Chapter Twenty-Two
“WHAT’S HAPPENED TOit?” Raven murmured, a frown in her voice. “It’s changed.”
Tor had been so lost in the way she made him feel when they mated he had no idea what she was talking about at first.
“Look.” She pointed at his dragon tattoo. “It’s fading, isn’t it?”
So it appeared. It had been richly inked before, but now the colors were dull and barely there. Nothing more than an outline, really.
“Itisfading,” he confirmed, having no idea what to make of that. His kin’s tattoos had all appeared when they mated and never wavered. His appeared when Raven first slept with him, now faded when she forgave him and mated? It made no sense.
“Should we be concerned?” She trailed her fingers over it as though she was afraid it would vanish altogether. As though if it did, she might lose their connection. Lose him.
The weather reflected her worry when black clouds smothered the lightning.
When things became unnaturally quiet with her trepidation.
“No,” he said instinctually. He had no idea why he said it, only that it was true. They would be okay.Hadto be. Because he refused to lose her. “We’re mated now. Nothing will change that.”
He scooped her up and brought her to a fur he manifested over magically induced grass. Rather than have her worry over the tattoo or question anything else, he distracted her with more lovemaking. With everything he felt. Everything he wanted to show her. Again and again, over and over, until their final days.
Continually desperate for her, he spent the next several hours exploring her body. Letting her explore his. Rediscovering each other. Loving one another. Though they hadn’t said the word yet, he knew they would. It was inevitable. Not just because they were soulmates, but dragon mates, soon to be fated mates.
Not only that, but she was his closest friend.
From the second she dragged him back from the brink of death to this very moment.
She would do anything for him. In turn, he would do the same. Not because he owed her but because she deserved it. Because despite all the negativity she had been forced to carry her entire life, she was a good person.
They had yet to discuss the details of why her tiny unborn dragon tumbled through pregnant women like that, but he knew. Much like her sisters, except stronger, she was born to protect. In her case, she had the power to protect several. She could have zipped right into birth when she broke free of Destiny and Leviathan’s Forge, but her spirit chose not to.
He knew spirits or souls, and hers had been exceptional. Instead of embracing the chance at life, when her dragon sensed three pregnant women close by who all needed help, she went to their aid with no thought to her own safety.
Raven was everything he would have chosen in a mate, in afatedmate, and he made sure she felt that in every touch. In the way he loved her body and made her feel. True to form, however, and not unexpected, he could only be tender for so long. He might love her, there was no questioning that, but too much gentle wasn't a dragon's way.
He wanted, noneeded, to take her roughly. Drive his essence into her. Claim her as only a dragon could,should, be claimed. By its mate and without pause. Fortunately, she was perfectly in sync with him, and her needs met his. Her craving for more aggression welcomed when he flipped her onto her knees and yanked her hips back.
