Son of shadows, wielder of lightning, kin to us, come to us.

The void inside me is less hollow and hungry after my sensual release with Jessiva, but I still feel a remnant of longing, of urgency. Some dark part of me wants to leap from the ledge into the howling night, into the deadly gale, and become one with it, even if it means I am torn apart.

“Varex.” Jessiva’s voice is so different from the voice of the Mordvorren—so much warmer and more alive. I take a few steps toward her—and then my dragon form quakes, head to tail, magic hammering against my bones. I disappear for a bare second, and then I exist again, only this time I’m in human shape, on my hands and knees against the stone floor.

Jessiva rushes forward, her smooth body still bare, shielded only by the river of her red hair. She helps me up, and I hold her close, both for support and because I love the way she feels against my skin.

Her face tilts up to mine, her cheeks rosy in the light of the dyre-stones. I lean down, intending to bring my lips close to hers, but she reaches up and touches my mouth with her fingertips, maintaining space between us.

“Tell me something,” she says softly. “What you said at the meeting, about the women being free to leave after mating season… did you mean it? When the mating frenzy and the storm are done, may I go home?”

My hands stroke along her arms. “The other women may leave. You may not.”

She jerks back. “Why not?”

“When you talk about ‘home,’ your face falls. You weren’t happy there. You’re happy with me.”

Jessiva pulls herself from my grasp, betrayal in her eyes.

“I can’t let you return, knowing that you’ll be miserable, knowing what you might have to do to support your family,” I tell her.

“The necklaces you gave me—they’re in my bag.” She points to where it lies against the wall of the cave. “I’ll sell them when I get back. The money will buy us a decent place to live—maybe a house in the country.”

“And you’ll be happy there, in a country house, with no one to dance for, no one to witness your talents? You think you’ll be safe, while the forces of Vohrain roam the land, imposing the will of their King?”

“I…” Her hands curl into fists, her arms rigid at her sides. “I don’t know. Personal happiness isn’t the goal of life, Varex.”

“Then what is?”

“Survival.”

“You deserve more than survival. You deserve everything. How can I take you back there, knowing you’ll be in danger in that city? You cannot be sure that your family is still where you left them. What if you’re robbed, wounded, raped, or even killed before you find them? Don’t ask me to do this, Jessiva. It’s cruel.”

“And you keeping me prisoner is a kindness?”

“Yes!” I exclaim. “On Ouroskelle you will be safe. Once this storm passes, I will protect you and provide everything you could ever want—I swear it. You can perform for the clan and for the other women, enjoying their praise and admiration. So yes, this is a kindness to you. And it is a kindness to myself, because I have lost every fucking thing I ever cared about, except for my brother, and he nearly lost himself in the damned war. If I lose you, on top of everything else, I can’t go on. I will die.”

“You can’t put that on me.” Her lips tremble. “It isn’t fair. You’re just like all the other men, wanting and needing and desiring and pouting, tempting and luring and tricking me, and you claim it’s all because you want my happiness… but you’re lying !”

I whirl away from her and slam both palms against the wall of the cave. When she’s quiet, I can hear the storm, not just outside, not just around the mountain, but in my head. Its whispers are muddling my thoughts, making it difficult to perceive what is right and what is wrong.

You left me, says the storm suddenly.

My head jerks toward the cave entrance.

Shit. That was my mother’s voice. I haven’t heard it in years, and yet I’d know it anywhere.

You left me, Varex. You let me die. You could have saved me. Worthless, shiftless, cowardly son. We should have dropped your egg into the sea.

“Mother?” I whisper.

Jessiva’s fingers curl over my arm and I startle, surprised by how quickly she moved to my side. “Varex, what is it?”

“I can hear her, out there in the storm.”

I start to move, but Jessiva steps around me, blocking my path.

“When we studied the Mordvorren in school, my teacher told us it’s a magical storm,” she says. “It’s malevolent, Varex, and sentient. It can’t be trusted.”

The pain, the pain . My mother’s voice sobs on the wind and rings in my head. The agony of the acid, the dissolution of wing and bone. Your fault, your fault, your fucking fault.

Tears pool in my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I tried, I—”

Liar. You didn’t try. Not hard enough. You didn’t try everything, you just let it take me. You wanted me dead, didn’t you? False, disloyal, cowardly worm —

I cry out, beating my fists against my temples and bending over, trying to knock the voice out of my mind.

“God, Varex… come here.” Jessiva tows me toward the bed I made for her. “Don’t listen to it anymore. Lie down. That’s right.” She lies down on top of me and kisses my tear-soaked cheeks before her mouth merges softly with mine. “Think about this . Think about me. We’ll talk later. For now, don’t worry about anything else. Just feel . Touch me.”

She lifts my hand and places it on her breast.

With her skin, and her breath, and her voice, she purges the poisonous whisper of the storm from my mind. We fuck, and we eat a little of our food, and we sleep. Jessiva stays pressed against me, her leg and arm flung across my body as if she’s holding me down, securing me to herself. As if she’s worried, even in sleep, that I’ll slip away.

I am not myself.

I’m not sure if five days and nights have passed since the Mordvorren began, or if it has been longer. My mind is a black tide rushing back and forth between two things—the voices in the storm and Jessiva’s body, specifically the tender little womb inside her, the one that needs to be filled, over and over, with my seed, until I finally succeed in breeding her.

Sex has been our primary pastime of late. There’s not much else to do in the cave besides sleep.

The Rib Moon has come and gone, and the mating frenzy has gripped me. I don’t feel it quite as forcefully as I expected to, but I suspect that’s because whenever I’m in dragon form, the Mordvorren is so loud inside my head that it drives out all other thoughts and urges. It wants me to kill myself, to deliver my body to the tempest to be dashed in pieces. Sometimes it tries to convince me to dash my skull against the rock until I break. It’s all I can do to keep the intrusive commands from controlling my actions.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, my hunger is worsening. The urgency of the mating heat has given me a greater appetite than usual. The pig I caught is long gone, and there is only a little of the foraged food left.

Jessiva has barely been eating. She was already thin, but she’s becoming quieter, weaker. It pains me to watch her bones sharpen against her skin.

I should have spent less time seeing to the needs of the clan and the captives, and more time hunting. Not for myself—for her . I failed her, and now I’m watching her suffer. If this storm does not depart, she will starve to death right in front of me.

And I will starve alongside her before I consider tasting a mouthful of her flesh—even though the Mordvorren keeps suggesting that abomination to me as well.

When I’m in human form, I don’t feel the hunger as terribly, but in dragon form I’m ravenous. Even when my cock is buried inside Jessiva, there’s a part of my primal brain that is constantly thinking about food, about meat. That part is growing louder, more ferocious, and more unreasonable as time passes.

To minimize the pains of hunger, I’ve been spending as much time in human form as I can, but once I’ve hit the limit of eight hours, I’m forced to switch forms, and the ravenous need begins again, so strong it’s agony.

Right now I’m in human form, but I’m approaching another shift. I can sense it coming. Last time I took dragon shape, it was torture, and I anticipate it being even worse this time, since neither my mating urges nor my hunger have been satisfied.

Between the compulsion to breed and the raging emptiness in my belly, I don’t think I should risk looking at Jessiva or smelling her while I’m a dragon. I can already feel my higher thoughts slipping from my grasp, leaving behind only primal compulsions.

I refuse to harm or devour her. I will not yield to the demands of the Mordvorren. This nightmare will not be the end of my life or hers.

I sit up on the grassy bed—our nest—and place my hand over Jessiva’s shoulder, shaking her gently awake.

She blinks sleepily at me. “You want sex again ? I need a little break, Varex. I’m getting too sore, and I’m tired. And I’m…” She stops herself, but I see the way her body curls up, the way her hand slides over her stomach. She’s hungry, weary, pushed past the limits of her endurance. Her skin is flushed and chafed from tending to my cock while I’m in dragon form.

I’ve done this to her, and I hate myself for it.

“I will change soon,” I tell her. “I’m not sure how the heat will come upon me when I do. You need to go and hide in the cleft at the back of the cave. I’ve never been able to explore it as a dragon, but you could certainly fit in there. You’ll be safe from me.”

She sits up, pushing back her hair. She’s usually naked with me now, but this time she puts on some bits of pink silk. She calls it a “dance costume,” and she had it in her bag when I captured her. The clothing draws attention to her breasts, her toned stomach, and her legs. I enjoy the effect very much.

“I’m not going to hide,” she says grimly. “I won’t abandon you when you need me.”

“You need rest,” I manage to say. “My dragon won’t give you any, Jessiva. You have to claim it. Hide from me, I beg you.”

Her features tighten with pained concern. “But without me to distract you, you might…”

“What?”

“The storm, Varex,” she whispers, gripping my hands. “It talks to you all the time, more often and more loudly than you want me to know. It’s torturing you. It wants you. I won’t let it win. And if I can keep you with me by fucking you endlessly, I will.”

I extract one of my hands from hers and turn her wrist, showing her chafed forearm. “I won’t let you hurt yourself anymore for my sake.”

“You don’t get to make that choice,” she retorts.

A sad smile curves my mouth as I cup her chin. “You have a generous and passionate soul, darling. When you love someone, you sacrifice everything for them. That’s who you are. But while I still have the capacity, I will protect you, even if it’s from your own self-sacrificial kindness. Now go.” I kiss her lightly, then back away, feeling the oncoming thrum of the change deep in my bones. “Go!”

With a whimper of desperation, she darts away from me, into the narrow cleft.

Thunder cracks and lightning floods the cave, as if the storm is celebrating my shift back into dragon form.

This time, as I lift my horned head and shake out my wings, my thoughts darken and condense. My mind is full of Jessiva’s image—a pale, tender creature with flame-colored hair.

Female. Her scent is everywhere.

Fuck the female, breed her, smell her, eat her.

She is in a cleft at the back of my cave and I want her.

I leap for the cleft, snarling, scrabbling along its edges with my claws. Jessiva makes a faint sound of terror and retreats further along the crack.

Female. I will dig her out. Breed her, eat her. Fuck her, bite her.

My claws delve into the rock, carving it away. It’s slow going, but I am determined. I will widen the cleft and drag her out.

Eat, breed, feed, fuck, kill .