Page 142 of The Dragon Warlord

“Yeah?”

“Mmhm.”

We shed our coats and I pull him into my lap facing me. He’s wearing a fancy, striped shirt with a high collar that reaches his metal one, but V’s open to reveal the white shirt underneath. I wore a blue shirt that I thought would look sophisticated with my hair tied back, attempting to appear less rough. With my hair loose, I doubt I’m any less rugged than I am on the field, just uh, minus the mud and blood.

River buries his face in my hair, and I stop caring about how I look. He can have whatever he wants.

After I’ve fed him from my lap and we’re a few glasses of mead in, I take him up to dance, which was the point of the evening. I wouldn’t dance with him during the first days of us, worried about the message it would send, which was ridiculous. As if I’ve ever sent a message to him that was absent of complete love and adoration.

I spin him until he’s dizzy and kiss him until he’s breathless. Something slower plays and we remain on the floor, swaying. He nestles his head into my neck where he can bury himself in the hair that he likes so much again. A hot bolt of realization hits me.

“Gods, Riv, I’m the world’s greatest fool.”

He laughs. “What are you talking about?”

“I haven’t been powerless against the bond. The real thing I’ve been powerless against is you.”

“Oh? How do you know?”

“Pretty sure the bond doesn’t give a fuck about how I wear my hair.” I know that alone isn’t a convincing argument, but it’s a thousand little things like that.

River wrinkles his nose. “We voted as a family. If the bond doesn’t agree, it has to take us all on.”

He takes his head off my shoulder, and I get to stare into his exotic blue dragon eyes. “Riv? I think from the outside it can appear as if it’s the omega who is slave to the alpha and with the way the rules are set up, even I believed that for the longest time, but that’s not how I’ve lived. I have always worshipped you. Alphas need an omega to keep them in line.”

Alphas are aggressive and I am no exception despite my other inclinations. From some of the first days, River was and remains the reason I haven’t beheaded a single dragon at The Tower. Arguably, he’s also the reason I wanted to, but he’s stopped me even without involving himself.

Because I’m beholden to him.

Losing his favor is the worst thing I can imagine. Even if how intensely I’m drawn to him is because of the bond, it doesn’t matter. I submit to him freely and he can’t do better than me because I’m going to spend the rest of my days loving him as fiercely as I always have.

Isn’t that how it should be?

“You do your share of keeping me in line, Alpha.”

“Says the most well-behaved omega in existence.”

“You do plenty of alpha things that I love,” he says, snarling and getting defensive of me.

“Fuck, you’re adorable when you get all snarly.” I rub noses with him—the family I love you—and kiss him. “I do save your arse a lot because I’m an amazing dragon Warlord and alpha.”

He laughs. “You do.” He leans toward my ear. “And you’re good at spanking, Tristan.”

“Is that a hint? Do you need a spanking, Riv?”

“I know that you claim one should never admit to that, but I do, and I want to tell you.”

“I stand by my proclamation, honeycake, but we are different people. Also, remember, you asked for this.”

Dragging him back to our table, I bend him over it and bare his arse to the room. There are many similar scenes going on around us. Ones with much more sex and kink factor than this spanking—on its own—will have. Trapping an arm behind his back, I lay smack after smack to his delightfully bare arse until it’s my favorite shade of red.

He’s hissing and panting and sporting tears by the end of it. Part of me wants to sit him on my cock if just to show all these Elves to whom he belongs. Hell, if just to show him. I don’t want to ruin the spanking with sex. Not that sex ruins spankings per se, sometimes it drastically improves them. Other times, a discipline spanking in its purest form lights you with a special glow that can’t be begotten any other way.

River is incandescent when he’s clothed and in my lap again. “Best date ever,” he says with fresh tears running down his face.

“You haven’t been on another date. The next one could be better.”

He shrugs. “Not sure that I want to go on another one. It seems to me that a date is just a couple doing things together and if that’s the case, we’ve been on many dates. We’ve been on so many grand adventures together, Warlord.”