Ondrej (5 page)

But she wasn’t alone, not really.

Krysanthe thrust her hands down into the dirt and felt for the warm, flowing streams of gold. She called it to her like an old friend and its energy filled her, warmed her.

She had the feeling she was going to need it.

O
ndrej’s rage
overtook him and although he’d already used his Alpha fire, he summoned it again.

Whoever this dragon was meant him and Krysanthe harm.

Gods help him, because no one else would be able to.

Only the rage died in his gut when he saw who it was who hunted them—and there was no mistake, this dragon wasn’t coming to offer aid. He was hunting.

It was Dezo.

He’d already had to put down one of his men, he didn’t want to do this, but Ondrej always knew the day would come when Dezo would challenge him for Alpha status. Dezo wasn’t meant to be a soldier, but he’d been a rogue all alone when Ondrej had found him.

He just hadn’t thought it would be like this.

Ondrej had made the mistake of thinking it would be an honorable fight. A challenge issued brother to brother.

But the curl to Dezo’s lips, his baring of teeth and the smoke coming from his nostrils did not note any trace of brotherhood between them.

They clashed midair, Dezo biting and snapping, and breathing
Alpha fire
.

The scales on his chest burned, but Ondrej found he still couldn’t summon his own Alpha fire. His grief and his love for Dezo was too strong.

Until he thought of Krysanthe.

And what Dezo must intend for her.

Then he realized she was in bigger trouble than either of them imagined. Granger’s behavior around Voshkie—his inability to control his Change. Ondrej’s own inability to get his body to comply. Mating Fever.

His dragon had recognized Krysanthe as his mate.

It had been a slow build until she’d been put in immediate danger.

Now, the fire built and raged and he breathed the volcanic spray all over his enemy.

Dezo howled in pain, but continued to slash and tear at him, trying to clamp his teeth around Ondrej’s throat. If he managed the death roll, no amount of fire would free him. He had to do it first or Krysanthe would be dead.

He managed to clamp his own teeth around Dezo’s throat and rolled, taking them down to the clearing where they crashed into the ground hard—hard enough that it would register as a low level earthquake to anyone in the near vicinity.

They thrashed together in the small crater their impact had made and has he tore open the other dragon’s throat and tasted his blood, it was dark and sour.

Just like the ghouls had smelled to him.

Fuck
, had he been infected?

He immediately released Dezo and the other dragon scrambled to his feet and squared his stance, his wings splayed wide. The ground sizzled where his blood dripped down and two ghouls dug themselves up out of the ground.

“What happened to you, my brother?”

“I am not your brother.” Dezo shot another bolt of fire at him.

“I don’t want to fight you. Tell me who did this to you and we’ll destroy them together.”

“You are the only one being destroyed today, and your pretty little nymph, when I find her.” Dezo advanced. “And I will find her. I can smell her gold.”

Gold stalagmites erupted from the earth and impaled the two ghouls.

“Nice trick,” Dezo said, and then lunged for his throat.

Ondrej caught him, but saw out of the corner of his eye one of the ghouls had freed himself and darted toward the trees—and Krysanthe.

He used the last of his Alpha fire to incinerate both ghouls.

“Tapped out, aren’t you?” Dezo snapped his teeth. “I’m not. I have endless Alpha fire.”

Ondrej grabbed Dezo’s jaws and held them open, but he’d need the strength in his back legs to crack them.

They rolled again, but Dezo managed to free himself and the air smelled of dragon fire.

Dezo was going to burn him again and he had no counter fire.

But the fire never touched him.

Krysanthe had clawed her way up onto his shoulder. She caught his fire somehow and used her power to turn it to solid gold. Seemingly, the whole stream, all the way down his throat.

Dezo gagged, fell onto his back and tried to pull the gold out, ripping out with it, his ability to make fire.

“I’ll kill you,” he gasped.

“No, you won’t. You’ll never touch anyone I care about.” She hopped down from Ondrej and ran to Dezo where she lay both of her hands on him.

It started on one scale, a tiny bit of gold shimmer. Until it grew ever larger, spreading all over his whole body like a kind of cancer. He howled and roared, but when his bottom half was solid gold, he couldn’t get away from her. He couldn’t move.

She gasped and screamed as the power flowed from her in a torrent. Ondrej knew from the way her veins stood out on her neck, the sweat pouring from her, she was in physical distress.

He immediately Changed and ran to her, taking her in his arms, but she wouldn’t, or couldn’t stop.

So he opened himself, he allowed her magick to take from him anything it needed to sustain her, to sustain itself until it had been spent. He could feel his life-force flowing away, but he did nothing to stop it.

She was his mate, his always, his forever.

It wasn’t acceptable for there to be breath left in his body if there was none in hers.

Only when Dezo had become solid gold did it stop, and then the earth opened up in a giant chasm and swallowed the golden dragon whole. Then, to his most singular horror, Ondrej crashed to the ground.

“What did you do?” She sank down next to him and pulled him into her lap.

“What it is my honor and my responsibility to do.”

Her fingers were cool on his face and brought some relief to the places where Dezo’s had burned him.

“I should be exhausted. Broken. Even bleeding from what I’ve done and I barely feel like I’ve climbed a flight of stairs.” She looked down into his eyes. “Ondrej.”

He was wracked with spasms of pain so violent he couldn’t hold in his reaction as his bones cracked and splintered.

“How do I fix this? How can I help you?”

“Get to Woolven.”

“Not a chance in hell I’m leaving you on this mountain alone.”

“I’ll heal,” he groaned. It had started already. He could feel his wounds knitting themselves back together even as he lay there. “And when I do, you need to be far, far away from me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mating Fever. My dragon has recognized you as my mate, and if you don’t want that, you need to be as far away from me as you can get.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” Krysanthe said with surety.

“No, I wouldn’t. But the fever, you’d want me too, and damn the consequences. It’s biological. We can’t fight it.”

“We’re not even the same species.”

“Doesn’t matter. How else do you think I was able to give you my strength, Princess? It’s because my dragon thinks you’re mine.”

“We barely know each other.”

“Yet, you were willing to fall into to bed with me.”

“That’s one night. What you’re talking about is forever. It’s damn the peace accord, damn the Remus, and damn everything but what we want.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “That’s the way of the Fever. So you need to go.”

She pursed her lips. “Whatever happens, I couldn’t live with myself if I left you here. Especially since we don’t know if Dezo was working alone. We don’t know where everyone else is and if they’re okay.” Krysanthe shook her head. “No. I won’t do that.”

“I’m healing even now. Just being close to you is giving me what I need.” He reached up a hand to touch her face. “I bet you can start to feel it. Can’t you? Aren’t you thinking about kissing me? About me pushing you down in the grass and tasting all of you?”

She blushed. “I’ve been thinking about that since I first saw you.”

“And now, here we are alone, under a sky full of stars after trauma.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “With a biological imperative to mate.”

She swallowed hard and then wet her lips. “What if we just have sex? Can’t we enjoy each other like we discussed and finish the mission?”

“No. Not now.” He found the strength to raise his head and touch his lips to hers, and that same electricity sparked between them, a visible snap in the dark night. “Now, if we mate, you’ll be mine and I won’t be able to let you go.”

She kissed him again. “That’s not fair. Your lips are like a drug. I can’t get enough, but I know if I don’t stop…”

“I mean it, Krysanthe.” His hands did something completely different than what his brain told them to. He was peeling her jacket from her, touching her silken skin.

“It hurts to stop,” she said as she pulled back from him.

“I know.”

She raised her arms to help him remove her tank.

“Your burns are healing.” She ran her fingers over the newly formed skin, and up to where his scales made a kind of armor for his human skin. “I have to see how far that goes.”

He took off his shirt, all of the pain receding as it was replaced by pleasure from her touch. She followed his scales until they gave way to flesh on his pectorals.

“I’m entranced. Why do you only have it? Is it an Alpha thing?”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

She pressed her lips to them. “I do. This is why you smell like gold.”

“So do you.” He twined his fingers through her hair. “You smell like gold and chocolate. I want to devour you.”

“I think I’d like to be devoured by you, said the maiden to the dragon.” She laughed. “And you smell like the wind, too. I didn’t think it could have a smell. I thought it was my imagination until I was on your back.”

“Krysanthe, you need to be sure. We can’t do this if you’re not willing to make it forever.”

“I don’t know if I want forever, but I can’t stop.”

He forced himself to pull away from her and she gave a small, bereft cry at the separation. “I am more than my dragon,” he growled, more at himself than at her.

“But I’m not.” She crept closer to him. “Part of me wants to surrender and then wants you to take away my responsibility. Say you stole me like dragons in the days of old. But that would bring war to your door.” Krysanthe kissed his cheek. “Our door.” She shook her head. “I haven’t even experienced all of you yet and I can’t imagine giving that up for Remus. Or for anyone. What kind of selfish shit am I?”

“You’re not selfish. It’s how it works with our kind. He has to understand the Mating Fever. Werewolves have it, too. Some of them may not call it the same thing, but they have True Mates. It’s a show of strength to take your True Mate and damn the consequences.”

“I can’t bear another nymph death to be my fault.”

“It won’t be.” He turned his face into hers. “Now you have an alliance with the dragons. Which means you have an alliance with the Woolvens and the Rommulus. You’re not standing alone against the Remus anymore.”

“I like it when you talk politics.” She straddled him. “Are you still in pain?”

“Only my belt buckle,” he teased.

She laughed and kissed him again. “Let’s see about easing that pain, shall we?”

He wasted no time in easing her down onto her back. Ondrej was amazed at how quickly his strength returned and his body healed by being close to her. It was a biological imperative, he supposed, the need to mate and protect. He couldn’t do that if he was broken and bleeding.

When he peeled her out of those white leather pants and she was naked under the moonlight, he was struck but the sheer perfection of her beauty. She didn’t look golden at all, but like a fey creature made of starlight.

This beautiful creature belonged to him.

This female had fought by his side, stood with him against darkness. Now she’d traded what she thought was the right path for a future with him.

“You’re staring,” she said, looking worried.

“Only because you’re more beautiful than I ever imagined a living thing could be.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Good. Because that’s where I want to go.” He kissed her mouth and her hands pushed leathers down his hips.

“I’m so wet. Gods, I wanted you to do all those things to me we talked about, but right now, I just want you to fuck me.”

“Hell yes.” He’d meant to take his time with her, meant to seduce her, to literally be the dragon devouring the maiden. He’d wanted to make her come before he was inside of her, but neither of them could wait.

She wrapped her legs around his hips and he pressed his forehead to hers, eyes open as he entered her.

He watched the different play of emotions on her face from the dark, hooded look of desire, to her widening eyes as he filled her, and then her gasp as he began to move. The walls of her cleft tightened around him, keeping time with his thrusts.

She was his perfect match in every way.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered. “Tell me how you like it.”

“Like this.” She arched up to meet him. “Just like this.”

He moved slowly, with purpose and intent—trying to remember all the things to do that would take them both higher. But the Mating Fever wasn’t to be denied. It wanted culmination, claiming. It demanded its due.

Ondrej fought to hold himself back, stiffened as the tsunami of pleasure threatened to overtake him. It was his pride that saved him. He refused to spill into her after a few thrusts like some untried youth. That’s not how it was going down.

“Don’t you stop.” Her nails dug into his shoulders and the slight sensation only turned him on more. “I feel you holding back.”

“If I don’t, this will all be over.”

She clenched around him again. “It won’t be over. We’ll do it again.”

He groaned and thrust again, but harder this time, and picking up the pace.

“Gods, just like that.”

Who was he to deny his mate what she wanted? Ondrej drilled into her, and clawed at him and arched her back, squeezing him and pulling him deeper.

He was so close and when she whispered into his ear, “You’re mine,” nothing could stop his orgasm.

“I plan on repaying you for that one,” he said.

“Oh really?” She gave a languorous stretch. “Right now?”

“Yeah, right now.” He knelt between her thighs and pressed his mouth to her mound, and two fingers inside of her.

She sighed with pleasure.

His tongue darted out to lave at her clit. He could taste himself, the mix of their mating, and he didn’t care. In fact, he liked it. He loved knowing he’d marked her with his body. She was his. This was his.