Free Read Novels Online Home

Alpha's Darkling Bride: A Bad Boy Alpha Romance by Barlow, Linda (74)

Chapter 19

 

Ariane told herself she was just going down to the cavern to visit Rin. To make certain he was still well. Still gaining strength. Not having some sort of relapse.

And it was so easy to sneak down there. The door to Colin's room was neither locked nor barred. No one stopped her. The path down to the cavern was complex, but she was a Traveler. If she had taken a road once, she had no trouble retracing it afterwards.

Rin was sleeping when she reached his side. She did not wake him. She sat near him on the small beach. The tide was out, so the sands were entirely exposed, if a little damp. Over her head, the crystals shone in a panoply of colored light. The water of the pool moved lazily with the currents from the outside. It must be windy out there. The tide was rising.

There was an orange cat sleeping on the beach, not far from Rin. When she settled down, the cat roused itself, strolled over and head-butted her hand. Smiling, she petted the cat, who began to purr. Kate had told her about this animal, but it was the first time she'd seen him. The cat was named Prince, and he was fond of sea dragons. Had he been making friends with Rin?

Prince permitted her to pet him for several minutes, but eventually he got bored and walked away, his tail pointing straight up. He vanished somewhere in the passages that led into the cavern.

Ariane rested her chin on her upraised knees and sorted through her options.

She thought and thought, but she couldn't seem to make any progress. The one thing she was sure of was that she didn't want to leave Colin. She had never expected to find a man like him—Warm, funny and protective, but respectful of her boundaries, even when the Bond gave him access to her mind. The sex was lovely, but sex wasn't something you could count on to bind you forever. Lovely sex combined with laughter and mutual caring, though—that was rare and should not be recklessly cast away.

"Here you are," said a familiar voice from behind her.

She started violently, surprised at not having heard him approach. Shifters were quiet creatures, too.

She turned and smiled at Colin. He came to her side, treading gingerly over the sharp stones with the shiny crystal edges, clad only in his beloved kilt and a pair of battered half boots that rose up to his ankle. "I woke up and found you gone."

"I was checking on Rin."

"How is he?

"He's good. He's sleeping. Getting his strength back, I guess."

Colin sat down beside her, looking, she thought, a little relieved. Had he been afraid she had abandoned him when he'd woken up alone? She couldn't blame him if he'd thought that. She'd considered it, after all.

She turned to him and planted a passionate kiss on his lips. "Colin. Make love to me?"

His arms closed tight around her. "I'd be glad to."

She prompted pushed him back on the sand and began tearing at his kilt. His eyes flicked sideways. "You mean here?"

"Yes. It's lovely here, don't you think? And the tide won't be in for quite a while, I think."

He flipped them over so he was on top. She could feel his cock, hard and ready to go. She loved that about him—he was so quick to be aroused but so deliciously slow in his love play. "What about him?" he asked, glancing over at the sleeping sea dragon.

She didn't see the problem. "Rin? He's sleeping soundly and I doubt we'll wake him up. If we do, he'll just remember how odd these two legged creatures are and go back to sleep."

"Oh aye." Colin kissed her for a good long while before asking, "So he won't be jealous?"

"Jealous that I'm spending time paying attention to you instead of to him? Or—" She realized from his embarrassed color that he meant sexually jealous. She burst out laughing. "What sort of bond do you imagine a Traveler has with her bonded companion?"

"Still trying to figure it out," he admitted.

"You don't think that we...goodness...I mean, how would that even be possible?"

He was laughing now, too. "Well you'll have to ask Kate about that. Did you ever hear how she met my brother? There's an annual festival here, been going on for centuries. A woman from the village gets sacrificed to the Zrakon. That would be Ross."

"Sacrificed? You mean he kills someone every year?" She was appalled.

"Er, no. Fucks her rather. Nobody dies. Kate came to the village last year and was here on Midsummer's Eve. She attended the festival, but when she understood what was happening, she rescued the supposed victim from the sacrificial rock and ended up stuck there herself. Then Ross, in his sea dragon form that is, took one look at her and was eternally smitten. He seized her with his tentacles, popped her onto his breathing bud, and carried her off. They've been together ever since."

"He abducted her?"

"Aye, he did, the nasty lad. But she was willing enough, in the end."

"But he didn't actually have sex with her? As a sea dragon, I mean?"

"Well, no one knows. Except the two of them. I wasn't here at the time, so I heard about it all later. And then Ross told me that this year I'll have to play the sea dragon role since he's out of the action now and—"

"What! Please tell me you aren't going to do any such thing."

"If I don't, the village women will be mightily disappointed." She could tell he was teasing her now. "Apparently there's something about those sea dragon tentacles that drives them all wild."

She giggled, but she thought about it. Okay, it wasn't as if she'd never thought about it before, but not seriously. Not with Rin. That would be...eww. She adored Rin, but she loved him the way she would love a cherished pet.

It might be a different story with Colin in his shifted sea dragon form. He would be Colin. They would be linked mind to mind, talking internally and laughing. His tentacles might grow on her in that situation. They were part of him, after all, and magical. It wasn't as if he was an actual sea dragon.

He was watching her, looking mischievous, and she realized that she was thoroughly embarrassed just from thinking about it. And she had thought that nothing about sex could embarrass her.

"You're really wicked to get me thinking about stuff like that," she said.

"Oh, I'm wicked, I know. Want me to shift? We could see what all the fuss is about."

"No. I mean, stop it, Colin. You're so evil." He was tickling her and she couldn't stop laughing.

"Not a sea dragon? Well, how about a bit of the wolf? Maybe a little more chest hair, a smidgen of fangy goodness, and then, you know, there's that knotting thing that happens when the male wolf's dick gets stuck inside the female while they fuck—"

She plastered her mouth on his. "Shut up. You're going to make me start having all sorts of strange fantasies! Shape shifters...may the Mother help us. What kind of world have I fallen into?"

"It's a wicked, wicked world, lassie," he said.

 

* * *

 

They returned to Colin's room after their erotic tryst in the cavern. Ariane was feeling a great deal better. Whatever happened, there was no way she was ever leaving Colin. She adored him.

"That device—the metallic collar that your brother made me put on. What exactly is that?" She hesitated, trying to remember all the new words she had been learning that didn't have precise equivalents in the Common Tongue. "Is it some sort of nuclear device? Or robotic? Or digital?"

Colin burst out laughing. She loved his deep hearty laugh. It made her sex clench no matter how many times he had already pleasured her.

"None of those things. And don't let Cam hear you using those words."

"I have been reading Wikipedia. I guess you don't need libraries in your world, do you? Except for old texts. There is something almost sad about that. What will happen to ancient traditions and wisdom?"

"You'll find it all on your ebook reader, I guess." 

"I haven't learned what that is yet."

Colin was chortling hard now. When he finally managed to speak he said, "There are still ancient traditions, especially among us shifters. As for the collar, it's not high tech at all. It's some sort of magic. I think magic is harder to fathom than technology, actually. At least tech makes sense."

"What does it do exactly? I was told it was to prevent a shifter from changing his form, so it shouldn't have had any effect on me. But when I was wearing it, it felt warm. It seemed to be burning me although it left no damage on my skin. I also felt—" she paused not sure how to articulate it. "I felt as if it sapped my will. Not completely. It just made me feel vulnerable."

"Cam'll make anybody feel vulnerable." He paused. "It's a type of slave collar. It is still used in some shifter communities. Some shifters are a lot stronger than others, some have been known to enslave the weak. That's not too common nowadays, but there are criminal groups where such things still happen." He paused and lifted an eyebrow at her. "Then there are the erotic uses of the thing." He slid one hand around her throat, not pressing just holding her there. She felt a flutter in her supposedly-weary sex. "Sometimes, just as a game, I like my partner to feel vulnerable. I like her will to be subject to my control. I like her to obey my orders, no matter how twisted they might be. What do you think of that?"

She laughed. "Sounds like fun. We play sex games in my world, too. There is an infamous shop in the city of Binariye where they make some of the most inventive devices. Some of those would make your slave collar seem paltry in comparison."

He flipped her over so she lay under him. He knelt between her thighs and pressed her legs as far apart as their bed would allow. "Tell me more," he ordered as he began tonguing her belly and thighs.

"Well, have you visited any of the pleasure houses in Binariye? They are famous all over my world."

"I've mostly been sea dragony in your world. Exploring the oceans and trying to understand real sea dragons. I've shifted to human in port cities to practice my language skills, hear the gossip and such, and yes, I have visited Binariye. It reminds me of what Istanbul must have been like during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. But the pleasure houses? Sadly, no."

"They are called Butterfly houses. Depending on their color—gold, azure, crimson, purple, black—they specialize in different practices. They are artists of sensuality, and I'd be surprised if you could come up with a fetish that doesn't have its devotees in one of the Butterfly houses. Wealthy clients, both men and women, contract for their services, depending on which pleasures are dearest to them. It is considered quite acceptable in Sariye, although it's frowned upon in some other countries."

"Have you ever contracted for such services?"

"Alas, I can't afford their prices."

"But if you could, which sort of Butterfly house would you visit?"

When she told him, he grinned. "I can do that. In fact, I'd love to do that to you. I think there is a good reason why the sevmelle struck us, Ari. Sounds like we're perfect for each other."

 

 

Search

Search

Friend:

Popular Free Online Books

Read books online free novels

Hot Authors

Sam Crescent, Zoe Chant, Flora Ferrari, Mia Madison, Lexy Timms, Claire Adams, Alexa Riley, Sophie Stern, Amy Brent, Elizabeth Lennox, Leslie North, Jenika Snow, Frankie Love, Madison Faye, C.M. Steele, Kathi S. Barton, Michelle Love, Jordan Silver, Mia Ford, Bella Forrest, Delilah Devlin, Dale Mayer, Amelia Jade, Zoey Parker, Nicole Elliot,

Random Novels

Draekon Mate: Exiled to the Prison Planet (A Sci-Fi Menage Romance) (Dragons in Exile Book 1) by Lili Zander, Lee Savino

Unlocked by Casey L. Bond

Marble Heart: A M/M Non-Shifter MPREG Romance (New Olympians Book 5) by C. J. Vincent

Wrangled By Love (The Cowboy Way #1) by Barb Shuler

A Soulmate for the Heartbroken Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Book by Bridget Barton

The Butterfly Project by Emma Scott

Going Down Hard by Carly Phillips

The 7: Lust by F.G. Adams, Scott Hildreth, Geri Glenn, Max Henry, Gwyn McNamee, Kerri Ann, M.C. Webb

Magic, New Mexico: Touch of Madness (Kindle Worlds Novella) by ML Guida

King: 13 Little Lies (Adair Empire) by KL Donn

Cocky Rebel : Sofia Sol Cocker (Cocker Brothers, The Cocky Series Book 13) by Faleena Hopkins

Their Royal Ash (Once Upon a Harem Book 4) by Lia Davis

Book Boyfriends: A Steamy Romance Sampler by Roxy Sinclaire

Complications on Ice - S.R. Grey by Grey, S.R.

Confessions Of A Klutz (Confessions Series Book 1) by Abigail Davies

Sugar Daddy (Sugar Bowl #1) by Sawyer Bennett

His Rebel by Alexa Riley

Deadly Ink: A Dark Mafia Romance (Omerta Series Book 3) by Roxy Sinclaire

Rogue: A Scifi Alien Romance (Galactic Gladiators Book 8) by Anna Hackett

Then. Now. Always. by Isabelle Broom