Page 65 of The Forbidden Dragon King (Shadow Kings #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mount Primo

F reya

I writhe, deep in my heat on the glistening floor of the vast cavern in the side of Mount Primo, which overlooks the south of Bael. The walls are rough with sparkling gold like dragon scales.

“Alpha,” I whine, dragging at my robes that are suddenly too constrictive.

Too many laces and buttons.

My shaky fingers fumble.

I choke on the memory of the best night of my life, dancing with the men who I love, turning into my worst nightmare.

It was another massacre like Orm.

I shudder.

Daire moans. His eyelashes flutter, as he turns to me with glassy eyes. He is still wearing Aurelius’ golden mask.

Daire drags me into a hard kiss, before hauling me onto his outstretched wing, which he is using as a make-shift nest. I snuggle into his silky feathers, intoxicated by his strong scent.

Then I peer, as my stomach churns with both anticipation and nerves, at the dark figure of Aurelius, who is standing at the entrance of the cavern.

Should I be calling him Hadrian?

I swallow.

He flew us both here wrapped in his shadows, which had been cold, so different to the hot shadows that had invaded the capital’s streets.

I had sensed the same conflicting coldness in his mind.

It was dangerous. Deadly. But still Aurelius, even though the dragon called himself the resurrected Hadrian.

In my heat state, he was still my Alpha. I knew it biologically in the way that our pheromones called to each other.

Either way, this heat is happening.

I moan, slipping my hand between my thighs. Slick is soaking through my robe, sticking it to my skin.

I feel empty.

“Knot,” I chant, low and desperate, “knot, knot . ”

“You’re cute like this.” Daire sounds amused, kissing me again.

I’m too exhausted and fevered to do more than weakly growl.

“Do that again.” Daire tightens his wing around me. “It’s even cuter.”

Aurelius stalks with slow, predatory steps into the gleaming cave. He is silhouetted against the streaming moonlight behind him. His dagger is sheathed, but shadows still wind up his arms. His eyes are molten amber.

I watch him with wide eyes. My core throbs.

Aurelius is towering over us both, silently. His hair is tousled and damp. Sweat trails down his forehead.

Fine tremors run down his arms, but he’s trying to hold himself together from falling fully into rut.

Daire meets his gaze with half-hooded eyes, before stretching out his elegant neck, teasingly baring it. Between Alphas, this should be a gesture of submission. With Daire, however, this is a game to provoke Aurelius into rut.

Is Daire ever not playing a game?

Aurelius’ lips pull back, revealing his sharp canines; his swirling eyes focus on Daire’s throat like he can’t decide whether to scent it or savage it.

Then he gestures with his hand, and his shadows weave out, ripping my robes and Daire’s down the middle in a single, startling move.

I hiss out a shocked breath at the sensation of the fabric being torn away, exposing my naked skin to the cool air, and the loud ripping sound that echoes around the cavern.

I’ve been freed.

Finally, I can breathe.

Daire’s eyes are wide. His cock is already hard against his stomach.

We both stare up at our King who is still fully dressed and armed above us, and this…?

Between enemies…?

It’s trust.

My heart speeds up. “Aurelius?”

He balls his fists, and slowly, his eyes return to normal. Then his knees buckle and he falls into a crouch. He hangs his head.

His breathing speeds up, becoming ragged.

I move to touch him, but Daire catches my hand and shakes his head.

I watch Aurelius, as he pulls off his mask and hurls it skidding across the cave.

Daire moves to pull off his mask as well, but Aurelius stops him.

“Don’t,” Aurelius commands. “Keep yours on. It marks you as my masked fae, remember? In this nest, you’re mine.”

“Aren’t you ours?” Daire traces over his wooden mask.

I’m shocked by the devastation on Aurelius’ face, when he raises his head. “I’m not even my own. By the Shadow Gods, what just happened… We left them to die. They sacrificed themselves for me. I just lost my family. I just lo st the people who…”

My hazy mind clears enough for me to push up and clasp his hand. “We don’t know that.”

Except, could the Golden Family have survived?

Lucius, my only Omega friend? War who protected me, showing me the prophecy?

Wraith? Vicious under all those rats…?

I shake at the memory of the beetles crawling on my legs, the hot rolling shadows, and the red-eyed bats caught in my hair.

Could anyone have survived what we left behind? Were they all wiped out as happened at Orm?

My eyes burn with tears.

I never wanted anyone to experience the same grief as I did. Except, I was too young to know my parents. I could only mourn invented shades.

For Aurelius, these are his best friends.

His found family.

My heart aches.

Then another wave of heat hits me, and I groan, falling back into Daire’s arms.

Daire’s expression is unreadable. “I lost everything and everyone too. You’ll survive. Leave tomorrow for tomorrow. Right now, we have an Omega in heat who needs us. Hadrian got us out of that bloody shitshow because he cared about saving your mates. He wanted you to have this.”

“I’m not Hadrian,” Aurelius grits outs.

“Aren’t you?” Daire reaches up and cups Aurelius’ cheek. “He’s not you. Isn’t that how resurrection works? But still, you have his power inside you. How about you stop leashing yourself and see what you’re truly capable of, aye?”

“I just need,” Aurelius’ voice is thick with tears that he won’t allow to fall, “to lose myself in this rut. Help me forget for the next twenty-four hours. I wish…” His voice wavers. “I wish that I would never wake up from the rut.”

Daire’s expression hardens. “In this cave, there’s only us. Forget everything else.”

“Just us and the moon,” I whisper.

Daire draws his thumb down Aurelius’ cheekbone, before twisting to me and capturing my lips again.

My skin tingles, when I feel Aurelius’ shadows exploring over my skin.

Aurelius kneels up, but his shadows are winding over me.

Daire quirks his eyebrow at Aurelius. “Get her ready for us.”

Aurelius’ frosty gaze meets mine. “Do you want my knot?”

My pussy clenches in anticipation.

I’m so empty that I ache, desperate to be filled.

I nod, eagerly.

“Words.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“What will you do to earn it?”

Daire snorts in amusement, but I ignore him. I know what Alphas like to hear.

“Anything.”

Lie.

Aurelius’ lips thin; he knows that I’m playing the game.

I want to make him forget by wrecking him as much as I am. I unleash my pheromones, filling the cave with my heat scent.

Aurelius’ pupils dilate. He falls forward, caging me.

He’s both touch starved and has never spent his rut with an Omega. If he thinks that he’s holding onto the control here, he can think again.

“I want you,” he sounds as desperate as I am. “I want both of you. I lo?—”

He catches himself.

Was he going to say that he loves us both?

He takes desperate breaths of my neck, licking up my scent gland. Then he nuzzles down my jaw, kissing and biting.

I arch in pleasure.

Daire shifts out from underneath me, struggling out of his torn clothes to create a nest beneath me. Then he eases the robes off my shoulders, stripping me.

Aurelius draws back, tracing his thumb slowly over my lips, studying me tenderly, as if needing to ensure that I am still alive.

Then he dips his head to kiss me, slow and deep.

Our tongues entangle. I am cocooned in his scent. And I fall fully into the fuzzy, primal heat.

I clutch at Aurelius’ shoulders, but he pushes me away, pulling back.

“Please,” I beg.

Aurelius’ shadows wind around me again, dancing from his fingers, as he kneels between my thighs .

I thrash, as ghostly fingers brush over my breasts, circle my sensitive nubs, then slide down my sides.

Suddenly, the shadows pin me more firmly in place.

“More,” I moan.

I don’t know what I’m asking for, except that I am already wet and trembling on the precipice of coming from the idea that these are Aurelius’ shadows questing between my legs and pushing my thighs wider now.

On the moon, is he truly going to…?

I gasp, as the shadows push into my pussy, stretching me.

“Yes,” I hiss.

“Good Omega,” Aurelius’ voice is slow and deep.

When I look up at him, struggling to catch my breath, I realize that Daire has moved in that fast and silent way of his, and is slowly undressing Aurelius like he’s finally taking seriously his vow to serve him.

Daire removes Aurelius’ cloak carefully like he’s the King’s squire, folding it in a way that he never has his own clothes and placing it to the side.

When he attempts to remove the King’s belt, however, Aurelius stops him.

“Are you afraid of the dagger?” Daire tilts his head.

“I’m afraid of you touching it, Kitten,” Aurelius replies. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That’s a first.”

Aurelius grips Daire hard by the back of the neck, forcing him to meet his eye.

“Freya chose you as her pack. You’re under my protection now.

More than that, you’re connected to me by fate and golden threads.

My dragon rider . Do you understand how deeply a dragon is connected to their riders?

All my life, I never thought that I would be lucky enough to have one and now, I have two.

You’re my Alpha fated mate. Don’t kill me, and eventually, I’ll find a way for you to rule next to me, as much as Freya will be my Queen. ”

Daire looks caught out, as if he never expected this from Aurelius.

Hurriedly, he smirks, hiding behind banter. “I’ll try, but assassination attempts are my favorite hobby.”

“Take up needlework.”

The shadows thrust into me, deeper and deeper.

I clench my hands, as they hit just the right spot.

“There,” I gasp. “Just fucking there.”

The shadows deliberately hit over the spot again, ruthlessly and relentlessly.

They pin me in place.