“He’s with Clifford in the front while Liam does another perimeter sweep,” Claaron replies, holding her hands in his, and returning to humming their dance tune.
She nods, looking around. “Aren’t there too many of you back here? Shouldn’t you be spread out?”
Falcon’s eyes remain trained on the tree line nearest us, the most advantageous point of attack. “You are here.”
Cait turns to face him, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and I almost laugh at the humanly dramatic flair of her action. “You know, Falcon, if you’re going for ‘Scary Dragon’, that spot’s already taken. Liam is my Scary Dragon, and I’m not scared of you anyway. As far as I’m concerned, you only rate as Snarky Dragon.” She turns back around, grabbing Claaron’s hand once more, getting him to spin her in a circle while she and Jai both laugh.
Falcon raises a single brow quizzically and looks to me, saying nothing. “Nicknames. We all have nicknames. As she said, Liam is Scary. Oliver is Spiffy, though he has gone through a series of names before settling on that one. They are Smiley and Pervy. But she usually calls him ‘Snowflake’,” I say, gesturing to Jai and Claaron. “And Clifford is her Geeky Dragon since he’s our technical guru.”
“And you?”
“Cait usually calls me Crazy Dragon in front of others.” I grin wickedly, thinking of a few other things she has called me during intimate moments. “But I am hers, and she is mine.” My tone is deathly serious, daring him to cross any boundary of propriety with her. “Cait may call me whatever her heart desires, and I shall always respond, as is the way of an eternal love such as we share.”
“That sounds quite disgraceful for a dragon. I shall hope I never have a female ward. To feel such a love seems a great weakness, not a strength at all.”
“You fail to understand, Falcon. Yes. I love her as my female ward, but Cait is the North Star. What she creates in us is far more than what we have known before. I love her as a man should rightfully love his wife and will do so for all eternity, just as she will love me in return. It is divine, Falcon, and so is she. To serve her in any capacity is the greatest of honors.” I stare hard into his eyes, watching him hold his breath, as though he fears what I say. “You dishonor yourself and your house not to see the opportunity you have been given to stand and revel in the light of our North Star, even if for a brief moment in your existence. Whereas for me, she shines brightly until we both return to dust.”
“Theo-o-o-o,” Cait yells, giggling and running toward me, leaping into my awaiting arms, wrapping her own arms around my neck and her legs around my waist as I pick her up.
“Yes, my beloved?” Her vibrancy makes me smile, so full of life and energy, basking in the love of the family she has brought together.
“It’s chilly out here, and you’re my favorite way to warm up.” She gives a wickedly insinuating grin, and I hold her closer, letting her bury her face in my neck, feeling her cold nose tickle my skin as she breathes.
And Falcon watches us. I hold something in my arms and in my heart that he will never understand.
“You’ll find everything you need once you lose what you found.”
Those words burrow an icy fear within my heart as well, and I hold Cait tighter.
Chapter 5
*Cait*
“We’re supposed to be cleaning up for dinner.” Clearly, that’s not what he’s after as Theo closes the bedroom door behind us, pressing me against it, barely leaving room between our bodies to pull his shirt off. The taut muscles of his stomach flex as he reaches his arms over his head, tossing the tee aside, and I flatten my palms on his heated bare skin, irresistible to touch.
“Runa is quite understanding.” His voice is low, husky, needy.
Hot fingers run along the waist of my jeans, slipping under my sweater, gliding upward, taking the fabric with it, and I can’t complain. I don’t want to. Everything in me wants him just as desperately. I feel the aching desire, the yearning radiating from Theo with as much strength as his supernatural body heat. His tongue runs over my lips enticingly before he leans back, pulling my sweater off, tossing it to the floor, hands returning to mould to the curves of my body, touching, caressing from shoulders to hips. He drops to his knees slowly, looking up, eyes darkened by desire, never leaving mine as he skillfully uses his teeth to release the button of my jeans, tongue and teeth working to grasp and drop the zipper.
Hooking his fingers to slide them down together, Theo leaves a blazing trail of kisses on my legs as he moves my jeans and silk panties to the floor. My heart beating an erotic staccato and breaths coming heavy, I try to run my own fingers through his hair, guide him where I want him, where I need him now, but his strong hands grasp my arms.
“Not this time, Cait.” Something in my dragon’s demanding tone arouses me further. “Step out.” I do as he commands, and he moves my clothes away, reaching back for his discarded t-shirt. “Hands behind your back.” His voice is dark and dangerous, sending a heated thrill through me. Gently, but not too gently, he ties my wrists with his shirt, secure, yet not painful. Exciting. Standing again, he scoops my breasts out of the cups of my bra, perching them atop the lace, tweaking the nipples into pert, hardened, pink pebbles. The corner of his lip twitches, and he leans down, grazing the rugged stubble on his face over my soft skin, teasing my now sensitive nipples with his teeth and tongue all-too briefly before pushing my feet apart with his own then stepping back, admiring his handiwork.
“My wife… So provocative. You like this. I can smell it.” His lip twitches again, and he bites it. I can tell he’s trying to maintain the façade of perfect control, though I feel his raging desire, but something in him needs this, has to hold onto dominance in this moment. He kicks off his boots, keeping his eyes on me. “What do you want me to do to you, Cait?”
His hand drops to his jeans, thumb hanging on the waist, fingers stroking over the hardened length I see straining for freedom. I don’t know who he’s teasing more really, me or himself. “Maybe I want to do something to you, Theo.” I lick my lips, slow and sensual, watching his breath hitch just a bit. Control is a façade in every way.
“No.”
I try not to roll my eyes. Of course not. Tie me up and pleasure me, we’re just being kinky. Tie me up and pleasure him, we’re toeing the line of degrading women. No go with a dragon.
One of these days, Theo’s going to find himself tied up.
He loses the jeans in painstaking slow motion and stalks toward me like a predator, closer, nearer still, pressing against me, leaning down until his lips are at my ear. “Do you like when I do this, Cait?” His hand slips from my shoulder along the curves of my body, finding its way to the juncture of my legs, fingers ghosting over but not pushing in, radiating heat to match mine, thumb pressing on my throbbing clit far too gently.
I wiggle, trying to force him to do more, but he keeps eased off just enough not to give in to me. “Harder,” I whisper.
His mouth is at my right breast in a heartbeat, sucking, biting, giving me the kind of hard I might want, but not where I do, fingers and thumb still teasing, almost out of reach, and I may come undone out of pure insane desire. I try to pull my hands apart, wanting to grab him, make him do what I want, but he tied me tighter than I thought. I try sliding my feet together, hoping to capture his hand, but Theo plants his feet in my way, keeping my legs spread. Closing my eyes, I focus on his mouth, not how much I need his hand to be doing far more, but he teases just a tiny bit more, and I can’t. My body’s at its raging boiling point, a coiled spring.
Suddenly, he moves his fingers. “Ohmygoddess,” rushes out as one word, almost with the same force his two fingers slipped inside me, his mouth on mine, muffling the pent up tension releasing explosively. He captures me in his arm as my legs tremble and give way. Theo doesn’t stop, unrelenting in the way he expertly manipulates my body to do his bidding, playing me like a finely tuned instrument in his hands. I shudder and tremble in his arm, his body hard against mine,
sinewy muscles rippling with every move he makes, working me up and over the edge until I can’t … I just need … and he feels it.
Tenderly, he kisses my lips once more then slips his fingers from my body to his tongue, sucking them, his eyes trained on mine. “So sweet, my wife. I hunger for you.” The words come out strained in his own need of release, and he unties my wrists, sweeping me into his arms, carrying me to the bed, laying me back and effortlessly burying himself inside my body with a deep guttural growl, clenching his teeth. Throwing his head back, he lets out a deafening primal roar, and I know this isn’t just Theo, my betrothed, my dragon roaring.
This is the Alpha. And when he looks down at me, eyes blazing in intensity, lowers to kiss me, passionate, rough, hot, fiery, thrusting forcefully, building me up again, harder, hotter, faster, I see it. Theo takes my face tenderly in his huge hand, turning my head, and I swallow, unsure what he’s about to do, but I’m willing to give him anything he needs. He does no less for me. His lips are on my neck then his tongue, and I shiver, breath catching—then his teeth, not blunt human teeth, sharper, and he bites down as his thumb somehow finds its way between us, rubbing at my clit again, distracting, raising the waves, coiling the spring. I smell the mild scent of blood but barely register the pain in the midst of the building ecstasy.
Breathing heavily with the taste of blood on that breath, his forehead meets mine, an arm behind my neck, holding me close, hand on my hip, my legs wrapped around his body, rocking into each thrust, unable to be as connected as I want. “You are the North Star,” he whispers huskily. “You are mine.” He sensually bites my lower lip, and I’m almost there. An even deeper growl vibrates from his chest—territorial, dangerous. “As such, I claim rights to First. First above all houses. First to all that is yours.”
I’m so close, I can barely breathe, barely speak, but he needs this more than I believe he’s ever needed anything from me. “Yes.” I swallow, trying to breathe. “You are my dragon. First of all. All that is mine.”
Theo thrusts harder, deeper, faster, the growling more primal than anything before, but it’s incredibly sensual on the most carnal level, and my body responds to him, to his power, his raw energy, bursting like fireworks around him until he responds in kind, loudly, ferociously. Rightfully.
And as he kisses me once more before rolling over, pulling me with him, curled into his arms, I think I just gave him Agtos Pendragon’s job.
*Corrin*
“Hold still, Corrin,” orders my sister, aiming the needle as she holds my arm straight.
I look to the worn oak floor, sitting on the edge of my bed, wishing she would not dismiss my wishes, yet I find myself unable to refuse her. Goddess only knows to what lengths she went in order to obtain Glucaplatacolet without raising suspicions. There are no casual uses for the glucose, platelet, and lab-synthesized drug mixture. It’s only purpose has ever been to treat vampire illnesses, those such as mine, inabilities to absorb nutritional requirements, a scientific advancement to prolong life when starvation is inevitable.
“Runa …” I speak softly. More than sixteen hundred years she has been my brother’s wife, and never has she judged me for my actions, always treating me with the greatest of kindness. “You do know GPC cannot prevent this, do you not?” Clenching my teeth, I try failingly to hold my fangs from dropping in response to the burning pain of the drug as she injects all twenty-five milliliters at a slow and even pace.
“Jennifer got enough to keep you supplied for a while. I’m not sure how long it’ll last in your condition though.” Her voice is quiet, casual. However, in all honesty, I find myself rather shocked by this news of my secretary’s involvement. She remains focused on her task, paying no mind to my reaction, carefully removing the needle, placing pressure on the injection site.
“Why?” I ask, standing, tired of playing the part of sickly patient. Much rest and the fast-acting medication stir a need to move, take action.
Glancing up at me, Runa’s smile brightens as she shakes her head, wavy blond hair tossing over her shoulders, and her vivaciousness reminds me of Cait. “Corrin, do you think we were the only ones who saw something more in you? Your father, Evan, me … Oliver?” She reaches up on her tiptoes, kissing me on the cheek. “Sweetie, not everyone believed the asshole mask you wore outside this house. Jennifer worked at the royal offices nearly ten years before all of this. She caught glimpses of our Corrin—the son, the brother, not just the king or the vampire weighted with the expectation to be a monarch his whole life.”
“My own grandfather saw no such thing. How can I believe a deity so emotionally removed from this clan could judge me wrongly, yet those entangled at the heart of the matter held perspective above his?” I question, though not intending to be harsh in my manner.
She sprays my arm with a liquid sealant on the puncture wound, blows gently to dry it then rolls my shirtsleeve down before discarding the hypodermic needle in the medical waste container. I do not understand why Jennifer went to such trouble to gather the numerous necessary supplies for my care. “Oh, sweetie, you weren’t that bad. If you had been, I would’ve sharpened an elm branch and staked you myself,” she says, likely only half-teasing. Runa has always been one to take matters into her own hands if she deemed it necessary. “Dante has high standards, Corrin. Maybe if the Oracle never said you’d be High King it would have been different, but as it was, well, you can imagine his expectations were … profound, to say the least.”
“Indeed.”
Walking away, I find my signet ring lying atop the dresser, its worn gold standing out on the dark cherry wood. As I slip it back on my finger, it is quite impossible to disregard the fact that its symbols are rather meaningless now. I hold the crown by tricks of smoke and mirrors, an illusion for the public until the Dracopraesi resolve this matter of war with the elves, Z and his loyalists … or perhaps until my death. Either way, I am King Corrin mac Cedric of Clan Corrigan in name alone. In truth, I am simply Corrin, a Celtic warrior of twenty-six, unmarried, childless, turned vampire some twenty-four hundred years ago. Never was I anything else, anything of great meaning.
I run a finger across the engraved dragon, so easily recalling the pride my dragon showed for me upon my coronation fifty-three years ago, seeing his Lord Regent present this to me on behalf of the Dracopraesi. Agtos gave this to a king, a ward with more dragons than another ward in existence had ever held to loyalty. The four great Brothers of Pendragon as the world came to know them in their roles leading the King’s Guard.
Shaking my head, I laugh silently at myself, so full of my own power, quick to dismiss Cait as a meaningless human, a woman pliable to my will. So foolish am I. Cait, a woman holding the loyalty of entire houses of dragons, including my Oliver.
“Had I not been the one chosen, prophesied to be High King, Runa, never would I had been Oliver’s ward.” Though I say the words aloud, they are meant for myself more than her.
My sister’s hand touches my shoulder in her gentle way, a mother’s way. She never speaks of her lost children, but her actions have always spoken of a mother’s heart. “You never thought you’d have to say good-bye.”
Lowering my head, I cover the ring with my other hand, bringing it to my face, inhaling the scent of wax lingering from personal correspondence over the years, most recently, my note to Cait, and feel the tears sting my eyes as I try to blink them away. “I know not what I thought. I thought my words and actions were something other than they were. In the cold hard light of fact, they were the product of ego and corruption, wielding a power beyond my comprehension of its spread.” Wiping my eyes, I heave deeply, unable to go on contemplating this now, and turn to her, forcing a broad smile. “I think we have a house bursting full of guests to which you are acting the part of a poor hostess, Runa, which is quite unlike you, dear sister. What I think is that we must go downstairs and join them. I can no longer remain cooped up here as a bat in an attic. Such myths of vampires are far-fetched children’s tales.
”
Just as we reach the top of the staircase, Cait comes out of her room, Theo at her back, and I halt, waiting for them as Runa goes ahead to finish preparing the evening meal, though I’m sure Evan has let nothing fall out of hand. “Good evening, Cait.” I stop myself from bowing as propriety dictates, having learnt how greatly she frowns upon such behavior, instead, smiling with a mild nod. “And you, Theo.”
Turning to him, I catch the scent in the air and step backward, stumbling for both words and comprehension, nearly tumbling down the stairs but for the dragon reaching out to grab my arm, pulling me upright again. “What’s wrong, Corrin?” Cait questions me without fail in her compassion, touching my face, looking in my eyes, but I pull away, refusing to look at her—most definitely not if he has taken such a position.
“Nothing is wrong, milady.” Falling back to the recourse of absolute propriety seems safest, unsure his expectations.
“Oh, what in Hades’s name did you do, Theo? Why is he acting weird? He never acts weird.”
I am pleased to hear she thinks of me thusly. On many occasions, she has expressed her thoughts on how I act arrogant, pompous, self-righteous, egotistical, and sundry adjectives, of generally negative connotations. My personality is by no means faultless; however, I do believe this to be the first positive statement Cait has made to the effect of an absolute rule. I never act weird.
“He does not act ‘weird’ now either, Cait. Corrin responds in a manner appropriate to his recognition of my place within the ranks of the Dracopraesi.” His tone remains rather nonchalant, yet I feel his eyes boring into me, daring me to look at him. I stand straight, shoulders squared, unwilling to look weak before him; however, I will not engage in direct eye contact, have not the strength to put on the façade of King Corrin, no minutia of desire to challenge his dominance.