Page 30 of The Forbidden Dragon King (Shadow Kings #1)

“The Shadow Gods made us for each other.” Aurelius is looking at me with a reverence that floors me. “And if they didn’t, then it was the Shadow Devils who did. Our bond is…”

He snaps shut his mouth, glancing away.

I reach up to grip his chin and force him to face me again. “What is it?”

“Rare. Special. World ending .”

My breath hitches. “What a pickup line.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It sounds like the reason you’ve been barely looking at me, locking a cold mask over your face, as if your uncle already has you encased in enchanted metal. Are you going to let him win? I don’t believe that you’re evil.”

He gives a hollow laugh. “You don’t know what I am.”

“You’re my Alpha.” I kiss Aurelius again, desperate for him to voice it. “You said yourself that this bond is rare. So, fuck everyone else. In certain cases within the Fang Kingdom, an Omega will have multiple Alphas. Why not be part of my pack with Daire?”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Rude.”

When Aurelius pulls back from me, folding his wings behind himself and staggering to lean against the desk, I’m instantly cold.

Missing his heat, I stumble up as well. My torn tunic hangs off my shoulders.

“Whatever you’re scared will happen,” I say, quietly, “I believe that you’re strong enough to battle against it.

Fuck destiny and prophecy. I’ve never laid down and accepted mine, or I’d have died in the Orm Massacre as a baby.

I’d have accepted my role as a worthless servant in the Moon Court.

I’d have submitted to being torn apart in the Mate Hunt. ”

“I can’t imagine you submitting to anything.”

“Not even you…?”

Aurelius’ eyes darken. “Careful, Spark, or I’ll bend you over this desk and show you just how I’ll dominate you.”

“Do it.” My eyes narrow. “We’re not bonding. We’re fucking , or is that forbidden too?”

I press against him, challengingly.

“Everything that I’ve done with you is forbidden .

Even these courting gifts…” He gestures at the amber pitchers on the desk, and I look at them in surprise.

“I couldn’t resist. You told me on the journey to the capital that you hadn’t had honey or wine before, but certainly appeared to overindulge in both.

I went to the market and found the most delicious in Bael for you.

I’d intended to pretend that they were from Lucius. ”

“I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“What’s the point in wearing a mask now?”

I trace my finger over the closest pitcher, before sucking my finger. I moan at the sweet, floral taste.

Aurelius is watching me avidly.

My eyelashes tremble with tears. I never thought that someone would be this thoughtful.

The Golden Dragon went shopping for me…?

Aurelius looks panicked, when he notices the tears in my eyes. “I’ll throw them away. I clearly have no idea how to pick out gifts like this. I’m a rough warrior who has spent most of my life in the academy or on campaigns and I don’t know how to?—”

“You fucking won’t throw them away.” I drag the pitchers protectively toward myself. “No one has bothered to remember small details about me before. I wasn’t important enough.”

Aurelius relaxes. “I remember everything about you, including how adorable you are when drunk.”

“I wasn’t drunk,” I protest, despite how obvious the lie is to both of us. “Merrily tipsy, perhaps.” Then I look down. “You saved me today. You keep on saving me, don’t you?”

Aurelius runs a claw along his horns, looking uncomfortable. “Have you only just noticed?”

“You’ve also been saving Daire.”

Aurelius stiffens. “His name is Kit. And doubtful. He’s too much of a brat. He’s loud and undisciplined. Oh yes, and he keeps making assassination attempts on me. Bad ones.”

“You have been saving us both,” I repeat more firmly because now I’m certain of it. Aurelius’ loss of control has let me see behind his mask, and as much as he’s scrambling to put it back in place, it’s too late. “Let us save you now.”

With a flap of his wings, Aurelius turns, caging me against the desk.

I let out a shocked breath, as he bends me backwards, pinning my hands above my head. He noses down my neck again, breathing in my scent. His silky hair brushes my cheek, as he kisses down my jaw.

“I can’t think clearly, when you’re this close to me.” Aurelius kisses the corner of my lips and then across my cheeks and nose. “Have you spoken about me between you? Both of my pets want me…? No, that’s not right. Why would you? You wouldn’t. I only dreamed that. Fantasized. I can’t think…”

Aurelius shakes his curved horns from side to side in frustration. Then his piercing gaze settles on me.

I lean up and capture his lips. “Don’t think. Just let out the primal side that all the bastards here in the Shadow Court have been caging. I’m an Omega wolf shifter. I can take it.”

“You’re my goddess.” Sparks ignite on Aurelius’ horns, and his wings beat hard enough to send his papers on the desk into flight.

My skin goosebumps with anticipation.

I’m panting.

Aurelius cups my cheek. Then he reaches to trace over my bracelet, teasing at the scarred skin beneath with a tender reverence.

“I haven’t done this before,” he murmurs against my lips. “Any of it.”

My heart leaps.

Omegas can be possessive too. I hate that my Alpha has suffered for so many years and become touch starved to the point of turning feral.

Yet my inner Omega purrs that my lips are the first to have conquered his .

He’ll learn pleasure under my hand.

Is this the real way to tame a dragon? Daire and I should have thought of this earlier.

“Then it will be a first for both of us,” I reply, meeting his vulnerability with my own. “We can figure out what we like together.”

Aurelius draws back to study me. “Are you certain…?”

“Fuck me right now, or I’ll steal back all the shit that you took from me to line your nest.”

Aurelius flushes, looking shocked, before he grabs both sides of my tunic and tears it away from my body in a single powerful move.

I gasp.

Fuck, that was hot. It’s going in the like column.

My nipples pebble, exposed to the cool air and then Aurelius’ breath.

“Touch a Shadow Dragon’s nest without his permission,” Aurelius says coldly, in between licks across my nipples, “and expect to be spanked until your backside is cherry red.”

Yes, please.

“You promise?” I squirm, wetter than I was before.

Aurelius’ eyes flash. “You’re playing a dangerous game with an Alpha dragon.”

“Always. But then, this dragon is mine.”

“Keep your hands there.” Unexpectedly, Aurelius lets go of my wrists. When I don’t move them, his expression softens. “Good Omega.”

Good Omega .

The phrase lights up something in me. It vibrates and buzzes, dropping me into a warm, fuzzy place.

No one calls me good Omega.

In the Moon Court, they preferred worthless Omega bitch .

But good Omega …?

Of course, Aurelius is pheromone drunk right now. Probably deluded. Fifty-fifty on whether he’s hiding a mystery about our bond that could end the realms.

But my inner Omega doesn’t care about any of that.

I purr because what Omega doesn’t have a praise kink?

Aurelius picks up the pitcher that contains the wine, which smells of rich plums and cinnamon. He holds it over my bared body like an offering.

When I nod, he pours the cool wine that he bought as a courting gift over me. It spills out like waves of blood over his desk, staining the court papers red and dripping onto the marble.

I gasp at both the indulgent sensation of being bathed in wine and at the way that shadows instantly swirl out from Aurelius’ spread wings, darkening the room to night.

I stare up at his glowing eyes in awe.

Sometimes, I allow myself to forget who I am tricking, nesting with, and kissing.

But there is no doubt now that this is a king.

Aurelius calls me goddess, while he looks like a demon.

He snarls around his long fangs. Then he lowers his head to lick and suck the wine from the dip between my breasts like it’s a sacrament.

I whine, and my eyelashes flutter. “My Alpha…my dragon.”

Aurelius slams the claws in his left hand into the desk, as if needing to anchor himself. He laves his tongue in teasing circles down my stomach.

My chest is rising and falling.

I can hardly think, nothing beyond the feel of that tormenting tongue and the heady scent of wine.

I’m desperate to hump my hips, but they’re pinned beneath Aurelius’ heavy weight.

Pleasure is winding through me.

When Aurelius swirls his tongue around my navel and then thrusts his tongue in and out to chase the last of the wine, I almost come at that sensation alone.

“Touch me,” I whimper. “Fucking touch me.”

Aurelius gives me a final long lick up my stomach, before looking at me through his long lashes. “I was under the impression that’s what I was doing.”

“Lower. Please… ”

“I knew that you could be polite. And beg. So pretty.”

He draws the longest claw on his thumb down the front of my breeches.

My eyes widen, as his claw slices easily through the material.

I hold myself as still as I can.

As neatly as moving his wooden pieces in the planning of a military campaign, Aurelius cuts away the front flap of my breeches .

The danger only makes me wetter.

I stop breathing all together, when Aurelius looks up at me with a wicked gleam in his eyes, then edges his claw inside my cotton underwear.

In one sharp move, he rips my underwear apart.

“F-f-fuck.” I shiver.

Aurelius’ eyes darken.

He surges up, as turned on as I am. He captures my lips, hard and claiming.

My pupils dilate, when he snatches up the second pitcher and pours the amber honey, which is the same shade as his eyes, over my pussy.

I moan, as the liquid mixes with my slick.

My King is anointing me with honey and wine.

He’s worshiping me.

The sun could fall from the sky to raze the world outside the window, and still inside the night of this room, I would not be able to look away from Aurelius dropping to his knees between my thighs.

A Shadow Dragon.

An Alpha.

A king.

Yet he’s willingly on his knees before me , a rejected wolf shifter orphan.

My heart is beating out of my chest. My eyes are smarting with tears. I’m desperate to bury my hands in Aurelius’ tumble of golden hair, stroke over his glorious horns, and hold onto his crown and symbol of power, as he worships my pussy with long licks .

For the first time in my life, however, I’m even more desperate to be a good Omega for someone.

So, I keep my hands where Aurelius told me to, as he chases the sweet taste of the sticky honey that coats my clit hungrily like that is his most precious duty.

As if I am.

I moan.

Pleasure rushes through me.

I’m so close…

Just a little more.

My toes curl, as he circles my clit, over and over.

Then Aurelius raises his gaze to meet mine, while sucking on my clit.

And it’s the tenderness — the fucking depth of his love, the type that I know I will never be able to forget — as he kneels between my thighs, which crashes blinding, earth shattering ecstasy over me.

It’s shocking.

Overwhelming.

More intense than anything I’ve felt before.

“Alpha,” I scream.

Then my eyes roll back, my back arches, and I white out.