I flew through the day and into the night, following the directions on the map that Mary gave us. We had stopped to eat and to rest several times, but I knew we would be hunted so we didn’t stop for long. Arista, my hunter, had become the hunted. I did not know the place on the map but I trusted my sister. She helped us escape when she didn't have to and for that, I would always be grateful. My siblings were always loyal to our father but we were also loyal to each other. I didn't think they would defy my father for me, but some part of me knew they would help.

Mary had suggested that Alec was helping as well and that was good as far as I was concerned. There’d been a note from Mary in one of the bags, a note that had been wrapped around a small vial. The note had said I was to drink the potion once we reached the new land. I would lose my powers as a dragon, but I would be untraceable. Anyone who knew me would not recognize me, which was an added bonus.

I flew south, and we arrived at our destination. It was a land of veiled women and men in long white robes or tunics with loose pants. This land had rejected the human world far more than we had. The houses were barely over two stories tall, made of wood, sand, and stucco, and were designed to keep out the heat. This was a land where the sun rarely set.

“This was a good choice, Father,” I heard the voice of my unborn child say in my head.

I chuckled as I landed, shifting with Arista in my arms. “We can hope, son.”

Arista looked around, her eyes wide as she looked at a scene that looked like it belonged in Biblical times. Donkeys brayed in busy streets of sand pressed so hard by wheels and feet that it was almost pavement. Some of the donkeys were pulling wagons, others carrying heavy loads, and men and women bartered in a market around us. Nobody batted so much as an eyelash at us as we moved through the streets, looking for a place to stop for the night.

Before long, we’d found a home for rent, two floors of course, with a nice courtyard, and ventilation that drew a nice breeze through the house. We spent the first week trying to figure out how to cook without electricity, how to wash clothes, and which were the best markets to go to. Arista got the hang of washing clothes while I figured out how to cook on an open flame and in a brick oven. We couldn't really store food and neither of us had clothes, so we spent a lot of time at the markets the first week we were there.

Arista loved the flowing dresses sold by the same women who had made them, and I learned to relax in the loose pants and tunics worn by the men here. I was used to tight leather constricting my movements, so it was nice to be able to move freely for a change. We spent most of our time the second week preparing her for a fight we knew would come.

I taught her how to defend herself, and saw her natural instincts coming out quickly. She moved gracefully and with purpose, her eyes always on the target. We practiced every single day, knowing that my father could appear at any moment. I didn't know if we would be able to withstand an attack but we were both preparing for it.

Each night the sun set for a few hours, and these we spent in bed, memorizing each other.

I was angry for the first few weeks. It was only Arista and her love that kept me from losing myself to my rage. I was angry at my father for wanting to break my bond with her, for wanting to kill my mate, and for putting us both in prison. I was angry at the world for saying I could not be with her because of what she was. Mostly, I was angry at fate for making us both what we are; a dragon and a dragon hunter.

When I touched her our son's voice would go quiet and he would retreat to his own place. it was then that I could lose myself in her and forget the rage inside me. She knew her body was changing but we still hadn't talked about our son yet. I was worried she would panic as she had in prison and I did not want to spoil this idyllic time.

As the child's mother, she should be able to hear him, but so far she hadn’t. I decided not to worry about it because I knew we had time. I didn't know how much time we had, but we were making the best of it.

The bags my sister gave us were full of coins and food. The food was gone now but the coins would last us a lifetime. I knew Arista’s fingers itched for technology, but she was coping well. Anything that was not a prison cell had to be better. She was already trying to learn the local language and often spent time at our neighbors’ houses watching them cook. It really was a perfect time in our lives.

She came into the courtyard made private with high walls and palm trees, and fell onto the bed of pillows we’d made there.

“You'll never guess what I learned today?” she said with a smile as she looked up at me, her beautiful face on my shoulder.

“What’s that then, my love?” I brushed a damp curl of hair from her forehead and smiled at her.

“Donkeys are the only pack animals here because horses don’t exist in this world!” She grinned at me, her eyes sparkling with laughter.

“That’s a fairly good reason then.” I felt her breasts pressing into me, and felt my pulse quicken. I always felt like that when she was near. I doubt I’d ever stop feeling that way.

“I also learned that women drink juice from a certain fruit to make themselves more attractive to the men. It’s supposed to make them beautiful.” She chewed at her lip as she looked at me with a speculative look. “Do you think I need some of that?”

“You know better, Arista.” I pressed her back into the pillows, my body covering hers as my hand pushed the hem of her dress up. “I think you know perfectly well you don’t need that at all.”

She laughed, her head thrown back in total abandon. I loved her this way, free and relaxed, not always tense with worry as she’d been the first times we were together. Or scared and almost broken as she’d been in the prison. I think of all the things I’m angry about, I’m most angry at what my father had done to Arista, not to me, but to her.

This carefree spirit in my arms now was the woman I loved the most, and he’d almost destroyed her. I would not allow that again. I could only hope that potion would continue to hide me from my father.

I inhaled her scent from the pulse in her neck as my fingers teased up her smooth thigh. There were jinn here, and magical ways that were far different from my own land, so I had to assume the fact that Arista’s body stayed smooth without the benefit of a razor was some magical trick the women here had shown her. Either way, I appreciated just how smooth she was as my fingers found her wet and ready for me.

“I have to taste you,” I whispered in her ear before I moved down, pressing her thighs open as I slid past her breasts. The gown she wore, a dress of silky cotton and buttons, opened as I pulled myself down her waist, revealing her naked body to me. I gasped in air as I looked at her, always in awe of just how beautiful she was.

Her nipples were tight on her round breasts, breasts made rounder by her pregnancy, and I knew not to touch them yet. They’d been sensitive before she was pregnant, now she’d go off with just the right touch. I let my hands do the work tracing slow circles down her waist as I moved my face between her thighs. Teasing nips of my teeth on the inside of her thigh didn't shift that sexy smirk she wore, but it did make her eyes go dark.

“You ready for this, my love?” I asked her, daring her to say no.

“Well, I do have a—oh!” She gasped when my tongue swiped at her folds, folds I’d pressed open with my hands. Her clit was throbbing there, pink and ready for my tongue. “Fuck, that’s so good. I do have a class when the shadows reach the well.”

The only way we had of telling time here was by referring to the shadows on the communal well. I pressed my lips to her clit and hummed.

“Hmm, so you don’t want to come on my tongue, is that what you’re saying?” I teased her with another long swipe.

“Yes, I mean no. Fuck, just suck me, Malcolm!” Her fingers tightened in my hair as her hips danced up to press into my face.

She wanted it and I couldn’t say no.

The part that really drove us now, was that we shared each other's thoughts at times of high emotions. Right now, my woman was at the height of her emotions, and her brain was full of beautiful dirty thoughts. They flashed through my mind as I sucked her hard clit into my mouth, flooding my brain with the most indecent thoughts. My cock was already a bulging ridge in my pants, but when her thoughts flooded into my brain I had to press myself into one of the pillows just for a moment of relief.

Her hands tangled in my hair, almost pulling it from the roots as the pleasure increased intensely. My own thoughts invaded her mind, filling her head with my own version of eroticism. She was bent over the table that we ate from in one scenario, up against the wall in a dark alley in another.

In all of my erotic thoughts about my mate, I was always inside of her, groaning her name into her neck as I filled her with my come. I only had thoughts for her, nobody else. She interrupted my thoughts now, when her fingers tightened just a little bit more in my hair. She was getting close and it was making me impossibly harder.

I glanced up to see her writhing on the pillows and felt the tight grip of her thighs over my ears. I searched in my head for just the right fantasy, and inspiration struck. I thought about her on her knees in that same dark alley, my dick in her mouth. Not because it turned me on, which it did of course, but because she loved it. She loved sucking my dick, she loved it even more when we might be caught.

“Harder, Malcolm, oh fuck, make me come baby, please make me come.” Her begging only made my cock harder. I knew desire would twist her insides even after she’d come, but at least this way she got some relief from it.

I let her folds go, my mouth now tight on her clit, and sought out the entry to her wet heat. I was soon sliding a finger inside of her, and her walls clamped down around my finger. She was so close, so very close. All I had to do is stroke her in just the right way. I crooked my finger inside of her until I found that spot, that spot that made her stomach suck in as I stole her breath away in one fantastic orgasm.

Her hips surged down into the pillows as her ass squeezed tightly, and her spine arched her into a bow. That was it, that was the place she wanted to be. My tongue kept a steady pace as my lips gave her the added impact of suction, and she just kept right on going. I wasn’t jealous, I knew my time would come and Arista would have me on my knees begging for the release that only she could give me.

I waited until her hips relaxed and her breathing changed before I pulled away one last time. She was done now, but I’d let her rest, no matter how hard my dick was for her.

“That never gets old. Or stops surprising me,” she panted above me, her fingers now playing in my hair. I knew her eyes would be closed and she’d have a huge smile on her face without my having to look.

I knew her well enough to know exactly how to satisfy her now.

“Your turn,” she said suddenly, and pushed me back on the pillows. I could only grin as her nimble body moved over me.

My shirt was soon in a palm tree, swaying with the fronds, and my pants were in the fountain, but I didn’t care because Arista with her cheeky smile, had my dick in her hands and was wetting her lips in anticipation.

“I’ve waited for this all day.” She breathed against my shaft, her lips making the long edge slick as she sucked her way down the length. “I’ve been thinking about the way your dick tastes, even when those old women were trying to tell me about how to get stains out of cotton. I still don’t know because all I could think about was how you taste in my mouth.”

With that last word, she took what she wanted. Her lips teased the head of my cock, sucking it until I thought my balls would explode in surrender, but then she moved down, taking me deep in her throat. She’d practiced until she figured it out and now she could take all of me.

It was a glorious sensation, but not as glorious as watching her do it. I loved the way her cheeks hollowed out as she sucked me, and I pushed her hair away from her face for a better view. I let her finish me that way, rather than taking her body, because it was what she wanted.

I didn’t care what I might want, I lived to please Arista now, and I’d take control when she wanted me to. For now, I was more than happy to come in her hungry little mouth, my finger teasing at her lips as I did so. She swallowed every drop of ecstasy, and for now, life was completely perfect.