Page 83 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 82

Glimmer continued to throw herself off the cliff, over and over. It got to the point where I could feel the ache in her bones and muscles and she was taking a little longer each time to rest in my arms at the end of her descent. Finally, after allowing me to croon over her and scratch between her eye ridges to give her a little extra recovery time, she lifted her body in my arms again. She looked to the male dragons and bunched her muscles to leap at her next means of ascending the cliff, when Darkspire shouldered his way forward and lowered his head beside us. She crawled from my arms onto his muzzle so as to better stare into his eyes as she chittered at him, but the prince’s dragon just huffed in response to what she had to say and turned towards the water.

Glacier was already in there, surfing the waves and sucking in great mouthfuls of water to shoot out spikes of ice into the ocean. The sun had finally come out and I tugged open my leather jacket to cool off.

“Are you going to swim?” Flynn asked, as I stood watching Darkspire strike out into the shallows. Glimmer’s little noises of protest stopped as she tilted her head to look at the water with interest.

“I guess I am, otherwise, the prince’s dragon might drown mine,” I said, kicking off my boots and trousers, throwing everything onto the sand but for my shirt.

“‘Spire wouldn’t dare. Each of the dragons knows what the others are thinking. The big thoughts anyway. It creates a kind of community between them that we can’t rival,” Flynn said, grabbing my hand and tugging me after him. I felt so free with the sun on my bare legs and the wind tearing at my shirt. And then my legs hit the chill water right before Flynn pulled me to dive in with him.

“Gods, that’s cold!” I spluttered when I surfaced.

“Bracing is what it is,” he insisted with a grin. “Straight off the northern pole.” He slapped his hand across the surface of the water towards me, sending a great splash right into my face.

“Oh, so that’s how it is!” I laughed before splashing him back.

“Swimming’s excellent conditioning for a young dragon.” Interrupting our stupid antics, Soren nodded to where Glimmer now awkwardly struck out across the water. Darkspire stood between her and the swell of the tide, instinctively creating a calmer space for her to swim. “We should bring her down here each day. The water keeps her buoyant and the weight off her wings, but the resistance from the waves will help her muscles strengthen.”

“Two weeks of this?” Flynn’s voice dropped deeper, huskier. When I looked at him, I saw that his eyes were trained on my breasts, making me realise that my thin, sodden shirt was probably doing nothing to hide them. When I looked down, I saw that my nipples were on full display, and I yelped and ducked down into the water. Flynn reached down and swept me up, positioning me so my legs locked around his waist, making it clear just how much he enjoyed the sight. “I damn near bit off my tongue the minute Pippin got in the water at the quarry. I don’t know how Ged did it, showing her how to clean Cloudy while her shirt plastered to her body.”

“I thought she was the prince’s,” the man himself answered, wading closer. “But I took on the lesson just to torture myself. To smell her scent in my nose, to feel her body brush against mine, to see exactly how sweet those little nipples looked pressing through the thin cotton.”

“I didn’t think you were looking!” I said with a gasp.

“A man always looks,” Soren said, with a rough smile that only spread as I glared at him. “Even if he knows his infatuation is doomed.”

“But it's not doomed now.” Flynn’s hands shifted, pressing me harder against his body. My hips moved on instinct, rubbing against him. “You’re ours, not his, and I don’t see anyone else about.”

“Here?” Soren dropped back into his military strategist mode, his eagle eyes scanning out to sea, then the beach and the cliffs beyond.

“Here,” Flynn confirmed, easily lifting me with just one arm, while he reached down between us. My back arched as his fingers began to work.

I’d never heard women speak of experiencing such pleasures, so I didn’t know if this perpetual readiness for more, that seemed to thrum through my body, was what every woman felt. Because, despite the swaying waves, or perhaps because of them, I gasped as soon as Flynn’s fingers slid through my folds, the wetness there from more than the sea water. My pearl felt especially sensitive to the touch and I was arching up into his caresses within seconds, gripping his neck as I began to move. This was disgraceful, lewd, but somehow the reassurance of their presence and the empty beach had me feeling so much bolder than I would’ve normally dared.

“I want to string this out, lass,” Flynn told me. “But I’m on edge from last night.”

We’d gotten to talking about the ruins, leaving him unsatisfied, but that was an oversight that was about to be corrected. He pulled his fingers free, just as I began to throb but, before I could complain, they were replaced by something far bigger and blunter. I bit back a groan as I felt him edge deeper inside me, the process hampered a little by the waves. The friction was far more intense, my own salty lubrication replaced by the sea, but even that slight sting wasn’t enough to stop me. The waves rocked us against each other, setting our pace until Flynn held tighter to my hips and started to plough into me faster.

“Can’t make this last,” he rasped out against my lips, before nipping and biting me with kisses along my throat. He needn’t have worried, because I was right there with him. My pleasure swelled with the tide, growing and growing.

Pippin.

But it wasn’t trailing away. This wave just kept swelling above me.

Pippin!

Bigger and bigger, it felt like if it took form it would tower over the cliffs themselves, ready to smash down on the land beyond and flood it entirely.

PIPPIN!

“Fuck, love, here it comes.”

My teeth sank into his shoulder, stifling my cry as my whole body went rigid, the breath I sucked in filling me with a golden light that just seemed to expand and expand until?—

“Bloody hell, what do the lot of you think you’re doing?”

Draven’s biting comment brought me plummeting back to earth as surely as if I’d leapt off the cliffs after Glimmer. I opened my eyes to see that he was standing in the water, fully clothed, holding her, and she was sodden and gasping. I felt the rush of Flynn’s seed pouring out of me as I pulled myself away from him and dropped my feet back down to the sea floor. I waded over to the prince, who didn’t seem to know where to look. His face was as pale as milk, but his eyes flashed furiously as Glimmer hacked out mouthfuls of seawater, then sucked in air.

“What the hell happened?” I demanded.

“I could ask you the same! A wave came and dumped on top of your dragon, dragging her under?—”

“Oh, no!” I snatched her up from his hands and waded out of the water, up onto the beach, to where I could drop down with her in my arms.

Glimmer was a burnt-orange colour rather than her normal bright gold. She coughed and gagged piteously, and tears filled my eyes with guilt at my lapse and sorrow at her distress.

I’m sorry , I said. I’m so, so sorry.

I called for you!

Her voice was plainly accusatory.

I know. I got distracted and ? —

“What the hell were you thinking?” Draven snapped. “I know all of you are determined to pursue this madness, but to do it in plain sight of anyone who might be out walking the cliffs?!”

“And who would be up there, now?” Brom countered. “And, more’s to the point, why weren’t you keeping an eye on Glimmer? She was with you and Darkspire, after all.”

“Yes, what were you so focussed on?” Flynn asked the prince, in a dark voice.

“The potential consequences if someone saw the lot of you cavorting,” Draven retorted, but that response just set Ged to laughing.

“Cavorting? Say it straight. Flynn was fucking Pippin. And you couldn’t keep your eyes off them. You wanted to be right where we were, witnessing her pleasure, sharing it?—”

“Careful, lad,” Soren said, but Ged shook his head.

“Here and now, he’s not a prince and you’re not our drill sergeant, just as Brom isn’t the wing commander. Under sun and sea, all men are equal, and all of us were focussed on our girl.”

My attention was entirely on Glimmer so I caught little of their arguments. Her breaths still sounded watery and rattly, and when Soren dropped down beside me, I looked up at him through eyes misty with tears. He nodded reassuringly at me, then scooped her up, resting her belly against his thick forearm, before thumping her sharply on the back right between her wings.

The seawater she’d swallowed came up, followed by her breakfast, to make a stinking pile on the sand. I picked her up and held her close, feeling her body shivering against mine as she tucked her snout under my arm. My thoughts and emotions tumbled around and around. I’d determined that I wouldn’t allow my upbringing to make me feel ashamed, and neither would I show embarrassment at whatever activities I engaged in with my dragonriders. Even the prince’s scathing glares couldn’t touch me. But where Glimmer was concerned? Guilt weighed me down.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve been letting the men distract me, getting caught up in other things. And I shouldn’t have. You are my first priority, always , I told my dragon. Always.

She showed her agreement with a sigh, and relaxing totally limp in my arms.