Idris barely restrained the growl that was bubbling up in his chest as he ripped the t-shirt over his head. Isla was sleeping in their bed, the sheet twisted around her bare legs.

That sight went a lot farther toward calming him down than the tea his mother had made him.

He was sick of getting the shit beat out of him. And sick of getting injured. He’d never cared that much about pain. But good Christ, every inch of him was screaming in pain.

It had been two weeks since the Surgere had arrived. And he’d been training like a dog. And as far as he could tell, he wasn’t getting any better at aerial warfare. Hand to hand combat, he could take any one of them. Even Amos. And he’d proven that.

But they were right. Dalyer wasn’t going to fight him as a man. Dalyer was going to battle him in the air. As a dragon.

And if things kept going the way they were, Idris was going to get his fucking throat ripped out.

The troops were getting restless. It unsettled them to see Idris so easily beaten. Fucked with their confidence. And Idris couldn’t blame them. They’d pinned all their hopes on this guy who was supposed to be the greatest warrior in history. And here he was, still learning how to fly. He still got the powerful surge of shifting every time he did. He knew that this was right. He was a dragon through and through. Instinctively, he knew that he was a part of this realm. This war.

But he often felt off-kilter and out of sorts when he was practice battling. He supposed that it didn’t help that the people he was battling were people he’d come to care for, deeply. If it wasn’t Solar, who he respected greatly as a soldier and as a man, then it was Amos, perhaps his closest friend here, besides Isla. Or it was O, his injured brother, or Donovan, his long-lost father. Oh, and the best was when Zara, a pregnant female dragon shifter, beat the shit out of him. That one was really great for the old morale.

Naked now, he lifted the sheets and climbed into bed beside his girl. Her smooth, warm skin was like a balm to his aching body.

“Mmmm,” she moaned a little as she surfaced from sleep. “How you doin’, baby?”

Her breath washed over his face as the scent of her gave him an instant boner. His need for her wasn’t subsiding. He remembered last month, when he used to dream about Lala the dancer. How he’d thought that one night would heal him of this desire for her. That it would satisfy him. He hadn’t known that she was the solution and the problem all at once. Every sip of her both quenched his thirst and parched him for more. She was the most delicious, addictive elixir he’d ever tasted.

And he loved her.

He knew that now. Had suspected for a long time. Maybe even since he used to watch her stripping for other men out of the corner of his eye. Maybe it was love then. But it was certainly love now. The way she’d toss around Rudy, Lucy’s daughter. Isla was a part of the unit here. Changing diapers, chiming in on strategy sessions, tasting Mel’s cooking, joking with O. All of it made his chest tight with love for her. He’d have been their king no matter what. Destiny had made that true. But Isla is what made him their family. She tied him to the group in a way even Felice hadn’t been able to do.

It was that he thought of as he dipped under the covers. Took her slowly with his mouth. Devouring her. He thought he’d never get enough of the taste of her pussy. So sweet. So tangy. So her. Everything about her was just so her. She was a woman who knew exactly who she was. Her thighs tightened around his face as he suckled at her clit like a madman. His hands slid over her body, one hand taking her breast, his thumb raking over nipple. And the other hand went around to her ass.

He gripped a handful, as he could never seem to stop himself from doing. She was just so goddamn juicy. She came apart under his mouth. Her breaths sobbing his name into the dark. Some nights he left it at that. He enjoyed being able to give her pleasure, let her take it with her into sleep. But tonight he needed more.

He needed all of her. He rolled them, so that she kneeled over his face. Her hips still worked with the tiny aftershocks of her orgasm. He fucking loved it when she rode his face. But she was more awake now. And she twisted her body. Switching so that she could swallow him down just as he was swallowing her.

Fuck. Idris’s hips came up off the bed as she took his cock all the way to the back of her throat. She was so fucking good at that. And she was a minx. She always loved to hold him hostage there, making him come in her mouth whether he wanted to or not. But tonight he wanted it. He needed it. His body screamed with the aches and pains from today mixing with the pleasure she was giving him.

The tension of all the training, all the waiting for Dalyer to make his move on their camp was like a constant strain. Always riding Idris. But now, Isla’s mouth was riding Idris and all the tensions fell away.

The only thing he could feel was her wet mouth. Her tight throat as she took him as far as she could. Idris grabbed her ass with both hands and attacked her pussy with his mouth. It was only moments before she was screaming around his cock, coming again and again.

Finally, she swiveled off of him, obviously not wanting to be distracted anymore. She kneeled on the floor next to the bed and swallowed him down again. Shit. At this angle, with this level of suction, he wasn’t going to last long.

Looking up at him through her long lashes, her mouth stretched as far as it could to open up for him, Isla took Idris’s hand and tangled it in her hair. He stroked through her silky locks, gently. But then she took his hand again. Pressed it firmly against her skull.

Shit. She wanted him to push her down on his cock. Up to this point, he’d resisted touching while she was going down on him. Assuming that she’d be sensitive to anything having to do with her throat. Considering she’d been strangled less than a month ago. But he could see the light in her eyes. How much it turned her on. And fuck it. He was done comparing himself to that shitbag Ivan. Nothing he and Isla did was like anything the two of them had ever done.

Because Idris loved her. Respected her. And he really wanted to shove his dick down her throat. So he gripped her hair tightly, and forced her down on his straining cock. Isla screamed around it, and he watched as her free hand creeped down between her legs. Her hips worked against her hand. He let her up and she gasped for air and then she was swallowing him down again.

He pushed her down again and he watched her hand work her perfect little pussy even faster. The sight was almost too much for him. Before he knew what he was doing he was standing. On his feet before her. And now instead of forcing her onto him, he was just fucking her mouth. Over and over. Isla’s body trembled, tightened, and released as she came on her own hand. The sight was too much. All of it was too much.

And Idris came like a tidal wave. One that went on and on. They’d had sex that morning already, but Idris released as if he’d been saving it for a month. And she swallowed it all, lovingly licking him clean at the end.

He scooped her up and cradled her close, drawing his hands through her hair, rubbing her back. Kissing her neck.

“You’re the most beautiful. Most brilliant. Most perfect. God. You’re the best thing in my life. Isla, stay with me. Stay with me.”

She laughed a little, through her panting breaths, at his disheveled words. “Apparently that did it for you as much as it did for me, huh?”

He laughed a breathless laugh. “Shit, yes. That was the hottest thing that has ever happened to me.”

She was quiet for a second, stroking her hands through his hair. “You know what you looked like? When you were standing over me?”

“Hm?” He was almost beyond words.

“You looked like a king.”

He looked up and grinned at her. “Finally. After a day of looking like an utter fool getting the shit kicked out of him in the schoolyard, I’m glad I could finally look a little regal.”

She smiled and kissed his brow, thinking about the words he had stuttered to her a minute ago. She spoke carefully. “Idris, what did you mean a second ago, when you asked me to stay with you?”

He froze. He wasn’t sure she was quite ready to hear what he had to say about that. No matter how ready he was to say it. “I meant that when all of this was over, if we make it to the other side, I hope you’ll stay in the dragon realm.”

It wasn’t the complete truth. But it was true enough.

He couldn’t see her expression in the dark and he desperately wished that he could.

“Of course I’ll stay, Idris,” she spoke carefully enough that it kept his heart from leaping. “You know I have nothing to go back to in the human realm. Just some dudes who want to kill me. There’s no way I’d go back to that.”

He nodded. Of course he knew that. He tried hard to ignore the gnawing at his chest that her words had given him. He couldn’t escape the fact that being scared of going back was decidedly not the same thing as wanting to stay.