Sometime later I lift my head and see that Zenevieve is biting her lower lip and gazing at me desperately. I sit up, take my cock in my hand, and sink into her. After a few thrusts, I pull out, turn her over onto her belly, and continue to fuck her, pushing her thighs wider with my knees. Zenevieve arches her back for me, welcoming me deeper, urging me to knot her again.
As my climax approaches, I lean over her and bury my face in her neck. I wrap my arms around her, and focus on giving her long, hard thrusts of my cock until I feel her tighten around me and burn up with pleasure. I bite down on her flesh, and then as my own climax overwhelms me, strong this time, I give a final thrust of my hips and push my hard knot inside her.
“Gods, Stesha. You make me feel incredible,” Zenevieve pants.
“Good girl,” I whisper, laving the wounds with my tongue. “Good Omega. You take me so beautifully.” I keep my weight on her, my knot pushing deeper, knowing that she needs to feel filled. Locked to me. Lavished with praise. I’m the luckiest Alpha in the world. After all we’ve been through, no one can makeme believe otherwise. I have her. I wrap my arms tight around Zenevieve. I have her, and I’m going to keep her.
Four days later,we emerge from Zenevieve’s nest, half starved, thirsty, and exhausted, but happy.
Zenevieve moves over to the window and pushes it open so that she can see out. “Nilak and her fledglings are enjoying the sunny day.”
As the sunlight catches my mate’s hair, I see something that I didn’t notice in the dark. I move closer and run the strands through my fingers.
Nilak’s hatchlings became fledglings a few weeks ago, and they’re all growing fast and learning to use their wings as they soar around the dragongrounds. Zenevieve and Anuk spend every moment they can together, and she learned for sure that the black dragon was going to be her dragon when she heard Anuk’s thoughts in her head. Zenevieve cried tears of joy that day. It brought back so many emotions for her, not just about Minta and Shar, but about her family as well. She was fifteen when Minta chose her, and both her parents were alive then. I asked her if she wanted to go to the Flame Temple and burn knot grass in their memory, and we went together. She paid tribute to her parents, her brothers, and their families as well, who all died long ago at some unknown time and place.
Today, my smile is bittersweet and nostalgic as I caress Zenevieve’s darkening hair. She turns to me and looks up in surprise.
“What is it?”
“You’re bonding with your dragon,aash’lin,” I say, my voice roughened with emotion. “Your hair is darkening. There are flecks of gold in your eyes. How beautiful you look.”
Just as she did when she was fifteen, she runs to the mirror on the wall and looks at herself. With her lips parted, she turns her head from side to side. Her eyes meet mine in the reflection, and they’re swimming with tears. “Twice in one lifetime. I didn’t dare hope it could be possible.”
I come forward and wrap my arms around her. “The gods wouldn’t dare deny a treasure as you her happiness. Otherwise, your Alpha would have words with them.”
“I’d like to see that,” she says with a laugh.
I kiss the red marks on her throat. “Will you wear your hair up for me today, Zen? So that everyone may see the marks my teeth have made in your neck.”
“Yes, Alpha.” She smiles at me as she gathers her hair up in such a way that just a hint of my teeth marks is showing.
I smile, revealing my dragines. “Are you trying to make me go into another rut? Because I will, and we will be gone so long that everyone will think we have run away to live in the mountains.”
Zenevieve laughs and dashes out of the room, making me chase her all the way down to the dragongrounds.
Anuk bounds straight over to her, and the dragon chitters excitedly as she sees the changes in her hair and eyes and smells the end of Zenevieve’s rut. The other fledglings are not far behind. After Anuk, we named Garros, Aurai, Ninev, and Nirak. All of them are growing furiously fast.
“I’ve missed you all too,” Zenevieve tells them all, and then she turns to me. “I forgot to tell you. Kane has named the dragons who chose to leave with Auryn.”
I turn from greeting Nilak to looking at my mate. “Oh? How do you know that?”
“Ravenna and I have been writing to one another since the Battle of Lenhale. I give Isavelle’s sister, Anise, my letters, and the wingrunners make sure that Ravenna gets them.”
I nod in understanding. Anise is a trainee wingrunner, so she would be eager for any mission, especially one that takes her into the wild eastern parts of Maledin. The wingrunners are the only members of the dragon army who are permitted to fly into the east. Zabriel and I decided it was safer for the dragons to stay away and keep the peace between the two flares. It was a reluctant decision for me. If I were king, I wouldn’t be eager for a man like Kane to think he owned eastern Maledin, but as dragonmaster, I’m curious to see if the eastern flare can find their feet. There are many dragons in the flare who still need riders.
“What names has Kane chosen?” I ask, wondering if he’s chosen stupid names like Beastbane and Savager.
“Aubren for the yellow Alpha, and Kasha for the Beta female.”
“Hm. I suppose they’re good names,” I admit grudgingly. I’m silent for a moment, thinking. “It’s interesting that the lady knows what’s happening in the eastern flare. I was under the impression that her village is many miles from Auryn’s dragongrounds.”
“Ravenna has her own wyvern. I suppose she visits the eastern flare.”
Zenevieve’s words hang significantly in the air. There’s always been animosity and tension between Ravenna and her Alpha, but a mating bond is difficult to deny, if not downright impossible. Perhaps the tension between the pair has boiled over into desire. Unless Kane is foolish enough to willfully hurt Ravenna again, it’s none of my concern what happens between them. I will hear about it if he does because Menelope won’t let it stand. Though if Kane does hurt Ravenna again, the witchwill probably murder him before Zabriel and I have a chance to arrest him. A pleasing thought.
Zenevieve settles down in the sunshine against her dragon, and Anuk stretches out on the warm ground. The two of them sleepily blink their eyes and then close them.
Smiling, I ask Nilak,What do you think of them?
