The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (25 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Hot Season Six, Year 2095

Diem dug his left knee against Forge's plates, spreading them until his kneecap sank against her skin.  The dragon obeyed immediately, skirting out of the dip Maeve had sent her into, and leveling off to the previous glide. 

The incident rattled Diem more than he wanted to admit.  His dragon had never responded to anyone else's pressure signals before.  Dragons were not interchangeable beasts and a novice, especially, couldn't just climb onto an owned dragon and override the master's signals.  Maybe it was because he hadn't been actively guiding Forge when it happened.  But it'd never happened before.  Not on
ce.  No one else could even think of riding Forge without Diem along for the trip; the dragon would incinerate another human before she allowed them to mount her neck without Diem present. 

Once they were stable again, Diem twisted back to peer at Maeve, studying her expression for signs that she knew what she'd done, or that she'd meant to do it.  He studied her face diligently for any sign that she was actually one of the most well-hidden Plutians he'd ever seen, or for clues that she was something else entirely
—something other than human. 

But the only thing showing on Maeve was the expression of a terrified, human woman.  She was grasping the guide rein the way a frightened dragon grasps the meat of a stolen hampig.  Her hair was an even darker frame around her face, since her skin had lightened two shades.  She certainly didn't look like she meant to make the dragon slope.  And by the way her legs were loose against the dragon's plates now, it appeared that she was afraid to hold on again at all.

"Tighten your legs, so you don't lose your seating," he reminded her. 

"No way." She shook her head
—small violent shakes—as if she were afraid to do more. "Whatever just happened, I think I did it."

He tried not to gape.  "You don't know what you did?"

"No!  Just tell me what it was, so I don't do it again!"  Her voice climbed, like she was having a hard time holding it together.  A small wave of pity swelled in Diem's chest.  He nearly believed her, but had to be sure she wasn't fooling him.

"You pressed in," he said.

"Pressed in what?  Just tell me what the fuck I pressed in on, so I don't do it again!"

"Your knee," he said and she immediately spread her legs a hair, so the pressure was hardly against the plates.  He tried not to laugh.  She was too frightened to be lying.  "No, put your legs back, but keep the pressure even.  Don't push in on her neck with your knees."

"I'll just keep them out," Maeve said.

"No, you can't.  It's not safe.  Just put your legs flat against the plates and hang onto me."

"I don't want to," she said, but her voice was just a mew.  A helpless sound that pulled strings in Diem's heart and made him respond more gently than he expected.

"You're going to be okay," he said.  He whistled to Forge.  The dragon spread its wings out flat and pulled up her head a little more, cutting through the air without even a tremor of wind brushing over them. 

"What the hell are you doing?" Maeve squeaked as he unlashed his guide rein, planted his hands on the dragon's neck.  Without answer, he pulled his legs up under him and stood.  The dragon was soaring so smoothly, he had no problem balancing.  He turned and stepped over Maeve, wedging his foot behind her back and scooting her closer to the guide rein.  She shrieked as he dropped into the tight space behind her. 

His thighs clamped around hers.  He reached over her, picking up his empty rope on the opposite side of her guide rein.  He refastened it into a closer plate and then, one handed, twisted and spun his arm, until the rein secured his right hand.

She was as rigid as a dragon's claw as he pulled her back, into the crook of his open legs.  He leaned close to her ear, the fresh air caught in her hair.  He stopped himself from inhaling too deeply.

"I've got you," he said.  Her body, hard as it was, began to shake.  He molded himself around her.  Her hair splashed against his face and his body sprang to life.  As his burgeoning erection brushed against her soft rear end, he nearly groaned in her ear.  Instead, he smothered it and forced out a gruff whisper in its place.  "You can't fall.  But I'm going to show you what there is to see, so you know what things look like now, okay?"

She gave him the faintest nod he'd ever seen.  She sucked in a deep breath and held it in her rib cage.  He whistled and pressed his knees to the dragon with an upward pinch.  Forge's head pulled up in response to his command, the dragon's body following, climbing gently into the air.  They disappeared into the shredded gauze of clouds and reappeared in the dark night sky. 

At first, Maeve tried to hold herself back from being compressed against Diem, but the wind pressure was too great for her strength.  She finally blew back against him and, after a moment, resigned herself to settling into it.  She finally relaxed against him and Diem smiled into her hair as it blew around his face.  Maeve's strength might burn bright in her gut and mind and mouth, but Diem knew now that it was for drait in her muscles.

Straightening out the dragon again with just a squeeze of his thighs, he bent to whisper in Maeve's ear, "Look."

"At what?" Her voice vibrated against his chest.  His flex pulsed in the tight space between them.

"That's the Dividing Wall down there."  He kept the elbow of his unbound arm tucked in close to her as he snaked his hand, mimicking the curve of the wall far below.  Maeve's head swiveled to look, but then she brought it back quickly with a moan of distress.  He could feel her forcing herself to swallow.  The tight hold he had on her body was teaching him more about her than he thought she would ever be willing to tell him.  To prove it to himself, he asked, "Do you see the wall?"

"Yes." Her short answer wavered.

"You're still scared of looking down?"

"I'm still...not scared," she insisted.  She forced another swallow and took a deep breath. 

Yeah, right.  Sure she wasn't.

Then, her shaking voice shot at him, "Is that what gets you off?  Wanting me to be scared?  Do you like all your women like that?"

It was his turn to go rigid, but it was no longer happening below the waist.  There was nothing that disturbed him more than what she was suggesting—that he enjoyed the fear of a woman who was forced to mate.  He wasn't one of those embarrassments that called themselves a man—the kind who liked a woman to cry or scream as they were taken.  He wasn't a rutting heathen.

He pushed his knees down on Forge's plates.  The dragon's head dipped to the Earth.  Although it was a gentle descent, the pressure still smacked Maeve up against him.  She screamed.  He cranked his thigh muscles down on her to keep her still.  He could feel how the air was caught in her lungs, her chest swelled with it, her breasts against his arm. 

With another combo squeeze and whistle to Forge, the ground came up fast and the dragon hit it with a tiny thump and lumbering run.  He could've set her down easier, but he was annoyed.  After four jolting steps, the animal came to a halt and rested down on her belly, her neck against the ground. 

Maeve was paralyzed, glued to his chest.

"You can get off now yourself," he said as he untied himself from the guide rein.  He slid from Forge's neck and jumped down to the ground.  He didn't even glance back at Maeve.  He trilled a sharp note through his teeth before walking into the shack.

***

He left her sitting on the dragon's neck. 

The hens, in the cave at the end of the open field, belched flames and screeched, but Forge remained still.  Maeve didn't know how long it would last, but she couldn't get her hand free of the rope that bound her.  She wanted to kill him for leaving her like that.

Forge shifted and Maeve panicked that the dragon would take her on a solo flight after all.  Maeve yanked at the guide rein in a panic, forgetting how she had tied herself to it to begin with.  The rope answered by tightening around her hand and cutting off circulation.  Maeve's knees squeezed the dragon's neck by accident and the dragon's plates shifted like noisy dinner dishes.  Maeve gasped.  She flung her knees out to the sides so the dragon wouldn't misinterpret the touch.

Her lungs punched at her rib cage as she struggled to get free.  The rope bit into her and a trickle of blood ran into her palm.  She twisted on the dragon's back.  One of the plates beneath her poked up and she didn't see it until she felt the plate sliced through her pants and cut her inner thigh. 

Maeve swore and then she did something she hadn't done in years.

She crumpled down on top of the dragon and cried.  Her back bucked with the tears as she curled over her bleeding hand and thigh, still bound to the guide rein.  She tried to smother her sobs in her elbow.

The strong hand on her back startled her.  Then embarrassed her.  Diem reached beneath her hunched torso and released her from the guide rein with a few flicks of his wrist.  Her tears drizzled over the back of his hand as he did it. 

With one tug, he pulled her down into his arms.  She struggled in his grasp, humiliated, but even when she threw her bloody hand over her face, he didn't put her down.  With a soft whistle over his shoulder, Forge lumbered off to the cave.  Diem carried Maeve through the door of the shack and kicked it closed behind them. 

Her sobs turned to hiccups that she tried to hide by holding her breath.  It only made it worse.  The sob turned to snorts as she shook in his arms.  He set her down near the counter, dragged his chair over, and sat her down on it.  Head bowed, she watched from beneath the curtain of her hair, as he worked the arm of the wall pump.  It's open mouth gushed water into the bucket he placed beneath it.

The water splashed over the sides.  He replaced the bucket,
with the one she'd tried to throw at him, to catch the overflow.  Then, at his counter, he pushed the curtain aside to retrieve a fresh cloth.  He dipped it in the water and came to her.  Maeve switched her gaze to the floor.  He reached across her line of vision and trapped her cut hand in his before she could pull it away.

She tried to yank it back anyway.

He tightened his grip and jerked it forward. 

"I know it hurts," he soothed in a soft tone.  "I'll try to be gentle."

Maeve yelped as he applied the wet cloth to the cuts.  He dabbed at them, wrung out the cloth, and dabbed again, without letting go of her hand.  When the blood was washed away, he prodded the edges of the cuts as she sucked in a breath and tried to pull her hand back again. 

"Stop," he chided.  It caught Maeve completely off-guard.  Even more so when he reached for her waist, lifting the edge of her shirt.  She threw an elbow at him and followed with a kick. 

"What are you trying to do?" 

"Taking your pants off, so I can take care of the cut on your leg," he said.  "You're bleeding all over my chair.  We've got to take care of it."

She stared down at herself.  Her pants were ripped open, revealing the red and meaty gash on her inner thigh.  It made her a little queasy.  She looked away. 

"I'll wash it myself."  She made a grab for the bucket, but Diem pulled it away. 

"You can't wash it through the rip.  Don't be such a hen," he said.  The line of his mouth told her it was an insult, but no way in hell was she taking her pants off.  Especially since the Archive had been short on panties and she was going commando at the moment.  He reached for her waist again and she slapped his hand away.

"Fuck off," she said.  He stood, throwing the rag down into the bucket, so the water splashed out on the floor.  She thought he was giving in
—that he'd bust out the front door, cursing her stubbornness over his shoulder as he gave in and let her have the privacy she wanted.  But the next second, his hands were rooted on either side of her chair seat, his thumbs like slats of iron against her hips and his face in hers. 

"I told you about the curses!" he barked. "Shut your mouth before you're heard!"

She pushed her face back into his and roared,  "I'll shut my mouth when you fuck off!" 

The veins in his neck protruded and he reminded her of every drunken biker
badass that had rolled into the tattoo shop, looking to give her a hard time.  She knew how to handle assholes.  

It happened almost too fast to comprehend.  He knocked her down and pulled off her boots.  She battled him, scratching at his hand as he tore the button free on her pants.  He yanked down the zipper.  When she tried to bring her leg up between his, he snarled and grabbed hold of the rip in her pants.  He tore it, shredding the fabric right off her until there was nothing left.   

She kicked up her leg and he dodged out of the way, her knee only jabbing his thigh.  He grabbed her with one hand and the bucket with the other and dragged her to his bed.  Maeve felt the air against her naked bottom, which fueled her hysterical struggle against him even more, but he held tight.  The water sloshed up over the edge of the bucket, leaving small ponds all over the floor. 

He dumped her down on his nest of a mattress and pulled the rag from the water.  She grunted as she kicked up at him, trying to get his face, but the angle was too awkward.  The top of her foot only smacked his chest as he grabbed her ankles and forced her legs apart.