Hello, dragon, she murmurs in my mind. Our thoughts have melded. We are best friends. We are present with one another. We are one.
Tiny streaks of golden lightning flash around my head. My aura–I see what Tabitha sees. Her own aura glows royal purple, tinged with reddish gold.
For a moment, the flash of an image of her riding on my back, her lovely red and gold gown billowing in the breeze, blending in with my dragon scales floats into my mind, and the moment it does, Tabitha gasps.
I would love to ride!
Wait…what is happening? This isn’t safe. My dragon’s claws click on the flagstones.
But my lovely mate has already determined how to scramble up and finds a seat at my neck, straddling the notch in front of my wings. Her weight is nothing to me, and when she drapes herself along my neck, it feels right.
Let’s fly! She speaks into my mind.
My treasure… I try to argue, but my dragon-self overrules me, pushing off from the turret and climbing into the air. My wings beat the air, leaving the stone tower far below.
Tabitha gasps, and I listen closely for a scream or cry of fear, but all I hear is, “Oh!”
Are you all right? It’s strange that I can speak with her telepathically.
This is magnificent!
I sense her joy, or perhaps it’s coming from my dragon-self—it’s hard to tell. All I know is that wave after wave of soul-bursting joy emits through my body and being.
I flap my wings a few times then glide in steady arcs around the area, showing her my land from above. Of course, she can’t see in the darkness like I can.
Love.
I’m not sure if it was a spoken word or just a feeling. I’m not sure whether it came from Tabitha or from me. All I know is that it feels complete. Honest. True.
Love isn’t an emotion I considered much before this moment. It wasn’t a need for me. I wasn’t looking for my mate for love–I was looking for a completion. The final piece of treasure I hadn’t been able to amass. The ability to reproduce.
But right now, I’d trade every piece of gold, every land holding, every soldier just to keep feeling this expansion in my chest. This pulsing glow of love that seems like the meaning of life itself.
Love.
This time I know it’s me who spoke. My dragon.
I love you, too, beautiful dragon-man. That was Tabitha.
She loves me. Although I would’ve said it was impossible to feel any more, the sense of love expands even further.
Love. This time flames issue from my mouth–yellow and red billowing into the night. I fly into the cloud of smoke.
Tabitha doesn’t shriek. She laughs.
I love you, too, she repeats.
It feels like some kind of miracle. Some impossible feat.
Without thinking, I circle back to the castle and alight more gently and smoothly than I’ve ever landed. I lower my head, and she slides down my snout to drop to the ground. She’s still laughing with delight, like a child on a playground.
I shift and scoop her into my arms, striding swiftly for my bed. The strains of music and laughter of the party-goers carry up to the tower.
Tabitha sucks on my neck. Kisses along my jaw.
I shake with need, unable to rein in my passion. I want to be suave and skilled as her lover, but instead, I’m like a rutting beast. I throw her onto the bed and climb above her, fisting my cock.
Her eyes glaze with the same passion. She lifts the short skirt at the front of her dress and spreads her knees for me. I tear off her panties, shoving into her before they’re even down her knees. She kicks them off beneath me, then wraps her legs behind my back, pulling me in, squeezing her tight channel around my pulsing cock.
Love.
It’s still my dragon talking.
This is the first time I’ve heard him in my human form in centuries.
“Tabitha…Tabitha,” I chant, plunging in and out of her, synchronizing my thrusts with the lift of her hips, the squeeze of her internal muscles. “My treasure. Tabitha, my treasure.”
Firebrand.
My dragon wants me to mark her, to claim her as ours.
“No, we can’t,” I mutter.
“What?” Tabitha reaches for my face, caressing it in the firelight.
I shake my head. Sweat beads on my chest and forehead. I need to come, but I don’t ever want this to stop. I want to please my mate, and I’ve barely done more than plow into her with a great deal of frenzy and force.
“What is firebrand?” she persists.
“You can hear that?” My treasure’s gifts are powerful, indeed. She is connected to the dragon–more than I am.
“What is it?”
My brain is fuzzy. My need coiled so tightly. “It’s…how I claim you. When you’re ready,” I add. I will not claim her before she’s agreed. It would be wrong.