Queen of Dragons - Shana Abe

She was surprised into a laugh. "You think I came here to marry you?"

"I think," he said, "that somewhere in your heart, you knew where your fate would lie. That there was no drakon of the Zaharen who would match you as I would. You were wed to an Alpha because that's what that black dragon simmering in your blood demands of you. You will wed an Alpha once more. Pendant que nous vivons, ainsi nous devons etre." The warmth of his touch modified, became lighter, a bare stroke down her arm. "I regret you heard what you did with the council. I regret there isn't more time to convince you that I'm right. I'm not your enemy, Maricara. Like it or not, for better or worse—I'm your husband, and your mate. King to king. Soon you'll be a queen as well. Neither of us can change it. It is why you came to me. Why fight what's over and done?"

Her throat had gone dry; she swallowed and looked away, and was glad he could not see her face. "How romantic. I'm quite swept off my feet."

Kimber's fingers tapped lightly against the backs of her own. "I can shower you with rose petals if you'd like. I can feed you Swiss chocolates and bathe you in French champagne.. .but you'll have to come with me inside for all that." He looked at her aslant. "Will you?"

"No."

The stars glinted silver and blue and gold and pink. Clouds of smoke drifted above, tails and twists of deep charcoal.

Mari said, "You can shower me with petals up here."

She felt him change, felt that edge of frustration in him sharpen and splinter, transforming into something else.

"I'll wait," she said.

It was no time for dalliance; she knew it as well as he. No time for anything more between them but the end rushing closer, enormous, inevitable. She had come to this place and brought with her the devil's wind, a searing ill harbinger of exposure and death and everything hazardous to a people woven from fiction, from threads of mist. She had not meant to do it, but it was done.

Yet the Earl of Chasen only fixed her with a hot, intent look she didn't even need to see to feel. Then he was gone, his clothing settling down to the roof with a sigh of cotton and leather, his boots falling over to lightly strike the tiles.

After a moment, his voice floated up from beyond the edge of the parapet.

"Great King. I'm afraid you'll have to join me down here, if it's petals you require."

He would not be able to bring them to her as smoke; she had no idea how he'd manage it as a dragon, either.

She Turned, following the scent of him to the garden, to a corner of arbors and pergolas and long, sweet grasses, and rows and rows of windows shining black above them.

He stood in the shelter of one of the arbors, a profusion of vines and red roses tumbling from the wooden slats. Fragrance twirled around him with honey-slow leisure; her first breath as woman was spiced and pungent, nearly too strong. It made her head spin.

She had Turned right against him. She had taken that breath and then leaned up to him with her bare body and kissed him, hard and open, her hands clutching at his shoulders. He caught her to him, returning her hunger with his own. She heard the rustle of rose leaves, the shifting of gravel beneath their feet that felt hard and real and wonderful all at once, like him.

He drew her farther with him into the arbor, shadows so thick she lost the image of him entirely; he was heat and muscle and touch. She felt his arms lift, held above her: rose petals floated down, patting her nose and her chest and her arms, skimming the surface of her hair. A few still clung to his palms as he lowered his hands to kiss her again; one trembled at the corner of her lips; another at her collarbone, a perfect fit to the hollow at the base of her throat.

"There," he murmured. "There. You look like."

"You can't see me."

"I can." His mouth found the petal at her lips, his tongue tracing its shape, tracing her. "Lovely girl, I can."

Mari closed her eyes and caught her breath, tipping back her head. "Like what, then?" she whispered.

He smiled against her. "Like an elfin queen. Like a dragon king." Like mine, he nearly finished, but kissed her full on the lips instead.

He wished for light. Torchlight, sunlight—to see her openly again, beyond the gleam of milky skin, beyond the dim luster of her hair, the gray-night shine of her eyes. Her lips were dark, and her hair was dark, and her nipples, God, her nipples were dark and plump and hard against his palms. He opened his mouth over her pulse, the tender column of her neck, dragging his lips lower, half-crouching to rub his face to her chest. Lifting her, hearing her low gasp over the drumming of her heart. But she was light in his arms, hardly a weight at all, and his mouth found one perfect tip, warm and puckered. He suckled her, and heard her gasp become his name.

He needed this. He needed this moment—not very long, not forever, just enough to wipe clean his worries right now, to bury the weight of his title and honor and the bitter fear for his brother in the lush promise of her body. In her kisses, and her taste, and her legs wrapped hard around him. There was a terror running through him so raw and deep it made him tremble; he was a leader and man, and he stood at the ruin of all he loved—and he just needed this one stolen moment with her to forget—

Deep, deep inside him, in a place so hidden and quiet he didn't even have a name for it, Kimber knew that the terror was winning: He was quaking apart. He could not think of his brother without anguish; it was a pain so profound, so vast it seemed to transfigure his very blood. He seemed made of lead now, not flesh, lead that was both numb and slow, useless against the vicious cold eating away at him from inside and out. He was desperate to help Rhys and could not. He was desperate for his tribe. Whenever he closed his eyes the image of the broken emerald burned like a brand behind his lids. The shattered stone. His little brother dead. Tortured. Rhys's heart—his heart—

If he came apart, Kim honestly didn't know what would be left behind. Nothing good. Nothing of use to the drakon, or his wife.

Perhaps Maricara sensed his secret trembling. She was mystic and surprising and when she looked up at him now, surrounded by roses and night, Kim actually felt like he was drowning, surrendering to her mysterious depths. He grasped at that, grateful. Aye, he could drown in her, and be free. There was nothing he wanted more in this instant than that.

Her legs lifted to encircle his waist. Her fingers clenched against his shoulders. She arched back and for one glorious instant he saw her gently silvered in the starlight: her throat and jaw and shoulders, slender muscles held taut, and then he'd swung her back into the protection of the roses and the subtle dark, giving his back to the barbed canes. Kim raised his head to nuzzle her neck and lowered her onto him.

He found her entrance. He was eager for her, he was aching for her, to the point where he nearly forgot where he was, forgot the garden and the manor and the drakon all around them. The dry leaves of the roses sketched patterns on his skin. Thorns pricked, drew blood. He didn't care.

She was here. She was ready. She kissed him with her tongue in his mouth and took him inside her and all thoughts of location, discretion, smoke, blew away, incinerated. He heard a noise, a deep visceral sound of pleasure, and realized it had come from him.

Maricara answered it by parting her lips and sinking deeper. Her arms cradled his head; his hands supported her buttocks, cupped her to him, lifting and helping her. They rocked together, and she was wet and stretched and velvet around him, her heels pressed to his spine, her fingers twisted in his hair. He'd never felt anything like this, never known he could make love to a queen in a garden and think, Yes, this is what I need, this and her.

He felt her body begin to tighten. He felt the coming of her release before she even caught her breath, before she stopped breathing entirely. She stiffened against him and made the smallest, most amazed little noise—it finished him. He squeezed her bottom and pumped into her and felt the bounce of her breasts against his chest. He thrust up and pressed her down to him so hard it felt like pain, the best pain he'd ever felt. Maricara jerked against him, coming again. And Kim spilled his seed in her, and let the roses have his blood.

That, she thought, still clasped to him, sated and sore, the floral scent of the garden now overwhelmed by frank musky sex. Mari let her head rest against his, her lips in his hair, tasting salt and satin. She closed her eyes, learning the curves of his skull beneath her fingers, precious and new.

That was good-bye.

She fell asleep standing against him. He was holding her upright with one arm around her waist and the other crossed behind her head, keeping her close, her temple to his shoulder, her long hair brushing his hips, his back bloody and stinging and his dragons above them both flitting silently back and forth, night terrors on the wind.

He had to leave her. He had to rejoin his kin in the sky. Even the time he had taken to find her on the roof of his home was precious seconds leached from Rhys, but Kim had done it anyway, and now he had to go.

He'd not parted well with her this afternoon, and it had bothered him. He'd spent the day and evening remembering that, the expression on her face, as he'd plunged into the search for his brother and Honor and tried to let the hunt consume him, as it should.

Shock. Hurt. And then, worst of all: detachment. She'd lowered her eyes and shut him out and walked away, and even though he'd known she would not be able to get far—he'd placed guards on her with just the sweep of his finger as she'd stalked out the manor doors—Kimber regretted wounding her.

Because she was his wife. His fire and his heart. She was.

And he'd truly not wanted to hurt her.

But he couldn't leave now without knowing she was safe. He had to know that someone he loved was safe.

Kim turned his face to hers, closing his eyes, his lips to her forehead. She roused a bit, lifting her head, and blinked and looked around them from the circle of his arms. In the waning starlight the roses bloomed wolf-gray, textured petals above them and surrounding them, and sprinkled at their feet.

"Beloved," he said. "Come inside with me."

She brought a hand to her face, pushing back her hair. "No, I.. .I don't want to go back there." "To the—to your room?"

"Not alone."

"You won't be alone. I'll come with you," he temporized. "For now, at least." She sighed, a rush against his skin. "No."

"You're exhausted. You need to rest."

She tipped her face to his. Her eyes had that hollow cast he'd last seen over dinner in Seaham, uncanny weary and bright. "Not yet," she said, and took a longer breath. "I'm not tired enough yet."

He said, soft: "Mari."

"Not yet," she repeated, her voice breaking. She pulled from his arms. "I'll be here, black dragon. I'll be your anchor. I won't let you fly."

She made a sound like a laugh, but it was small and turned into a yawn; she smothered it with one hand. Kim found her other, lifting their joined fingers to point at the balcony outside his chambers. "There. Do you see it? The window to the far left of the gargoyle, the one with the beak and the feathered wings—it's open. That's where we'll go."