Dragon Betrayed (Immortal Dragons Book 0) (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

N
ikhil bent to the female’s breast, captured a nipple in his mouth, and sucked. She tasted of dirt, and he had to restrain the urge to let her go and rinse his mouth out. The female on his rack was no replacement for his
‘Iilahatan
, but he kept trying to find closure somehow.

He wanted nothing more than a child with her. A boy of his own blood to cherish the way he always wished his father could have cherished him. To teach in the ways of war he wished his father could have taught him. He had been the best warrior in his mistress’s armies, but what kind of warrior would he have been if he’d had his father’s wisdom on the battlefield, too?

Perhaps he would never have needed to take that wound while seeking
her
glory. Perhaps he never would have met and fallen in love with
her
when she came to save him.

Perhaps he could have turned around and truly conquered her, rather than living the rest of his unending days being conquered himself by his craving for a woman who left him.

He hated himself for that one weakness now. He had let himself grow to need her, to
love
her, and it had nearly destroyed him.

Somehow it hadn’t, and for that, he was grateful. He could credit his absent wife for that, no doubt. All the rituals and blessings on their wedding day had made him strong, had set a fire alight in his belly. But the fuel that had kept it burning for the past two centuries was
her
blood.

He left the side of the virginal likeness of his lover and sipped from a goblet of thick, fermented liquid. Even as old as it was, it still made his blood sing. Her blood still tasted of her very essence and reminded him of the flavor of her sweet juices that would flood his tongue in the moments when he had his mouth latched to her nether lips, drawing her pleasure from her with his tongue.

He’d been beyond sanity after waking up alone in their chambers with her gone and nothing but her blood for his company. Being granted the throne in her stead didn’t calm him. He could see them everywhere. Dragons were the ones who had taken her from him. They needed to suffer until she was returned.

He had no memory now of those times, only that he rabidly searched for her, interrogated every dragon he could find, using the knife she’d given him to torture them. The second they saw their own blood spill, they talked, but none of them had anything helpful to say.

Finally, he simply took to killing them outright. If he killed enough of them, the gods themselves would take notice.

And they did.

By the time her brothers came to reclaim her blood, he had lived on killing for decades. But they wouldn’t return her to him. They made a deal—their useless blood for hers. “Because it is sacred to us,” they told him.

“Is she dead?” he asked.

The three of them had stood around him in this very room while he asked that question and told him, “Yes, but her blood will revive her.”

By their accounts, a dead dragon’s blood was sacred. Nikhil didn’t believe it. He’d killed enough dragons to know better. The Twins had taken to Belah’s blood immediately, but after them, every single human he fed it to went mad and died within hours.

He hunted other dragons and tested their blood, both living and dead, on everyone he could convince to accept the test. Only the blood of the living dragons granted power to those who drank it, but never the level of power that he or the Twins had.

All he knew was that somehow
he
was special. Perhaps if he had a son or daughter, somehow his power would be passed on.

The nubile woman bound to his rack today was one in thousands. The only thing that differentiated this woman from all the rest was that she actually seemed to enjoy being terrified.

Nikhil’s cock couldn’t resist that combination of terror and arousal. He supposed he had his goddess to thank for that. Ever since their wedding night, he’d been acutely attuned to the hearts and minds of everyone he encountered. He could read thoughts, emotions, intentions. He could see things he couldn’t see before, like shimmering clouds around people that he learned signaled their moods and desires.

This woman wanted him so desperately.

He wished he wanted her.

The people his
‘Iilahatan
used to rule now feared him as their devil.
Apophis
, they called him. He still lived, he still killed. He didn’t care what they thought. He only wanted her, though now he wasn’t sure what he would do with her if he had her back. If he had her back, he would never let her go again. He would leave her bound to this rack so he could drain her blood and teach her what it meant to truly be conquered every day.

Now he only wanted a child that looked like it came from her womb. The woman in front of him was nobody, but she looked like his love. If she bore him a child it might also look like
her
.

He swiped the blade of the knife across the underside of the woman’s breast, but didn’t dare taste her blood. Human blood tasted just as filthy as this woman’s skin had tasted, but he relished the flash of pain that crossed her face and the resulting arousal. He only needed a little to help his cock rise. Another slice and she cried out. Then he was on her, shoving deep into her while he held the blade to her throat. Her fear kept him hard.

When he was finished, he called to his guards and ordered them to take her away. If his seed took root, he would wait and see what came of it. A son would allow the woman to survive. Anything less, and he had no use for her.

Chapter Twenty-Four

B
elah hovered, too paralyzed by the sight to do more than instinctively beat her wings to stay aloft. The aura of the man she viewed was nothing like the Nikhil she remembered. Not even a glimmer of that man remained.

Around her, the darkness thickened, obscuring the sight from her tortured gaze. With a swirl of dizzying movement, Ked transported them away. The air chilled suddenly, then warmed again and when the darkness abated, she found herself in the middle of a lush garden on a stone path that led down a hill to what looked like a small village.

“Where are we?” she asked, numb to any other thought but her present surroundings.

“At the Monastery. Things have changed since that day, Belah. I will tell you everything.”

He shifted into his human form and clothed himself in simple robes. Reluctantly, Belah followed suit, though what she really wanted to do was fly away. If only she could return to the uncomplicated bliss of her slumber.

“Who was she?”

Without answering, Ked gently took her hand and led her up the path to a carved stone bench that rested in the shade of a large tree. They sat, and Ked’s grip on her hand tightened.

“She is just a woman, his latest bride. If this one fails to bear him a son, he’ll execute her. It’s been the same, year after year. Sometimes he succeeds, but the child dies when he attempts to feed him your blood. Normal humans can’t survive a taste of immortal blood. They go mad to the point of suicide. Some can accept a lesser dragon’s blood, and those are the ones who follow him now.”

“She looked like me,” Belah whispered. She lifted her hand to her chest, wishing she could dispel the ache that had taken root there, burning like a hot coal.

“They always do. Sometimes he succeeds in capturing a blue dragon, as well. He does the same to them, but as you know he cannot breed a dragon without being marked by her.”

“The skulls…”

Ked nodded and looked at her gravely. “He and his soldiers actively hunt us now. They have killed hundreds of our kind. The only way to make him stop is to return you to him, or so he claims, but we refused.”

“You should never have taken me from him, Ked. We were in love. I trusted him.”

“I protect what I love,” Ked said hotly. A swift surge of darkness surrounded them, blotting out the idyllic garden along with every emotion Belah was experiencing save one: her shame. Shame for being so weak in the presence of a human man, for allowing him to overpower her so often. She hated her brother in that moment for holding the mirror up to her the way he did. As much as she had loved every moment of her time with Nikhil, she had let this happen.

“We must kill him. It’s the only way,” she said with forced conviction. As much as the idea destroyed her, Belah knew it had to be done.

“I wish it were so simple,” Ked said. “Your fire is the only thing that has a chance of succeeding. I tried burning him the day I took you away. Our brothers and I have combined our three fires into one, but we weren’t even able to subdue him. He can’t harm us, but neither can we harm him. He’s become too strong, but that’s not the worst of it.”

“So, I will go back there and take care of it. Now.” She stood and prepared to shift.

“No.” Ked grabbed her arm and pulled her back down.

Belah turned to look at her brother for the first time since they’d arrived here. Ked’s brow was knit, his lips pursed. The expression alarmed her because for the first time in her life, he looked truly worried.

“Why not? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Because he has our children, Belah. If we kill him, we will never find them.”

“I have no children. None of us have any living children.” Except for one son who their mother had hidden away. The son Belah wished she could find but knew better than to try searching for.

Ked’s expression softened and he reached up to cup her cheek. He gave her a sad smile.

“You have two children, Belah. The son we made together, and the daughter Nikhil gave you. Your blood must have acted as a mark once he ingested it, allowing you conceive his child. She was born while you slept, and Mother promised her safekeeping. We didn’t believe him when he said he’d found them, and we have no idea how it happened. I confronted Mother about it, and she confirmed his story. They were hidden away in hibernation. Mother said only a pair of Blessed humans should have been capable of discovering where they slumbered, and only twins, at that. Such a thing would be so rare as the be nonexistent.”

Belah’s eyesight dimmed and her world spun. Blood rushed to her head, causing a steady, painful throb at her temples.

Blessed twins. Sweet Mother, not Naaz and Neela.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and forced words out. “His soldiers… you said he has soldiers. They’re just humans who follow him, right?”

“Mostly, yes, but there are two who are stronger than the others. The two are elites who are somehow able to lure any dragon and strong enough to kill them. I have never met them myself, but the tales I hear are of a brother and a sister who do Nikhil’s bidding.”

Belah crumpled against her brother, sobbing into his shoulder. The two precious children she’d cherished had been corrupted. This was all her doing—her cravings for an escape had left them vulnerable, had left her entire race vulnerable, and the very man who had granted her that escape upon the promise that she mark him had been the one to turn on them.

“Oh, Sweet Mother, what have I done?”

Once upon a time, she had been burdened by the responsibility of a slew of illustrious titles. Belah the Queen. Belah the Empress. Belah the Goddess.

She had lost the honor of any of those burdens.

Belah the Betrayer—that was the title that fit.

Coming soon:

DRAGON BLUES

One of only six immortal dragons, Blue Dragon Belah seeks one more chance at love after a heartbreaking mistake that took millennia to recover from. Wary of venturing into the world again, she takes the chance, leaving her sanctuary to find a worthy mate among one of the dragons’ three sister races.

If she can find the perfect mate and conceive a child with him, she might find redemption and turn the tide against the old lover who became her race’s mortal enemy.

Lukas and Iszak North have managed to stick to the fringes of the world for two hundred years. They would gladly leave the true work up to the dragons, and let their own race of falcon shifters have their peace. Tortured after their enemy murdered their sister decades earlier, they finally hope to find happiness when when a beautiful female dragon walks into the jazz club Lukas’s band has a gig at. Dragons are renowned for their sexual appetites, and she’s apparently set her sights on them.

It doesn’t take long for them to learn who she really is—the dragon who was single-handedly responsible for unleashing an enemy on the world that’s tormented their race for more than a millennium, and their own family in very recent history. Centuries of buried animosity blaze forth when they learns Belah’s secrets, threatening to ruin the first true love they’ve found in several lifetimes of searching.

Only the truth can set them free.

If you’re curious about the dragons’ origins, please check out:

SLEEPING DRAGONS

Erika’s spent her entire post-graduate career searching for it. The elusive dragon stronghold her archaeologist professors scoffed at as being only a myth. Now she has the perfect team and has led them into the deepest reaches of the Sumatran jungle. At the edge of the discovery of the century, she’s finally about to prove to everyone how wrong they were.

But when the seven intrepid explorers pass through the doors, they’re barely prepared for the conflict of lust versus logic they’re faced with on the inside. Ages-old magic lingers in the stronghold, dictating that they perform a ritual to awaken the long-slumbering beasts within. And beasts that beautiful only awaken to one thing: the unbridled release of humans in the throes of ecstasy.

The Sleeping Dragons Omnibus is a series of six novelettes. It includes all kinds of fun kinks involving shapeshifting mythical beasts who breathe magic smoke and have very long, prehensile tongues. The book is intended for adult audiences.

Read on for an excerpt, or
buy now
.