Captive Fire (7 page)

“Enough!”

The emperor turned to his son.

Rough hands grabbed Drakon’s arms.
Too late now,
he realized, angry with himself for hesitating.

“I’ll do what you ask. Just leave him be,” Ryuu said,
sounding exhausted. His blond hair slid across his reddened cheek as he spoke.

Oh, no,
Drakon thought.
Don’t do this, Ryuu.
He stared at the prince, willing
him to look over.
I don’t want your sacrifice.

The emperor smirked.
“So.
All
I need to do to get your compliance is to threaten your little toy.” He
gestured and the soldiers let go of Drakon. “Perhaps indulging you with the
male slave wasn’t as foolish as I’d thought.”

Drakon held himself perfectly still, not knowing what
would happen next.

“Excellent. You have one month to find a suitable
breeder, my son,” the emperor said, and with one last contemptuous look, he
stalked out, his soldiers following close upon his heels.

Drakon waited a half second before he undid his chains
and hurried over to Ryuu. He didn’t care that Svana and Zinan saw him use the
finger-key. He didn’t care that he was naked.

“Don’t touch me!” Ryuu said.

Drakon stopped, hand poised to brush the prince’s hair
out of his eyes. “You should not have done that,” he said, both sad and angry.
He dropped his arm, suddenly conscious of his nudity. “You shouldn’t have
promised him anything.”

Ryuu tossed his head back. His eyes burned with his
fury. “You would already be dead if I hadn’t,” he said. He lifted his hand and
wiped at the blood on his cheek.

“Sire,” Zinan interrupted, fist on his chest.

“You may go, Zinan.
You, too, Svana.
I don’t need guards in the citadel.” The prince sounded both tired and bitter.
“You cannot guard me from my father, and he is the biggest danger, is he not?”

Svana bowed. “Forgive us.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Ryuu said, sighing. He
walked over to the small sink against the wall and ran water over a cloth. “You
did what I asked and got the girls and their mother free. I should be asking
your
forgiveness for having you perform such dangerous tasks.”

“We would do them all over again and more, if needed,
Prince Ryuu,” Svana said. Her low voice throbbed with sincerity. “You are all
that stands between us and madness.”

Ryuu didn’t reply.

Zinan glanced at Drakon, then tapped Svana’s arm. “We
will go.
Until tomorrow, my prince.”
He bowed again,
and he and his companion left the chambers.

The doors boomed. Drakon walked over and locked them
from the inside.

“I see you found the key.” Ryuu held the damp cloth to
his face.

“Let me help you,” Drakon said, walking over. He took
the makeshift bandage from Ryuu and blotted at the bleeding cut. “It’s a clean
wound. The blood is already clotting.”

“You should not have let yourself be captured,” Ryuu
said, surprisingly. He reached out and grabbed Drakon’s hand, sliding the
finger-key from the tip of his index finger. He looked at it for a second
before putting it on the counter.

Drakon hesitated,
then
dropped the cloth into the sink. “What are you talking about?”

Ryuu laughed harshly. “Come now. Did you think I was
stupid?”

“Never,” Drakon said, stepping back.

“Who are you, really?” Ryuu asked, unbuckling his
weapons harness. He threw it across the wooden table. One of his knives worked
free and clattered to the floor.

“I am a slave, Ryuu.”

Ryuu made a disparaging sound and began to strip off
his armor. “You
pretend
to be a
slave.”

Drakon sat down on the sleeping platform. “I came to
the citadel for a reason.” His gut clenched as he admitted that, but he owed
Ryuu everything. The prince had shown him kindness, had given him his genetic
key, and saved his life. And what had Drakon done for him?
Nothing.
Shame burned through him. “I am a warrior of the Soutx.”

Ryuu kicked off his boots. “You are more than a
warrior.”

Drakon swallowed and decided to trust the bond. “I am
Heritor Drakon, of the Soutx. My father forbade me to do this, but I was the
only one who could.”

Ryuu stared at him.
“The heir to the
Soutx nation?
The only enemy my father has not yet conquered?”

Drakon nodded, acutely aware of his nakedness. He
hadn’t mentioned his dragon form. Talking about that with anyone was nearly
impossible for him. There was no way to describe what it felt like to fly the
skies, skin to wind. No way for anyone to truly understand what it meant to
flame your enemies personally. Being a dragon was both a burden and a joy.

Surprisingly, Ryuu threw back his head and laughed.
“We are a pair of rebels, aren’t we?”

Drakon stared at his mate. Reluctantly, he smiled.
“Perhaps.”

“And do you know of the Black Dragon of the Mists?”
Ryuu asked, stripping off his pants.

Drakon’s breath caught. “Everyone knows him.” It
wasn’t a lie. Not really.

Ryuu strode across the room and loomed over him. His
cock was half erect. “I named my rebel persona after him.”

Drakon gripped the silk covers as his heart pounded.
What had Ryuu just admitted? His hands shook. “You are the Desert Dragon?” he
asked, afraid to hope it was true.

Ryuu leaned over him, sliding his fingers into Drakon’s
hair. He gripped tight at the nape and Drakon’s cock went from semi-interested
to rock hard in a single breath. “I am.”

He stared at the prince, shocked. “Why are you telling
me this? It could mean your death.”

“Yes. That’s true, but it doesn’t matter.” Ryuu leaned
closer, touching his lips to Drakon’s ear. “We only have one month to live,
anyway.”

Chapter Five

Drakon trembled in his hands. Ryuu bit back a groan
and kissed him, ravaging his mouth with all the pent-up anger and frustration
and desire that he had to keep so carefully controlled most of the time. “I
want you to fuck me, my slave prince.
My princely slave.”
He climbed onto the bed, forcing his lover down onto his back. “I want you to
claim me, so that when we die, we will have known something other than
slavery.”

“You will never be a slave in my eyes,” Drakon said
softly. “And I’m not a prince.”

“You are heir to your people.” Ryuu smiled. “I knew
you were more than you seemed. I felt it in here, where the fire of instinct
keeps me strong.” He put a fist to his chest.

“Your delusion doesn’t make me a prince.”

“Such kindness and modesty.”
Ryuu kissed him again. “Do as I say, my slave
prince,” he told Drakon, fully appreciating the irony of his demand. “Am I not
your master?”

Drakon rolled over him until his weight pressed Ryuu
into the mattress. “Why do you say we only have a month left to live?” His hair
slid down around them, cocooning them in its sweet embrace.

Ryuu frowned. “Because that’s how long my father gave
me to begin screwing the poor women he will no doubt lock in here with me. He
wants blood. Nothing less satisfies him.” He stroked a hand down Drakon’s hair.
“We both have only a month left, and then it is all over between us because I
will not do my father’s bidding. And he will surely kill us for that defiance.”

Drakon kissed him, so gently that Ryuu had to close
his eyes.
“So fatalistic.”

“Is there any other way to live?” Ryuu asked.

Drakon pressed his hips down, grinding their cocks
together. “We can escape.”

“You’re a dreamer.” Ryuu laughed and shook his head.
“There’s no escape.”

Drakon slid a hand under his ass and shoved him up the
bed. “Perhaps I
am
a dreamer.” He bit
at Ryuu’s neck, mouthing over the same spot until he cried out.

“Enough! My only dream right now is to feel something
other than despair,” Ryuu told him, opening his legs and wrapping them around
Drakon’s thighs. The feel of his skin both soothed and enflamed him.

Drakon bit down harder. Ryuu’s neck stung. He welcomed
the pain. It felt real. “More,” he growled. “Bite me.”

“There’s no turning back from this.” Drakon took his
arms and imprisoned them above his head.

Deep inside, Ryuu felt the first flicker of
uncertainty, but he pushed it aside. “I have nothing to lose.”

“Believing that is the first step toward failure.”

Ryuu grimaced, and tried to throw Drakon off of him.
He could not. When he finally gave up, he closed his eyes again. “Then give me
a reason to live.”

Drakon gentled his touch. “I will.” He shifted, and
Ryuu felt the weight of his hair slide away.

He opened his eyes to find his lover baring his neck
to him. “Bite me,” he said.
“Right here.”
He pointed
to the juncture between his neck and shoulder. “And then we will see what
happens.”

“I asked you to fuck me,” Ryuu said, stalling. What
Drakon proposed stirred some long-forgotten instinct. He
wanted
to bite
him, badly, so of course he tried to fight the urge.
What’s happening
between us?
He hated being so powerless, and this instinct was out of his
control.
Beyond his knowledge.

“Bite me and I’ll fuck you into next week,” Drakon
said, voice shaking. “I promise.”

Ryuu’s nostrils flared as the sweet scent of Drakon’s
skin slid over him like smoke. “Very well,” he murmured. A heartbeat later, he
reached out. Drakon helped him. When Ryuu put his teeth to his lover’s skin,
the spicy scent engulfed him and his cock throbbed. He moaned and bit down. The
moment he tasted blood, everything he thought he’d understood, everything he
thought he’d ever wanted, changed into an inferno of need.

“Dragon’s breath,” he gasped, rearing back, but Drakon
held him down again, easily, eyes flaring green, like flames against a deep
forest. Ryuu groaned, hips bucking, and suddenly Drakon slid down and took his
aching prick into his mouth, tip to root.

Ryuu cried out, hips jerking. Drakon’s mouth was tight
and wet, but he needed more.
Something to help him stop
thinking.
Drakon licked down his shaft, nosing past his balls to his
anus. When his tongue swirled over the tight ring of muscles, Ryuu groaned
approval. Inside his body, fire burned through his blood. His thoughts were
sizzling flames, igniting the darkest corners of his mind. When he opened his
eyes, the bed looked like it was bathed in fire.
Fire and
smoke.
Was it the setting sun? The crystal conduits above him blazed with
pinpoints of light. The doors across the chamber swam in his vision, like heat
rising from the desert. He arched his back.

“Breathe,” Drakon said.

Ryuu tried, but when Drakon slid a finger into his
hole, he couldn’t help but gasp.

“Breathe, Ryuu.” Drakon added another finger. When he
suddenly leaned away, Ryuu moaned a protest.

“Do you have any lubrication?” Drakon asked.

“Drawer,” Ryuu said. He didn’t recognize his own
voice. It sounded raspy.
Desperate.
The fire in his
mind burned hotter.

Drakon spilled the drawer’s contents to the floor and
grabbed the small tin of oil. “Roll over.”

Ryuu leaned up, grabbing his lover and twining his
arms around him. “No. I want to see your face,” he murmured.

Drakon’s breath caught.
“Very well.”
He moved between Ryuu’s thighs. “We’ll never be the same after this.”

Ryuu grabbed his hair and drew him down for a kiss. “I
want to be reborn, Drakon. I want to be someone else.” After what he’d
witnessed today, he needed something clean to hold on to.

Drakon bit his lip as he pressed a finger inside him.
Then another.
Ryuu shook as pleasure formed a ball of heat
at the base of his cock.

“Breathe,” Drakon said.

Ryuu
laughed,
the sound
turning into a moan when Drakon put the blunt head of his cock at his entrance.
“I don’t need air, Drakon. I need you, inside me.”

Drakon groaned, pressing forward. Ryuu tensed,
then
relaxed as the burn grew. The heat in his mind flared
and Drakon’s face took on a glow that seared Ryuu’s eyes. He panted, hands
scrabbling for the covers, but then Drakon surged forward, filling him
completely. Ryuu shuddered as Drakon grabbed his shoulders and lowered his
head.

“This is it, Ryuu,” he said. Then he bit him, hard.

Pleasure shot through him in a wild burst of heat and
light. Ryuu lost his hold on the blankets and grabbed for Drakon. When he felt
skin beneath his lips, he used his teeth instinctively. The taste of blood
coated his tongue like fire-berries. Like the sun rising over the desert. Like
the center of a plasma ray, searing through his brain until he couldn’t see or
speak at all. He orgasmed and felt Drakon come with him, his cock swelling and
throbbing inside him like an ember. When he sensed Drakon’s emotions tumbling
through his mind, he finally realized that something unusual was happening.

“It’s the bond,” Drakon gasped out, convulsing again.

Ryuu gritted his teeth as another climax rushed
through him. He could feel Drakon’s triumph through their mental connection,
and his sorrow that their time together would be so short.

“So fatalistic,” he said, repeating his mate’s earlier
statement with a shaky voice. “Even if we die, we will have had this moment.”

“I’m sorry,” Drakon said as the last spark of pleasure
rolled through them.

Ryuu sighed and relaxed completely, body going limp.
“I’m not,” he murmured, just before darkness swept over them both.

****

Drakon stirred, worry worming down his spine when he
couldn’t move his legs. Then he remembered Ryuu.
Bonding.
He relaxed into the cushions and let his lover’s warmth soak into his body.
Ryuu lay against him with his head tucked into Drakon’s neck. Their legs
tangled together. He gently nudged at the sense of Ryuu in his mind and felt
his mate wake.

“Drakon,” Ryuu murmured sleepily. “You’re keeping me
awake.”

Drakon had to smile. Ryuu was accepting the bond with
far more equanimity than he’d expected. “I can’t help it,” he whispered.

Ryuu muttered as he lifted onto his elbow. “Something
happened to us,” he said, tracing a finger down Drakon’s bicep.

Drakon shivered. “My people call it the dragon’s bond.”
He shrugged. “When two souls meet and recognize their twin, it’s said that the
taste of each other’s blood twists what has been sundered back together again.”

“And you think that this emotional connection is this
bond?” Ryuu asked.

Drakon nodded. “It’s very rare.” He paused, wondering
how to explain it without giving away his last secret. He would likely never
shift to dragon form again, and he preferred not to think about it. He needed
to complete his task in the citadel. He would probably not survive long
afterward. “My grandmother had it with my grandfather.”

“What happened to them?” Ryuu asked, much more
insightful than Drakon expected.

“They died of old age,” he hedged, hoping Ryuu would
not ask him any more about them. He still missed them.

“They died together, you mean.” Ryuu tugged on his
hair. “I can sense your omission, Drakon. You have more secrets than this, but
I won’t beg you for them. They are yours to give or not, as you wish.”

Drakon’s heart thumped against his ribs. “I have a
task, Ryuu.”

Ryuu laughed.
“Of course.
You
are here to kill my father.” He sighed and slid his hand down to Drakon’s hip.
“I have no quarrel with that.”

Drakon stopped breathing.
How did he know?

“I’m not stupid, silly prince.” Ryuu rolled onto his
back.

“I’m not a prince,” Drakon said reflexively, mind
still reeling from Ryuu’s statement.

“Heritor.
Prince.”
Ryuu sighed,
clearly exasperated. “They mean the same thing, Drakon.”

“My father is a general. He was elected leader after
the emperor began his bloodthirsty siege at the foot of the Dragon’s Teeth
Mountains. When the Crystal Palace fell—”

“Your people fled into the dark cliffs. Yes. I know.
My mother told me the story,” Ryuu murmured, rolling back over and nudging
Drakon’s arm. “This happened long before we were born.”

“Have you seen the broken spires?” Drakon asked. He
waited, sensing Ryuu’s hesitation.

“I have,” he finally said. “And it was all I could do
to conceal my horror from my father. I was only ten.”

Drakon shook his head. “I grew up amongst the ruins.”

Ryuu’s sorrow for him bled through the bond and burned
Drakon’s thoughts.

“Never mind,” he said, wanting to forget about it. He
didn’t want to think about his responsibilities right now.
His
duty.
“Let us speak of something sweeter.” He rolled over, trapping Ryuu
beneath his body. Their cocks slid against each other and he gasped as he felt
his lover’s erection grow.

“This time I will fuck you, Drakon,” Ryuu said,
reaching for the lubrication.

Drakon nodded, relieved that his mate understood his
need for distraction. “Yes.”

Ryuu touched his lips,
then
slid his fingers inside his mouth. “Suck.”

Drakon obeyed, not flinching when Ryuu used his teeth
on his shoulders. “Harder.”

Ryuu smiled. “You like your sex rough.”

“I like to forget that our world is bathed in violence.”

“Violence to cloak violence.”
Ryuu bit him again.
“Interesting.”

Drakon opened his legs and arms, offering himself to
his mate. “Bite me. Fuck me. You are my master.”

“Master, bah.” Ryuu growled and nipped his bicep. “I
should bite your prick for your impertinence.”

Arousal shot through him and he writhed. When Ryuu
grabbed the chains and locked them around his wrists, Drakon smiled. This time
he wanted the restraints. Instead of feeling like a captive, he felt free.
Of
course, I could break them if I shifted to my dragon form. No chains can truly
hold me, but it’s the sensation of restraint that is important.

“Don’t move,” Ryuu said, putting a hand on his
shoulder.

Drakon laughed.

Ryuu slapped his cock and Drakon’s breath caught.

“Hmm, you like that,” Ryuu said, bending down. The
moment his teeth touched the tip, Drakon groaned. Ryuu tightened his mouth,
biting softly,
then
licked with his tongue.

“More,” Drakon begged, needing the pain.