Dragon Treasure by SJ Sanders

Chapter 21

Drathnor’s nostrils flared, and his neck curved as he looked down at her, his pale eyes warming with sensual heat. Leaning forward, he ran the top of his nose against hers as he released an icy plume. Tania immediately drew it into her lungs, eager for its cold sting. She hummed with pleasure as she felt the erotic tease of its touch as it circulated and returned it with a wispy cold fog curling from her lips. His eyes lit up, and he dropped his head to capture that mist, inhaling the cold vapor with a rumbling groan of pure desire.

The sound shot straight down to her clit, making her hips snap against him. She gasped as she struggled to breathe. Logically, she knew it was the mate-bond feeding into their desires and amplifying them… and she was quite okay with that. If this was one of the benefits of being mated to a dragon that she would regularly enjoy, she was eager and willing.

Another little gasp left her when he dragged his long, pointed tongue down her throat, his fangs pressing against the tender skin as his wedge-shaped head dropped, following the path of that slick appendage. It slid, curled, and twisted as the appendage explored over every bit of bare skin that he came across—and given that she was nude, that was a lot. Now that they were alone once more, his wings had loosened from their tight, concealing grip around her, baring more and more of her body to his ministrations.

Consumed by the inferno ignited by the glide of his textured tongue over her skin, Tania was only distantly aware of the vibration of enormous wings snapping and their impact when they beat against the walls in the erotic frenzy her dragon was lost within as he stumbled along the corridor. Her attention caught by the repetitive rhythm, Tania blinked the haze from her eyes and squinted through the sparkling mist curling everywhere.

Draconian muzzle gaping, his sharp teeth and long, dagger-like fangs brushed over her skin, following the pass of his tongue. The faint pressure from each point made her skin quiver at every scrape.

She wasn’t the only one affected. His enormous frame shivered ecstatically as purred moans rattled out of him. For only a moment, she caught a look at his eyes, seconds before they rolled back with pleasure, and saw only a sea of black with slivers of the palest hue of cerulean visible. As eerie as they were, they were beautiful, but no more so than the predatory angles of his face caught in rapture. So inhuman and elegant in the sweeping lines of his neck, horns, and the webbed fringes. Not to mention the pearly glow of his scales that seemed to become more luminous as the color continued to leech from them little by little.

In his arms, his every touch was like being worshipped by a beautiful ancient being that was so different that for once she didn’t feel like she had to compete and dominate. Compared to him she was undeniably small and fragile, and his ruthless features, fierce even when caught in the tides of lust or emotion, made her feel safer than she had ever felt before. She could trust him to protect her because he was so remote from the desires that ruled most races, and yet the bond drawing them together—the only thing that truly seemed to matter in his world beyond his hoard—put all of his focus, needs, desires and hopes on her.

Tania’s eyes widened as everything finally clicked. His protectiveness, his obvious affections… everything. It was exactly what he had been trying to demonstrate to her. The bond did cause a series of responses. It was because of the bond that Drathnor didn’t see them as separate beings with their own agendas, one to dominate and control the other. It was the root of why he would risk himself for her and show so much patience caring for her. It was the very thing that fueled his savagery when he fought off the creature attacking her, and when he guarded her in their bed, constantly aware of her smaller size and vulnerability.

They were one.

As her breath gusted out of her lungs, she felt some part of her fully open up. In a breath, it went from a casual understanding setting in to experiencing it so intimately that she could barely breathe because she actually felt it. The only way she could really describe it was that it felt like numerous cords hooking into her, knitting her life force and being to his, with the thickest of those threads anchored in at her heart and womb. She felt them tug at her to surrender, and immediately her need pitched higher as she gratefully yielded. Tania felt her heart jump in her chest and her belly ripple, releasing a fresh wave of arousal to slicken her sex.

Nostrils flaring, a long, pulsing growl left Drathnor, and his dorsal frill shot up like a sail between his two primary horns. He nuzzled the side of a breast and a deep sound rumbled out of him in some sort of rolling language with inflections so deep she could feel them rattle her very bones. Something shifted and moved in front of it, a wave a sensual energy driving down along her spine. She arched, her breath and all sound catching in her throat as it drove down and crashed through her belly like the blast of a storm and failed to bring an orgasm with it. Instead, it added to the building and tightening, her belly fluttering with a need that clawed at her insides as his own claws dug into her flesh.

Tania arched against him again, demanding more as pain and pleasure melded together. It was a symphony within her blood that she sang to him, and he repeated back to her as their energies rose and fed into each other. Her skin stung as pores opened and released crystals that glittered in a shimmering curtain over her even as they crusted over the ridges of his scales. Curling her fingers behind the heavy scales of his jaw, she tipped his head down just enough so that she breathed deep of his icy breath. As before, it hit her blood with its potency and spun her need tighter.

She barely felt the flakes of snow falling against her skin when her mate broke from the corridor onto their private passage, nor the breeze from the gusts of air that whipped around that side of the monastery. The echo of his enormous wings flapping when he took to the air to circle to their balcony was the only thing that pierced her awareness moments before they pitched into the darkness of their rooms.

Her eyes blinked twice, a silver glow filling her vision as her eyes adjusted. To her bespelled eyes, her mate appeared to glow in that darkness, each scale a beautifully cut opal glittering with blues and greens that seemed to shift in response to his emotion or perhaps even the magical currents within them. He was so luminous in her bewitched sight that he seemed to banish the darkness. Not even the memory of the foul thing that had tried to snare her in the water of the baths seemed to be able to exist in the same space as him.

He’s beautiful.

“Drathnor,” she whispered, her voice rough both with desire and the slight damage it had sustained.

He lifted his head from where he was eagerly lapping at her belly, his glowing sapphire orbs meeting her eyes as he tipped his head at an inquisitive angle. His plated brow drew down and he shook his head, a snarl of what she assumed was self-disgust working its way from his throat.

“Forgive me, mate. You are injured. I should not have—”

Tania sank her fingers deeper behind the scales at his jaw and held fast when he attempted to pull his head away.

“Don’t even think about it,” she growled up at him, her eyes narrowing. “If you leave me high and dry again, I will likely try to find a way to murder you. Which would be a shame since I’m now of the mind that I would like to keep you.”

He stilled, dazzling pinks and purples rushing through his opaline scales. At this point, she wished for the dark more so that she could see him in a way that her human eyes never would have been able to. Although her bespelled eyes had never worked that way on anyone else before, she figured it had to be either due to the bond or the dragon himself. It was like they were giving her a peek into the real male behind the illusory dragon’s appearance.

“You wish to keep me now?” he rumbled in a low voice.

She grinned up at him, enjoying the trade in power between them. “I might be tempted if you can show me what you can do,” she purred.

He surged forward with a snarl, his wings snapping around her, providing a comfortable support even as the long talons at their tips anchored them firmly to the wall. His large palms gripped her ass and hoisted her bottom up higher. Her sex clenched with a greedy excitement as he poised her at the flaring tip of his cock that shimmered a vibrant, glittering blue.

His claws lightly biting into her skin, he brought her down hard, the head plowing deep and stretching her mercilessly as the feathered head expanded and dragged against the walls of her sex in that one hard thrust.

“There is no temptation about this, mate,” he growled. “You are mine, and I will impress that point on you now.”

“Please do,” she hissed as he withdrew partially. In the next second, her breath burst from her when his body slammed once more into hers.

Thank the gods for the support of his wings or else she likely would have ended up with some bruises from the hard stone of the walls. Not that she was particularly concerned about it. Her own nails digging into the edges of his scales, she tipped her pelvis against his as she loudly demanded more.

“Don’t fuck me like a virginal princess, dragon. If you are determined that I am your mate, and if I am indeed bonded to you, then I want to feel it!”

It was followed by a string of profanities as his hips slammed forward faster, his body rutting hers with a ferocity that matched, and possibly surpassed that which she had experienced before with him in the caves.

His teeth hooking against her shoulder with just enough pressure to sting, Tania threw back her head and submitted to the enormous body driving against hers, the tip of his long tail lashing against her ass like a whip with every thrust. Curling her hands around his horns, she held on as he fucked her against the wall, his body grinding her against his wings furiously as his sex engorged, stretching her to the point that he could no longer shuttle in and out of her pussy.

Held deep within her body, every grinding movement caressed her erogenous areas as the tip fluttered against the mouth of her womb. His swollen bulge pressed firm against the soft tissue just inside the mouth of her sex, and his grinding rut merely increased until he beset multiple pleasure points, making her entire body convulse as the orgasm that had been building finally burst. A scream shot out as she clung to her mate, her body bearing down and clenching hard in ecstasy around the thick cock that plugged her.

Each shuddering spasm of her sex milked his length until it, in turn, splashed large spurts of seed as his own lusty roar joined hers. His body quivering, his scales briefly seemed to shine all the brighter until dimming into a soft, contented glow.

Tania allowed a pleased smile to curl her lips when he pulled free from the wall and gently lowered her into the bed, his cock still firmly locked inside of her. It was only when he was curled comfortably around her, his massive hand stroking her skin, that he seemed able to speak once more.

“What happened to escaping me and not wishing to be kept?” he asked, his voice a soft rasp in their still darkened room.

She thought about it, her mind settling on the bonds that ran between them that she could feel whenever she focused on them, and she sighed. It would have been easy to pin it on the mind-blowing sex, but that was a cheap way out of the discussion. It wasn’t fair to use that as an excuse when what was between them was so much more. All the anger she had felt, all the resentment, had been born from being caught and controlled.

This was not him taking her over, though, or even controlling her. This was a new way of living. With the bond growing between them, it was as if she had gained everything she had wanted. Safety, faithful companionship.

Her mind still struggled to wrap around it, but she eagerly embraced it, unwilling to give up everything good she now felt.

“I think I finally get what you’ve been saying. You and I, we are woven together. I think that this may be something I want to explore more because it feels good to have that.” She bit her lip as a thought occurred to her. “Is this something special, that you’re mine as much as I am yours, or can it be repeated with others if you wanted?”

He shook his head, his horns slashing decisively through the air with the gesture. “Not for males of my species. Once we select a suitable female, we can only bond with one, though the females may take many males to herself to guard her nest.” He paused, though, and his throat worked uncomfortably. “Of the latter, I wished to keep you ignorant. Because of the way we mate, all that a male has comes into the ownership of his female. I did not want this. I wanted to covet you like the finest treasure of my hoard until I had to visit my hoard alone to replenish my magic and realized just how little it was without you. You are just as necessary. Without you there with me, the magic of the hoard feels unsatisfactory.”

She instinctively began to bristle at the suggestion that she would use their mating to take his hoard from him. Tania didn’t steal from allies, much less lovers—well, not unless they deserved it. Grimacing, she released her indignation with a sigh. Who was she kidding? She literally tried to steal as much dragon gold as she could carry without any thought beyond her own gain the moment that she had the upper hand. Technically, they had been mated then by that one act, even if at the time she didn’t know it. It bothered her in retrospect because she was pretty sure that even if she had known that the dragon considered her his mate, at that point in time she still would have taken off with it, a gleeful smile on her face.

Turning her head to meet his eye, she gave him an apologetic smile.

“Yeah, I can see how my actions totally convinced you that a human mate wouldn’t try to fuck you over,” she sighed, intensely disliking the guilt that pricked at her. “I don’t know where this whole mate thing is going to take us, but I won’t try to steal from you anymore.” At his pleased look, she suddenly grinned impishly up at him. “Does this mean, however, that I get to wallow in your treasure?”

His own eyes gleamed with amusement. “I am not sure how comfortable you will find them. Even I do not care to lie on them for any length of time and I am not covered as you are in such delicate flesh.”

Her lips pursed. “I guess that rules out the whole fantasy of fucking on a bed of gold. Damn. I would have thought that would be a perk.”

His mist curled around her as he chuffed in amusement. “Little mate, if that is what you desire, I will be more than happy to find a way for you to enjoy breeding on gold like dragons do.”

She cast him a curious glance. “Dragons really do that?”

“Certainly. Few things produce stronger young than breeding within the magic of one’s hoard,” he rumbled, pressing his nose against the back of her ear.

His tongue stroked the delicate flesh at the back of her lobe making her shiver. She could feel his cock within her expand further once more, a fresh burst of seed coating her channel, making her quiver from the hormones seeping into her body. If he felt that way about breeding, then fucking on gold was going to be one hell of an adventure.

Her mouth went dry, and another shiver ran through her. “You don’t say. I… I’m not ready for babies. There’s a lot I still want to do before even thinking of that. I mean, hell, it’s a little early, seeing how we just met and I’m only just starting to get ahold of this mate thing,” she muttered nervously.

She felt him shift behind her just before a pair of claws brushed her jaw and tipped her head, angling it so that he could peer down at her thoughtfully.

“Be at peace, mate. There is time,” he agreed, a soft purr rattling from his chest. “Dragons are long lived and now, thanks to the bond, you are as well.” He skimmed a claw down into the valley of her breasts. “It is good that we give ourselves plenty of time for our bond to strengthen and to experience what we can together before the nestlings come. But that does not mean that there will not be much pleasure in the practice.”

Tania shivered, her skin prickling in reaction to the soft touch. Why did she feel somewhat disappointed that there were no declarations or promises of love? Her own feelings were muddled on the matter, and yet Drathnor’s emphasis on the bond and sex, which should have relieved her and fit in exactly with what she was comfortable with right now, felt flat for her.

Still, she felt a certain relief that they were at least on the same page. It made her feel like she could trust him to not just impregnate her because it was an expedient way to keep her under his control. In that way, the focus on their pairing and the growth of their bond felt right and good… and honest.

She grinned up at him. “Oh. Well, hell. Sign me up then.”

Drathnor went curiously silent even though he ground against her a few more times, setting off a small avalanche of orgasms with his every release. When she thought that he was going to refuse to respond, he burrowed against her neck and growled out two words as he drove forward again, his cock fluttering deep inside her with fresh spurts of seed.

“My mate.”