Page 27 of Storm of Blood and Shadow (Merciless Dragons #3)

There’s a little mound of grass-covered earth beneath the blanket, and it’s perfectly positioned to rub against my clit while Varex fucks me. He goes deep and slow, each thrust ramping up the torturous, tantalizing friction against my clit, and I come for him quickly the first time.

He feels the spasm of my pussy, hears my gasping moans. “That’s one,” he purrs.

He draws himself out of me in a thick, smooth glide, leaving me empty and dripping with my own arousal. Then he coaxes me onto all fours, a classic position that’s one of my favorites. The depth he achieves is nothing short of miraculous.

There’s nothing slow or gentle about his pace now. All his weariness, his relief, his triumph, and his desire overtake him, and with his hands locked around my waist, he fucks me brutally. I love it when he whimpers, but he’s grunting now, in a vicious, bestial way, and I’m hard pressed to decide which I like better.

He’s pummeling a tender spot deep inside me, illuminating it with sudden warmth that spreads through my core. My clit is swollen, sensitive, but I can’t touch it—it’s all I can do to stay on my elbows and knees where he put me. He rams into me with a wet, lush slap, slap, slap, faster and faster.

The orgasm bursts through me in a shocking rush of bliss. I scream a little, voicing a breathless “oh, oh, oh” as he pummels me harder. When he comes, it’s with a deep, dragonish growl in his chest.

Cum gushes into me, hotter and more plentiful than that of any human. I like being able to feel the heat of it as his cock pumps it inside me.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but it feels like there’s more this time than there was during the mating heat.

“Did you touch yourself while I was gone?” I ask.

“No.”

I wouldn’t have minded if he had, but the confession pleases me deeply. On some primal level, I love that he’s been saving it up during my absence.

Varex flips me over, grabs my hand, and plunges it between my legs. When he shows it to me, my fingers are dripping with his cum. The silent order in his eyes makes me shiver in wicked submission, and I lift my hand to my mouth, sliding each finger between my lips, cleaning them thoroughly. Then I put out my tongue to show him I swallowed every bit.

He crawls over me and kisses me for a while, our bodies pressed together, breathing slow at first, then panting in an increasingly frenzied rhythm as he grows hard again.

I hook my arms under my knees and open myself wide for him; then I curve my spine so I sit up more and watch him enter me, sliding back and forth in my pussy. The strain of holding this position makes it hard for me to come, but I love watching the taut planes of his toned stomach, the soft white curls above his cock, and the thick, wet, shining column of it moving in and out of me.

Varex hooks one hand around the back of my neck, helping me stay in the curved position while he fucks my exposed pussy. “Open your mouth, darling.”

I obey, and he dips into me once more before pulling out and lunging forward, hips cocked so he can jet cum into my open mouth. He holds the base of his length, urging everything from his body and giving it all to me. I’m flecked with creamy white—lips, throat, breasts, and belly.

Panting, Varex crawls backward on the blanket. “Hold that position a little longer.”

I whimper, but he shushes me softly, petting my reddened pussy. He remembers his lessons from the nights we fucked, and I suspect he’s been planning a few new things to try, because he starts rubbing his whole hand rapidly across my pussy with a quick, startling rhythm that sets my clit aching with need instantly.

“Oh,” I gasp. “Oh, oh, fuck… keep going, keep going…”

His hand flies faster, and the hectic stimulation is so intense that I’m screaming, clutching my thighs, holding them back for him with all my might, watching myself tremble on the edge of coming and then explode.

My body squirts for him, violently, copiously. I’ve only experienced that a couple of times, and I was made to feel ashamed of it in both cases—but Varex looks up at me, grinning with feral delight, wildly pleased with what he has done to me. He looks so smug that I can’t help a breathless, shaky laugh as I try to recover.

“That’s three,” I gasp. “I’m done.”

“One more,” he counters, smiling, his brown eyes shining. “You can do it.”

I shake my head back and forth against the blanket. “I’m done, I swear.” I extend my body in a long stretch, then climb to my feet to stretch a bit more, easing the muscles that tightened while I was in that position. Warm liquid trickles down my thigh—Varex’s cum sliding out of me.

I stand there in my bare skin, with the island breeze flowing over me and whispering through my hair. I feel like a goddess—satisfied, secure, powerful, and completely at home, even though I’ve never stood on this spot before today.

Varex comes to me, and my stomach flutters when he sinks to his knees in the grass, naked and beautiful and mine . The distant light of the fires on East Fang illuminates the planes of his handsome face. He looks up at me, his brown eyes soft with love and desire.

“One more,” he says in his sweetest tones. “Please let me try.”

I run my fingers along a silky lock of his snowy hair, and then I touch his face lightly, stroking his lower lip with my thumb. “Kiss me.”

He starts to rise, and I place my hand on the top of his head, keeping him down.

By his slow grin, I can tell he understands where I want to be kissed. I hold his head as his lips tenderly touch my pussy, suckling delicately at my clit.

“Good boy,” I murmur. “Now I’m going to relax on the blanket. I’m not doing a bit of work for this, it’s all you.”

“Just the way I like it,” he says.

I lie on the blanket with my arms flung above my head and my legs apart. Varex settles down as well and begins to cherish me with his tongue.

“You taste like victory,” he murmurs against my pussy.

“I probably taste like you. ”

“That too.” He sighs with satisfaction. “This is perfect. And there are no bugs.”

I smile, because I find it charming that the dragon who swallowed a storm is afraid of insects. “They were probably scared into hiding by the commotion and the smoke.”

“Let’s not think about it.” He kisses my thigh, then smooths his palm over my lower belly. “All I want to think about is how full your womb is with my cum, and how I can give you pleasure again.”

The smile vanishes from my face. “You know I can’t have your dragon babies, don’t you?”

Varex finishes a long, tantalizing lick up my sensitive center. “I know. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does, though. Your clan needs hatchlings.”

“Jessiva.” He rises a little so he can look me in the eyes. “You are the only thing I want, the only creature in the world I can’t live without. If dragons are meant to survive, we will—the Bone-Builder knows we’ve done everything possible to ensure it. Either way, you and I are meant to have a life together, as mates.”

He sinks down again, coaxing my clit with little licks of his tongue in between his next phrases. “I will live where you want, in whatever dwelling you want. You will dance whenever and for whomever you like. You will visit your loved ones at your leisure, borne on my back. I will make mistakes, but I swear to learn from them.” His lips close over my clit, and I arch sharply, gasping in spite of myself, prey to a sudden thrill of pleasure.

“You said… mates,” I breathe.

“Life-mates,” he says softly, with another tender lick. “If that would please you. It would give me—” another lick— “the greatest… fucking… pleasure.” More licks, and I’m writhing, reaching for his hand. He gives it to me, and I cling to it while he ravishes my pussy with his clever tongue, finally coaxing out a tiny, beautiful orgasm. It’s exquisitely satisfying, like the final pose of a perfectly executed dance.

He soothes me with his fingers, then gives my wet pussy a light pat. “Good girl. That’s four.”

“You’re going to pleasure me to death one of these nights.”

“Can humans die from orgasms?”

“Not unless they’re older, or they have some condition of the heart.”

“Condition of the heart? Like love?”

“No! Like a flaw, or a sickness.”

“Oh.” Reassured, he helps me up, and we go down the hill to the beach to wash ourselves in the water. Being naked in the ocean at night would have seemed foolish and frightening to me before, but with him, it’s fun, and I laugh, more than I have in months… no, years.

When we return to our blanket, I pause to pull a light cloak out of my bag and drape it over both of us for a covering. Which is a good thing, because a few hours later, we wake to the concussive sound of several pairs of dragon wings.

Apparently there were a number of small earthquakes on Ouroskelle while the ancient voratrice was suffering its death throes. Both the faraway beam of focused lightning and the column of smoke from the burning monster attracted the clan’s attention, and several of them have come to see what’s happening. Kyreagan leads the group.

“So much for getting some rest,” I grumble, rising and wrapping the cloak around myself.

Despite my complaining, I’m glad of their arrival. From what Kyreagan told me during the flight from the mainland, Varex has been in self-imposed isolation for a while; but dragons are a communal race, and he needs the companionship of the others to thrive.

After circling the dead voratrice, the dragons gather around us, and Varex tells them the story of the battle, from the moment we realized the truth about the ancestral beast to the moment his mother’s spirit ascended. Kyreagan is fiercely silent, and at the end of the tale he bounds into the air and flies away for a while.

When he returns, he and Varex go off together for a talk in private, after which both of them seem lighter and happier. Some of the other dragons stay to gawk at the voratrice and excavate it further, but Kyreagan lingers only until dawn before declaring his intent to return to Ouroskelle.

“Stay here awhile, if you’re able,” he tells Varex. “I’m sure more of the clan will fly out here for a look at the creature, and they will want to hear the tale in your words.”

I groan inwardly when Varex agrees. All I want is a comfortable bed and a soft pillow.

Throughout the morning, word of the voratrix extermination spreads. As Kyreagan predicted, dragons keep arriving, eager to see the monster’s carcass for themselves.

Thelise seems particularly excited about the discovery of such a unique creature. She even makes Ashvelon go down inside the beast to fetch samples of tissue and fluid for use in her spells.

I’ve been sitting on the grass for a while, still wrapped in the cloak, staring into space without the energy to find cover to get dressed. I’m hungry, but I don’t want to find or prepare food. I’m weary, but I can’t seem to make myself lie down—I can only sit in this one position and gaze vaguely into the middle distance while the dragons flit back and forth from East Fang to West Fang, sometimes shifting into human form. There are a lot of naked man butts and dicks on display, as most of the shifters don’t seem to have grasped the concept of bringing clothing with them when they might change forms somewhere.

Varex has been greeting them all, recounting his tale over and over. But at last, around noon, he casts aside the blanket he tied around his waist, and he turns into the slender black dragon I first saw on the roof of the tenement house.

We’ve been through so much together since then. Those four weeks with my family were enough distance to last a lifetime. I never want to be parted from him again.

He prowls toward me, intense purpose gleaming in his amber eyes. They look more golden in the light of the high sun, which shines from a blessedly cloudless sky—no hint of the Mordvorren to be seen.

“Darling,” says Varex in his smooth dragon voice. “I’m stealing you away.”

I stand up and tie both the cloak and the blanket around myself, creating a makeshift dress that should remain in place while we fly. Then I sling my bag of supplies onto my back and lift my arms to him like a child wanting to be carried. “Please.”

He picks me up and we leave, without a goodbye or an excuse or any such human niceties.

It’s a long flight, and I feel so secure in Varex’s claws that I nearly doze off several times. But despite the care with which he holds me, it’s rather uncomfortable, so I remain half-awake. After an eternity in that foggy state, I realize that we’re flying along the now-familiar valley toward his cave.

There will be time later to visit the other women, hear their stories, and see their hatchlings. For now, I only want to sleep.

“I can’t think very well,” I tell Varex. “My brain can only form very simple thoughts. The sun is bright. Your scales are black. That kind of thing.”

He laughs. “I haven’t had a thought in my head since we left Twin Fangs.”

“You killed the voratrice,” I say wonderingly. “Can you believe it? All the voratrices. Voratrix? The monsters… they’re all gone.”

“It’s a story I hope to tell your niece and nephew when we visit them,” he says.

“Oh, they’ll love that.” I sigh happily as we enter his cave.

Varex sets me down, and both of us stare at the cave’s interior.

It’s been thoroughly washed and swept, and a few dyre-stones gleam softly in the far recesses, illuminating the shadowed depths of the space. The remnants of the grassy bed have been reshaped and compressed into a neat nest, just the right size for one dragon and one human. Beyond the nest, thick carpets and colorful rugs cover the cave floor, and on them sits a double-wide bed, very rustic-looking as if it was recently built. It’s piled with blankets and pillows.

Nearby there’s a wooden rack of clothes, a plain washstand with soap and towels, and—most wonderful of all—a low table with a covered pot and a plate. At the side of the cave, close to the entrance, hangs a trio of wild rabbits, freshly skinned. A trough has been carved in the cave floor beneath the game, to channel any drips of blood outside.

Tears of gratitude fill my eyes. Though I didn’t want to mention it, I was dreading my return to this place that was the site of so much pain, deprivation, and fear for both of us. But it looks completely different now, much more homelike and safe.

Varex sniffs the air. “Kyreagan and Serylla,” he says softly. “They were here not long ago. That’s why he left at dawn, to come here, so they could do this for us. He feels badly for how he treated you. He told me so during our conversation last night.”

“I misjudged him at first,” I reply. “But it’s like you said—he has a good heart. And the Princess has always been sweet. I think I’m going to love this new family, Varex.”

“As I will love yours.”

I sit down beside the table and uncover the pot, inhaling the savory fragrance of the stew within. Varex eagerly tears down one of the rabbits, sinks down to the cave floor, and chomps the meat between his long jaws.

I serve myself a plateful of stew and move nearer to him, and we eat together in the warm, sunlit silence. Afterward he crawls into the nest and I drape myself against him like I did in the meadow, letting his heat soothe me to sleep.

“I wonder what spell Thelise is going to use the voratrice parts for,” I murmur sleepily. “Did she say?”

Varex rumbles in his throat. “She didn’t give any specifics, but she did say she has a plan for them. A spell she has always wanted to try.”

“Oh god,” I sigh. “Just what we need.”

His deep chuckle resonates through the cave. “Her first spell didn’t turn out so badly. Whatever she’s planning, we can handle it. We’re ready for anything, you and I.”

“We’ve already survived more than our fair share of trouble,” I say. “Let’s hope the universe gives us a rest before the next problem comes our way. At the very least, we can let someone else handle it when it does.”

“I can agree to that.” He nuzzles my hair, then settles his great head onto the nest. “I love you, you know. I loved you the moment I first saw you.”

“I felt it too,” I say quietly. “The connection between us, the moment you looked at me. Strange how all the messes, mistakes, and sadness brought us here, to this beautiful moment when I want to cry because of how much I fucking love you.”

Varex tighter around me, a purring rumble vibrating through his body.

With his heat against my skin, warmed by the love of our joined hearts and the families we’ve found through each other…

We rest.