ClosertoFire (9 page)

“A fjord?” he asked. Lily stopped, reaching for the edge of
the blindfold, wanting to see his face. He grabbed her hands, securing them
behind her back. She huffed, frustrated, but didn’t protest. His body felt good
against hers—strong, warm, secure. “Go on,” he said, his voice seeming to come
from all around her now.

“Yes, a fjord, I guess. You’re waiting for something,” she
said, then shook her head. That wasn’t quite right. “No, someone.” She paused,
watching the fantasy in her head develop a life of its own. “You’re looking up
now, across the lake, over the treetops on the far side. You’re…you’re
glowing,” she said, wondering now. Whose mind-picture
was
this, anyway?
She watched as the vision unfolded. “Red. You’re glowing red.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, his voice encouraging.

“The color—the red light—it starts in your eyes and sort of
spirals out in thin lines all over your body. You’re gone!” she said, her voice
lowering to a whisper. It was true. Dream-Darek had vanished, eclipsed by a
corona of glittering scarlet. A dark form was visible in the center of the
field of light, but it was a growing, amorphous mass. Then the red light began
to fade, and in Darek’s place stood something she didn’t have adjectives to
describe. The noun, however, she knew. “A dragon,” she murmured, full of
wonder.

The creature was an enormous scarlet beast, a magnificent
marriage of reptile and avian. Awe filled her and she wished fervently that she
could touch it. The dragon regarded her dispassionately with a slit-pupiled
gaze from a height of about thirty feet. Sharp, venomous-looking horns crested
its head and ran down its thick neck in two rows. Its membranous wings were
folded against its back, bony structures ending in hooked talons. She watched,
entranced, as the creature settled to the ground, gracefully folding its legs
and curling its long, whiplike tail around its body. Its hide, plated with a
mosaic of circular gemstone scales in all shades of red, was stretched taut
over ridge upon ridge of solid muscle. In the vision, Lily approached it
slowly, drawn by its unblinking gaze.

Darek shook her shoulders and she nearly screamed, startled
out of her vision. Letting go of her hands, he slipped the black cloth from her
eyes and she blinked in the light of a campfire that hadn’t been there before.
They were still on the beach—she could tell that much. They were sitting on the
same blanket, which was now at the edge of the firelight. It had grown dark,
and Lily could see very little outside the halo of the fire.

Darek cupped her face in his hands, turning her this way and
that as though looking for bruises. “Shhh,” he said. “You were out, Lily. I
couldn’t get you to talk. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said after a long moment. “I was… I’m not sure
what happened.”

“We showed you a picture,” he said. “Did you see it?”

She nodded. “I forgot where I was. I wanted to touch.”

“What did you see?” he asked.

“I saw you, and then you…you turned into a dragon,” she
replied, feeling foolish. It was one thing to hear words like “dragon-shifter”
from Darek and Bane—it was quite another thing to say it.

“What color was the dragon?” Darek asked, tucking a stray
hair behind her ear.

“Red,” she replied.

He smiled as though satisfied.

She looked around her, gathering her wits—and realized Bane
had disappeared. “Where’s Bane?”

Darek smiled. “Not far. Do you want to go find him?”

Something in his tone made her wary. “Why? Are we still playing
a game?”

He shook his head. “No. No games. You were out for a while.
Bane shifted. He could gather wood and brush for the fire faster that way. He’s
down by the water. Come on,” he said, urging her to stand.

She did so, her legs feeling shaky, and he joined her,
taking her hand. “Wait.” Darek stopped, his eyebrows raised. “If your dragon is
red, what color is Bane’s?”

“Three guesses,” he said playfully.

“Well, he has to be blue,” she murmured, her hand drifting
to the tiny dragon symbols at the base of her throat. “Blue and gold?” She
looked to Darek for confirmation but he said nothing. He lifted the mysterious
duffel and her small bag, and gestured toward the shoreline.

Once they were outside the circle of the campfire, Lily’s
eyes quickly grew accustomed to the darkness. The moon was just a sliver high
in the sky, its meager light dancing across the water’s restless surface. Off
to their right, about a hundred yards away, Lily made out a large shape on the
shore, not far from the breakers. Like they had in her vision, excitement and
nerves pooled in equal measure in her belly as they drew closer to the
creature. Its head shifted a little and she realized that it—Bane, she
corrected herself—was aware of their approach. She wondered what was going through
his mind.

“In your dragon form are you still yourself?” she asked.
Darek gave her an appraising look as they walked. When he didn’t answer, she
continued, “I mean, is it like being
Darek
, only in another body, or are
you a different thing entirely?”

He tilted his head. “I’d never really thought about it
before,” he answered after a moment. “I suppose I’m still pretty much myself,
in that my memories and experiences are all there. But my perceptions, my
immediate desires, the way I experience the world…that’s all very different.
Someday, when our connection is strong enough, I’ll show you.”

She glanced up at him. “Like you showed me a couple of
minutes ago?”

He smiled. “Bane showed you that. He’s a stronger psychic
than I am. It was a memory of his.”

She slowed as they drew nearer the dragon, trying to take in
everything at once. “I wish I could see better,” she murmured. No sooner had
she spoken the words than a soft glow emanated from its skin and scales,
bathing them in blue light. The light danced over the dragon’s long, lean form
in shimmering bands. She’d assumed that Bane’s dragon would look very much like
the one in her vision. She’d been wrong.

The dragon was resting, its legs folded elegantly, its neck
stretched out, its head flat on the sand. Its form was uncannily still. If it
hadn’t been for the slight movement of its eyes as it followed them, she might
have thought it was sleeping. Its eyes were haunting, she thought, cautiously
approaching its head. Other than the unusual blue color of its irises, so like
Bane’s in human form, there was nothing recognizably human—or even mammalian—in
the dragon’s gaze.

Darek clasped her hand. “It’s still him, Lily.”

The dragon blinked as they drew closer, two sets of eyelids,
one vertical, one horizontal, closing and reopening in rapid succession. A row
of tiny, needlelike horns ran the length of its snout, trailing up between its
eyes to a crest of much larger horns that angled back from its head.

Her gaze traveled down its long, serpentine neck to its
body. Though no smaller than the blood-red creature from her vision, Bane’s
form was more compact. He had less mass in his midsection than Darek had, a
difference that was compensated for by his wings. Even folded, they looked
bigger somehow.

It took her a moment to figure out what was different. She
inhaled sharply, tightening her grip on Darek’s hand. “Feathers,” she said
wonderingly. “They’re covered with feathers.”

Lily closed the final five feet to stand by Bane’s head. His
lower fangs, clean and white, came up to her waist. Tentatively she laid her
hand on his snout. The leathery skin was warm, almost hot to the touch. His
nostrils flared as he drew in an immense breath. She had to bite back a
startled grunt.

“Most people start with the tail,” Darek said wryly. He
stepped up behind her, his very solid, very
human
frame comforting, and
laid his hand over hers. Together they stroked the mosaic of tiny scales
covering Bane’s face. The bumpy surface was hard, the scales as smooth as glass
and warm. Bane’s eyes drifted closed as though he found her touch pleasing.
This close, she could see that his scales weren’t entirely blue. They were shot
through with threads of gold, like ore in a mine.

“It’s okay, Lily. He won’t bite,” Darek said. The dragon’s
eyes flicked open as Darek spoke the words and he chuckled. “Not hard, anyway.”

“How does he communicate in this form?” she asked. “Surely
he can’t talk.”

Darek chuckled. “No, he can’t speak in this form, but he
projects his thoughts to me. Can you hear him, Lily?”

She shook her head.

He shrugged. “That sort of bridge takes time to build,” he
said. “Pictures are easier to project than words.”

“But he can understand us?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” he said. “His hearing is much better than ours.
All of his senses are, in fact. He sees in infrared, so darkness is no obstacle
to him. But his sense of smell is the most acute and the most important.
Without it, he’s effectively blind.”

Lily walked down the length of Bane’s neck, giving the
talons on his foreleg a wide berth, and stopped beside his shoulder, looking up
at his enormous wings. As she watched, a series of thick scales that ran from
the base of his shoulder to his withers flexed, folding outward.

“Want to go flying?” Darek asked, gripping one of the lower
scales. “He’s inviting you to mount.” She grinned, unable to help herself, and
Darek swatted her butt playfully. “Bad girl.”

She really should
not
like it when he did that, Lily
thought.

The flexed scales formed something between a ladder and a
climbing wall, and Darek climbed easily up. She followed, finding her footing
with surprising ease. On this part of the dragon’s body, his scales were tough
like its hide. A larger scale rested at the apex of his shoulders, a thick,
flexible plate that reminded her of a saddle. Darek straddled it in one
practiced move, pushing one of the thick, upward-facing scales behind his thigh
outward and using it like a hook for the duffel and Lily’s bag. He left room
for her to sit in front of him. Moving awkwardly, she did so.

“It gets easier with practice,” he told her. His body felt
good behind hers—warm and familiar—and she was grateful that he was with her.
They’re
both with you, Lily
, she chided herself, but somehow she couldn’t quite
feel Bane in the beast beneath her.

The dragon lifted its head and looked toward the forgotten
campfire, which winked out as though it were a candle snuffed. Lily opened her
mouth to ask if he’d done that but the dragon got to its feet in a sinuous,
fluid movement that made her stomach flip.

Darek wrapped his arms around her. “Hook your knees under
his scales.” She did as he said, grasping his forearms gratefully. Her heart
pounded.

She looked down and saw that on either side of Bane’s body,
rows of overlapping scales faced each other. The rows nearest her legs were
flexed outward, forming an open clamp-like structure. Behind her, Darek’s legs
were enclosed in a similar formation of scales.
Cool.
She placed one leg
and then the other between the rows of flexed scales. Immediately they closed
tightly over her legs, holding them against Bane’s warm, smooth hide.

“Shifter adaptation,” Darek said, regarding her amazed
expression with amusement. “It does help if the riders don’t fall off.”

“And the fire thing? How did he do that?” she asked.

“We’re fire dragons—the element belongs to us. There are
also water, air and earth dragons. Each group has its own
sovrán
. Kai’s
a water dracambri.”

Beside them, Bane’s great wings lifted, then extended. Lily
saw that what she’d taken for thousands of glittering feathers were, in fact,
thin scales. Following her gaze, Darek offered, “He gets those from his
father’s line. They act like the flaps on plane wings. Makes him much more
flexible in flight than I am. Hold on tight.” Not knowing what else to grab,
Lily gripped Darek’s arms tightly. Just in time. Bane surged forward, gaining
momentum as they moved up the beach. The beating of his wings as he reached for
altitude made for an incredibly bumpy ride.

“He says sorry,” Darek said next to her ear. “We usually
take off from heights, like big raptors. Vertical liftoff isn’t very smooth.”
The beast took one enormous leap and then they were airborne.

Flying was like nothing Lily had ever imagined. Her stomach
quivered and tightened as they rose in the air, Bane’s sinuous spine rising
gently with each downstroke of his enormous wings. His wingspan had to be forty
feet, she guessed, glancing off to the sides. The sound of the waves grew
distant, then vanished altogether and there was only the swish of Bane’s wings
against the air as they continued to climb. The sliver of a moon hovered above
them, unbearably close.

Lily leaned back against Darek, her heart soaring. The heat
of his arms and the touch of Bane’s spine against her in its undulating rhythm
made her want to moan with pleasure.

She bit her lip.
For God’s sake, girl, get a grip. You’re
flying—
flying
—on a dragon’s back, and you’re getting wet?
Risking a
peek over Bane’s muscular shoulder, she saw the glint of his sharp talons in
the moonlight and far below, the glossy surface of the moving ocean. Wonder
merged with desire in her heart and she laughed aloud, not quite daring to
throw her hands up in the air.

To Darek, Lily’s joy was nearly palpable. He rested his chin
on her shoulder to avoid being smothered by her hair and closed his eyes,
feeling her against him. Her lithe body trembled as the wind carried her
laughter away.

It had been a long, long time since he’d taken to the air
for fun, even longer since he’d been aloft in human form. He’d flown on Bane’s
back before, but always in battle, armed, with darkness, fear and death bearing
down upon them.

Tonight, the wind bore none of these things. Instead, her
heady scent came to him, calling to every part of his being, from his most
socially acceptable, chivalrous feelings to his darkest needs. All of him
answered that call with a single word.
Mine.

Ours
, Bane corrected. The word vibrated along their
psychic connection.

Darek opened his eyes and chuckled as he felt Bane’s hide
heat with annoyance.
Sorry. I didn’t know you were listening
, he
replied, forming the idea into words and projecting them to Bane.
Possessiveness was a strange beast, he thought, remembering the sounds coming
from inside the men’s room as Bane had taken Lily for the first time. His cock
hardened and he turned his face into her neck to find that sweet little spot
behind her ear. Her own wild, clean scent carried undertones of Bane’s and his
own. For the creature that shared his soul, the aroma was a sensory experience
akin to the aurora borealis.

The aerie is still ten minutes or so away. Why don’t you
play with her? She hungers
, Bane said, his tone reasonable and
dispassionate.

I was trying to show some restraint,
Darek replied,
frustrated.

She’s been aroused since we took flight. Her scent is
heavy with it,
Bane observed.
She hungers.
Darek resisted the urge
to roll his eyes, knowing from his own experience exactly how the world looked
to Bane at the moment—a perfectly, coldly logical place.

Bane’s flare of jealousy a moment ago had surprised Darek. Human
emotion had almost no foothold on them in this form. There was no room for such
things in the landscape of a dragon’s heart, already a battlefield on which
reason and instinct eternally vied for control.

Take care of our mate,
Bane told him.

“Lily,” Darek said gently, his mouth against her ear so she
could hear him above the wind. “Do you want me to touch you?”

Her sharp intake of breath, accompanied by a frustrated
little sound, was answer enough. All the same, he waited.

She turned her head to the side and he had to smooth down
her hair so he could see. “You guys don’t miss anything, do you?”

“Nope.”

He felt her take a deep breath. “Yes,” she admitted, “I’m
soaked. I’m flying on the back of a dragon, and all I can think about is sex.
Go figure.”

“It’s normal, Lily,” he said. “You’ve just been marked.”

Her hands tightened on his forearms in a grateful squeeze.
“Since you told me I’m half idana, I can’t help thinking there’s some kind of
beast inside me, and if I let it out to play all hell will break loose.”

“That’s an interesting way to put it,” he said.

She laughed.

“Honestly, Lily,” he said, “you don’t have a beastly bone in
your body. Your idana blood isn’t going to corrupt you.”

Bane tossed his head and puffed smoke.

“I gather that’s agreement from him?” she asked.

“Yes. He did add that we are
definitely
going to
corrupt you,” Darek said. Keeping one arm wrapped securely around her
waist—this was, after all, her first time airborne—he let his other hand drift
up her belly and cup her breast, stroking with his thumb. She moaned and laid
her head back against his shoulder, wriggling her bottom against his hard cock.

He bit back a groan. Maybe he should reconsider that part
about her not being able to hurt them. “Oh God, Lily, have pity and be still. I
have ten whole minutes to wait before I can fuck you.”

She stopped. “Sorry. But—ten whole minutes?”

There was an impish edge to her tone that made him
suspicious, but he answered anyway. “Assuming I tear off your clothes the
second we land, yes.”

“Mmm,” she replied, her body relaxing against his.
Mercifully, she didn’t move her hips. “So how are you going to pass the time?”

In answer to her question, he flicked open the snap of her
jeans and pulled the zipper down, skimming his fingers over the soft triangle
of curls between her legs, not quite touching the delicate flesh he knew he
would find already swollen and wet with want. The rhythm of Bane’s undulating
spine beneath them made sure of that.

All playful pretense gone, Lily whimpered. Obliging the
unspoken plea, he took pity on her and covered her clit with the pad of his
finger, pressing down gently. With his other hand, he cupped her breast,
stroking the tight bud of her nipple with his thumb.

Her back arched and she moaned softly, grinding against his hand.
He let her pleasure herself, holding her tightly and listening to the erotic
music she made with her whimpers. When her cries rose in pitch and became more
frequent, he lessened the pressure, not wanting her to come too quickly. He
lowered his head to nip, taste and kiss the vulnerable skin of her neck,
reveling in the scent and texture. Experimentally, he bit down on the muscle at
the base of her neck, just hard enough to leave a mark, and held on.

Lily jumped, tensing. He eased the pressure a fraction but
didn’t release her, wanting to see how she reacted. With his other hand, he
stroked her tender clit. Her back arched and she gasped.

We’re almost there,
Bane said in his mind.
Make
her come. I want to hear it with these ears.

Darek ran his tongue over the tender skin caught between his
teeth, eliciting a moan from her.
Very well.

He opened his mouth, releasing her neck. “Time to come,
pretty girl,” he murmured, thrusting his fingers deep into her wet heat and
stroking her clit with his thumb. Her hungry walls clenched tightly around him
and she gasped, arching. He felt the first flutterings of her orgasm begin and
moved his other hand up to caress the mark on her throat. She came for him,
crying out, her hands clenching his forearms so tightly her nails left marks.

She was still breathing hard and gripping his arm tightly
when Bane’s back legs found a foothold in the small island’s sandy beach.
Darek’s cock ached like mad, but he wanted to take her in the Aerie playroom,
not here on the beach. Taking the opportunity to rub his fingers over her
sensitive clit one more time, he slid his fingers out of her and turned her
chin, wanting to look in her amber eyes while he licked her juices from them.
Her gaze narrowed, heating, and she surprised him by half-turning and kissing
him, tasting herself on his lips.

A low, rumbling growl from beneath them made Lily laugh, a
musical sound he found as erotic in his mouth as her slick wetness. He zipped
her jeans with a tug. Bane’s scales released her legs and she climbed down,
jumping the last few feet down to the sand. Darek followed, dropping the bags
in the sand beside her. As soon as they were off, Bane moved silently away down
the beach, slipping into the quiet surf with a little puff of steam.

Lily frowned. “Where is he going?”

“If I had to guess,” Darek said, “I’d say he’s getting
dinner. Want to look around a bit?”

Lily slipped off the sandals she’d purchased that afternoon
and scrunched her toes into the coarse sand. With the full moon rising, she
could see quite a bit of the landscape in silhouette. The cattail-covered dunes
seemed to stretch for a long way behind the beach, ending in what appeared to
be a forest of short, scrubby, weathered trees. There were no signs of human
presence. No lights dotted the landscape, peering yellow from the windows of
houses, beaming white from streetlights, or blinking red from radio towers. The
only sounds were the soft lapping of the surf and, if she listened hard, the
occasional cry of a bird.

When she looked out over the ocean, she couldn’t see the
mainland. “How far out are we?”

Darek shrugged noncommittally, slipping off his shoes as
well. “Far enough,” he said. “This one’s quite a few miles offshore. It’s on
the maps, technically, but Anthony took a liking to it years ago and has
ensured that humans remained uninterested in it.”

Lily looked up at the brilliant stars in the clear sky. She
liked his thinking. Darek took her hand and moved toward the surf, drawing her
along with him. Darek stopped at the water’s edge, digging his bare feet into
the sand. The waves quickly covered his feet.

“What’s he like—your leader?” she asked.

He shrugged, his eyes drifting closed as his feet sank into
the sand beneath the swirling water. “Anthony’s a good man,” he answered
vaguely. “I don’t know. He keeps to himself. Less so since he found Chloe, but
he’s hard to get to know.” The small waves washed up hundreds of tiny butterfly
mussels, their white shells gleaming in the moonlight. Lily bent down to watch
them as they righted themselves and wriggled down into the sand, seeking
protection. A few yards away, she noticed a group of sandpipers that had been
making its way down the beach, fishing for mussels in the incoming waves. The
small birds hesitated, eyeing them, forming a loose semicircle around the
unexpected company.

“We’re in their way,” Lily said, taking several steps back.
The birds watched, interested in the water, but didn’t come forward with Darek
still in their path.

“They can go around us,” Darek said.

Lily grasped his forearm and tugged. “
Or
we could
find another spot. Look, this is prime hunting ground for them,” she said,
gesturing at the sand as yet another pack of mussels washed up on the beach.

He smirked but gave in, following her a few yards down the
waterline. Lily watched, pleased, as the birds eagerly filled the vacancy.

Her small kindness was undone when Bane, still in dragon
form, emerged suddenly from the surf with a thunderous splash. The birds took
flight, looking for safer ground. Her heart pounding, Lily thought about doing
the same. He looked like an ancient sea monster as the water coursed over his
shining blue and gold scales, running in rivulets down his body and back into
the sea.

In his jaws Bane held an enormous fish that was still
fighting hard. With a toss of his head, he threw the fish in the air and caught
it, snapping its spine audibly in the process.

Lily winced.

“Ah,” Darek said, unaffected by the display. “Dinner.
Excellent.”

Lily gaped at him, taking an involuntary step back. He
grasped her arm, keeping her still. “Seriously?” she asked, her voice little
more than a whisper.

Darek’s mouth curved into a smile that reminded her quite a
bit of the dragon standing not far from them. Bane moved closer, his sinuous
body curving as he walked. He dropped the huge, bleeding fish at her feet with
a thud, as though for her approval.

In spite of herself, Lily squeezed her eyes shut, pressing
her lips together to hold in a scream. She didn’t like being in the water with
fish. They were nipping, biting things she couldn’t see. She liked them even
less bleeding and thrashing on the ground in front of her. Darek laughed,
resting his hand in the small of her back.

There was a flash of blue light. When Lily opened her eyes,
Bane stood before her, his human form reassuring and positively, edibly naked.

Lily felt a wanton smile spread across her face. “That’s
more like it,” she murmured.

Bane pointed at the fish, looking hurt. “I bring you a
twenty-pound king mackerel, and you jerk away like I’m a cat dropping a dead mouse
at your feet?” He shook his head.

Lily covered her mouth, trying not to laugh at the image
he’d put in her head. He seemed genuinely offended.

“It’s a beautiful fish,” she tried, blinking.

Bane rested his hands on his narrow hips, seeming to
consider her compliment. Behind her, Darek snorted.

Lily scanned Bane’s body with open appreciation, a wicked
idea forming in her mind. She took a step toward Bane.

He looked at her warily. “What? I chased that school for
half a mile.”

She nodded in what she hoped was an appreciative manner and
closed the gap between them, putting her toes just inside his wide stance. “And
I’m very,
very
grateful,” she said smoothly, placing her palms on his
damp, hard chest. She leaned forward, feathering kisses along the ridge of one
of his scars. His cock stiffened against her belly.

She reached down to grasp him with both hands, her fingers
overlapping a little.
Oh please let me do this right,
she thought
urgently. She’d never sucked a man before.

He groaned, his knees nearly buckling. “Lily—”

She stood on tiptoe and parted her lips, her eyes drifting
closed. With a sound like a starving man offered a feast, Bane cupped her face
and claimed her mouth with his own. His cock twitched in her hands and Lily
stroked the velvet skin gently with her palms, unsure. Bane pressed his hips
forward, trapping himself between her fingers and her belly, thrusting into her
hands.

He seemed to be asking for more, but more what—more
pressure? More friction? Both? “Teach me,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Show me what you like.”

Behind them, Darek grunted. Lily broke the kiss and turned
toward him. “Darek, wait!”

He smiled, hefted the fish and headed up the beach. “It’s
fine, Lily,” he called. “You guys play. I’ll get dinner started.”

Something primal and demanding stepped forward inside her.
She wanted
both
of her mates.
Now.
“Please stay,” she purred. She
knelt in front of Bane and kissed the tip of his erection. He moaned. “I’ve
never done this before. I’m going to need a lot of instruction.”