A Throne of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 2)

“My animal is riding me, too. I’ll admit…if it were a different time, I’d tell you not to worry about the tea and just see what happened. But we aren’t living a life where that is possible, Finley.”

A breath whooshed out of me. Something tight and knotted within me loosened a little at his admission. His reaction the other night had been about timing, the same hang-ups I had. He hadn’t been rejecting me. Nothing changed about our situation while everything changed. Somehow, his admission made this all a bit more bearable, made me feel like I wasn’t alone in waiting for a verdict. He’d still been an ass, and he’d deserved my anger, but he wasn’t leaving me hanging out to dry. We were in this, all of this, together.

I clung to him tightly. “I know.”

“And our animals shouldn’t be in a breeding frenzy, anyway. That only happens between dragon true mates when they’ve imprinted and the female goes in heat.”

That stopped me up short.

I tried to pull away from him a little, but he held me firmly, his cock still deeply inside me, his body glued to mine.

“In heat? Okay, I know we’re shifters, but using terms like ‘breeding’ and ‘in heat’ is crossing the line.”

He laughed softly. “It wouldn’t be if you’d grown up around such talk. The animal parts of us can be…”

“Gross? Pushy dickheads?”

“Intense. Anyway, yes, there is a heat cycle, basically, where the female isn’t satisfied unless she’s getting the male’s seed in her constantly. I’ve only ever heard of a couple of dragon true mates, and apparently the men were not complaining about being needed constantly. The ones I’ve heard about walked around with tired smiles. Growing up, everyone thought it was an urban legend, but everyone wanted to be the guy to experience it. It almost always results in a young one, though, I’ve heard. Otherwise dragons don’t produce as much as some of the other shifters. Wolves, for example. They have numbers, and we have more power. It balances out in the long run.”

He rolled to the side, laying me on my back, pressing me into the mattress. He kissed me languidly.

“Our animals are feeding off each other, I think,” I said before nipping at his lips. “Yours seems like a headstrong jackass, and mine is eager for him to get his way. They don’t really give a shit about logic. They just want to bang.”

He chuckled. “I think you’re right.” His mood sobered. “I worry about you going out at night without me. It’s why I act the way I do. I’ve never been good at dealing with vulnerability, and you are my greatest weakness. I don’t want to lose you.”

I ran my fingers across his muscled arms, utterly spent in the best of ways. An aftershock shivered across my skin, and I let my eyes drift shut.

“You can’t watch me all the time, Nyfain. You can’t be everywhere at once.”

“I know,” he whispered. “But…can we compromise? Clearly I can’t force you to my will. But I can’t handle making another mad flight across the Royal Wood because I think you’re in trouble. It rips my heart out. I’m a strong man, but I’m not strong enough for that. It’s a danger to me as much as to you, if you care about that. I’m never focused on my surroundings when I’m running to you.”

“Of course I care about that.”

“So meet me halfway. Please. Tell me what you plan and let me try to at least be close by in case something goes wrong.”

I opened my eyes and took in his golden gaze—his expression, open and expressive, imploring me to see sense, or his version of it. I kissed his soft lips and slid my knees a little farther up his sides.

“Fine. But if you’re in one of your moods, you might need to settle for finding out in a letter.”

“A letter is fine. Send Hadriel if you need. Whatever.”

“I wouldn’t do that to the poor guy.”

He smiled, his gaze roaming my face. “Did you harvest?”

“Yes, but I didn’t get a chance to put them in water to keep them from drying. I also didn’t get a chance to pick from any of the crowded plants.”

“We’ll pick from them tomorrow.”

“I thought you were just going to stay close.”

“I will. Very close.” He pushed off me with a smirk, quickly bending to run his tongue up my folds and then flick my clit. It was so decadently filthy that I couldn’t help getting turned on again.

In that mood now, wanting to see where it would go, I reached down and ran my fingers through my deliciously used pussy, biting my lip. I moved the wetness up to my clit and stroked lazily.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, grabbing the bedpost. His eyes flashed with heat, and his cock started to rise. He glanced at the bared pink flesh between my spread knees and groaned.