Breath of Innocence (5 page)

“Oh, fuck, I need you. I’ll take anything you can give me. Everything. Please just give it to me!”

Roka’s mouth quirked as he looked up at Rafe. He loved the man’s desperation and would have enjoyed a little bit of torture at this point, something he knew Eben loved to have inflicted on him. But Roka knew better in this case. Rafe truly did need what he was about to receive. Satisfied his friend was slick enough to accommodate Roka, he pressed his cock to Rafe’s ass and pushed. Rafe’s head flew back into the snowy ground and he cried out as Roka sank in to his hot depths. Rafe’s tight opening clenched and pulled, constricting so hard Roka almost lost his mind. Then his friend relaxed and Roka pulled out slowly. He groaned as the tightness returned, clutching at the tip of his cock. Roka spread his knees to gain better traction in the ice and dug his bare feet deeper. The cold cut of the rough snow was the perfect counterpoint to the hot pleasure surging into him in the form of the magic his desire attracted. He fucked harder and the wind kicked up around them both, as though their need created a pocket of low pressure, sucking every bit of spare power to them in a swirling cyclone. Roka’s hair whipped around his face violently, but he could still see Rafe’s back arch up in ecstasy, his dark eyes locked in a needful gaze on Roka’s face.

The power flowed through him in a tingling deluge, but seemed to catch, as it always did, just at the base of his spine. He held back, on the verge of a mind-blowing orgasm but waiting as long as he could until the energy reached the point of overflowing. It was always that sensation of being too full that he loved. Full of power as tangible and unrelenting as the squeeze of Rafe’s ass around his shaft, but this time it pushed harder at his restraint, as though Rafe’s empty well was a vacuum seeking to be filled. When it reached that point, Roka held his breath and stopped abruptly, every muscle quivering. He leaned over Rafe, bracing both hands on either side of his friend’s torso.

Rafe’s face was illuminated by the spill of glowing magic emanating from Roka’s eyes, white hot and bright as the sun. The dark-eyed face rose up, hands clasped the back of Roka’s neck. Roka let himself be pulled down, the kiss a hungry signal of encouragement. Roka groaned against the kiss and pumped his hips. Once—the plunge of his cock so deep his hips clapped against Rafe’s as loud as thunder. Twice—the friction against Roka’s cock lit a fire that quickly seared through the barrier between the magic and his will to hold it back. The third stroke sent him over and he plunged his cock deep, dimly aware of the harsh cry coming from his throat as he came in hot spasms. He lost himself to the flush of all that power singing through him as brisk and violent as wind whipping through a canyon, carrying him soaring along with it. He let the magic carry him as he had the strong currents of air and magic they had flown upon to reach this place. When it began to subside, he let himself drift back to solid ground, to the feel of the warm body beneath him, arms wrapped around him and skin shimmering with fresh power.

He pulled back slowly and collapsed to the side, relishing the cold crunch of the snow beneath him, helping to regulate his heated temperature.

“Was it too much for you?” he asked, taking note of Rafe’s dazed and lethargic expression. His friend looked a little drunk. The lack of focus when Rafe sat up and turned to face him only served to emphasize that impression.

Rafe let out a low chuckle. “You didn’t even come close to what she can do, my friend. It’s like she’s
made
of the stuff. Her trail may seem strong here, but she’s much farther ahead than the remnants of her magic would lead you to believe. That small taste of her magic was the best thing I could have had tonight though, so thank you for that.”

Roka raised up on an elbow. “You said she was inexperienced, that you unlocked her magic. Was she a virgin, then?”

“No. At least not physically. She’d only been with human men before. I’ve been wondering about it ever since, but even she didn’t know her origins—who her real parents were, and for good reason. Someone wanted her hidden badly enough to bind her magic so that even she wasn’t aware of it. But it only took one look at her for me to know. It wasn’t magic I sensed, but some other, more subtle energy she had, that I’ve only seen in other dragons.” Rafe paused, his eyes skimming over Roka’s face and body.

Roka looked down at himself, conscious of the details his friend was taking in. His hair and eyes weren’t the least of it. They all had a bearing and attitude that made them stand out even next to the most striking humans, regardless of how they concealed it through magic. A dragon whose magic was bound would not stand out to an unobservant dragon, but a Shadow like Rafe would be attuned to those kinds of subtle cues.

“Your curiosity got the better of you, I take it,” Roka said. He understood the way a Shadow worked. Anything that had the scent of a secret caught their attention to the point they couldn’t let it go until they uncovered every nuance and shed a light in every dark corner.

“I took a chance. The first time we made love, I could feel her magic reaching out, trying to break free. It was my first time with another dragon. I had no idea what would happen. It blew my mind and I nearly shifted completely the first time. I didn’t even have to reach Nirvana before she was pulling every bit of magic I had in reserve. I don’t think she even realized what she was capable of.”

“Fucking you felt something like that,” Roka said. “Well, almost. With Eben and Cammy, it feels like they’re merely open to me, ready to give but not devouring me in return. Your need almost broke me.”

“I’m sorry,” Rafe said, eyeing Roka’s groin again.

“Don’t be. You needed it and I was happy to give.” He lay back against the snow, staring at the star-speckled sky. It was full night, but the white of the snow made it seem unnaturally bright, particularly since Rafe’s skin still emitted a luminescent glow.

Rafe sighed deeply. Roka sensed a hint of tension in his friend a second before the caress began. The light brush of a hand at his hip startled him because Rafe hadn’t moved from his slouching seated position, arms resting on his knees. Roka glanced at him and their gazes met again, Rafe’s dark eyes flashing with violet magic. Roka closed his eyes and let out a low moan when the warmth of an invisible palm cupped his balls and squeezed gently.

The Shadow’s signal was wordless, a mere nudge of that incorporeal hand urging him onto his side. Then Rafe’s real hands were on him, growing more urgent with each touch. An arm slipped across Roka’s hip, a hand gripping his erection tightly and stroking, then pushing him onto his stomach. The cold snow bit into his cheek, but the rough friction only stimulated his aroused flesh more. He spread his legs at Rafe’s urging and raised his hips up slightly. The caress and squeeze of hands magnified as though there were several exploring his body at once. One pair on his ass, kneading and invading with gentle prodding. Another pair between his thighs, stroking his cock and balls. Yet another caressing the rest of him. He was still acutely aware of Rafe’s presence behind him, readying him for fucking. The simultaneous sensations were akin to the cyclone he’d been in earlier. Magic quickly coalesced around them, surging through him with every stroke of the shadowy hands.

Sweet Mother, he’d heard what Shadows could do but had never experienced it himself. The plunge into the abyss was simultaneously instantaneous and everlasting, his climax stronger than before, now that Rafe channeled the Nirvana from the intricate, ethereal web of power that surrounded them. For one surreal moment he was sure the glow that emanated from them and reflected off the snow was the sun breaking over the horizon, that they’d been tangled up with each other for hours, riding the waves of Nirvana together.

If the young Red they searched for had made Rafe feel better than this, it was no wonder he was so desperate to find her.

Chapter 5

C
amille found it comforting to work by lantern light and spent her evenings in the dark, ancient vaults of the Monastery as much to work as to avoid Eben’s increasingly contradictory moods. The cool, shadowy space, combined with the sweet, dusty scent of the tomes in front of her lent a nostalgia to the process. It helped that she was dressed in the simple, timeless linen undergarments and draped in the lightweight robes that all the monks wore. The clothing was so voluminous that it easily concealed her figure, the only telling attribute of her gender her long, blond hair bound in its perpetual braid.

The thick rope of it fell over her shoulder and brushed across the faded page of calligraphy in front of her. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, wondering what time it was, but she hadn’t bothered to bring a watch to the vaults with her, or any other piece of technology for that matter. The most modern thing she had was her simple loose-leaf notebook and mechanical pencil that she used to transcribe her translations.

Erika and Geva had done some initial work before she had arrived, identifying the most likely sources of useful details by the gilded artwork they contained. It was Camille’s job now to decipher the stories that went along with those drawings and illuminated text. She was abstractly reminded of the night in the temple when she had uncovered the purpose of the ritual. Only this time she felt oddly devoid of the desire that had driven her that long ago night to sacrifice her maidenhead to the inanimate figure of Roka, the Guardian.

The realization of her lack of libido depressed her. She thought of what she had said to Eben the night they had arrived here, and was gripped with an irrational pang of jealousy. It was her own fault if she drove him back into Erika’s arms. Erika would probably understand how he felt. The very vocal leader of their team hadn’t been shy about sharing her philosophies of life, one of which was that life was too short to spawn offspring who might hate you anyway. It made no sense because Erika had loved her own father fiercely, from what Camille could tell in other, more maudlin moments during their quest. Either way, a woman as driven and ambitious as Erika would undoubtedly prefer a childless life.

Camille, on the other hand, had always wanted kids. She’d been the only child of a Nebraska farmer and his high-school sweetheart. She had wondered why her parents never had more, until her mother confessed to having complications after Camille’s birth that required her to have a hysterectomy. In a sense, Camille had been blessed because she’d grown up with foster brothers and sisters—her parents’ attempt at sharing their love and their need to nurture a younger generation. She was still close with many of those surrogate siblings, though she hadn’t spoken to any of them in almost a year.

It had been an entire year, she suddenly realized. A year since Erika had assembled her team to begin the search for the temple. A year since Eben had walked into that bar where they had met and proceeded to torture her with his tense silence until he finally confessed he had loved her all along but was too overwhelmed by it to even speak to her. He’d been giving her the silent treatment for the last three weeks again, but for entirely different reasons. She just hoped like hell the reasons wouldn’t end up destroying them.

Camille shook her head to dispel the unsavory thoughts and focused more closely on the ancient text in front of her, turning the pages with gentle reverence. The third volume of the stack of tomes she was researching came from an Italian village during the middle ages. The text was difficult to read, but she found the gilded decorations around it gave her clues to its context. She had always loved illuminated manuscripts. So much that they had been the topic of her master’s thesis. But these were far older than any others on record. Though they resembled some that she had studied as an undergrad, the language was far different from the Latin that graced the pages of the manuscripts she had studied in college.

She turned the page and stared at the twin dragons that graced the margins of the page. The top of the page had a vivid green symbol that she quickly sketched into her own notebook. It was a circle, with six dragons swirling around inside, tails entwined.

“The Verdanith,” she whispered, and had to restrain herself from reaching out to touch it. This page might contain the clues they were seeking, and after three weeks of looking, she almost regretted that her part in the search might soon be over. She began reading and painstakingly transcribing every word into English, reworking the structure into coherent sentences. A piece of the missing fragment’s story came to life with every stroke of her pencil on the pages of her notebook. Still, it was only a piece, an incomplete map leading to another dead end. The lack of a complete story seemed suspicious to Camille, almost as though the Council wanted the fragment to stay lost.

***

A warm, water-saturated piece of meat was all Eben felt like when Erika and Geva finally arrived for their regular nightly bath. The pair glowed, literally, and he eyed them as though he were a little offended that they’d flaunt it. Of course, this might be the only place in the world where it would be overlooked as natural.

He’d been introduced to the Unbound who lived here and knew one of the major functions of the place was to service dragons. The human men who lived here were all bonded to Kris and Issa, but not in the manner of mates. They were all on a spiritual quest and had the option of celibacy or service. Eben had been surprised at first how many of them actually chose celibacy. After one brief conversation with one of them it all made sense. Choosing to live in a place where your chief temptation was readily available, yet choosing to abstain, was the ultimate challenge to self-discipline. He almost envied those men for their restraint. On the other hand, he also felt a little sorry for them, particularly because he had spent the last few weeks as celibate as many of them.

Geva shed his linen drawstring pants and slipped into the water. He slid a wet hand through his short, red hair and eyed Eben with vivid green eyes. It was a different look for the large Red, but it suited him. Geva turned to watch Erika, lips parted and breath growing shallow.

Eben smiled at the man’s reaction to his lovely friend. She could do that to a man, effortlessly. She’d done it to him, in a time that felt like ancient history. Why he hadn’t fallen head over heels in love with her, he had no clue. There had been some fundamental connection they had missed. He didn’t regret the other connections they had made, though. If anything their relationship was sweeter for its lack of complication and its overabundance of honesty. So it amused him to no end to see what it looked like to be a man who was enraptured with his best friend.

And, God, if Erika didn’t work it. She took her time taking off her clothes to join them. First she shrugged out of the loose robe, then shed the linen top. She wore no bra underneath, and her dark brown waves cascaded down her back in a messy sprawl when she took the shirt off. She hung it on a nearby hook then bent down, back facing the hot pool, and tugged her pants over her hips.

Geva let out an exaggerated sigh at the sight of her bare, luminescent ass.

Jesus, the man was already sporting a huge erection just from looking at her. The sight aroused Eben just a little, but mostly he was still amused at the dragon’s reaction. Then he just fervently hoped they wouldn’t succumb to fucking right in front of him. They were glowing enough from the last round as it was.

When Erika turned to face them, Eben turned away, not wanting to see yet again the reminder of how much Erika had changed since becoming the red dragon’s mate. The steady, pulsing glow of the red mark that graced her lower abdomen was as telling as his own dormant one. The sense of betrayal had surprised him with its intensity when he first saw it weeks earlier, but now it just lingered like a persistent itch he couldn’t scratch so had given up trying. His half-aroused cock grew limp, and his conflicted interest in perhaps joining them in some fun for once disappeared from his mind completely.

Erika wanted it, too. There was no lying where the magic was concerned. The mark told all.

He sat silent while she climbed into the pool with a satisfied groan that made his balls clench at the familiarity of the sound. He tilted his head back as if he were enjoying the water, and kept his eyes fixed outside one of the windows. He tried to ignore the pummeling thoughts that invaded his mind every night. The worry that he was being an ass to Camille for not giving her what she wanted. Erika was supposed to be his ally, but how could she be if she was already primed for mating?

Mating. Jesus, he was already thinking like them, too. He’d heard Roka say the word a thousand times in his explanations of a dragon’s imperative to reproduce. It always perplexed Eben why their political bullshit had forced them to throttle back when that seemed to be their sole purpose. It hadn’t been until Roka showed him historical accounts of mass murder that were the result of dragon politics and their lack of control over breeding. “We did this to ourselves, but we’d like to undo it because the world is different now. Dragons have evolved.”

Eben wasn’t so sure, but he went along with it. If anything it was because of Camille. He wanted more than anything to make her happy, and she wanted more than anything to have his baby.

He tilted his head back against the cold stone of the bath and sighed.

“Eben, what the hell is wrong with you? You’ve been a mess for weeks.”

His head jerked up and he stared at Erika.

Her dark brows lowered suspiciously.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” She glowered at him and he reflexively glanced at Geva for support, but the Red only seemed amused by Erika’s persistence.

She sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees, completely nonchalant about her heavy breasts hanging between her arms. “I know you better than I know myself. You’re beat up over something and judging from Camille’s lack of appearance yet again, I have a good idea what’s wrong. You just need to confirm it.”

“Nothing’s…” He only started to get out the word “wrong” when she dove across the pool and gripped his cock in her hand. Her other hand went to his balls and squeezed. The pressure was more arousing than threatening, but her voice against his ear told a different story.

“You tell me the truth. So help me God or I will rip your balls off. If you’ve hurt her, you better believe me, you deserve it.”

The venom in her voice took him completely off guard. He had no idea she was so protective of Camille. Maybe they had talked? But Jesus…

“Holy fuck, Erika, no! I love her. It’s this fucking Verdanith that’s gotten into her head. She’s baby crazy. Like you, I guess. I have no idea what the fuck I’m supposed to do with that.”

The grip on his balls loosened and drifted away, leaving him more aroused than he’d been before, particularly since Erika’s luscious breasts had been pretty much cradling his chin during the ordeal.

“The Verdanith is our best chance if we don’t want to be raising kids in our fifties, or later,” Erika said. She shared a glance with Geva that seemed oddly conspiratorial and raised alarm bells. Eben was sure he caught a subtle shake of Geva’s head. It wasn’t like Erika to hide something from him, but they weren’t as close as they once were.

“You don’t want a baby?” Geva’s deep and slightly accented voice startled him, but the Red’s scrutiny made him even more uncomfortable.

“No. I want her. At least for now. I’m just not ready for a kid. Fuck, I love her more than life and I’m not ready to share even more of her.” He took a breath and in a pathetic tone that disgusted even him, he added. “I just want more time with her before it all goes away.”

The Red’s eyes narrowed as he looked Eben over. Eben hated the look, but knew beyond a doubt he deserved it. He was an immature pussy. A self-centered manwhore. Unable to admit even to himself that he had lucked out with this arrangement. He didn’t deserve them.

But he needed them. He needed Roka for his unwavering understanding of their shared masculine plight in the presence of the perfectly unassuming sexual presence Camille possessed. She had no idea how she affected them both. She could do the most benign things and Eben would hear Roka respond at the same time he felt his own heart thud in his chest. She had no idea how beautiful she was and her innocence astounded them both. It was one of the things that he shared with the dragon that had brought them closer in those dark moments when Camille was asleep and he worried that he’d never be enough for her as long as Roka was around. But the dragon had sensed it and drawn him out, eliciting his darkest secrets in the quiet corners of their apartment or their yacht while Camille slept. Whispers and white breath convincing Eben that there could have been no other choice to make that night but to let Roka mark them. Camille still didn’t know the things he’d shared with their dragon. His little proprietary quirk of thought surprised him. Roka was theirs, true, but mostly they were his, body and soul.

He and Camille were Roka’s just like Erika was Geva’s, as evidenced by the glowing red mark beneath her navel.

Erika sat down beside him, tactfully avoiding any more intimate contact. “Is that why you’ve been a broody mess since you got here? I know you, sweetie. You’re the light of the world in my mind. You don’t brood.”

Eben gave in finally. Confession would be good, he decided. He scrubbed his face with wet hands and combed his fingers back through his long hair.

“She wants a baby. Is it a dragon thing?” He shot a pleading look at Geva who sat on the edge of the bath beside him, elbows casually resting on his knees.

“Maybe,” Geva said. “Maybe our influence just brings that aspect out in women?” Geva winked at Erika.

Erika patted Geva in a slightly condescending fashion that still smacked of deep love. “Sweetie, my decision had nothing to do with you. I just remembered how great my dad was and wanted to be that to my own flesh and blood. But bottom line, I had a reason.”

“You guys aren’t helping,” Eben said.