Chapter Fifteen
He’d allowed her to call him Arik again.
Georgiana stood before him in his tower bedchamber, her clothes cast aside. Now it was his turn, and she watched in fascination as his muscles rippled and flexed while he casually stripped out of his garments, his seductively graceful movements like that of a beast on the prowl. Even the dragon etched on his back appeared bigger and more powerful, seeming to spread its black wings and soar with his every twist and turn.
He was still a beast, one of the black dragons of prophecy and that would never change. But he was more now. “Georgie, do you realize what’s happened?”
“Other than my rescuing you?” she asked with a grin. “Or the fact that you’re about to shamelessly seduce me?”
“Yes, other than that.” He chuckled. “I’m the dominant male now. I will assume the throne as High King of the Dragon Lords. Brihann is defeated. His madness is such that not even Necros or Python dared follow him into his castle lair. They retreated to their own realms and summoned their demon soldiers home.”
“I’m so glad.” She called his name softly again, Arik, as a gentle rain began to fall outside, its droplets striking the window panes in a rhythmic plunk, plunk. But she was warm and cozy in their bedchamber, her gaze fixed on this man she loved with all her heart as he approached, his body eager for their joining.
He did not seem quite comfortable with the sound of his boyhood name on her lips. He’d been Bloodaxe for too long. But it was important for her to call him Arik, for this is how she’d first known him, and this is how she always saw him. Not as a beast. Never as a beast. Always as the man who’d captured her heart.
“Come, my beauty.”
He swept her up in his arms and placed her in the center of the bed. He stretched his body over hers, propping himself on his elbows to ease his weight off her, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him closer, for she loved the press of his powerful body against her own slender one.
They spoke no more. Heavens, Georgiana did not think she had the wits to put a sentence together. His hot skin inflamed her senses. She inhaled the honey scent and maleness of him. Her heart took flight as he lowered his mouth to hers and stole her breath in a devouring kiss. This would be their first mating.
She wanted him.
“Don’t hold back, my love,” she said and returned his kiss with equal ardor. His mouth was warm as velvet. She ran her hands along his back, feeling the corded muscles of his body that was hard as iron. He held her and kissed her, and her joy knew no bounds when he finally entered her.
He had now claimed her as his own.
But in claiming her, he’d been claimed as well. “Georgie, it shall always be you. Only you. It has always been you.” He began to move inside of her, carefully at first, but as her body adjusted to his and turned to fire, his thrusts came faster and he embedded himself deeply.
She moved with his body, closing around him as he rocked in and out.
A fiery pressure built within her and so did her abandon. She clutched his shoulders and cried out his name.
He suckled her breasts, his tongue licking and swirling across their taut peaks. She cried out again, this time clutching his head and holding it tight to her heaving chest as he continued his merciless onslaught to drive her to ecstasy.
Her body was an inferno of hot dragon flames that spread like wildfire throughout her limbs and centered its heat at her core.
She cried out once more, aching for relief from the volcanic pressure building within her. He’d touched her and pleasured her in the hunting cottage, but this was different. More intense. More spectacular because he was on fire, too.
He arched his back and continued to thrust into her, his eyes closed and the golden sheen of his body now glistening with heat. “I love you, Georgie.”
“I love you, too.”
A wave of pleasure swept over her, lifting her in its molten crest and carrying her along with explosive force toward a distant shore. While fire still raged within her, his own molten explosion came. His body grew taut and his muscles strained. He spilled his dragon seed inside of her in pulsing waves.
“My beauty,” he whispered, shifting their positions so that he now lay on his back and she was now atop him, resting her flushed cheek against his solid chest. Their legs were entwined and their hearts were beating fast.
Her heartbeat was still rampant while his began to calm. He turned pensive, absently caressing her hair, but she knew his thoughts were focused and not merely drifting. “What is the matter, my love?”
“Nothing, just thinking about today. Did I dream my brother’s presence? Will he meet me next week beside the Stone of Draloch? King Cadeyrn has offered to hold our wedding ceremony then. I’m sorry, Georgie. I could not hold back and wait to be properly wed before I claimed you as my mate.”
“Nor could I.” She smiled and kissed his chest. “But you have a point. Perhaps we ought to refrain from further… that… and wait until our wed–”
“No. You are too precious to me, my beauty.” He gave a laughing groan, but quickly turned pensive once more. “I was thinking back to the day my father brought me to Wethersby Hall to seal our betrothal. Even then, your hair was as golden as sunlight and your big, round eyes were a soft, moss green. I thought of you in those dark days after Saron was taken to the Underworld and I followed him. I don’t know what sustained him, kept him defiant through the years of his captivity. But I thought of you throughout mine. I will get back. I must get back. I am betrothed to that girl with sunshine hair and moss-green eyes. She is waiting for me. That’s what I told myself with the break of each new day.”
“Arik.” Her voice was a ragged whisper.
“Then I sold my soul. I lost the ability to survive in sunlight. I lost the ability to shed a tear. But I never lost my ability to love you. Protect Georgiana. I knew we were no longer betrothed and you would eventually belong to another, but it didn’t matter to me. Protect Georgiana. That’s what I told myself from every day forward after that. She is my beloved dragon mate. She is my destiny.”
THE END
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