Page 36 of The Dragon Queen #3

Stolen kisses were the best ones. They tasted sweeter, my body reacting all the more intensely. It felt like my heart raced faster and faster, like a dragon spearing through the air, but I would never fly on my own. Perhaps that’s why I was shucking off my uniform and when my fingers fumbled on the toggles, Flynn was there, flicking each one open before claiming all the skin he bared.

“Pippin…”

Going forward, I only wanted my name said with that kind of reverence, a savage thing that seemed to gnaw at Flynn, then me. His mouth trailed down my neck, nipping at the skin, marking it any way he could as his.

Because we weren’t allowed to, beyond this moment.

My hand went to his head, cradling his skull gently just to feel the shape of it again. It hurt, his kisses, but not because of his teeth. I wanted him, the need threatening to break me in two, so when his eyes flicked up to meet mine, I knew what lurked in those sky-blue depths, because it was a perfect reflection of my own passion.

“Pippin…”

He was like a man teetering on the edge of a cliff, and I was supposed to pull him back. Instead, I clawed at his jacket, unable to bear the sight of that uniform, those insignias. I didn’t need the rider, I needed him. Flynn, my Flynn, he emerged golden brown and perfect and hard and aching for me. His gasp, when my hand wrapped around his cock, was perfect.

“Pippin…” He tried to push my hand away as I reacquainted myself more thoroughly. “I’m too close.”

“Me too.” When I nodded, he did as well, growing wonder in his eyes. “Let's fix that together.”

Suddenly, I was naked and so was he, the sensation of the cool breeze playing over my skin like a whole other caress. A far gentler one than his. His hands were everywhere, tracing the shape of me, as if he’d partially forgotten it during his time away and he was desperate to remind himself of what he was missing.

“Flynn…” I clawed at him as he dropped down, pressing a kiss to my hip bone. “No, Flynn, I?—”

“Yes, Flynn,” he corrected in a low growl, nuzzling his face into the apex of my thighs, right before he parted them. I was hoisted up, left to balance on the edge of some ancient piece of masonry, as his mouth covered me.

It seemed fitting to stare up at a sky the colour of his eyes as I felt his tongue flick out, tracing every fold. I quivered at each pass, but it wasn’t just from the sensation. He made me feel the same way I did when we were on dragon back: flying too high and worried about coming crashing down, but now it was different. It was in the way he lunged for me, his tongue, his mouth hungry, as if pleasing me was’t enough and he wanted to eat me whole.

And I’d let him.

My hands slapped down on his scalp, scared he’d pull away and needing him to at the same time. His tongue was too soft, his lips forcing the pleasure to spike higher, but even when he forced his tongue inside me, his jaws working against me, it wasn’t enough.

“Flynn… Flynn…”

I panted his name like a prayer to a savage god, and right now, that’s what he was to me. I’d worship him, I babbled, if he just stepped free of me. Finally, he pulled away, eyes a darker blue than I’d ever seen before as they stared at me .

“I thought about what I’d do to you all the way back from Skane,” he growled, his hand sliding down, stroking his cock slowly. “I had it all planned. You’d reach your peak several times on my face before I’d relent and fuck you, but…” He shook his head sharply, as if to dislodge a thought. “In my mind, I was the perfect lover, but now that I’m here with you, I’m forced to face how fallible I am.”

He spun me around, placing my wrists firmly against the stone, forcing me to stare into the eyes of a decapitated stone dragon. My legs were kicked wide, my hips tilted backwards as his other hand smoothed possessively over my buttocks.

“I’ll get you there afterwards, my love.” My heart stuttered on those two words, my eyes falling closed for just a second. “I’ll lick my seed from you if that’s what it takes to give you the pleasure you deserve, but right now…” I felt the head of his cock brush my seam and I pushed back against it, needing that hardness. Our love felt like it was all sharp edges, cutting the two of us bloody, yet I couldn’t find it in me to regret it. I wanted it, wanted this, wanted him. “Right now, I need you, Pippin, more than breath, more than anything else in the world.”

I pulled free of him, catching the moment his face fell, when fear dared to show its face, right before I lifted myself back up onto the stone carving, then drew him closer.

We fit together like two puzzle pieces. It was as if my body and his recognised that we’d been apart for too long and that situation needed to be rectified, over and over. He almost sobbed in response to our pulling apart, brows knitting, right before he solved the problem and slammed back inside me.

“Your back…” He tried to pull me free of the carving, his concern for my well-being fighting for primacy inside him, but that’s not what I needed. One hand went around his neck, tugging his lips down, forcing them to plunder mine as the other reached back, finding purchase on the carving to stop myself being rubbed raw on it.

“I don’t care about my back,” I told him in a low rasping voice. “I can go back to the palace red and bleeding for all I care. ”

“Draven would have me whipped for that.”

“I don’t care about Draven, any of them.” His eyes met mine, and for a moment his strokes slowed. “Not right now. They’re not here, but you are.”

I’d given him permission, that’s what this felt like, to let whatever part of him was kept tightly leashed go free.

“Just me?” he panted out. “Just you?”

“Just us,” I said, reaching up with my spare hand, giving into the need to stroke the side of his face, one I felt every moment I was awake. “Just us.”

That broke something inside him. His brows creased, his expression reflecting the agony of ecstasy. Every time he plunged inside me, it felt like he was doing so much more than rutting. He was burrowing himself deeper into me, into my heart.

And I welcomed him in.

It was the sound of the dragon’s hum that brought me back to my body, to the world. Sweat cooled on our skin, which was a good thing, as my body drowned in a heavy pleasure. It stirred like a sluggish tide, the water too heavy to be shifted by the moon’s pull, and yet that celestial body would not be denied. I spiralled up, up and he followed me, driving me forward, my nails snagging on the stone as I held fast. His little sob heralded the moment when he felt my body clamp down on his, a low growl making clear that this would not be enough. He watched me pant out a series of gasps as bliss flushed through me, but he powered through each one.

“Not enough…” he ground out. “More.”

I blinked, unable to believe what he was asking for, right as my body responded. Usually orgasm washed through me, a welcome tide that went back out again, leaving an almost melancholy sweetness behind, but not now. He wanted more, and so my body gave it to him.

I was already flying too high, but I couldn’t seem to regret it. Slightly terrifying, bliss suffused my body, even as my heart beat too hard, too fast. My fingers clawed at the stone, lest I tear Flynn open to get at the heart that beat just for me, and that’s when I found it. I wasn’t reaching my peak anymore, because that indicated a long, arduous climb to the top and once there, the journey was over. Instead, I was like a stray feather caught on the wind, buffeted back and forth. There was a pleasure to that I didn’t understand until now. I didn’t matter, nothing mattered, just us.

Just them.

One can only rub their fingers against stone for so long before the stone bites back. A single drop of blood, I felt it drip free, right as we both fell from that cliff one last time. Flynn’s entire body shuddered with the effort of it, emptying everything he had into me, but he wasn’t the only one to use me as a receptacle. Something dislodged from the carving, smooth and hard. A crystal egg, I thought dimly, right as Glimmer and Glacier’s song rose a pitch. That should’ve been enough to warn me of what was to come. The stone grew warm, then hot enough for me to want to drop it instantly, but instead, my fingers spasmed around it. Flynn’s eyes went wide, mine as well, right before this world dropped away and another took its place.

Hadrian–I knew it was him without a doubt as I craned my neck and stared at the battle taking place above me. His brassy roar threatened to shake the stones of Dragon Haven to their foundations, right before he spun around to face the queen dragon.

This was not the way it was supposed to be. If humans weren’t involved and Kaida rose to mate, Hadrian might’ve put himself forward as a potential candidate. He’d have flown hard, trying to catch her, sometimes there was even some scrabbling midair, claws raking, jaws snapping, as she forced him to prove that he was a worthy sire of her eggs.

But that fight would’ve never looked like this.

I’d watched the coursing hounds go leaping through the grass on Father’s estate one year when the rabbit numbers grew too plentiful. That’s what these dragons reminded me of, the way their bodies lengthened, providing the least amount of resistance against the air as they speared through it. Wings were snapped against their bodies, gravity yanking them down towards the earth.

Only to collide with each other.

“Kaida! ”

I knew her, Queen Inara. We were all taught about her hubris, her brilliance, when we studied history, but I never expected to see a young woman, skin milk pale, the freckles across her nose standing out plainly as she snarled her instructions.

“Kaida, burn!”

Queen dragons had fire breath? I’d never been taught that, and Kaida dragon did as she was directed, opening her jaws and letting out a great gout of flaming breath.

I knew Hadrian had survived, that’s what got me through this. His wings flapped out and he back winged, even as flame licked his bronze scales. They were brighter then, his body leaner and more agile as he twisted in the air.

This is not the way, young queen , he told her. Not Inara, but Kaida. You know this in your bones.

But I saw it then, the stone gifting me an omniscient view of the battle, showing me what I needed to see. Another stone, much like this, was set into a very familiar looking necklace, one I’d seen around the neck of another queen.

Was that where Raina found it?

In some vault, locked away with all the other treasures of Queen Inara, she’d been drawn closer, lured by the glitter of gold, kept in place by the dull lustre of the dragonstone. Larger, more opaque, more powerful than the one she already wore, somehow Raina had known that, right before she put it on.

Kaida’s scream brought me back to the vision, it was full of inarticulate fury.

Queen Inara rode her dragon in more ways than one. She used the connection with her bondmate to force her anger, her will on Kaida. The queen dragon shook off Hadrian’s suggestion, wheeling around in the air and launching herself at him.

Was this what a war fought between two dragons looked like? I knew academically that was what would happen when the Royal Riders met the Duke’s traitorous force, but the reality was far worse than I had anticipated. I’d seen dogs fight, a madness coming upon them, one that would not be satisfied until fangs rended flesh, until your enemy was left screaming, bleeding. I couldn’t keep pace with this fight, the dragon’s thrashing as they slashed through the air, teeth clamping down, necks whipping back and forth.

And wings not doing anything to keep them aloft.

They were falling like stones, my heart beating faster and faster as I stared at the sky, noting I was right in their path. They would crash down and crush me, my body was sure, even as my mind knew I was safe.

“Pippin…!”

Flynn cut off my vision of the flailing dragons, and for a second, all I could do was stare, unable to reconcile his beloved face with the horror I faced. “Pippin, what happened?” He looked down, seeing the stone egg for the first time, and tried to prise it from my fingers, but instead I cradled it against my chest. I didn’t see the end of the fight, but I knew what happened. Hadrian’s treachery was taught well in classrooms all across Nevermere. What was missing, though, was the fact he tried to avert all of this.

“I…” My voice cracked, my throat wanting to scream like a dragon, just to get what I had seen out of me. “I…”

“Shh…” He looked around at the ruins now with a wary eye. “I never should’ve brought you here. I’ll get us back to the palace as quickly as I can.”

But there was no flying away from this, I thought, as Glacier rose up into the sky with us on his back. That fight, the destruction it had caused, I could see it perfectly now from this height. Where Kaida had fallen, where Hadrian had, the two of them scrambling to right themselves and continue to battle. We’d be lucky if this was all the devastation we saw in the battle that was to come. That thought had me shivering, even as Flynn’s arms tightened around me.