Burned (Drake Security #5)

Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

LORD

A s I warned Alrick before we landed, it’s a two-hundred-mile journey into the mountains to meet with the dragon mage. Now that I’ve unintentionally exposed myself as a dragon, I could shift and fly us there in under five minutes. But I don’t mention that option and, surprisingly, neither does he.

I estimated that at a typical human walking speed, factoring in the need for rest and the fact that Alrick still isn’t in perfect physical condition, it should take us three or four days to reach our destination. That’s three or four days alone in the unpopulated, rolling green hills and lush forests, just the two of us. Surely, it’s reasonable to at least give my dragon this small consolation prize before severing the bond forever.

My heart lurches and my chest burns fiery hot at the thought, but what choice do I have? Stay mated to a dragon hunter forever? Spend thousands of years blissfully kissing his lush lips and learning all the ways to make him moan my name? Convince him to fall in love with me and let me make him happy for the rest of our long, long lives?

My throat tightens and the longing in my chest grows so large it has a presence of its own right alongside my dragon. I swallow it all down and pick up my pace to keep up with Alrick. I expected we’d be moving at snail’s pace, especially in the dark with only the light of the half-moon overhead, but the Viking keeps up a slow jog, deftly navigating the hilly landscape.

He slows and looks over his shoulder at me.

“Be honest, Lord, should I be concerned about these strange, heavy feelings in my chest? Is it possible I’m still more wounded than either of us realizes? Or is this nothing more than the effects of the magic that saved me?” He huffs a little with exertion as I fall into step beside him.

“It’s definitely the effects of the magic.” I measure my words carefully. For some reason, I don’t want to lie to him, but I also can’t tell him the truth. We’ve finally found our way into a sort of truce after two days of a tense standoff, and the last thing I want to do is ruin that by confessing exactly how I saved him. “The… magic that saved you is likely causing you to experience some of my emotions secondhand.”

He stumbles over a rock in his path, and my hand shoots out reflexively to steady him, my fingers wrapping around his thick bicep. I can feel the faint flutter of his pulse under his skin, the heat from his body seeping into me even from this minute touch. The whole thing only lasts a moment before I yank my hand back and drag in a deep breath to keep my dragon at bay.

“I’m feeling your emotions?” he asks. “I thought maybe the potion had caused some kind of connection to form between us, but I wasn’t sure that was truly the cause of these… feelings.” Alrick slows to a walk and rubs his hand over his chest in a slow circle, the same way he’s been doing since he woke up, as if simply soothing the feelings away will break our bond. If it were that easy, we wouldn’t have flown all the way to Scotland.

“Yes,” I answer hoarsely.

Through our bond, I can feel an answering tangle of emotions coming from him. Curious, pitying, confused… the list goes on. He’s quiet for a long while and I focus my attention on the stars overhead and the expanse of open wilderness ahead of us, our destination no more than a pinprick in the distance to my dragon eyes.

“You’re sad,” he says eventually, and my heart jumps. Alrick cocks his head, watching me as we walk, the back of his hand brushing against mine inadvertently. “And you’re confused, guilty, horny an excessive amount of the time…”

I huff out a laugh. “I didn’t ask for a full report.”

“Sorry. I think I’m just surprised.”

“Surprised that dragons have all the same emotions humans do? That our hearts can feel heavy with sorrow or light with joy the same as yours?” My voice is low and gruff. I can feel the warmth radiating off his skin and see the blush rising in his cheeks even in the darkness.

“Yes,” he answers softly. His fingers twitch, bumping against mine. I know he can feel the way the barely there touch makes my cock swell and my gut clench with the desire for more. And now he knows those feelings are coming directly from me.

Alrick glances at me out of the corner of his eye, and through our bond I feel a spike of answering desire.

I can also feel the conflict raging inside of him. He didn’t ask for a crash course on the emotional lives of dragons and he’s not sure what any of this will mean once he gets back to his family. This is all more complicated than either of us signed up for.

The feedback loop of lust we’ve accidentally created isn’t complicated at all though. It’s primal. It’s natural. It’s raw, animal need that’s difficult to deny now that we’re both reasonably sure neither of us are an immediate threat to the other.

Alrick swallows hard and brushes his long hair off of his shoulder.

“Maybe we should find somewhere to rest for the night and continue in the morning,” he suggests in a casual tone that’s completely at odds with the nervous, hopeful, horny feelings crashing around inside of him.

“Yes,” I agree hoarsely. “Perhaps just inside the forest so we have some cover?” I nod towards the expanse of trees a mile to our left.

Alrick turns in that direction and speeds up to his jogging pace again, with me right behind him. When we reach them, I quickly gather some rocks and branches to create a firepit while he clears an area for the tent I packed.

I shrug off my pack and he crouches to unzip it.

“Did you bring matches to light a fire?”

I rumble a laugh and after a second, he realizes his mistake and chuckles too.

“I guess you don’t need matches, do you?”

I grin and wink at him, then turn back to the wood and branches I arranged in the middle of the makeshift pit. Breathing fire is no more a challenge than simply exhaling, but I think I can be excused for putting on a little bit of a show for my mate. I drag in a deep breath, filling my chest and preening slightly under his fascinated gaze, and then I exhale, letting the fire deep inside of me spill out through my mouth, crackling and hissing as it dances and leaps onto the kindling.

“Wow,” Alrick murmurs, and my dragon purrs. The sound vibrates in my chest before I can swallow it down and his eyes widen. “Is that…?”

“My dragon,” I confirm. “He likes you.”

His cheeks pink slightly again, mesmerizingly beautiful by the firelight, and an uncharacteristically shy smile twitches on his lips.

“He does?”

I know I’m playing with fire, no pun intended. I know the best thing I can do is keep things distant and cordial until we can sever our bond. But just like in the woods when I found Alrick, I don’t think I’m the one fully in control of my legs. I take a few steps closer until I’m invading his space, barely an inch between our bodies, Alrick’s heady scent filling my nose and making me dizzy.

“Very much.” My voice is even deeper now, barely human at all.

Even if I couldn’t feel the quiver of excitement and desire through our bond, I would be able to see the way his pupils expand and smell the way his scent warms. He might not understand the pull between us, but he’s just as helpless to resist it as I am.

Is it wrong to indulge?

Will it really hurt anything to have just one taste of my accidental mate before we say goodbye forever?

I slide my fingers through his golden locks, and he shivers visibly this time. Like a rubber band reaching its limit, the tension between us hits its peak, and in the warm orange glow of the crackling fire, we crash into each other.

ALRICK

I’m kissing a dragon.

I’m kissing a dragon.

I’m kissing a dragon.

The words echo inside my head, but they don’t do anything to convince me to break the kiss.

Lord’s mouth is scorching hot. I’m surprised it doesn’t leave third degree burns as his lips move against mine. I’m no stranger to kissing men. I’ve locked lips with eager twinks and waged tongue duels against bears even larger than my own massive size. But there’s something about the easy, confident command in Lord’s kiss that has my knees quaking and moans vibrating in my throat.

That spot in my chest that’s been aching since I woke up suddenly feels stitched closed—healed and then some. It’s like I can feel the strength and power that pulses inside of him flowing through my own blood as he slides his tongue between my lips to tangle with mine. He tastes like smoke and ash, but in a way that’s strangely pleasant. There’s a hint of cinnamon on his lips too that reminds me of the cookies we ate yesterday. Was that really only yesterday? It’s impossible to do the actual time zone math as Lord’s hand finds its way under my shirt to sear my skin with the same branding heat as his mouth.

He grunts and growls around our knotted tongues, one hand tangled in my hair while he drags the other slowly up my spine, leaving a trail of heat and beads of sweat in his wake. My cock throbs between us, harder than it’s ever been and straining to close the last inch of space we’re holding between our bodies.

My hands feel like they have a mind of their own, tugging at his clothes and groping his smooth, burning skin as I match the intensity of his kiss. If he was expecting to dominate me with his mouth, he has no idea who he’s dealing with. I hook my hand around the back of his neck and kiss him harder, teasing him by slowing the pace, then speeding up again before he can catch on. I keep him guessing as I stroke his tongue with mine, then retreat before doing it all over again.

His mouth slackens and his lips soften with a barely audible whimper as he gives in and lets me plunder his mouth with deep, hungry licks. The sound goes straight to my balls, making everything inside of me vibrate and tighten with anticipation. I barely register that we’re moving until I have Lord pushed up against the nearest tree, flattening my body against his, bringing our hard cocks flush against each other through our clothes.

We trade muffled moans as I roll my hips to grind my aching erection against his. I’ve never been accused of having a small cock or even an average sized one, but the girthy drag of Lord’s would give him away as inhuman even if I didn’t already know. His growls get deeper, and his touch gets rougher, the two of us pawing and tugging at each other’s clothes.

A fresh spike of heat flickers between our mouths and I can feel the scorch of flames against my tongue. Maybe the reminder of what Lord is should scare me back into my right mind, but it does the exact opposite. I tangle my fingers roughly in his hair and kiss him deeper, more greedily, lapping at his tongue and silently begging him to burn me just a little more, to raze me to ash if it pleases him.

Lord gives me exactly what I want, his flames dancing between our lips as he wrestles my pants open. He reaches inside, wrapping his searing hot fingers around my throbbing shaft, and I shout into his mouth, punching my hips forward to fuck into his grip. The pleasure that shoots through me ricochets between us, plucking that strange connection the magic created. I can feel the raging inferno of Lord’s lust answering mine, and the preening pleasure he’s getting from making my cock leak and my head spin.

He adjusts his grip until it’s exactly the way I like it, rough without being strangling, and then he starts trying to find the right rhythm. Every time he finds the right way to touch me, whether it’s the stroke of his tongue or the speed of his hand over my cock, he hums happily against my lips. That’s when I realize he’s using this thing between us to feel my pleasure and learn what makes my balls tighten and my breath quicken.

Will it work both ways? Can I blow his mind like no other lover ever has thanks to this fluke side effect of the healing potion?

I grunt and make quick work of undoing his pants, still fucking into his grip and devouring his lips like they’re my last meal.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know this is wrong. There isn’t a deeper betrayal of my family than this. Not wanting to kill the dragon is bad enough, but shoving my hand into his pants to fist his cock is unforgivable.

It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make me stop. It doesn’t even give me pause. Maybe it’s because we both know this is temporary. A few days from now, this will be nothing more than a memory and my family will never have to know.

His cock is too thick for me to even get my fingers all the way around, but I do my damnedest anyway. I follow his example and use our connection to test out different grips and rhythms until I can feel the one that drives Lord crazy, the one that pushes him close to the edge with every stroke and tug.

Our kisses grow more frantic, rougher. We nip at each other’s lips, soothing each bite with fresh licks. We trade murmured words like “yes” and “fuck” each time our mouths part before crashing back together fiercely.

Sweat trickles down my back, making my shirt cling to my skin. Lord’s palm is slick with my precum now, every stroke getting slipperier. I drag my hand up his shaft and all the way back down again, over and over. His precum pours from him like a faucet, so wet and slick that I have to break our kiss to look between us, just to make sure he hasn’t already come and I somehow missed it.

“Dragon thing,” he rasps, rolling his hips to fuck into my grasp. His lips are swollen from our hungry kisses and his chest is heaving with every breath he drags in.

I grunt. “Must come in handy when lube is in short supply.”

He huffs a laugh that turns into a whine in the back of his throat as we both stroke each other faster.

In the firelight, a slight glisten catches my eye. The skin on his throat isn’t human skin anymore, it’s covered in the same mesmerizing orange scales he erupted into when we were threatened earlier.

Fascinated by the sight, I lower my face into the crook of his neck to nuzzle them. To my surprise, they aren’t rough or cold like I expected. They’re soft as silk in spite of their near impenetrable nature, and just as warm as the rest of him. Lord moans loudly as I drag my tongue along his scales, his cock jumping and throbbing in my hand. On my next downstroke, I feel the base of his cock swelling even more, bulging and pulsing with a thick, growing knot.

“What…” I look between us again, my cock pulsing with matching pleasure.

“It’s… knot,” Lord pants. “Ma…” he bites down on his lip like he’s stopping himself from whatever he was about to say. “Dragons have them sometimes.” His eyes flicker and suddenly his human irises are replaced with glowing orange ones, his pupils thin slits.

My breath catches and my cock twitches hard. Is it possible I’ve had a suppressed dragon fetish this whole time without realizing it? Maybe it’s the taboo of it all. Whatever the cause, I press myself harder against Lord, humping into his grip as our bodies writhe against each other.

“So beautiful,” he rumbles in a deep, inhuman voice that raises the hair on the back of my neck and twists my balls even tighter. “Mine,” he growls.

I grip his growing knot and slam my mouth back into his. As soon as our tongues touch and a flicker of fire scorches mine, I’m done for. I howl against his lips and his knot starts to throb and pulse, a gut-deep roar erupting from his throat. We hump and kiss, both of us growling and groaning, the connection between us throbbing just as intensely as our orgasms, turning up the pleasure until it’s almost too much to bear. I moan and grind against him until my throat is sore and my balls are empty, both of us covered in our hot, sticky shared release.

As soon as the adrenaline of my orgasm fades, my knees are too weak to hold me up. I sag against Lord, and he murmurs quiet words in French that I don’t understand, nuzzling the crook of my neck and holding me tightly so I don’t have to worry about a thing.

Could this have been some kind of magic too? The way it’s left me unable to keep my eyes open certainly feels like it. If so, it’s the best damn magic ever invented. I didn’t know I could come that hard and live to tell about it.

I’d love to tell him exactly that, but I’m too sleepy now.

“Rest, my Viking. I’ll take care of you,” he whispers as I drift off in his arms.