Page 56 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Thirty-Six

It was fear that drove him off the cliff, and it was need that pulled him down to Earth. To her.

Taevas’s muscles coiled so tightly they trembled as he devoured her, one furious kiss bleeding into the next. It was a nightmare. The nightmare of all nightmares — his worst fear come true in ways he could barely wrap his head around.

To have lost himself so completely to a mate, surrendering all aspects of himself to her, only to potentially lose her…

Mating had killed his father. It tortured his mother.

It threatened everything he valued in himself and what he’d built, but even that existential fear couldn’t touch the raw, slithering poison of losing her.

He didn’t think for a moment that Alashiya wanted Sergei, or even that the dragon was a real threat to his claim, but seeing Jaak’s look-alike lay his hands on her— Taevas would be seeing that in his dreams for decades to come.

Urgency pumped through his veins with every frantic beat of his heart. The need to hide her away, the need to mark her, and the need to destroy anything that threatened her was a howl in him, so loud that it blocked out everything else.

“Tell me to stop,” he begged. “Command me, Shiya.”

He was already tearing at the simple tie that held her dress together at her waist. His hands moved without his consent, a flurry of action whose sole goal was to divest his mate of her clothing as fast as possible.

Only a shred of Taevas the man, the Isand, the good, caring mate remained in him, and that shred needed her to push back, to tell him no.

She deserved better than a fuck in the dirt for her first time.

She deserved his full attention, his care as he made it perfect for her.

At the very least she deserved to be in their nest, not up against the papery bark of an old birch tree.

He knew that, even if he couldn’t seem to stop his claws from tearing through the knot of her dress or reaching greedily past its folds to cup the heavy swell of her breast.

Control was a thing of the past. That Taevas was dead. In his place was a mindless, rutting beast, and that beast could only be commanded by his queen.

The touch of her palm to his cheek was searing. For a moment, he was gutted, knowing that she was stopping him, this. It was the right thing, but gods, he needed it. He needed to seal this open wound that was his Choosing or the fear would see him burning the world to the ground.

“Taevas.” His name fell from battered, swollen lips. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide when she put enough space between them to meet his gaze.

He held himself perfectly still, waiting for her to tell him what to do. Waiting for it to end as it should. But Alashiya didn’t say anything for a painfully long time. Her eyes were clear, her emotions a vivid display in them as she came to some conclusion.

The hair on the back of his neck rose as instinct recognized something his mind couldn’t. She’d decided on something, but he couldn’t tell if it was in his favor or not.

“Why do you want me to stop this?”

His voice was a jagged edge when he answered, “You deserve better.”

“Than what?”

“Than to be fucked in the dirt.” His throat worked around what felt like a shard of glass. “To have your first time be with me when I’m— I’m this.”

“This what?”

Taevas rocked his hips. A hiss slipped out from between his clenched teeth when their bodies connected, sending a jolt of sweet friction down his cock. Alashiya’s breath hitched when he yanked the soft slip away from her breasts, letting them spill into the warm, sticky air.

Pressing his face into the soft flesh of her throat, he rolled one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger with firm, continuous pressure. “This out of my fucking mind,” he rasped, teeth scraping her throbbing pulse. “This lost. This ruined by you. For you.”

She made a soft, needy sound in the back of her throat and rose up on her tiptoes, her back arching as he rolled her nipple in the other direction, never letting up the pressure. He could practically see her little toes curling in her boots as she panted.

“Tell me no,” he ordered, more desperate than before. “Command me to stop, Shiya. You’re the only one of us who can.”

Her hands fluttered around his shoulders before they slid down, crossing his heaving chest until her fingertips settled on the waistband of his borrowed pants. “What if I don’t want to?”

A high keening note left his throat. “You can’t. You’re worth more than this. You deserve perfect. Not this.”

Even as the words left his mouth, he began to tear at her clothing with quick, efficient swipes of his claws. A twinge of guilt over the damage was a brief flare in the back of his mind, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

She’d never wear patched up clothing, hand-me-downs, or cheap fabrics again.

She’d dress as she was always meant to — like a queen.

He’d drape her in strings of pearls and silk so fine it stroked her skin with the same reverence he did.

It’d be his honor to give her anything her heart desired from this day onward.

Just the thought of her wearing what he’d given her for a change made a hot curl of lust tighten in his belly.

If Alashiya had a problem with his destruction of her clothing, she didn’t mention it. Her breath came in quick little pants as she stood there against the tree in little more than her old leather boots, dainty and well-loved, but yet another sign of how much more she deserved.

“We don’t have time for perfect,” she whispered, slipping her fingers beneath his waistband. His cock jerked when she brushed the base with a fleeting, curious touch. “If this is all we get, then I’m not wasting the opportunity.”

Something about the way she said that made a faint alarm sound in the back of his mind, but it was completely drowned out by the roar of victory in his ears.

She’s not telling me no.

Some part of him was shaken by that. She was supposed to be the one in control, the logical one who’d keep their head when he couldn’t.

But she didn’t appear to want that. The look in Alashiya’s eyes was as desperate and frenzied as his was, like it was her who feared he’d be snatched away in a moment.

Never.

Taevas tilted her head back for another hungry kiss. Never never never, he silently chanted, pressing the word into her lips and tongue again and again.

The urge to reassure her was the final straw for that threadbare shred of control that remained in him.

No, this wasn’t as it should be, but it was what had to be done.

This was the start and the end and the pivot point from which their life would change.

Everything going forward would be different, but they would be a done thing.

Taevas ripped his lips away from hers and dropped to his knees. Without his support, she collapsed against the tree, her chest rising and falling as she stared down at him with dazed eyes.

She was fucking magnificent.

The dappled sunlight gilded her skin and curls. A faint sheen of sweat made her chest glitter. The tips of her heavy breasts were dark and jutting into the warm summer air, begging for more of his attention. When he palmed them greedily, he found her soft thighs trembling.

Nude and flushed with arousal, she looked like every fever dream of a nymph that had ever been had.

She was wild with want, unbound by any shyness or coy games.

There was nothing artificial or practiced about how she looked at him then — like she was just as out of her mind for him as he was for her.

Taevas hitched one of her legs over his shoulder. The joint of his wing screamed in protest when he moved it out of the way, but he shoved the now-familiar pain into a box and sealed it shut. Nothing, not even that, could distract him from his singular focus now.

Alashiya balanced herself by gripping the tallest pair of his horns as he pressed his face into the juncture of her thighs. The scent of her, musky and sweet, sent electricity skittering over every inch of his skin. A pleasant buzz filled his mind.

He barely recognized his own voice when he spoke.

“If you tell me to stop, I’ll stop.” Taevas skimmed her slit and found her hot flesh slippery.

He stroked her mindlessly, hungrily, stirring his fingers through the evidence of her need, when he growled, “If you don’t, I’m going to ruin you like you’ve ruined me, naine. ”

A shuddering breath escaped her bruised lips. “I think you’ve already done that.”

No, he wanted to argue, I haven’t. Not yet.

If he had, she wouldn’t wear that avid, fearful look, like he’d disappear at any moment.

She wouldn’t doubt or worry. She’d know that they were a done thing, and that she ruled him now and forever.

She’d demand her due without hesitation.

She’d expect everything of him, and it’d be the greatest pleasure in his life to give all of himself to her.

Because that was the trade they made when a dragon Chose. It was not an easy thing to be a dragon’s mate. They demanded everything, always, without remorse. They coveted what they treasured and would never compromise on that.

But in exchange they offered all of themselves, and the risk that should a Chosen leave or die, their lives would be forfeit in all the ways that mattered.

Taevas had never been willing to make that trade. He couldn’t risk suffering as his parents had suffered, and the thought of his control unraveling was repugnant. But he was keenly aware that he was missing out on something that made life worth living.

And now it was done. It’d taken a decade of whittling down his willpower and an assassination attempt, but at last he’d offered himself up on the altar, sacrificing his own health and happiness to have her all to himself.

He was aware that he would be a monster of a mate — more demanding, more troublesome, more selfish than any other.

If he had any selfless love for her at all, he would’ve saved her from himself.

But he didn’t. His feelings were as selfish as the fire that burned in his gut. It was all-consuming, ever-hungry, and so he knelt there in the woods, her thigh draped over his shoulder, and devoured her.

Alashiya choked out a gasp as he spread her and licked a hot stripe from her dripping entrance to the firm little pearl of her clitoris. The muscles of her thigh tightened reflexively as he savored the taste and feel of her on his tongue. It was pure bliss.

He didn’t hear the sounds of the forest or feel the humid air pressing down on him.

He barely felt the pressure building in his livid cock.

Taevas normally prided himself on being able to get a woman off on his tongue with devastating efficiency, but that wasn’t the goal with her.

He drowned in sensation. There was no plan, no pride, no endgame.

There was only the taste and smell and sounds of her as she ground down against him, chasing the pleasure his swirling tongue offered.

His name spilled from her lips over and over, blending in with strings of words from a language he didn’t know.

A heady thrill coursed through him when she began to direct his head with his horns, demanding more here, less there.

It eased something tight in him to know that she held the reins, allowing him to fully lose himself in her.

When she began to rock herself restlessly against his mouth, he instinctively increased the pressure and speed, seeking to give her everything she needed from him.

He slid one finger inside her, then another.

Her walls rippled around them, seeking to hold him there as he gently but urgently attempted to prepare her for what was to come.

He eased the sting of a third finger with a long, sucking pull of his lips and tongue, which made Alashiya arch her back and keen with surprise.

Her grip on his horns became unrelenting, and there was precious little oxygen available when she forced his head hard against her. Taevas loved it. His skull felt too small to contain the rush that accompanied her taking control of him, using him to get herself off.

Every aspect of his life had been carefully curated, maintained, and ordered by him.

Every partner, every sexual encounter — all of it was by his design, at his leisure, and ended exactly when he said so.

It had never occurred to him that he’d fucking love being used, let alone commanded.

He couldn’t even imagine letting anyone but his Alashiya doing so.

And when she came on his tongue, panting and rolling her perfect, wet cunt into his mouth until his mind began to go a little fuzzy at the edges… Bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss.

To everyone else he was Isand Taevas A?daja, but to Alashiya he was simply hers.