“The only good thing about this time of year is the Scorch will be here and we won’t have to work the fields until it passes.”
I glanced over at Tilly and smiled. We were both twenty and more like sisters than friends. Both of us had created a bond early on, with my parents having long since passed away from sickness, and her being an orphan since she was barely knee-high. We’d found solace and friendship with each other.
We’d become family.
“There is that,” I muttered and glanced down at the dirt, kicking up the red dust with a crudely made leather shoe that was on its last leg. There were holes on the sides I’d tried stitching up, but working hard, laborious days in and days out meant things didn’t hold up very long.
“Maybe one of these days they’ll let us do our work in the Pit, or maybe in the stock caves or the kitchens.”
Tilly snorted. “Like you or I want to be trapped down there?”
I glanced at her.
“I mean, it sucks working out here, and we are always dusty and sweaty, but we at least get fresh air.”
I guess… there was that. I looked back down at the dirt. “Yeah. I wouldn’t really want to work the Pit. If… things were different, maybe—”
“Hey,” she said softly, and I glanced up. “One of these days Leland and those assholes who harass you will get what’s coming to them.”
“Yeah.” That lone word held no heat. We both knew that an unclaimed female of fertile age, one who had no one to watch over her, was nothing more than a commodity.
“They are assholes, the lot of them. What about Bryce? Can he tell them to leave you alone?”
Now it was my turn to snort. “Bryce?” I shook my head and looked back at those mountains. Then I turned my attention to the rocky terrain that made up what wasn’t mountain or red-dust fields. “They clearly aren’t afraid of him. He’s told them to stay away but they don’t care, and I’m pretty sure Bryce is so arrogant enough to think I’ll be his that he just assumes the harassment is just verbal.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my face with the back of my arm. “Then again, I guess he does have a right to me. Not like I have any choice in the matter.”
“Hey,” Tilly said softly. “Hey,” she prompted with more force in her voice. I glanced at her, and she had this hard look on her face. “I’m here and won’t let any of those assholes—Bryce included—touch you.”
I smiled. She always had my back. Just like I’d always have hers.
I guess I was thankful Bryce hadn't touched me in any way. I honestly didn’t know what he was waiting for. He certainly didn’t hide the way he constantly watched me, didn’t pretend like he didn’t threaten bodily harm to any of the other men in our village if they touched me.
But despite the fact that he left me alone—physically at least—I knew he was just biding his time. I knew my luck would run out eventually.
“Come on. Let’s take our shit inside and get our tokens for the day.” Tilly wound her arm through mine, and together we headed toward the cave entrance.
And the entire time, I still felt like someone was watching me.
2
Azar
Go to her. Make her yours. Let the beast free.
I let the words of my dragon wash through my mind. It was a balm to the otherwise lonely existence I forever faced.
For centuries I’d been within my mountain dwelling. Surviving. Not living, because my dragon was silent… because I hadn't found my mate. My female. The one creature who would awaken my inner Dragao for the first time in my very long existence.
She’s ours. She woke me. Take her. Mark her.
I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth, my fangs elongated and dripping saliva as my dragon sent me images of fucking our mate, of parting her thighs and making her take every inch of my cock, of filling her with my cum.
My cock grew hard and insistent, aching, my seed forming at the tip. I wanted to reach down and take it in my claw-tipped hand, to stroke myself as I stared at my female, covering her belly, thighs, and her pretty pink pussy with my seed.
The scent from my bond for my female came out of every pore in my body in a rush, filling the air around me. The Cord scent only happened when a Dragao male found their mate, an attractant to my mate alone, one that was meant as an aphrodisiac, an aroma that would heighten her need for me. It would make her as insatiable for me as I already was for her.
A harsh growl left me, and I forced myself not to take my cock in hand and pump away until I came. I wasn’t accustomed to arousal and had never felt desire in all my long centuries. Without my mate, without feeling the Cord that connected us irrevocably, tethering me to her for all time—without my fated female, who caused my dragon to awaken for the first time, I’d just been surviving.