Chapter Thirty-five
Calidum looked up from the blood that pooled so heavily between them. It was too red. His fangs pricked at his bottom lip. They throbbed in his gums, and his vision was locked in predatory contrasts of white, black, and crimson.
When his gaze fell on the woman across from him, it zeroed in, noticing and absorbing every tiny detail.
She was staring at Arach’s head. Then her gaze slipped to the blood.
Her heart was beating rapidly, but strangely, as if it were weak. He caught her scent and focused. She was still injured, and low on blood. It pumped softly through her veins with little pressure. Her dragon scales covered her entire body, giving the world the outward appearance of scale mail armor, well fitted and beautiful. She looked like a warrior princess, ripe from battle, glorious in the skin of her kills.
But in reality, she was bleeding somewhere underneath. And even as he moved in, somehow knowing exactly when it took hold of her, Evangeline began to fall. He caught her easily, lifting the lightness of her precious form into his arms to hold her tight against his chest. Her eyes slipped shut, and in a flash her armor was gone. All remaining remnants of her transformation-driven strength vanished, leaving her stripped bare and gravely wounded.
Cal took in the injuries, the stab wounds, the bruising, the snow-white color of her skin, and he knew they were mortal wounds. If anyone other than Arach had harmed her the way he had, Eva would be dead. She’d spent herself entirely on her battle with the Nomad. She’d lost. And then he’d tortured and drained her of her blood.
If that hadn’t been enough, she’d shifted at long last into her true dragon form. The act had given her temporary and life-altering strength – but it had taken it from her as well.
The toll was upon her now like a death knell, and as Calidum blurred them both out of the wreckage and into a transportation portal, he lowered his lips to her ear.
“I know what you need,” he said. “You’re safe now, Eva. I’m going to take care of you.”
He moved them across the world, never once taking his magic off her. It raced around them, a protective shield, a healing stream, a directional shove through the tunnels of space and time. It sank gently beneath Eva’s abused flesh to the broken body underneath, and there it healed her from the inside out, mending bone, sinew, organ tissue, and muscle to make her whole again.
The two tell-tale bites Arach had made upon her throat – those, Calidum left alone. He had other plans for them.
Less than a full minute had passed when the Dragon King stepped through the portal’s exit to carry his queen into his home. It was one of many homes he owned. He was thousands of years old… over time, homes were something to be collected like everything else.
Eva stirred against him, her long, lithe frame curling into his warmth. He found his bed, and with arms that flexed with their need to hold her longer, he tenderly laid her at its center. Then he stood.
The charcoal gray sheets were satin and would be gentle against her skin. It was why he’d chosen this place over the others. But looking down at her now, her naked body vulnerable against the darkness of those sheets, her head slowly turning as his magic continued to flow through her veins… he knew it was not the only reason he’d brought her here. His intentions were anything but noble.
This has to be done, he assured himself. Until it is, they will keep coming for her. Arach was dead, that was temporary. The Nomad would be reborn. He won’t stop until Eva is his queen.
Unless you make her yours first.
On the bed, Eva bent one long leg, moaning softly. Calidum’s entire body went hard, and his fists clenched. With a thought, his armor was gone, freeing him from any further barriers between them. Without taking his eyes off his prize, he raised his right arm to his mouth, bared his teeth, and bit down hard. At once, his blood began to pour, crimson rivulets of power that he wasted no time in using.
He knelt with one knee beside Evangeline, and gently cupped her face in his other hand. “Eva,” he said softly, using his magic to curl into her mind and force obedience. She was just weak enough that it worked, and he had to smile at her inherent will.
Her long, thick lashes fluttered. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. They were the lightest purple, the softest hue of lavender coloring irises that glowed in unnatural beauty. His heart stopped. It literally stopped for several beats – then started up again hard and fast, painfully urging him on. Easy… He bore down on himself, reining in his need; it was already nearly too much to bear.
“Drink.” He placed his wrist to her lips and willed them to open and let him in. She blinked – and then she obeyed, and his cock throbbed at the sight as she parted her lips and placed them to his arm. His blood stained her crimson as she swallowed, and when she did, her lilac eyes flashed with renewed power. It was instantaneous, infusing her at her core, where it mattered most.
Sustenance was essential to any living being, but dragons burned through theirs with incredible speed, much faster than humans. In turn, they were able to absorb that lost energy just as fast and from more sources than humans. Sugar was their favorite source of strength… most of the time. There was another one they turned to with anticipation and delight, in times when two needs came together as one.
Blood. Dragon blood. It was infused with elements of all three hearts, and hence pumped everything a dragon required. It was quickly absorbed and struck home at once, transferring from heart to heart in a literal sense. It was also extremely – exquisitely – pleasurable to exchange blood for a dragon. It could not get more personal. You could not give anything more meaningful to another.
Calidum was the Great Gray, a Legendary, and he was the Dragon King. There was no blood more powerful than his in the Dragon Kingdom. Dragons dreamed of it, but very, very few had ever tasted the blood of a king, much less a Legendary. Those recipients were the rare chosen, the precious, held as beloved by the most powerful dragons in creation.
Evangeline slowly took his very essence into herself, and she made soft sounds, helpless sounds, as his blood no doubt infused her system with building pleasure, bringing her to life in a way she could not have imagined.
He watched her, and his eyes ignited painfully, lighting a bonfire fueled by a mounting hunger of his own. She moaned against his forearm, and most likely overwhelmed by sensation, she attempted to pull away. But he held her there, his hand on the back of her head to keep her mouth to his wound. “No, Eva” he commanded softly, leaning in to place his lips to her ear. “Keep drinking.” You’re going to need it.
She began to move beside him, and his eyes roamed down the length of her long, lithe body. Her legs slowly bent and unbent, her torso flexed, her back arched, and she writhed.
Holy fuck.
When the bucking began, he moved his body over hers to straddle her, and his head nearly exploded with the sensation of being skin on skin with her. His cock brushed her abdomen. He was so hard, the contact was nothing but blissfully agonizing. Eva was now flushed with heat, her heart was hammering, and tiny rivulets of fresh blood began to form at the wounds Arach had given her.
Now is the time.
Calidum removed his wrist from Eva’s lips, and her head tossed to the side. He could hear her thoughts, knew what she needed. His blood had made her crazy inside. Her right hand ran down the length of her own body, aimed for the sweet spot between her legs. She was desperate to see to her own needs. But he was about to fix that.
As gently as he could considering her renewed strength and fresh agitation, Cal grasped Eva’s wrists and held them to the bed on either side of her. “Eva,” he said, attempting to draw her attention once more. But she looked away, her eyes shut, her teeth biting into her bottom lip with cruel abandon.
Calidum’s rippling, pain-wracked body urged him on, bringing him to once more send forceful magic into her mind. Look at me.
She thrashed against him now, willful anger joining her carnal hunger.
Now! he commanded, nearly out of patience completely. Eva, do as I say.
Gradually, as if coming awake from a dream, Evangeline opened her eyes. Her movements slowed beneath him, and Cal had never seen a sexier creature in any realm. He growled low, his own teeth bared, his eyes burning right through his skull as Eva turned her head and met his gaze at last.
He had to do this now. There would never be another time – he wouldn’t live that long, would not survive the night, he was sure, if he did not make her his then and there.
“Eva, I need you to say it,” he said, his voice shaking, his body aching because his muscles were flexed so hard. I need you to tell me, he thought, his eyes pleading. Tell me you don’t blame me. Tell me that you forgive me. Tell me you will grow to love me… the way I love you.
Evangeline stared steadily up at him as her chest rose and fell, and her perfect breasts glistened from her exertion. He expected a play of emotion, another struggle perhaps, even tears – maybe. What he didn’t expect was that she would simply say, “There’s nothing to forgive you for, Calidum.”
Her voice was so beautiful, so melodic as it filled the space of his master chamber, sweet and pure. Her words rode through him like a blessing. But they shocked him.
“Please erase him from me,” she said next, and he knew she was referring to everything Arach had done, the way he’d bitten her, the things he’d taken from her. She knew what Cal planned to do. Either she was instinctively reading his intent, or she was just that smart. Or both.
Claim me.
Calidum, the Dragon King was shocked for approximately a second and a half longer. And then he recovered fully.