Page 61 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 61
“I need…”
I tried to answer them, I really did, but I was so hot, just so damn hot I could barely focus. The many layers of my dress clung to my skin, even as a small breeze tumbled across the broad expanse. My skirts weighed me down, getting in the way. Heat was pulsing through me like a dark tide, and this dress was dragging me under. I tried to pull the laces at the back but wasn’t successful, so I started wrenching at the seams, as if that would loosen it.
“Pippin…”
Brom stepped forward to help, but I just shook my head and that’s when I felt it.
I’d been here before.
Not that time with Flynn, not in this life, but… before. I saw a similar night sky overlaying the scene in front of me, though the moon was full then, not half gone as it was now. And I saw four men. Dark figures moving in the shadows, standing right where mine were now as she stepped forward to greet them.
The dragons of so many years ago roared, a great golden queen hissing and thrashing her tail as the males stalked forward, ready to meet a need she was yet to acknowledge. But as she snapped and raked her claws in the direction of one, the others slunk closer until finally she reared back and then leapt into the air. They watched her massive wings beat, saw her climb to greater and greater heights.
And then she left out a great roar of defiance.
The dragons all leapt into the air like cats, swarming after her to give chase.
This is how we take the first step towards becoming queens , Glimmer said.
I knew what to do now, my fingers finding the bow at the back of the dress and pulling. The laces parted gladly, the garment falling away to reveal my underdress, then my hands went to my bodice and undid the bow there too. Because this was what we did. She had come here before, the human queen of years before, clad in a cloak. As her dragon’s heat washed over her and her men, she had bared herself to them.
The bawdy little act at the inn made clear just how little the people of the present day understood this rite. This was a sacred thing, not something for tired, drunken men to tug their cocks over. And while that woman at the inn could have been a queen too, the men that served her didn’t show her the respect she was due.
In comparison, my men stepped forward, staring at my body as if all the world’s secrets could be found there. Like they couldn’t bear to look anywhere else. I was the entire centre of their world. I heard Glimmer’s hum as my underdress tumbled away with the rest of my clothes, the other dragons joining her in song.
“Be clear about what you want and don’t want,” Soren said, the strain obvious in his voice. “Our dragons might have avowed themselves to Glimmer, but we belong to you.” He plucked at the clasps of his jackets, unbuttoning it almost involuntarily. “I don’t know about the others, but I burn for you, Pippin.” A rumble of agreement came from the other men. “Now I can go off and find some dark corner, stroke my dick until I’ve emptied my balls or…”
I smiled then, feeling like this was the first perfectly carefree thing I’d done since I was exiled from my estate. Not do anything? I laughed at the idea, then took a step backwards, watching them track my progress, following me when I took another step, then another. I moved faster now, as my feet danced across the surface of the stone, knowing instinctively where to go.
Dragon queens ruled the skies and we women ruled men, and we taunted them to chase us. I turned and ran then, faster and faster, my hands pulling the daggers free of their thigh sheaths, my arms outstretched as I felt the breeze from the beat of those ancient dragons’ wings, felt the queen’s determination. We would not submit. They would need to prove themselves worthy of us and, as I went careening down the ramp to the vast space below I/we were sure they wouldn't.
“Pippin!” Flynn shouted. “Gods, Pippin!”
I dived into the velvety darkness, almost able to feel the sensation of it on my skin, but it didn’t stay dark for long. Light flickered the moment I entered the space. But the cavern wasn’t illuminated by candles, but by stones – dragonstones. Inset into the walls, they glowed with a silvery light as I passed by, glowing like small moons after I had gone.
“Pippin!”
Ged’s voice was a harsh growl and I knew then that what I was doing was exacerbating the effect of Zafira’s pull. Raina was broadcasting her dragon’s lust across Wyrmpeak and beyond, reaching further than perhaps any queen had done before. So when I ran, Ged saw a queen dragon, and when he chased after me, he was her mate, possessed by all of that terrible desire.
We were doing it the wrong way around, I knew that, somewhere in the back of my mind. I should’ve been coming here in a year’s time, when Glimmer was grown and ready to take mates, with the dragons that she would choose on the day of her first heat. The men who rode her mates would become my consorts, and together she and I would be queens. The rite would be followed by a coronation, my position on the throne cemented by our bond. And the results? They would be stored away for generations in the stones that lined the room. As I pictured all this, the largest dragonstone rose again from the floor.
I paused in response, and that was my undoing. I was struck by the mental images of human queens and dragon queens flooding into my head and that’s when I realised what had happened to Glimmer on our first visit here. Memory after memory poured into my mind, tumbling all over each other in a frantic flicker. I stood transfixed, trying to manage the overwhelming influx of images, and that’s when he caught me.
“Mine!”
My raffish, gentle Ged was savage right now, sweeping me off my feet and into his arms, my legs reflexively wrapping around his waist. I went to answer him, to tell him what I knew, but his mouth came slamming down on mine.
It was like a sob and a kiss combined, all the urgency that had burned deep down inside the two of us rushing up like a great flame, consuming everything before it. He was brutal, claiming, teeth scoring my lips, and I bit right back. Because he was mine too. I’d known it when he’d rescued me from those boys. I’d known it when he’d given me his jacket, even though I’d been covered in mud and shit. But even as I nipped at his lips, I twisted away, lifting my daggers with a wicked smile, holding them crossed in front of me, daring him to come closer.
“So it’s like that is it?”
When he dodged left, I swept first one knife, then the other through the air, a curious power thrumming in my arms. I’d have sliced him open if I’d connected, but just like a male dragon didn’t live long without learning how to dodge a queen’s strikes, dragon riders aiming to be consorts knew how to evade the sting of their queen’s steel. In the visions that still echoed in my mind, I saw the golden queen of old wheel and lash out at the beasts that pursued her, beating her great wings as she lashed her tail.
But both she and the human queen were always going to lose. Not because they weren’t strong enough or fast enough, but because that’s not what this was about. They didn’t run from the males to get away from them. Both a dragon queen and her rider tested those who thought themselves fit to be her mates, to be by her side. Whether or not they were worthy would be decided based on their persistence and their tenacity, their strength and their heart.
“Pippin!”
Soren shouted my name as the tip of one blade cut through Ged’s jacket, and his shirt, then his skin below.
“Is this enough?” Ged pulled his jacket off and tossed it to the ground, then wrenched his now blood-stained shirt off and over his head. It was only a small cut but it was still there. “How many times do you need to cut me, Pippin? Because I won’t stop you. I’ll take your licks for you.” I saw him bent over the whipping post. “I’ll beat anyone who dares stand against you, until they’re a bloody pulp. Cloudy and me, we’ll protect you and the little queen with every breath in our bodies. You know that.”
And I did, I really did. The blades fell from my hands with a clatter and that’s when the dragon’s hum swelled.
I rushed forward, rasping out his name between kisses, my breath coming hard and fast as I stared into his eyes, trying to see him, not all the consorts of before. Ged , I pleaded, give me Ged . And just like that, my vision cleared and there was only him.
“I’ve been here the whole damn time,” he replied, somehow having heard what I’d thought, “wanting you to see me and, at the same time, terrified you would. I will always be with you, Pippin. You’ll never walk alone again.”
This was Glimmer’s gift to me, I knew that now. She was small and vulnerable, but these men and their dragons were not. Somehow, some way, she’d welded them to our side and, in doing so, ensured our survival. There was something brutal about that, an act containing all of the single-minded ruthlessness of an animal.
Of a queen , she corrected.
I knew what she meant, remembering Raina’s cold eyes. Both of us had the will, the need, to see our view of the world made flesh, and only time would tell who made it out on top.
Ged hauled me up and into his arms, my legs wrapping around his waist as he walked me backwards, the stones glowing brighter in response.
“Here, lad.” Soren ground out the words, his eyes flashing in the low light, as he gestured to the ground where a pile of leather armour lay. “You’ll rip her back to shreds otherwise.”
“She’ll ride me before that happens,” Ged swore. “I’ll take the cuts, not Pippin.”
“And has Pippin ever done this before?” Flynn shook his head as if to dislodge a haze, then stared at me with concern. “Gods, you must be untried.”
“Not for long,” I announced.
I didn’t want it, this label, this undue attention paid to my so called virginity. Men barely thought about their own apart from a brief moment of pleasure. It didn’t alter them one little bit. But it would me. Not in the way I’d been schooled. My body wasn’t even spoken of as something I had autonomy over. I willed it away to a man the moment I married him. So I clung to Ged as he laid me down, wanting this.
My body, my choice, my pleasure as he kissed my mouth until it stung, then bit at my neck. “Make me yours, Ged.” He smiled down at me, but I wondered if that would last as I peered past him. “All of you.”
“Pippin—” Brom started to say.
“You know how this is going to be,” Ged replied as he looked over his shoulder. “We all do. The minute we landed in that place, we all felt her on some level.” He turned back to me then. “Together, apart, I don’t fucking care. Everything I’ve got is for you, Pippin, and if taking me and all these bastards as your mates is what you need, I’ll drag every single one of them closer to pay homage to you, even if I have to beat them into submission.”
“Beatings aren’t necessary.” Flynn stepped forward then and bent down to sit behind me, lifting my head, stroking my face and my hair as he settled. My lips parted as he stroked his fingers across them and he smiled slowly, becoming again that radiant boy. “Ironically it was my father’s wishes that kept me away from you, that and Draven…”
There was a hiss at the sound of his name.
“But somehow it seems fitting that rather than being a duke’s pawn, you become a queen of old.” The smile faltered and was replaced by an almost pained expression. “My queen.” His focus shifted to Ged. “Go slowly and don’t fucking hurt her or I’ll make you hurt twice as much in return.”
“Can’t hurt her.” Ged was back, covering my body with his, pinning me to the stone and against Flynn, and my eyes closed at the feel of it. With my eyes shut, it was easier to fall back into the vision, the memory of the past. I could feel her, that queen dragon from the memory, flying harder and harder, feeling the burn in her wings now, but pushed on by instinct. She couldn’t let them catch her, that mantra beat true in her heart.
Right up until the point that they did.
When the first dragon wrapped his body around the queen’s like Ged’s did around mine, his fangs were in her neck as Ged’s much blunter ones scored across my skin. But as I panted, the fire inside me raging higher, I opened my eyes and came back to myself.
“Ged…!”
“I’ve got what you need.” He hooked my leg up and around his hip, his hard length settling against the place I was softest.
“Not yet, you don’t.” Flynn’s voice was steely but his fingers were gentle, sliding down my neck, taking possession of my throat for a moment, as if he’d steal my breath away, then moving them lower. “How on earth can you want to rush past these?”
I sucked in a breath as his hands traced the curve of my breasts then began to move in slow circles. Each small mound felt overly swollen, almost sore and then his fingers traced the small circles of my nipples.
“I swear I’ve become a very close observer of how the cadet’s uniform fits Pippin’s chest, peering at these pretty little tits over breakfast like a stripling.”
I let out a little gasp as his thumbs swept over them and Ged watched his every movement before lunging forward with a muffled oath and taking one for himself. Then I was treated to the very singular pleasure of Flynn tugging one nipple rhythmically as Ged sucked the other in. My whole body went tight, a long groan escaping me as Soren dropped down at my side.
“That’s it, lass. Let them give you everything you want, while I give you what you need.”
Waves of pleasure washed through me, too many to keep track of. Instead I was tossed around in a rocky sea of desire, sure I might drown. But I didn’t want to fight to keep my head above water, so when Soren slid his hand between Ged and I, my legs opened willingly, knowing what he would do next. His fingers found my pearl and it felt slick under his touch, slipping between the pads, each movement spurring me on to greater and greater pleasure. My thighs spread wider still, ready to admit something more.
“Come for us first.” Soren told me what to do in a gentle but firm tone. “Give us that and then Ged will make you feel so very good.”
Each man paused what he was doing then, to stare down at me.
Even Brom.
He was like a stone statue, standing there, chest bared, his hands clenched into fists, watching everything we did, but not daring to step forward. I smiled then like a queen, right before my eyelids began to flutter and it all happened.
This was just the beginning, not the end but I panted out my response as my body spasmed. Ged pulled away, crouching between my thighs as I begged, pleaded, for something more. Something I knew he could give me. He stroked my thighs as Soren’s fingers teased my pleasure out, extending it until it was almost painful and then Ged licked his fingers and pushed one inside me, hard, intrusive, forcing me to open up and let him in. He pumped it slowly back and forth until the pleasure dissipated, only to start up all over again. But this time it was a harsher, wilder feeling, one that drove me mad.
“Ged!” I barked.
“Take another, Pippin. Show me that you’re ready for me.”
Flynn’s hands moved relentlessly, tugging both nipples now until they ached so sweetly.
“You can do that, can’t you?” Flynn’s words caught at my attention. He smiled when I tilted my head back to look at him. “You’ll be full of him before too long, just as soon as you’ve opened up enough. Is she wet?”
“Dripping,” Ged growled. “I want a taste.”
“Save something for the rest of us,” Flynn shot back. “You’re going to give us all of you, Pippin, just as we’re going to do the same for you.” His hand slid up and collared my jaw when I went to look down. “My father had it partly right. You are mine. But you’re also Ged’s and you’re Soren’s, too. Even Brom’s, the stubborn bloody fool. The wing commander will get down on his knees before you, even if I have to force him down on them myself. How many fingers is she taking, Ged?”
“Three at a squeeze. A very tight squeeze.”
Flynn’s smile was full of catlike pleasure.
“Good girl.” His hand stroked up and down my throat until I was leaning into the caress.
“Gently,” Soren growled as Ged began to settle over me, as something hard and blunt slid through my folds. “Don’t hurt her. Don’t fucking hurt her.”
He would, he and I both knew that as I jerked my eyes away from Flynn and back to Ged. He would hurt both of us doing this, because we would never be able to pretend again. This was slicing through the rules and regulations, the expectations and the pretence and, as he buried himself inside me, all concerns about those false societal constraints fell away.
“Just a little bit of pain,” he crooned as Soren’s fingers still worked my pearl. “Just the once and then it will feel so very good. Deep breath, lass. That’s a girl.”
When he jerked forward there was a moment of pure, crystalline pain, followed by a similarly intense pleasure.
“Ged!”
I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close to keep him in place, buried in so far I could feel his heart beating in time with mine.
“I’m yours, Pippin. All yours.” He sobbed that out over and over as he began to move, a terrible friction building inside me that I should’ve recoiled away from but instead I rushed toward it. My hips jerked upwards, meeting him stroke for stroke and he grinned, wild and boyish in response. “Yes, love. Yes, my Pippin. Yes!”
It felt like all of my muscles went taut as I locked down around him, so tight that I felt every pulse of his manhood spurring on my own frantic spasms that forced him to eject his seed inside me.
Kisses, that’s what brought me back to myself, small tender kisses that peppered my face until I opened my eyes.
“It looked like you passed out there for a second,” Ged said in a gentle voice. “Are you well?”
“Mmmmm…” I purred like a cat and stretched like one too, elongating my spine. I knew now exactly why noblewomen were deprived of such pleasures, because there was no way anyone would settle for a marriage of duty after experiencing this. “Soo good.” I grinned then, watching his expression mirror mine as he stared down at me with such…
Love. Gods, that’s what this was. How long it’d been since another human being had looked at me that way. I stared back at him with wonder, feeling what he felt, feeling my own emotions, and… realising that the others felt the same, though there was a spiky edge of need to their emotions.
“Your consorts need you, my queen.”
He pulled free of me with a rush of fluid, but I was turning towards them the moment he was out, needing more. And why shouldn’t I have it? Playing by the rules had got me nowhere, but this? I flipped in place and crawled towards Flynn, feeling a dragon-like grace to my body as I did so.
“Don’t come to me yet,” he said with a wild look. “It’s riding me fucking hard, what I’m feeling. I can’t promise to be gentle like you deserve. Might have to slip away and take the edge off first.”
“Who said I wanted gentle?”
I tugged at the lacing of his pants despite his protests, though his words fell away as soon as I had him in hand.
“Gods, just like that….” He let out an almost pained sigh. “Your little hand.”
“We never did teach you properly how to ride,” Soren said. “Better start now.”