Thyra was confused, her heart was aching, and fear was starting to creep in. I couldn’t blame her, this wasn’t the life she’d led. She lived a life with cars, electricity, and danger, but nothing like this. She’d lived a peaceful life compared to many, even with that awful man she’d married, only to divorce. I didn’t want to let her go, but I knew it wasn’t my place to make her stay.

“If you want to go back to your world, Thrya, I can send you there. I can get you to one of the dark places in South America, then you’ll have to find your way home from there. There’s no portal into your country.”

“I just...” I could see the indecision, the uncertainty, and knew she needed the truth.

“This is not going to be easy, Thyra. Airitech is dangerous, and what he wants could end my world and yours. We might all die in the process, but we have to try and fight him. He’s cagey, and there is evil in this world the same as in yours. He’s growing support from the disenfranchised in the magical world from what Wruin has said. He has to be dealt with. If you think you’re unable to help with that, I understand. This life isn’t for everyone.”

I could see pain in her eyes, emotional pain, and wanted to take it away, but I couldn’t lie to her.

“I think, I just...” She held her hands out, open and empty. “I have nothing to offer do I? I’m not magical like you or the others. I don’t have the karate skills Holly mentioned. I’m not a giant. I only have two weak human hands to offer.”

“Maybe that’s what we need, but no. I won’t try to sway you, Thyra, forgive me that moment of weakness.” I had to look away. The pain of losing her pricked me already.

This was so much worse than leaving Riever. So very much harder.

“It’s just too much, Endre. I can’t do anything but die. That would be even worse wouldn’t it? If I died and left you alone?” Her eyes implored me for understanding, she didn’t seem to realize she already had that. Maybe she was trying to convince herself.

I held my hand out to her, to her heart. I placed my palm flat and listened. I could hear the gentle beat of her heart in my own blood. I closed my eyes, opening my mind to hers.

I felt something soft brush against my brain, just as I brushed against hers. I found her memories, her thoughts, her hopes and fears, the same as she found mine in that moment. This was far more intimate than even sex, but I wanted her to have this part of me before she left.

I knew everything about her, just as she knew herself, with that one act. We were each other from that moment on. Wherever she went, whatever she did, I would always be a part of her.

“You will know if I die, my heart. You will know if I survive. If you change your mind, all you have to do is think it, and I will come for you. Somehow, I will find a way.”

I saw her eyes change, become darker, as she looked at me. She can’t leave without knowing me. I knew her thought before she even thought it. I would give her anything, anything at all. And this would be a gift to me as well.

I pulled her to me, tasting her lips hungrily as her hands pushed away my shirts, and I removed hers, our pants flew away a moment later. Naked skin came together and turned to flames, or so it felt as her skin brushed against mine. Fire was my friend, it was what I was when I was a dragon, and with Thyra stoking the fire deep inside me, I let her fire consume me.

I fell back on the soft moss mattress of the bed, taking her with me. I felt her calves straddle my hips, and her breasts flattened against my muscled chest. She grinned down at me, her eyes burning for me as she drank me in. Her lips came to mine and I inhaled sharply of her scent. She smelled so familiar now, a scent that hit me in the stomach whenever I smelled it. I tasted her as I drank in her tongue, teasing it with my own as I sucked at her lips, tasting the flavor of her scent, and savoring it.

Her fingers clenched on my shoulders and she moved to offer me her breasts. Her hands were planted on each side of my head as I took one, then the other into my mouth to tease the peaks into hard little beads. Her hips ground down into me as I licked the nipple between my teeth with a slow swipe of my tongue.

“That feels so good, Endre.” I heard her breath above me, and couldn’t stop the grin that stretched my mouth wide. I knew she loved it from the way her hips ground down into my abdomen so deep, with a frantic pace that told me she was close, so close, if only she could hit just the right spot, at just the right time.

I also knew it because I could just feel the brush of her thoughts against mine. Knowing how aroused she was by my touch deepened my own arousal. It became too much, because she became aware that I was aware, and I had to step back, mentally, or be lost in a mirrored maze of our own creation.

I stroked a finger down her spine as her hips danced on me, the slender line of her vertebrae was an enticing valley, but I trailed down, until I cupped her ass in my hand. I held her to me before I clenched the globe of flesh, directing her movements as I felt arousal pulse through me. I was so hard it ached, and I felt a pain I hadn’t felt in a long time. The pain of arousal.

I shuddered for a moment, and thoughts of pulling her down, pulling her right onto the part of me that ached the most for her filled my head.

“Endre, please...” She gasped as the thoughts flooded my mind, then hers in the next second. “Do it.”

But I couldn’t yet. I wanted to touch her, to memorize every part of her, before she left me.

I dipped my hand down, from her bottom to the deep well of her desire. I could hear myself groan as my middle finger sank into her slickness. She was greedy; she needed the release that was just right there, if only I’d give her just that one thing more.

I pushed, just a little, just enough to get my other hand between us to slide into the valley between her thighs. That’s when she exploded into a release that I could see as hot blue flames but the rest of the world would not witness. They would never see this, because they were not magical. She was also mine, and there would never be another soul that would make her come so hard that her fire burned blue.

She pushed her hips down, not ready to explore, not ready for slow love-making, but totally consumed with the need to be a part of me, now. She clamped down onto the finger still buried inside of her, as her thighs gripped my sides. I could hear her calling out my name and it made my cock pulse with impatience, but I held on, letting her have this first moment as she lost herself in pleasure.

Thyra rode it out, my finger on her clit working out every single shiver I could before she collapsed atop me. She wasn’t done though, as I said, Thyra was greedy and she wanted more immediately.

I felt her slide slickly down my abdomen, until she was straddling my hips. Her small hand found the length of my cock and before I could even enjoy a shiver of pleasure at her touch she sank down onto me. She took me into her tights walls and as her wet heat surrounded me, I forgot about the world outside, I forgot about my past, and my feud with Wruin. There was only Thyra, there was only us.

Our minds became one as we moved together and I felt a shudder begin in her depths. My fingers found her breasts, cupped the heavy globes and teased at her nipples as the shudder turned to a tight spasm around me.

“That’s it, Thyra. Let go baby. Give it all to me.” I felt her pleasure as my own, she felt mine as hers, and her dance on my cock became slow, a teasing grip of fascination as she slid up my shaft. She would sink back down and I’d thrust up into her savoring the feeling of being invaded as I invaded her pussy.

Sweet was the only word for it. Maybe succulent too, she was so wet it was like biting into a ripe peach every time I pushed my cock up into her. I could feel the way it felt to her, and it was blowing both of our minds.

She leaned down to kiss me, her hips still working on me as we moved together, and rocked together. She gasped and forgot to breathe as the shift caused a pressure against her clit and I moved my hands to cup her ass once more. To grind her in just the right way against my pubic bone.

My hips moved faster, tighter, entering her deep but quick, teasing at the place within her that made her cry out my name. I clenched my jaw, wanting to wait, wanting to fall into ecstasy with her. I was the one left gasping as her fingers found my own nipples and pinched, the pleasure new and unfamiliar.

I felt her walls grip me tight, milking me, and could hold myself back no more. I felt my balls contract and pleasure shoot from the tip of my cock as the grip became deeper, tighter, faster, and we fell over the edge together. We truly were one as the world went dark and I experienced her orgasm with her.

She shook in my arms, lost the ability the speak, and simply shook as we continued to move together, the blue flames surrounding us both now.

The shaking of our bodies faded far too soon for our liking, but we clung together, shaken by what we’d experienced. We really had been one. I didn’t want to let her go. I didn’t think I could. Not this time.

Thyra slid from me, her breathing still ragged as she tried to recover from her first experience as the mate of a dragon. I glanced over at her, my breathing already under control. She was weaker than a dragon, but she was strong. I watched her push her hair out of her face, and leaned over to kiss her, the heat on her lips still burning.

“I will have to find a way to let you go. I’m not sure I can, though, Thyra.” I paused as her striking brown eyes opened and she gazed up at me, pain shadowing her smile.

“I have to go, Endre. I just...” She sat up, her back a work of biological art, her tattoos a belt around her hips that I wanted to explore once more. Art in two forms, natural and ink.

“It can wait, my heart. Wruin’s army won’t be here for a while yet, there’s no need to rush. I have people watching and you are safe as long as you are with me. Don’t be afraid. Let me love you one more time.” I whispered the words as a murmur across her collar bones and her hand went to my head, clenching in my hair to push my head down, down to those sensitive nipples of hers.

I tongued the dark flesh of her nipples, stroked her until she was in a frenzy once more, but this time, I wanted to know her. This time, I wanted to touch every single inch of her before I walked away. Before she left me.

I couldn’t seem to win. I’d left the world for love, and once I decided to go back into the world, love left me again. I could not blame her, my world was far more dangerous than hers, but that didn’t stop me from wanting what I couldn’t have.

If she stayed the magic of our mating would slow down her ageing, and mine would speed up, until we found a balance more like natural ageing. We could have hundreds of years together, hundreds of years of love, but this was a threat too far, even for my daring little sailor. She could face drowning, but magic was just too much.

I gripped her hips to bring her to me, until we faced each other on our sides. Her lips found mine, my own effort to smother protests that she didn’t want to voice anyway, not when my fingers replaced my lips on her nipples. I was in her head once more and her protests and denials melted away as pleasure raced up her spine, straight into her brain.

I slid my other hand down her body, over her abdomen, so soft and comforting, down her round hips, and further. I found her thighs, still slick with the evidence of our union, and pushed them open to make way for my exploration.

My fingers slid into her, and my eyes were open and waiting as hers popped open to look into mine.

“How do you make me feel so good?” She asked before her head fell back in surrender. My finger found the throbbing bud of her clit and circled tightly with the pressure her brain signalled to mine was just right.

I could feel her pleasure, low in my own abdomen, and wondered why women ever stopped touching themselves if it felt that good. My own head fell back as the pleasure grew within Thyra, until it became something hot and tight and bound to explode.

I had to stop or we’d both be over the edge in an instant again, and I wanted to know far more of her than that. She whimpered in protest as I moved away, but only to lean over her, my knees on each side of her hips. I took her chin in mine and our eyes locked once more.

“One more time, Thyra. Then you can go.” I kissed her lips lightly, and then began my exploration. With a wave of my hand a few more candles erupted to give me the light to see her properly. I found an intriguing freckle on the right side of her collarbone and kissed it. My fingers stroked her nipples as I moved down, until her ribs were in my sight, and I stroked down the hills and valleys, a ticklish moment that made us both smile.

She kept still as my face moved lower, across her belly button and down, to the birthmark on the right side of her lower abdomen. It looked like a winged creature of some kind, small and a light brown that wouldn’t be visible at all if she hadn’t spent so much time in the sun. It was familiar but I couldn’t place it, perhaps my memory of her first day here was the answer.

I kept going down, my fingers and lips touching her softly, to memorize each spot, to imprint her taste on my brain. When I reached the apex of her thighs she tried to pull me up, too impatient for even this.

“Don’t make me wait, Endre, please.” Her words were almost a sob, but she hadn’t reached that point yet. I wanted that point. Only then would she have all of me.