Dragon Betrayed (Immortal Dragons Book 0) (17 page)

Chapter Eighteen

B
elah and Nikhil stared at each other, breathing so deeply that their chests rose and fell in unison.

The day was already hot, the scent of jasmine strong around them. Yet Belah’s skin blazed even hotter with the need for his touch

They couldn’t touch each other yet. They had to pledge their love and make it true in the eyes of the gods before they could have each other. From the second their eyes met before the line of gods who stood as their witnesses, she’d been as giddy as any village girl anticipating her wedding. It humbled her to realize—that this moment must be what every woman in love experienced, and it mattered little what her status was.

Nothing else mattered today but their love for each other. That she was immortal and he was only a man seemed immaterial in the face of what they were about to embark on together.

Beyond the raised dais they stood upon, her subjects watched with rapt wonder. The pair of them made quite a vision, bedecked in pure white robes edged in gold and jeweled embroidery, with golden headdresses and jewelry. Nikhil’s bronze, muscular chest was bare, but had been painted with gold that gleamed in the afternoon sun, enhancing every hard line and rippling muscle of his physique. His long hair that had grown out over the time since his injury was bound up in a braided queue at the back of his head and an elaborate crown rested on top. Over one shoulder was draped pure white linen that cascaded down his back and was secured with jeweled scarabs that matched the ones at her throat and hips.

Belah smiled secretly, thinking that they matched her private ornaments, too. His dark eyes were lined with kohl, as were her own, and lent him a slightly sinister appearance, but the heat in his gaze when he looked at her betrayed his raw desire and his love.

The nine gods and goddesses she called her friends and family stood nearby. The twelfth figure on the dais was the temple priestess who directed them all into position with a soft murmur. Belah and Nikhil moved to face each other and kneel while the others encircled them.

The ceremony itself was no more than a blur around her. Belah followed each prompt as though some external entity had control of her reactions, but through it all, she found she couldn’t keep her eyes off his. Nikhil’s gaze never once left hers, and her need grew with each passing moment and each phase of the hours-long ceremony.

This was true torture, she decided. The endless pledges of their love, for which each of the gods requested a different promise and bestowed their own unique blessing in kind. The blessings meant little to Belah herself, but meant everything to her lover. Each one, ceremonially bestowed, would add years to his life and ensure a longer bond between them. In the eyes of her people, their bond would be eternal, and even though Belah knew that eternity wasn’t in the stars for Nikhil, she wouldn’t begrudge these few moments to allow him as much time with her as possible.

Each of her siblings’ blessings were granted innocuously, with an exchange of breath that to all outward appearances looked like a kiss. For the sake of theatrics, they each went one better, using their powers to create the illusion of a bright glow around the entire ceremony that matched the color of their magic.

The others coupled their own blessings with similar visual effects that were secondary to the true magic. The turul seeress bestowed her gift with a song, the lilting tune so beautiful Belah couldn’t help but feel tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She sensed the other immortals lending their magic to the effects to enhance the awe of the crowd that looked on. By and large their truest magic was invisible, but the show of power benefited them all.

The ursa shaman’s magic was the most visible of all of them. When she raised her hands to the heavens, clouds coalesced above them, and warm rains came down, drenching Belah and Nikhil both. Between them, a seedling sprouted straight through the stone and grew with surprising speed, up through the circle created by their clasped hands. It grew into a tall tree, branching out into a bright green canopy above them and flowering brilliantly in a burst of color that caused all the onlookers to gasp with amazement.

In the background, the turul’s voice added a new song to the event, and beside her the nymphaea’s magic rose as the brother-sister pair stood and began moving their lithe, tall bodies around the circle in a dance. They leapt and bent and swayed with the music, as beautiful in their flowing robes as the birds that graced the river’s edges. She didn’t see the entire dance, but every so often as they circled around her and Nikhil, she would catch glimpses and was sure they became those long-legged birds, with blue-edged feathers and long, curved necks. Above them the tree bloomed and the flowers fell in brilliant red waves around them until the entire surface of the sand-colored polished stone they knelt on was carpeted in brilliant red petals.

The heft of the dagger attached to Belah’s thigh weighed heavy, pressing the spikes of the band harder into her flesh. In her mind’s eye she saw the red petals turn to blood. The image probably should have troubled her, but it excited her. She had never once even
seen
her own blood. Her life’s essence was protected beneath her impervious skin. Tonight, would he be willing to use her gift? He had told her that he would take her to that place one more time, in his own way, and had suggested that meant drawing her blood, yet he hadn’t mentioned it again since.

She loved the way he took her to the edge of pure pain. How he’d learned to improvise when he’d learned she had such limits. He didn’t go for outright violence beyond the whippings he’d given her, and his hesitance to push her to that final precipice too often betrayed his deep love for her. Death might not be permanent for her, but he had seen it often enough to know the impact of it. He had administered it himself.

He was a killer, and knew both how to kill and the repercussions of doing so.

Belah swallowed harshly. They had been apart for months, but she still remembered the last time he’d wrapped his large hands around her slender throat and squeezed just enough.

The dancers swayed into her line of sight, their actions mimicking the images in her mind. The male bent over the female, hands at her throat, his body arced so gracefully he could have been a tree bending in the wind. But he didn’t clasp his hands as Belah anticipated. He pushed them higher, through his sisters’ hair and pulled her up against him to dance entwined.

They were immortal like she was, did they wish to find the same kind of peace she did? Even if she could just sleep for a few centuries…

She bit the inside of her mouth. No. This was her wedding day. Nikhil was here now, and it was bad form to already be thinking about how she would exist after he was gone. After the blessings were bestowed, she would have a few centuries with him, she hoped.

More red petals fell around them, inundating her with their spicy scent. The nymphaea twins kept dancing, their movements generating strange magic that she’d never felt. The magic made her want to use her limbs, to move with them. But more than that, it made her want to lay Nikhil down and fuck him in the most acrobatic way.

She caught his gaze and his mouth spread into a wide smile. He felt it, too. She didn’t have to look down to know that his gilded cock was hard beneath his wedding garb.

The nymphs’ magic filtered over them like a mist settling. Most of it was directed at Nikhil, and each time they twirled and bowed close to him, they touched him. Each touch bestowed him with more of their magic, which held the essence of vibrant life coupled with stillness. That of a placid lake, as clear as a mirror on the surface, but teaming with life beneath.

Around her, the ceremony faded out, becoming secondary to the connection between her and Nikhil. She responded almost unconsciously to the instructions of the priestess as she made her vows. Her body thrummed with excitement when Nikhil’s deep voice reverberated in her ears with the promises of his own wedding vows. Soon, the pair of them were urged to rise again and present themselves to the throng of onlookers who cheered so loudly the air moved from the force of their congratulations.

After their parade around through the streets and back to the palace, a celebration would take place throughout the city, while all the honored guests would join the happy couple in the great hall to celebrate. Belah itched for it all to be done so she could be alone with him again in their chamber.

Passing through the crowd on their shared litter, they were showered in piles of red petals. Her hand lay on her thigh, grasped tightly within Nikhil’s larger one. He released her, but left his hand resting on her thigh and leaned close.

“Must we show our faces at the party? I have a mind to skip it and take you to bed now.” His fingertips teased their way into the slit in her gown until his hot touch grazed the bare skin of her thigh.

Belah sucked in a breath at the charge of energy that shot through her from his touch. He was filled with magic now, more potent than anything she’d experienced. His very aura swirled with all the blessings he carried from the immortal races who had given their gifts to him. All Belah wished to do was taste a sample of this new power he held, but she would rather wait for them to experience each other wholesale as man and wife, rather than sneak tiny pieces.

Before she could push his adventuring fingers away, he stopped abruptly and stared down, tugging the fabric of her gown aside. Following his gaze, she saw the wide band that encircled her thigh had been exposed. That was not what caught his gaze, however. He knew she wore the bands he’d given her today, but he didn’t know about the item she had attached to it.

He stared down at the small dagger that rested in its sheath at the top of her thigh. Bright blue stones had been set in the hilt in a perfect representation of a winged serpent, and the leather sheath had a similar pattern embossed in it.

“It is my gift to you, my love,” she said softly. “I planned to give it to you when we were alone. It… it has my magic in its blade.”

Nikhil’s mouth fell open slightly and he licked his lips. His gaze rose to meet hers, heat and hunger flashing deep within. He swallowed hard.

“It will cut you?”

The eagerness in his voice made Belah’s piercings tingle and a fresh wave of heat flooded between her thighs.

“Yes.”

With a shaky hand he touched the hilt and pulled it partway out of the small scabbard. The marbled metal gleamed in the sunlight, but also seemed to glow with an inner light. Belah had overseen the painstaking process of crafting the fine little blade, but the final step she had done alone. Her own dragon fire was what made the metal glow, making it the only thing that could pierce her skin. A more personalized gift could not exist.

Slowly, he returned the knife to its home. His hand moved to the back of her neck and with eyes blazing with fierce lust, he took her mouth. His kiss was hard and hungry. Belah made a soft sound of reproach—they were in public, in full view of all her people, being paraded around so her subjects could see their empress and her new consort together for the first time. But when Nikhil’s hand pressed down against the band that encircled her thigh, the spikes dug in and all other thoughts left her mind but the exquisite and sorely missed pain only he could inflict on her. While he pressed with the heel of his hand, his long fingers stroked higher and Belah spread her thighs for him, moaning into his kiss.

Tingling heat almost seared her throbbing clit when his fingers grazed it. He pushed two fingers deep into her flooded channel and growled low in his chest.

“Fuck, I need you now,
‘Iilahatan
.” He pulled back, panting heavily. He pulled his hand away from her and gazed down at his dripping fingers.

In a daze, Belah could only nod, too elated by his long-needed touch to care that they were currently the biggest spectacle in the city even if they just sat quietly side-by-side. She let him pull her into his lap and with a frustrated untangling of their robes, she managed to straddle his hips.

Only raw, hungry need gripped her now, as she reached between them to find his cock. His shaft was buried beneath his own robes and the belt he wore wouldn’t easily come loose. Finally, she extended a sharp talon and sliced cleanly through the front of his robe and reached inside, tugging him free. Gold paint still coated every inch of his glorious length, except for the underside where his juices had begun to weep from the tip and flow down, washing the tiny metallic flecks along with it.

Nikhil gripped both her thighs and squeezed around the bands, his grip urging her closer, the pain making her even hotter. She positioned him at her entrance and then gripped his face between her hands, gazing down into his blazing eyes.

The thick head of his cock pressed into her the tiniest amount and they both gasped. The sensation was both familiar and brand new. Something about the magic he exuded now made every bit of skin-to-skin contact between them even more exquisite than it had been the last time they’d made love months ago. The little pulses of pain she received whenever he squeezed her thighs just served to punctuate the pleasure when he began to thrust up into her.

There were so many things going through her mind that she wished to say—to tell him how happy he made her, how excited she was for the long life they would share. Instead of words, she pressed her mouth to his again and kissed him. He devoured her in turn while his hands roamed higher. He pulled savagely at the sides of her gown. The fabric tore, baring her breasts to him. The gown slid down her arms, leaving her back bare to the onlookers who now cheered even louder than before when Nikhil bent his head to take the tip of one breast into his mouth.

Belah undulated atop him, reveling in the thick, hot weight of his rigid cock that she had missed so much as it thrust up into her. When they broke away for breath, she glanced behind her, for the first time aware of the magnitude of their public display, then past Nikhil’s head to where the throngs of people extended down the street their litter was traveling along.