Chapter 12
“I will happily castrate the next one of you who gives my mate or me a sly or knowing smile.” Grigor glowered at the people seated at the dinner table with them.
Gayle quickly looked down, having trouble holding back her own smile at her mate’s scowling irritation.
She had lost track of time this past few days, unaware of anything but Grigor as the two of them mated again and again. That feeling of oneness, of being linked to Grigor, was now such a part of her, inside her, Gayle didn’t believe she would feel alone or lonely ever again.
Not that they had mated all the time. There had been periods in between that intense lovemaking when they had talked. Short periods, admittedly, but the two of them had used those lulls in mating to learn more about each other.
Grigor’s history was incredible. Awesome. Years of fighting beside his brother, King Arthur. The loss of his brother Gideon during the same battle they had lost Arthur, followed by more centuries still of fighting for whichever cause the Pendragon brothers deemed worthy of their assistance. Then the loss of his brother Rufus, during Victoria’s reign, to dragon hunters.
Something that scared the shit out of Gayle once Grigor had told her dragon hunters still existed. That they had recently helped the Russian dragons in their fight against the hunters after one of the Romanov brothers was almost killed by one of them.
Their mating immediately after that revelation had been wilder than ever, Gayle clinging to Grigor as she feared she might one day lose him in that awful way.
Her own brief history had seemed tame by comparison with the life Grigor had led, but he had nevertheless listened attentively. As if everything she had to say, big or small, was of interest to him. And maybe it was.
Four days and nights later and the two of them had finally emerged from Grigor’s bedroom to join the family and guests for dinner. The urgency and intensity of their mating was still there but had simmered to a slow-burning but manageable heat.
It had been the most emotionally intense and physically satisfying four days and nights of Gayle’s life, where only the two of them existed, Grigor growling and roaring as he claimed every part of her time and time again and Gayle claimed him in return.
She hadn’t given a thought to how she would feel having to face Grigor’s family again, knowing his possessive roars must have echoed around the castle for days for all to hear.
Even worse, Nikolai and his men were all still staying at the castle and must also have heard their mating.
Nathaniel’s chuckle broke the silence after Grigor’s threat. “Speaking for myself, I would rather hang on to my balls, thank you very much. I’m sure Chloe would agree.” He eyed his mate affectionately.
“Oh, definitely.” Chloe’s eyes danced with laughter. “I’m hoping to give Amelia a brother or sister one day.”
Children.
Gayle hadn’t given a thought to them during the past four days and nights of lovemaking. But she did so now. Grigor’s children. Or offspring, as the Pendragon brothers called them.
She wanted them.
Little boys and girls, dragon shifters who looked just like their father.
Like Grigor.
Would Grigor want children with her?
He had mentioned she would make a fierce mate to him and mother to his children, but only in an abstract way. It wasn’t something they had talked about during all those hours of lovemaking.
Nor was the future.
Neither thing had seemed relevant when they were so wrapped up in each other, in the immediacy of their mating. Nothing else had seemed important, least of all the future. And it should have been, Gayle now realized. She wanted that future with Grigor, those children with him, whereas she had no idea how he really felt about either subject. Before they mated, he had told her they could live apart, lead separate lives, coming together only when the need to mate demanded they should. Did he still feel that way?
What if she was already pregnant with his child?
Would Grigor still want them to live apart then?
Unless… Could Grigor have already made sure that didn’t happen by injecting himself with the birth control serum Dylan had also developed for his brothers and their mates? Disappointment washed over her at the thought of that being the case.
“Gayle?”
She blinked before looking up at her mate. The man she now knew more intimately, as Grigor did her, than she did any other. Or ever would. Mating sex with a dragon shifter was off-the-charts erotic and hot, too much so for any mortal man to measure up to that intensity of pleasure and emotions.
Her cheeks warmed. “Sorry, my thoughts must have wandered for a few moments.”
After Chloe’s comment, Grigor didn’t need the mating bond to guess where Gayle’s thoughts had wandered to.
No doubt she was worried in case he had already impregnated her.
He hadn’t.
The two of them might have shared four days and nights of mating, but Grigor would never take such a decision out of Gayle’s own hands. When—if—they ever had offspring together, it had to be a decision they made together.
Strangely, during all their hours of talking and lovemaking, the subject had never been discussed, meaning he had no idea how she felt about having his children.
What they did have was a new closeness that allowed them to gauge each other’s emotions. At the moment, Grigor knew Gayle was beset with feelings of doubt and insecurity. Emotions wholly unacceptable in his mate.
Grigor stood abruptly. “If you will excuse us?” He reached for Gayle’s hand, nodding his satisfaction when she immediately linked her fingers with his before standing. “I believe we might have been a little premature in deciding to join you all this evening.”
“We haven’t even had chance to discuss the problem of your intruder situation,” Nikolai Volkov reminded impatiently.
“Nikolai—”
“You have had four days to remove your problem.” Grigor cut across Nathaniel’s warning, his chilling gaze narrowed on the Russian. “I advise that you do so before any harm comes to my mate and I am forced to kill you.”
“You—”
“I will not repeat my warning,” Grigor bit out grimly, his gaze still locked with Volkov’s. “You have one more day to eliminate Miss Ryder, or I will not hesitate to eliminate you.”
Gayle had no doubt Grigor meant every word of his threat. Which was both scary and arousing as hell. So much the latter, Gayle could feel the mating heat rising inside her, hardening and arousing her nipples and throbbing between her thighs. Her knees didn’t exactly feel steady either, threatening to buckle beneath her as she and Grigor left the dining room.
Grigor solved that problem by lifting her up in his arms as soon as they were alone in the entrance hall. “Again?” he prompted gruffly.
“Again,” she confirmed breathlessly, her arms clinging about his neck.
The two of them threw off their clothing the moment he placed her back on her feet once they had entered and locked the door to Grigor’s suite.
Gayle had lost all inhibition regarding being naked with Grigor; hard not to do so when she had spent the past four days being exactly that and Grigor had claimed every single inch of her body over and over again.
Which didn’t mean, as she lay back on the bed to look up at him, that she had lost any of her awe regarding Grigor or his body. If anything, he was even more beautiful to her now than he had been before their mating. Not just beautiful, perfect.
Perfect wide shoulders and chest. Perfect narrow waist and hips. Perfect long and muscular legs. Perfect deliciously aroused and throbbing eight inches of cock.
A cock she now wanted inside her as much as, if not more than she wanted her next breath.
It was as if being around other men, his brothers and the Russians, had set fire to the mating frenzy inside Grigor. He immediately turned Gayle on her stomach before lifting her up onto her knees and elbows and thrusting his cock deep inside her. His teeth pierced her nape as he sucked her life essence into his mouth, and the mating aphrodisiac flooded hotly into her veins.
Gayle pushed back against Grigor as she met each and every one of his thrusts forward, his hands gripping her hips so tightly, she knew he would leave bruises.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered but this need for them to claim and be claimed.
“Mine,” Grigor rasped as his barb released and attached itself inside Gayle.
“Mine,” she echoed just as fiercely.
“Always,” he assured her.
“Always,” she confirmed.
Grigor lost track of how many times he mated with Gayle that night, needing to fill her with his seed, claim her, mark her as his, after only a few minutes in the company of others. In return, Gayle was a generous and adventurous lover, allowing him to claim her, as she claimed him in return, in whatever way he chose. Grigor chose all and every way possible, stamping his possession on her with every thrust and bite as he took her time and time again.
“Such a fierce and possessive dragon,” she teased during a few moments of respite, her head resting against his shoulder as her fingers played with the whorl of damp curls on his chest.
“I am a man first,” he reminded her huskily.
“Such a fierce and possessive man,” she amended lightly.
His arms tightened about her. “Now do you see why I will never share you or why you need never fear having to share me?”
“Yes,” she confirmed gruffly.
“Do you?” he persisted.
“Yes.” Gayle felt the same way about him, even more so now they were mated. So thoroughly mated, her whole body was filled with a pleasurable ache.
She had learned these past few days just how inventive a lover Grigor could be, his stern and unapproachable facade being exactly that, existing only on the surface. In private, Grigor had taken her in ways she hadn’t even thought of. Well…she might have thought about them, but she had never thought Grigor would be the type of man to indulge in them. She had been pleasantly, and very pleasurably, surprised.
A blush warmed her cheeks as she saw where her fingernails had raked down his chest during the wildness of their previous lovemaking. “I didn’t hurt you?” She gently touched those welts.
He chuffed out a laugh. “My dragon loves being hurt by you.”
Gayle glanced up at him. “He does?”
Grigor smiled. “It drives him, and me, insane with lust.”
She rolled over to lean on her elbows. “Did you mean what you said earlier?”
He glanced at her. “That you’re mine? Yes. That there will never be anyone else for me? Of course, yes.”
Gayle’s heart filled with the love she felt for Grigor. Not that he had mentioned love to her, but that didn’t and wouldn’t stop her from loving him. “I was talking about your threat to Nikolai,” she admonished lightly.
His expression darkened. “I will allow no harm to come to my mate. From anyone.”
“But—”
“Why do you persist in defending the Russian?” Grigor demanded as he moved to the side of the bed before standing to glare down at her.
“I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were.” Grigor scowled. “This woman is Volkov’s and his employer’s problem, not ours.”
“But I stole their money for her—”
“And gave it back again,” Grigor bit out dismissively as he began to pace the room, completely unconcerned by his graceful nakedness. “I have given them more than enough time to get rid of the problem.”
“Eliminate her, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Grigor, I know you were born during a time when that was possible, but this is the twenty-first century and we don’t eliminate people who annoy us.”
“This woman does not annoy me. She threatens harm to my mate. Besides,” he continued in a hard voice, “what do you think Volkov intends doing with her when he finds her?”
Gayle had been trying very hard not to think about that. She attempted to tease Grigor out of his dark mood. “Are we having our first mated argument?”
“Possibly,” Grigor allowed shortly, knowing it wouldn’t be their last argument either. He had no illusions where his mate’s stubbornness was concerned. But it was wholly wasted on concern for Nikolai Volkov. The Russian understood as well as Grigor that the Ryder woman had to die. “You—” He broke off as a knock sounded on his bedroom door. It had happened before, of course, but it was wholly unacceptable that it should happen again during the heat of their mating.
Gayle scrambled to the edge of the bed when she saw fury darken Grigor’s face as he strode toward the door. “Grigor, don’t—” She broke off with a wince as he threw the door open, completely unconcerned with his nakedness.
“Grigor?” A totally familiar female voice gasped in obvious shock.
“This obviously isn’t a good time,” another familiar voice, male this time, advised quickly.
Gayle stood up, her thoughts racing as she hastily pulled on Grigor’s silk robe before securing the belt about her waist.
Only one of those thoughts was important.
Holly and Dylan had obviously returned from their mating.