Breath of Flame and Shadow (9 page)

He’d have gone farther, but it was time to wake Trevor and tackle the next leg of their trip as quickly as possible. It had only taken his breath a matter of minutes to reach the chamber, but on foot it would still take them a few more hours.

The human woke as though he’d merely been resting his eyes, though Rafe knew he’d been sleeping soundly from the shift in his energy. Trevor stood, shouldered his pack and donned his headlamp before heading wordlessly down the corridor. They didn’t speak until they finally reached the opening Rafe had found earlier.

“Holy fuck,” Trevor said, gazing down at the semi-molten landscape that rested between them and the eerily illuminated temple on the other side.

The massive structure was dark except for the glimmer of a few small lava flows that trickled down the edges of the rocks below and around it. There was a single narrow, crumbling path that led down from their ledge into what probably appeared to be certain death to the human, but Trevor set down his pack and began rummaging through it anyway, pulling out coils of densely woven ropes and small, metal latches. After a moment of frantic scrambling and tying and cursing, he finally let the entire tangled mess fall at his feet.

“Fuck! This is never going to work!” Trevor stared at Rafe, his face tight with despair. He glanced down beneath, then to the walls of the cave, gesturing. “What the fuck do we do? We can’t climb around, and we can’t simply
walk in.
There’s no fucking way to avoid that bullshit down there. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m about to roast right here as it is.”

“We’re not walking,” Rafe said, letting his conjured clothing fade away. “We’re flying.”

C
hapter 8

R
afe flew them across the cavern, aiming at the curled eaves of the roof that reflected the glow of the lava beneath. He’d instructed Trevor to don every item of clothing he had and cover his face, too. He’d also cloaked the human in a cloud of shadowy breath, hoping that would prevent some of the heat reaching him. His breath might help, but had nowhere near the protective qualities that Roka’s breath had. Roka would be needed to protect the others if they all agreed to follow.

As he expected, the top tier of the temple had a wide balcony that allowed him access to a chimney-like opening. The shaft itself could have accommodated a larger dragon than he, and it was comfortable enough to descend. The air was comfortably cool at the bottom of the shaft and Trevor swiftly dismounted and yanked off most of his clothing, emerging panting and sweating and taking several thirsty swallows of water.

“No stopping now, brother,” he said with a grin.

“I meant what I said before,” Rafe said solemnly. “Whatever she decides, I will honor.”

“I’m with you, man. I’d be her slave if she asked me to, and gladly.”

Rowan’s essence grew even stronger the closer they got, to the point that Rafe grew hard with the vivid memories of making love to her. He hadn’t bothered conjuring clothing for himself and was oddly touched when Trevor gradually began to shed the rest of his clothes as they traveled the polished jade corridors to reach her.

The place was even decorated on the interior like a Shinto temple, with sliding screens and glowing lanterns hanging at intervals or perched on pedestals. Had this been where Rafe’s father’s brood had hibernated? He couldn’t imagine the constitution required of the humans who had come to awaken that generation if they’d been forced to travel here. But some humans had particularly strong constitutions, as evidenced by the man at his side. Rafe was comforted by that, at least as long as they could convince the Council that she remain free.

Finally they reached a chamber at the very end of a long hallway lined with sliding panels covered in elaborate paintings. Unlike the other rooms along the side, this room had a hinged door built from a single huge slab of green jade, on which was carved a beautiful dragon. A dragon who Rafe recognized.

“It is her,” he said with reverence, barely risking a brush of a finger along the edge of a single scale.

“Who?” Trevor asked. “Do you know her?”

“Bren, the queen of my father’s brood. This was where she slept for five hundred years.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Fucking open it!”

Rafe pushed, but the door wouldn’t budge. “Fuck. If the magic senses her in there asleep, it might have locked it.”

“Let me guess, there’s no key,” Trevor said.

“The way the ritual works, once we’re sealed inside the temple, only a human can open the doors of all but one of the rooms. Only the Queen’s fated human mate can open her door. I just hope this doesn’t mean the magic has put
her
to sleep, too.”

Trevor wasted no time slipping in front of Rafe and placing his hands against the door. He’d barely brushed the surface with his palms when it swung inward on silent hinges. The two men tumbled in, grabbing at each other for support. Once inside they stopped cold.

“She’s only asleep,” Rafe said with relief.

“Jesus Christ, she’s beautiful. I never got to see her look like…like a dragon.” Trevor released Rafe and walked into the room to the huge bed Rowan slept on, curled into herself upon the brocade coverlet like some giant, red cat.

“Rowan,” Rafe said out loud after repeating it in his mind ever since he’d sensed he was close enough. “She’s too depleted of energy. It’s exhausted her. We need to give her ours, and soon. If she awakens this depleted, she’ll be hungry and too delirious to know how to ask for help.”

“Just tell me what to do. I’m ready.”

Chapter 9

T
he rough cadence of the voices tickled at her memory. There were two.

Rafe. Lover. Mate. Betrayer.

The new one was here, too. His mark blazed in her mind, his desperation and desire warring with each other.
Live, please live
, she could hear in her mind. Not in words, but in his need. Rowan’s heart softened at his presence. He was worthy. He could live.

If only she could find the energy to open her eyes. Give the Betrayer his due, take the other for her mate. Live here in this temple and hold dominion over the lands outside.

Too tired now to move. When she awoke she would fly. The countryside would bow to her. Soon.

“Rowan.”

She struggled to bring her mind back to consciousness. The world was a dark, amorphous place. She floated on a whirling vortex that gradually sucked her in. The voice became her anchor, but she couldn’t even find the energy to respond.

Light touches spread over her body. Her breasts tingled beneath one pair of hands. Another pair slipped down her body, caressed her thighs.

The shape of her felt wrong, though. The hands caressed horns atop her head, not breasts, but the sensation was the same.

A hand at her thigh urged her to move. She needed the touch, so she shifted and was rewarded by a slight caress along her inner thigh, but it paused just at the part where she needed contact the most.

Without thinking she expelled a breath. It was all she had power for, so she let it loose, and commanded it to seek out her companions, to urge them to her will. The red magic wormed deeper into one man’s head, teasing at his desires, at his need like a whisper of her words.

Rafe.
She recognized him instantly by his thoughts. All regret and desire, combined with a need to submit to her beyond all other things. The revelation invigorated her slightly, but not enough to open her eyes. She still could possess him with her breath, even as weak as she was. And possession was what she was best at.

“You are mine. Your duty is to please me.”

A combination of sensations began around her horns and between her thighs at the same time. She moved her hips and her head, encouraging more.

The hot sweep of a tongue slid between her thighs. Hands stroked her horns, the sensations exquisite, especially when the hands reached her tips in delicate caresses.

Trevor
. She could smell his familiar scent close to her. She’d never have forgotten him, but how was he here? She struggled harder to rise out of the dark well of semi-consciousness, to make her large body respond to him. All she could move was her tongue, so she lashed it out for a taste. Trevor’s naked skin responded, the flavor of him shifting from apprehension to outright arousal. His voice whispered close.

“We’re here, baby. Let us wake you up.”

Us? Who was us?

“It’s me and Rafe. I know you’re probably pissed at him, but I couldn’t have gotten here without him. Give him another chance, alright?”

Was Rafe the steady teasing lick between her thighs? Yes, it was a dragon’s tongue.

The memory of that particular dragon’s cock inside her at full size shifted her into yet a more wakeful state. She nudged at Trevor, whispering with a weak voice, “Hold my horns.”

At the same time she lifted one thigh to the dragon at her other end, tightening her grip on the red worm of her breath in his mind.
Fuck me.

Trevor’s lovely ass fit perfectly upon her nose. It was a strange sensation, but being a giant was a liberating feeling. And she’d already admired his ass and had ideas about things she’d like to do to it. He obediently gripped her horns, stroking them enough to send a thrum of pleasure through her body to her core, making her pussy even slicker for the thick cock that pressed ever deeper.

Rafe.

She wasn’t ready to confront those feelings. She needed their Nirvana first. She’d deal with feelings after.

Trevor’s legs spread and he found purchase with his heels on the edges of her lower lip. Her tongue snaked out, teasing along his thighs and tasting every inch of skin between. She was semi-blind, still. Her world was still fuzzy if she opened her eyes, but she was acutely attuned to the feel of the cock in her pussy and the human draped across her head.

Rafe.
That’s who was fucking her now. She remembered the feel of him from before, and his cock was just as glorious. She tightened the pull on his consciousness now, still too raw to confront him, but in dire need of what he had to offer otherwise.

Trevor, on the other hand…she darted her long tongue out, coiling it gently around his balls. He gasped and twitched his hips. His entire body was surrounded by a giant bubble of energy, just waiting for her to inflate and pop. He’d been building it up for awhile, it seemed.

She went slower the second time, slipping her tongue out and caressing the twin tips of it between his ass cheeks, behind his balls, then coiling her tongue around the base of his cock.

“I love you,” he breathed. “Do whatever you want to me.”

The hunger screamed in her at his surrender. The cock on the other side of her slipped out and she instinctively swept her tail around and grabbed Rafe, pulling him back into her, her pussy clenching tightly around his thick, filling presence. She missed that so much, but she needed something more from him than that carnal fulfillment. She needed his energy and wouldn’t let him go until he gave it to her.

Trevor squirmed and panted at the grip she kept on his cock with her tongue. She pumped him relentlessly, too eager to have his Nirvana, too. He gave in abruptly, writhing and crying out. His Nirvana spilled into her emptiness, as filling as if he’d just plunged into her for the first time. She tasted the salt of his spend on his belly before he collapsed in a heap beside her.

The clarity Trevor’s energy brought made the feel of Rafe’s cock all too apparent.

Rafe. He was in full dragon, and so was she. The beautiful moment they’d had before was too much to repeat now. She couldn’t let him touch that part of her again. Not yet.

She shifted and with a twitch of her control of the breath that still snaked through his mind, she made him shift, too.

With a twist of her hips, she spun them both so that she was astride him.

His eyes glowed violet and gleamed with lust. She withdrew the tendrils of red smoke from his mind and rose up, sliding her tight pussy along his cock and settled back down just as slowly.

Rafe. Lover. Mate. Mine.

“I missed you so much,” she said.

“I missed you, too.”

“You came for me. That’s something. And you brought Trevor. That’s something else.” She glanced at Trevor who was outside Rafe’s field of vision. Her thoughts grew tender when she laid eyes on the man.

“He helped me find you,” Rafe said. “He’s a worthy mate.”

She was poised at the end of his cock and slammed down hard, making him gasp. “You
don’t
fucking tell me who’s worthy of me. I get to decide that. You get to decide whether you’ll say yes or no to me. At least if you want my mark. I am Bren’s daughter, yes? You aren’t quite worthy yet.”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said.

Her pussy felt like a live wire sending out jolts with every down-stroke, but she worked him so slowly that he started to look like she was torturing him. The energy was potent enough in this place that she couldn’t tell the difference anymore between what already lingered here and what swirled around them from their own activities. And it didn’t matter one iota to her, either.

All she wanted was to wrap her power around him, dig it into him until there could be no denying who was superior. To watch the olive-skinned, dark-haired god beneath her submit to her will. To see his eyes roll back in his head and his hands clutch at the bed, his head tilted back. Sweet Mother did she love that. She didn’t care if she never came. She’d hold back just to watch him try for eternity. If that was the vision she was left with, she would accept it.

“I think you’re worked up enough to fill me up now,” she said. The words seemed to confuse him as much as her shift in position.

She pressed her lips to his and he gasped. She slid her breasts against his chest and rocked her wet pussy against his hips, sucking him in deeper with every thrust.

He met each of her thrusts with equal enthusiasm. For some reason he still held back, so she fucked him even harder, demanding he come with the pull of every muscle.

He came hard, filling her up in every way. His hot seed shot deep inside her and the well of magic he had pooled in him flowed directly into her.

Rowan collapsed to the side, panting before shakily reaching for Trevor. He slid across the bed toward her and wrapped his arm around her, burying his face in her neck.

Rowan remained lying where she was, dazed and drunk. As familiar as Rafe’s Nirvana was, it was still a shock to feel that much power surge into her all at once.

When she recovered a moment later, she glanced at Rafe, only to see him hanging his head in apparent defeat.

“You, too,” she said, reaching for him.

Rafe jerked his head up at the sound of her voice. He moved to her side, tentatively sliding an arm around her waist alongside Trevor’s.

“I forgot to tell you something before you left,” he said softly once she’d moved to face him and rested one thigh across his hip.

“I know,” she said. “You don’t have to say it if it’s hard for you.”

“It isn’t. I love you. Since the moment I met you, I’ve never wanted another woman. I should have told you the first night we were together.”

Rowan frowned, and held his gaze. Rafe’s brow drew together, the shame apparent in response to her own pissed expression.

“You should have told me.”

She pushed him onto his back and moved astride him, threaded the fingers of both hands into his thick hair and yanked his head back. So many things clamored in her mind to say just then, but his wide-eyes and utter submission disarmed her. He knew precisely what he’d done and would gladly accept every ounce of punishment she chose to give him.

Suddenly the well of emotion she’d only let loose with Darius and Zak rose again. She tamped it down with a vengeance, determined to follow through with Rafe’s absolution first. The act of doing so would liberate her as much as him.

“If there’s anything I learned during all this it’s to
never
give up what I know belongs to me. You are mine. Trevor is, too—I can feel him through his mark.”

“No…” Rafe answered in a low, calculated tone. “I’m only halfway there yet. You haven’t marked me.”

“Roll over,” she said with a nod. She slid off him and waited.

Rafe turned and lay placid while she considered how to proceed. This couldn’t be the same as the tiny blessing she’d given Trevor already. But at the same time she didn’t want to draw out her anger at Rafe any longer than necessary.
Give it to him and be done with it, move on.

Her words accompanied her talon slicing the pattern into his back, her measured tone a far cry from the turmoil in her belly. She hated the idea of causing him pain, but he bore it with barely a twitch.

“You’ll remember how this feels, because this is how I felt when you turned your back on me.” She moved as quickly as she could, but still deliberate enough that she could be sure Rafe felt every inch of the cuts she made into his skin. Trevor hissed in sympathy beside her, but thankfully remained otherwise silent.

Finally she stopped and let out an extended exhalation of breath. Rafe let his own held breath release, too, but Rowan wasn’t finished yet.

Summoning her magic, she focused it on the pattern she’d etched into his back. The flames shot out with surgical precision, landing like an amber snake coiling around the bright red circle, an intricate medallion of blood that graced Rafe’s entire back.

As the magic took hold and the mark’s bond began to tie them together, she could feel the prickle of it in her own skin, the pain growing with each inch of flickering fire as it branded him
hers
.

He begged for mercy and forgiveness over and over, then broke down into harsh sobs that wrenched her heart. When the flames finally subsided she expelled the healing breath. The luminescent red smoke seeped into his skin and he relaxed. Finally she lay across his healed back, pressing her own weight on him, her breasts adding soft pressure to the middle of his back. She let her lips brush against his shoulder.

“You didn’t have to feel that if you didn’t want to. I know that much. I’ve clawed you just as badly before. Why?”

“I’ve been in pain since you left, and it’s been my own doing. I couldn’t let you forgive me without making it hurt.”

“Who says I forgive you?” A hint of humor tinged her words and prompted Rafe to turn over. Rowan shifted again, resuming her position astride him. The truth was she had forgiven him the moment she’d felt his power infusing her, but there was no sense making it easy for him. She raised an eyebrow, expectant.

“Name your price,” he said.

She turned to Trevor and beckoned.

Trevor sat up straighter, ready to answer.

Rowan bent and kissed Rafe, teasing her tongue against his in tiny, swirling coils that she knew he loved. The act of being marked had already made him painfully hard and she wasted no time rising up and engulfing him again in her slick warmth. She didn’t move for a moment, enjoying the thick fullness of him pulsing inside her. Instead, she extended one long, graceful arm to her other mate and Trevor slipped closer. He wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her, his mouth sweet and soft against her own.

Trevor lowered his mouth to her breast and Rafe’s eyes flicked lower, staring in wonder for a second until darting back up to meet Rowan’s gaze. She had one more piece of punishment to dole out to him, and wondered how he’d take it.

“I want Trevor to get a full view of your mark whenever we fuck.”

Trevor’s head shot up in surprise at the sound of his name, but Rafe didn’t hesitate to flip her over, baring his back to the other man.