Chapter 26

Kit

"Why are we here?" I rub the sleep from my eyes as Cyril opens the door to Agatha's small goat barn, its hinges groaning softly against the hush of pre-dawn. The air inside is cool, tinged with the earthy aroma of goats and hay. Everyone else is still asleep, which seems like the smarter thing to be doing right now. In fact, I'm still in the shift Agatha lent me. Cyril, on the other hand, is fully dressed in a clean shirt and loose trousers. And there is a slight scent of wood chips on him, as if he'd been whittling.

"We are here because no one else is." There is a small gleam in Cyril's blue eyes that I've not seen in some time. He pulls his hand out of his pocket.

"No one else is in a lot of other places," I mutter. "Like my sleeping pallet. So how about we go there?"

"Oh, I think you'll want to be here," he says. "You still seem to enjoy privacy."

"Only when we—" I rub my face, realizing what he is getting at. My treacherous body heats in visceral approval that my mind does not share. We are in the middle of a disaster for stars' sake, with the rest of the pack missing. Not to mention that we are guests of an elderly human couple. "Really, Cyril? You think this is the time for a tumble? Are you even well enough to -"

Cyril's mouth silences the rest of my protest. As he takes my mouth, he grabs my waist and draws me purposefully against his muscled body. I am suddenly and acutely aware of every point of contact between us, from the hungry lips now pressing insistently over mine to the hardness pulsating against my abdomen. His kiss is fervent, the kind that steals my breath—and he knows it. I grip his arms, riding the wave of need Cyril stokes inside me with his mouth alone.

"You are a horny, mindless male," I tell him, my breaths coming in pants as we pull apart. There is a distinctly uncomfortable ache between my thighs now, and I shift my weight around in a futile effort to relieve it. "And I hate you."

"Horny perhaps, but not mindless." Cyril's hands slide to my face, his calloused palms cupping my cheeks. "I know how to contact the pack."

"Well, maybe we should do that first and celebrate after?" My sex tightens, casting its vote to reverse the proposed order of events.

Cyril shakes his head. "It's one and the same. Primal connection."

"Primal connection?"

"Yes. You have the ability to mindspeak with Tavias. We know you do. You just don't know how to access it on demand. But there is one other thing we know about that dragon magic of yours… it comes out best when some of your human thought shackles fall away." A corner of his mouth quirks. "And seeing how the rest of us were treated to a front row seat when you and Tavias barricaded yourselves in the bear den, well, I think my plan of attack to access your primal potential has a reasonably high probability of success." Cyril's voice hitches slightly as the bulge pressing against his trousers gives a distinct twitch.

I squeeze my eyes tight, but it does nothing to ease the rush of desire that shoots through the mating bond. "I don't think we can ignore the possibility of it working," I say. "It would be… irresponsible… not to try."

"My thoughts exactly," Cyril agrees. With that his hand slides under the shift Agatha had loaned me, his thumb trailing toward my clavicle, tracing the line above my breastbone.

My nipples tighten at the touch, and I moan as my head falls back against a prickly wall of stacked hay. I don't remember us getting here, but from the goats snide bleating I'm guessing it's a recent development. I reach for his shirt but he catches my wrists deftly.

"Oh, I'm much too injured to let you at me." The smirk in his voice is pure, infuriating provocation. My sex is screaming with need now and I want to touch him so badly that it hurts. He nips the top of my breast and the tiny spark of pain morphs into jolts of sensation that have me going up on my toes. Cyril transfers my caught wrists into one hand. "I think I better keep control of these. For safety's sake."

I try to knee him from sheer spite, but he blocks the feeble attempt with a seductive chuckle. "This is serious business, dragon queen," he whispers against my scales, his breath tickling the sensitive medallions. "Maybe I need to impart just how serious before we proceed."

With the swiftness of the immortal warrior that he is, Cyril relieves me of the shift entirely and tosses the garment over the stack of hay bales. Then he hoists me up to sit atop that, flipping me over at the last second so that my legs dangle off the ground and my backside juts out.

"I do believe you've caused enough world saving havoc for now, dragon nymph." Cyril's voice is a rumbling caress behind me as he pins me with a hand splayed on my lower back while his knee spreads my legs wide open.

The cool air brushes against my damp folds, sending shivers down my spine. I can hear Cyril sniffing the arousal now thickening the air, then growling in soft appreciation. The image I must present to him sears through my thoughts, making my scales heat to match my sex.

"Let me up, you scaled lizard."

"I'd like to disabuse you of the notion that you are in any position to make demands" His half-purring voice emphasizes the word position. "You might be the queen of the dragons, but I am their king. I'm going to take the reins now. I'm going to strip away all the thoughts and fears brewing in that mind of yours, until you are so drunk with need and desire that your world narrows to nothing but the pack bond. And that will only be the start of it."

Cyril's thumbs stroke the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, moving closer and closer to my center, his legs blocking my dangling ones from being able to do much damage. Then his hands grip my hips, and lifts my backside up even higher, bringing me off the hay bales until... I gasp as Cyril thrusts his tongue against my arousal, lapping at the moisture that has pooled there. My breath hitches in my throat, my hands curling around the hay. With each flick, flick, flick, of Cyril's tongue, the pulsing inside my clit grows until I'm moaning, my backside squirming in his grip as the wet sounds of Cyril's mouth against my sex fill the air. Just as release is within my reach, Cyril pulls his mouth from me.

A growl of frustration that's as much dragon as human rumbles from my chest. The terrible ache of my engorged clit grips me all the way to my toes, my hips bucking in protest as they seek the friction I so desperately need.

Instead, the bastard sets me right back onto my belly and holds me there, my legs wide and my need screaming.

"Trust me, Kit," he murmurs in a wicked, sultry whisper, his breath ghosting over my sensitive skin. "Not that you've much choice. This is for your own good."

I hear a sound, as if Cyril is drawing something from his pocket. There is that familiar scent again, a light whiff of whittled wood. Then the something brushes along my folds, rotating in my arousal. Instead of slipping inside me though, the object is suddenly gone and... I shudder as Cyril's touch reappears, this time pulling my cheeks open. His fingers trail the exposed fleshy crease, my desperate attempts at clenching them only drawing a reprimanding click of Cyril's tongue.

"We fill you everywhere, Kitterny," Cyril says. "This here is no exception." With that, he begins to press something smooth and hard and so so big into my back entrance. I can feel the resistance, the stretching ache as Cyril forces me open. I hate it. I love it. The sensation is overwhelming, not only spreading heat and pleasure throughout my nerves but making it impossible to focus on anything beyond the intrusion. The damn fullness. The desire.

"You are ours." Cyril's growl sends a shiver along my spine. "We are one pack no matter where we are." His fingers slide between my legs, probing all the swollen folds in a way that sends jolts of sensation from my core to my toes. Then he flicks the plug he's carved. How long did that bloody take him? The thought of Cyril sitting and whittling a plug for my backside is as excruciating as what he is now doing with it.

I arch back with a frustrated scream that makes the goats bleat their displeasure. My apex throbs, and I buck to find the friction it needs for release. But Cyril's hands hold me open like a vice and all I get to brush against my clit are wisps of chilly air. "Please," I beg him. "Please. I need to... Can't..."

"Not yet, little nymph," Cyril says, a hint of empathy in his voice. "I want you so ready that Tavais himself comes when you finally find release."

Tavias. The pack. I can see them with embarrassing clarity. If Hauck was at this, he'd have me orgasming in five different ways by now and Tavias would have spanked my cheeks at the first whiff of resistance. Either way, I'd be riding the high of release. But Cyril... I didn't know Cyril had this manner of torment in him.

Just as those less than flattering thoughts brush through my mind, Cyril flips me around, sitting me on the stack of hay bales I'd just been bent over. The fullness in my backside makes itself extra known as I struggle to readjust to the new position. Cyril chuckles and reaches between my legs, his slick finger pushing inside my channel. One finger then two, then three, stretching me wide as he probes my depths.

My clit is throbbing, the need for release building with every stroke of his fingers. My toes curl, my hands gripping Cyril's shoulders.

Cyril withdraws his fingers, leaving me feeling hollow though, through my haze of need, I can see that he's undoing his laces. Then he is gloriously between my thighs, his massive cock pulsating, the scales along it laying flat and ready.

He enters me with a single thrust, filling me completely. The sensation of him inside me feels right. Perfect. Like a missing piece of me has now returned. He bares his teeth as his hips start to move, pushing into me with slow, deliberate strokes. Each thrust scrapes wickedly against my channel, the scales along his cock rising just enough to stimulate every sensitive spot inside me.

Cyril pulls me off the hay and I wrap my legs around his waist as I ride him, his strength holding me easily to his hips. His shirt is slightly damp with sweat and clings to his muscled body deliciously. Despite the dimness of the barn, I can see the scales heading toward his cock glisten with speckles of my arousal.

"I love you, Kitterny," Cyril whispers, the mating bond anchoring the words as the truth. He starts to move faster, his thrusts growing more forceful, the damn thing he'd pushed into my backside magnifying each sensation. My sex pulsates. My channel tries to grip his cock greedily each time he pushes inside. The magic inside me undulates, its tendrils reaching into my soul and beyond.

Lowering his head to my breast, Cyril takes my nipple into his mouth and suckles.

I throw my head back and groan at the pleasure of the pull on my breast. At the feeling of the warm nipple hardening under my tongue, which is still coated with Kit's citrusy sweet arousal.

Wait a second. Why am I tasting my own -

Cyril nips the top of my breast, the tiny prickles of pain enough to pull my mind back to the now. The mating bond rumbles through my veins, a fiery passion that sends shockwaves through my entire body. Distantly, I realize Cyril's bite still tingles despite the soothing laps of his tongue.

No, it's not Cyril's bite mark that's tingling. It's Quinton's. The mark he left when he'd claimed me as his mate. The other marks heat as well, like little claws of the mating bond latching onto each other.

Cyril's breath is ragged now as he thrusts into me, his hips pounding into mine with an unrelenting force. His blue eyes are glazed, his body trembling with a need of his own that he must hold off satisfying. The scent of hay and sweat fills my nostrils, mixing with the heady scent of an evening fire, of wind and steel, of earth and woods. The pack. I feel the pack.

"Cyril—"

"- I know." The intensity of Cyril's gaze makes my heart race. Without pausing his thrusts, Cyril shifts me slightly and swats my backside. The sting starbursts to erotic pleasure.

My breath hitches, but while I search for words to ask what the spank was for, a very very familiar low chuckle reverberates through the mating bond.

That was me, wildcat, Tavias's voice, coming through the bond, sounds as breathless as my own. And it was just because.