32. TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-SEVEN

Wren

“Howdoesitfeel, little bird?”

“Really amazing,” I murmured as the water from the Natatorium lapped over our toes.

“You deserve amazing.”

A feeling of dread landed in my gut as I stared up in horror as the carefully constructed wards flickered black before shattering.

“Kian didn’t have a vision, did he?” My heart twisted in my chest.

Damien’s horns emerged as his tail swished behind him. “No, and neither did Blair.”

Five dragons swooped in. A large red one, that I recognized as Roak, flew directly toward us.

My stomach dropped as Rowan and Blair rushed toward us. “Damien, get her the fuck out of here!”

Damien growled, but as he was about to wrap his arms around me, a man barreled into me from behind.

I flickered incorporeal as I went flying into the Natatorium with the man, and he was no longer able to touch me. I didn’t feel the wetness of the water as I stood in it, nor did I feel pain as I got up—and that made me love my power so much more.

Damien’s eyes were murderous. “Take care of the dragons. I’ll take care of this fucker.”

“Whatever you do, keep Wren safe.” Rowan’s tone was stern, and flames licked up his arms as he stared down the dragons starting to land on the campus.

“Always,” he promised as all of my mates rushed around us.

Damien waded into the water, bent down, and wrapped a hand around the guy’s throat who had rammed into me.

The man was definitely a dragon. Green scales formed on his arms, and he roared as Damien’s biceps flexed as he jerked him up.

“You really think you were going to hurt my little bird? Nobody hurts her.” He pulled him closer, tilting his head with a cruel smirk on his lips. “Nobody breathes in her direction wrong and lives. So what do you think is going to happen to you?”

I became corporeal next to them, and Damien’s shadows slipped around my waist before pulling me toward him.

He shadow-traveled both me and the dragon, who had ran into me, downstairs into his torture chamber with the door bolted shut.

“Damien, what’s happening?” A shiver raced down my spine.

“The dragons are here again. That’s what’s happening—and none of the seers nor Kian saw it coming, which is fucked, but I bet this guy knows why they’re here.”

“Roak just told us he needed to talk to Rowan,” he sputtered as Damien squeezed his throat.

“How many of you came in your regular form?” Damien’s shadow struck, slicking a horizontal line in the guy’s chest. Blood seeped and soaked the fabric of his shirt.

“Only me. I was instructed to grab Rowan’s mate.” He gritted his teeth and looked at me, lust taking over his gaze. “There was another mate to a dragon, but they were deceitful and ran away. Why is it that none of you want to do what the Dragon God wants?”

“Because there is no Dragon God,” I snapped, rage filling me. “Because the only thing you have is a madman for a leader who wants you to take advantage of your fellow dragon’s mates. For some reason, you’re sick in the head enough to do it!”

The dragon reeled back as if he wasn’t expecting me to speak back to him.

Damien chuckled. “She’s got a real good point. Isn’t she so cute when she gets worked up?”

“Yeah, she is cute.” His eyes slid down my body again, and I shivered.

Damien’s shadow tendrils shot forward and popped both of his eyes out in one go. The red flesh held them to the eye sockets as they bounced against his cheeks.

The dragon stifled his scream, a low growl coming out instead.

His scales spread more, covering his body before Damien used his telekinesis to keep him from shifting.

“You don’t get to look at her. She’s mine. Isn’t that right, little bird?” Damien’s words ended on a purr as his gaze slid to me.

My heart fluttered. “That’s right.”

Should I have found it attractive that he gouged a man’s eyes out for looking at me? Probably not. Did I, though? Absolutely. Because it was Damien.

I bit down on my lip as Damien’s shadows started to slice at his skin.

“You wanted to touch her, didn’t you?” He growled. “You all do. It’s why Rowan is so fucking scared of you bastards getting her.” A guttural growl tore from Damien as the guy nodded his head.

“You’re not going to be able to feel anything. I’m going to strip you of all of your nerve endings, cut out your tongue, and bust your eardrums so you have no senses at all until you bleed out.”

“We’re dragons. We regenerate.” The dragon chuckled darkly, his eye sockets trained on me, even though I knew he couldn’t see me anymore, and it sent a chill through me. I stepped behind Damien to shield me from the two black holes in his face.

“Maybe you can, shit. I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me. I’ll just crush your skull until your brain is mush.”

Damien made good on his promise. The terrible squelching sound of the dragon’s skin being sliced off by his shadows echoed through the room. The gurgled moan in the back of his throat was weak as Damien yanked his tongue from his body with his telekinesis. I peeked from behind him to see one of his tendrils slip through one ear and out of the other, the skull cracking from the pressure and the squish of the brain as it went through.

Amusement flooded Damien’s bond the entire time, and I glanced away as he used his telekinesis to crush his skull and brain in one crushing blow.

The dragon’s blood soaked the concrete of his chamber and splattered all over his body.

I stepped forward, but he pivoted away.

“Little bird.” His tone was a warning. “If you come any closer, I won’t be able to stop myself.”

“Stop yourself from what?” I moved forward again.

“Stop myself from fucking you in the same room as this man that I just killed for you.” His tongue swiped his bottom lip as he dragged his gaze down my body and up again.

“Don’t stop yourself because you killing for me has to be one of the most attractive things I have ever seen in my life.” My pheromones permeated the air, and his possessive growl slid down my spine, making it click straight.

His smile was cold and cruel, but his gaze held so much love and warmth—and I loved it. He understood the dark side of me that I didn’t even know I had before him. We were fated for a reason.

Heat curled in my abdomen as he used his telekinesis to move the remains of the dragon into the corner, and then he had us both stripped naked and my knees digging into the concrete as his bloodied hands tangled in my hair, staining the white red in an instant.

A powerful force of magic stormed between us, a wild sexual heat that rushed against each other like a torpedo.

“Thank you, Damien,” I purred as I gripped the base of his hardened length and ran my tongue over the jeweled tip.

His head tilted back, showing his neck tattoos as he let out a moan. “Fuck, little bird, for what? I should be thanking you.”

“Thanks for killing for me and protecting me.” I moved my mouth over the head, loving the way that he moaned. My tongue glided over his shaft in rasping strokes, and I moved my head up and down the hard length of his erection, loving the taste of his flesh in my mouth. I moaned, continuing to bob up and down as he guided me.

“You suck my cock so good, little bird.”

A shiver of anticipation rolled through me, eager to take every last drop that he would spill down my throat. My walls clenched, and I squeezed my thighs together to ease the pressure.

“Oh, no.” He took himself out of my mouth and jerked me up by my hair.

A searing pain erupted from my scalp, adding to the buildup between my legs.

His hand went between my legs, swirling around my clit before spreading me wide and plunging his index finger deep inside of me. “Such a good girl. So wet and ready for your mate. You liked watching me kill him for you, didn’t you? It made you wet.”

I nodded, a whimper in the back of my throat breaking free.

“Little bird, words,” he snarled.

“Yes! It made me want you even more!” I yelped as he pulled out and pinched my clit painfully. As always, I wanted to be completely devastated by his pleasure and pain. “Seeing you destroy someone who wanted to hurt me, it makes me fall for you even harder.”

His hands moved to my breasts before cupping them in his hands and bending down to nip the buds of my nipples with his teeth. “All mine,” he snarled, inhaling me before slipping up and crashing his lips to mine.

Our mouths clashed together, teeth and tongues bumping and slipping. I moaned into the punishing kiss as it devoured me completely.

“What do you want me to do? What do you need?” he asked, licking his way down my neck.

“I need you to fuck me, Damien.”

He paused, moving back so I could see that excitement in his eyes.

His shadows slipped down my skin, cutting it open as my powers healed me. “How do you want me to fuck you?”

“I don’t care how. I just want you to fuck me,” I whimpered.

He picked me up and slammed me against the concrete wall. Pain exploded in my back, but I was lost to him as a raw rippling wave washed over me, tearing me in two as he shoved inside. He silenced my screams with a cruel, consuming kiss, swallowing all of my helpless cries.

My toes curled as my legs wrapped around his waist, and he thrust hard over and over and over again. It was the ultimate pleasure to feel him inside me, pushing me to the brink as my muscles spasmed around him.

“Such a good fucking girl, little bird. You take all of me. You take my cruelness, insanity, and you match it.”

I thrashed and moaned as erotic oblivion gripped me, sending me screaming over the edge as he pounded between my legs just as the door to the chamber flew across the room, hitting the adjacent wall with a loud bang.

I tilted my head back against the wall to get a look through hooded eyes at the doorway to see Rowan and Norman there with Trixie peeking over Norman’s shoulder with her mouth set in an O-shape.

Rowan roared, a breath of fire rolling out of his mouth, incinerating the body in the corner. “There are fucking rules! I figured it was common sense not to fuck our mate near someone’s corpse who tried to hurt her!”

“Why? He can’t hurt her anymore.” Damien continued thrusting inside of me as Trixie howled with laughter.

Moans built up in my throat as he kept hitting my sweet spot, and I bit down on his shoulder to try to keep them in.

Norman’s gaze turned cold as he whipped his head toward Damien. “You couldn’t have at least de-scaled the dragon before killing him?”

Damien moaned, gripping my hair and tilting my head back before licking up the column of my neck. “Sorry.”

“Nobody looks at her except us.” Rowan shouted, and Norman turned on his feet, storming out of the room.

Trixie gave me a two thumbs up before running after him.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Rowan stormed over, slapping a hand on the wall beside me, his hand sinking into the concrete from his brutal force.

Every muscle tensed inside of me as another release started to build.

“Are you two not hearing me? What is wrong with you?” Rowan seethed, leaning closer to me. My teeth pulled from Damien’s shoulder as my head hit the wall and the moans I’d held in broke free.

Rowan’s ember scent filled my nose, adding to the desire climbing inside.

“Rowan,” I moaned, my eyes rolling back in my head.

Damien picked up his pace brutally, my back digging into the concrete as pain erupted. “I’m inside you, little bird, not Rowan.”

“Damien,” I cried out.

He came with a wild snarl, shooting into my heat and making my body tremble.

“No one is supposed to watch her get fucked by any of us unless they are her mates,” Rowan snapped.

Damien sucked in a breath as he rested his forehead on mine. “Norman didn’t give a shit about what we were doing or did he take any interest in Wren. If he did, I would have gouged his eyes out too.”

“Not the point.” Rowan rumbled a growl, shaking his head and running his hands through his disheveled red hair. “I was so fucking worried.” His anger sizzled as vulnerability poured out of him.

Damien grunted before pulling out of me and lowering me to the ground. He stepped aside as Rowan moved forward, pulling me into his arms.

“Rowan, I’m sorry I worried you. I just needed—“

“No,” he cut me off sharply, inhaling my scent. “There’s so much going on. If you can find solace in each other, then do it.”

“I want to find solace in you too.” I reached up and stroked his cheek.

His expression softened. “I love you, Wren. They cannot get you.”

“They won’t,”Damien promised at the same time I did.

They wouldn’t get me. There was no way I would ever let them get their hands on me.