Chapter Ten Maxim

The sudden appearance of my headmaster's knot creates a startled silence.

Ronin's soft curse mingles with Neo's gentle gasp of wonder from the place where those two of my mates—both so beloved and so missed—lie entwined and writhing on our bed.

After the ordeal of my recent travels, roaming the backstreet bookshops and antiquities black markets in Rome and Athens and Istanbul—all the ancient cities—in fruitless hunt for secret Unseelie lore at Vasili's command, my dragon is wild for both my mates.

Wild to reclaim them.

Wild to scent them and fuck them and fill them with our seed.

But if our sovereign meant those inflammatory words she spoke, in her colloquial English, about cutting loose and without guardrails and needing babies …?

Then my dragon and I are going nowhere.

We will not budge from our queen's side until her heat is broken.

Until she is bedded and bred.

Until she is so sated and so filled with our potent dragon seed that she wishes to do nothing for days on end except sleep and dream and incubate our young.

During the breeding time—this short precious interlude, so sheltered and so special, when Zara is fertile and conceiving our young—we will guard our lair and keep her safe.

Whenever she wakes, we will fuck.

When you are a dragon shifter, when it is time to breed, that is how it is done .

Already my queen sways in my arms, flushed and breathless from the engine of her looming heat, her lush curves naked and burning like a fiery coal. I wrap one arm around her tiny waist and one arm around Lucius' rangy frame and breathe… breathe deeply… while I wage a desperate inner war.

I pray I will not abandon all restraint and run mad under the blind mindless need of this mating rut.

Predictably, this pregnant silence (an apt phrase, no?) is broken by Vasili. My first love. My first rival. My desperate conundrum and my lethal obsession.

Vasili, who is finally mine.

My sweetheart.

Mine.

Of all my mates, Vasili Romanov is the most deceptive. And the most deadly.

"Well, darlings, it's about time," he purrs, rearing behind Zara like a rattlesnake and smirking at Lucius. "I wondered when that knot of yours would make an appearance, pet. In fact, I've rather wondered why he's never made an appearance for me. "

With fangs fully extended and eyes red as embers in his feral face, Lucius Aries is a breath away from shifting. Seeing my headmaster so close to lost in his own rut makes my bones hum and my groin heat with a low throb of need.

Still, despite the pheromones flooding the air and his wolf growling under his skin and fighting to rise, Lucius manages to level Vasili an apologetic look.

"A wolf's knot is a breeding trait," our headmaster explains patiently, in his rough wolfish timber. "It's an anatomical feature that typically only manifests during a mating rut, when a wolf shifter's mate is fertile. I've, er, never before experienced one. This is my first rut. And, thus, my first knot."

A knot? I ponder.

A dragon shifter does not grow a knot. My dragon cock has other unique anatomical features, which are always present but will be more so now (when we are breeding), to maximize our prospects for conception.

Still, Lucius could sprout tentacles like a sea kraken, and I would not be repelled .

He is Lucius. And I… I am his.

I am his in ways that my dragon and I are only beginning to comprehend.

"Blooming hell, love. A knot, is it?" Ronin rolls lithely out of bed, lean and luscious in those unbuttoned leather pants that barely cling to his hips, with his silky hair tumbled from Neo's eager hands. He gives our bookworm a smoking look, then prowls across the room to join us near the fire. "That's hot as fuck. Any chance after you knot our girl, you'll have a bit of that knot left over for me?"

Lucius' jaw elongates and his nostrils flare. Slowly, but very surely, his gentle scholarly demeanor is losing the battle to his beast. "I'll knot you if you can take it."

"Fuck." Ronin's voice goes husky and his tawny eyes smolder with rising heat. "Only one way to go on then, isn't there?"

The wolf's pupils dilate with hunger. His chest swells in a gravelly rumble of need.

The whisper of bare feet drags my stare away from this riveting exchange. Neo's curly head pokes over Ronin's shoulder, green eyes round behind his spectacles. "A knot? Really? Can I see?"

Neo's wide-eyed interest finally curls Zara's lush mouth, still parted with surprise, into a slow grin. "Hmm, yeah, I think we'd all like a closer look. C'mon over here where you can see better, baby."

Ronin slings an affectionate arm around Neo's brawny shoulders and draws him fully into our circle.

Wearing nothing but a pair of navy cotton boxers stretched tight over his ass, with a damp patch of precum blooming over his bulge, our Neo is a sight to behold.

But Ronin's smoldering gaze never veers from Lucius.

After a questioning look at our headmaster, who permits this intimacy with a nod, Zara works Lucius' houndstooth trousers down his hips. By now, his wolf wants him naked, so our headmaster's trousers are on the floor, as Neo would say, shifty-swifty. Carefully, as though she is unwrapping a birthday present, Zara eases the wolf's conservative boxers—in burgundy silk from an affluent label—over his magnificent package.

"Whoa," she breathes, pausing in her labors to stare.

"Oh, fuck, sign me up for that," Ronin mutters .

I hear myself grunt in heartfelt sentiment.

Zara's shimmering aqua gaze shifts to me. Her teal eyebrows lift. A hint of a smile ghosts across her sweet lips before she is drawn back to Lucius' anatomy—which does tend to draw the eye.

He is thick and girthy, his veiny cock rigid and jutting with need, springing from the thicket of chestnut curls between his muscled thighs. His heavy sac swings beneath, already flushed and swollen with purpose. As I have observed many times, Lucius is endowed with an abundance of dick that pleases all our mates.

He pleases all our mates very well.

Yet it has always felt disrespectful to watch too closely while he pleases them. He is my teacher, almost my father (the kind that stays), he leads this household. We dragonkind are raised to respect our elders.

Besides… he… has never seemed interested in claiming me, as he does all the others.

Even tonight, I think perhaps he has only kissed me—that searing kiss that ignited my entire body into a raging inferno of need that still blazes in my blood—because Zara has told him he should.

I am not as intimately familiar with his body as I am with all the others. Still, I am deferential and careful not to stare.

Even so, the thick knot of hardened flesh swelling at the base of his dick makes my mouth run dry.

My sovereign drops to her knees for a closer look. This arrangement makes Lucius growl with anticipation.

Her mischievous gaze lifts to his. "Does it hurt?"

"Not in the way you're asking, you minx," he says gruffly. "No. But the… tumescence… won't subside until I've been—"

"Milked?" Our queen's pretty hands slide up his strong thighs.

"Satisfied," he growls through his fangs. "Behave yourself, Ms. Gemini."

"Is that really what you want, Teach? Me behaving myself?" Slow and teasing, her thumbs circle the base of his knot. Lucius' eyes close, his head falls back on a ragged groan, and his hips thrust into her touch.

"Wow," she breathes. "You're really sensitive here, aren't you?"

Her little hands cradle his knot, while Lucius' hips twitch and his talons hover around her lightning-blue head. Clearly, it is all he can manage not to seat himself deep in her saucy mouth .

Her thoughtful face tilts toward me. "You want a closer look, big guy?"

I need a moment to realize she is speaking to me.

Now I am torn between conflicting instincts. I am in rut, and my mate lingers close to a rival alpha who is likewise in rut. In these circumstances, my dragon should be savage. He should bugle and rend and tear.

Already, he is trembling with pent-up yearning. For he is a slave to the ancient genetic imperative of all our kind.

That devastating need to breed.

Yet my dragon is also… strangely… subservient.

I am the Sagittarius prince. I am a fully manifested male dragon shifter. I am the greatest of my kind. And I am also the last.

This sense of subservience is… utterly foreign.

Yet it is too overwhelming to deny.

Heavily I drop to my knees beside Zara, curl my arm around her waist to steady her, and bow my forehead against Lucius' muscled thigh.

I close my eyes and pull in a deep lungful of his familiar wolfish odor, mingled with the creamy rose of Zara's mating scent. Her inner beast croons and bates her wings in welcome.

Saints of the northern steppes. Our queen burns to rise in a mating flight.

If she does, beyond all doubt, Vasili and I will rise to fly her.

But Lucius… Lucius cannot follow.

He is earthbound. But I will not leave him behind. My free arm snakes around his leg like a vine. My dragon exhales a soft keen of yearning.

We are his.

"Well, aren't you full of surprises tonight, dragon?" That is my sweetheart, my Vasili, lurking near, who is sounding so disgruntled and so spiteful. "You won't bend for me. But you'll bend for Lucius ?"

I press my brow harder into Lucius' thigh and close my eyes.

By Christ, I am trembling.

Lucius' taloned hand curls tenderly around my head, as though he will protect me from these jeering words. Still, I take no offense.

My sweetheart is vicious because he is jealous.

I am trying to think how to answer. I am not like our mates, I do not bend. I am alpha .

But I am lost in a strange confusion. The words will not form.

"Take it easy with him, Goblin King," Zara says softly. "He's trying to figure his shit out."

She nestles into my side—so hot, so ripe, so succulent—then reaches to draw Vasili close.

He is sulking, but he comes.

"If we end up deciding we're doing this, you know, for real?" Snuggled up against all three of us, Zara hesitates and looks up at me. My heart thunders as though it will burst from my chest. By this , she means breeding. "Then we're all gonna need to be… careful. With each other."

We all grasp her warning.

Lucius mutters in agreement and strokes my hair. I rub my bristly jaw into him—daring to scent him, just a little, near his groin—then nuzzle the hot hairy stretch of his thigh for reassurance.

In a typical shifter harem, the alphas would fight and kill for the privilege to breed their queen.

In our unconventional cobbled-together polycule, we will defy centuries of shifter instinct if we breed her together.

My dragon should be bathing in our rivals' blood. Yet the thought of harming any of them fills me with a frenzy of distress.

"It's okay," Zara breathes in my ear. "There's enough of me for all of you. That's the only way we're doing this. I mean, if we're doing this—"

If?

There will be no if.

Brutally I drag her into me and twist to find her mouth with mine. The hot sweet suck of her lips burns through me, as though she has wrapped her mouth around my cock. She moans and winds one silky arm around my neck. Her lush breasts, pierced by her silver rings, press into my chest. Behind my briefs, the sensitive barbs of my dragon dick chafe and jut.

The rumble of my dragon's need is a continuous echo that fills my head and crowds out all reason.

Breed her breed we must breed…

I groan and sway and cling to Zara and Lucius as though I am drowning.

I sense Ronin's potent heat pulsing through my blood, because he is so powerful a telepath, and I know sweet Neo too is near. But I cannot abide anyone, not even my mates, too near my horribly scarred and tortured back, my Achilles heel that has always been so vulnerable.

So my mates are giving me this space.

It's okay, big guy, Zara whispers through our mating bond. No one's gonna hurt you. Not ever again. We'll all get through this together. You wanna help me make Lucius feel good?

Lucius is the pillar we all lean against. Even now, he is the physical scaffold that holds our joined bodies upright. Always, he takes nothing for himself.

"Yes, my sovereign," I growl against Zara's eager mouth. "I want that."

That's good, Max. She pulls back enough to give me a sultry grin. That's real good. Let's you and me give all our guys a night to remember.

Lucius' thick cock is jutting beside her face and mine. He is mere centimeters away.

She cups his shaft in her little hand and gives him a few hard strokes that make him shudder and me groan. Then she leans in to mouth his bulbous cockhead and slurp at his dripping slit.

A ragged groan rips from his lungs.

His hand fists in her tumbled teal curls and shoves her deep onto his length.

She envelops his impressive girth in her plush lips. Then she wraps her hand around his knot to milk him. He flings back his head—brow furrowed, fangs extended, face contorted with primal pleasure—and pumps into her willing mouth in short demanding snaps. With every thrust, he voices a savage grunt.

Zara moans with approval and matches his pace, her fingers kneading his knot. His impressive length swells, growing slick and flushing violet from her attentions.

I think Lucius does not realize he is still gripping my head.

Or that he is insistently pushing me closer to his pumping dick.

My brain is a jumble of old voices, old hatreds, old prejudices. My orthodox upbringing could never abide the simple intimacy of two men in love. Fucking Ronin for the first time was a revelation. Sucking Vasili's cock for the first time was another.

Lucius is my teacher, he defends me from my enemies, he has mentored me so patiently since the day I enrolled. Clearly I owe him an elder's respect.

But Zara must breed, and she will only agree if I will share.

Besides, he is Lucius. I am his.

This leap, too, I can take.

I soften my desperate clutch around Lucius' leg. My rough palm strokes up his powerful hamstring to spread over the hard flexing globe of his buttock. His breath hitches, his pace stutters, and Zara's dragon croons in our mating bond.

Vasili is lurking and spying, he is jealous over Zara in a way he does not often permit others to see. I think this may finally be the mating instinct to which even he (who jeers at every mention of babies or fatherhood) must yield.

I even think it is possible he is jealous over me.

I push these distracting thoughts from my mind and lean in to nuzzle Zara's petal-soft cheek, while she sucks the wolf off. She hums and backs off a few inches, until she is suckling just his tip.

She is offering me his cock.

I pull in a shaky breath and will my fangs to retract. Then, with a rush of resolve, I lunge to graze his hot slick girth with my lips.

"Maxim." My name explodes from my headmaster's throat on a long groan.

I think perhaps this is the first time he has called me anything except Mr. Rasputin.

Hesitant, still new to these pleasures, but eager to please him, I lick along his length as he rocks into Zara's mouth. My lips graze hers while he fucks into her mouth. Our mouths meet, wet and sticky with his precum, around the engorged head of his cock. I find, in this way, I can kiss her and arouse him. She tastes like peppermint cocoa. He tastes dark and musky, he tastes like wolf.

Truly, there is nothing to fear here, except the fear that I will spill my pleasure all over his legs, before I can mount my queen.

But this singular moment is not only for me. It is also for Lucius, who will have his first knotting. Cautiously I wrap a hand over Zara's around the hard swell of his knot.

His breath hisses out in a rush and his hungry thrusts quicken. "Merciful Christ. "

Nicely done, love. Ronin's smiling murmur ripples through my head. He is wrapped around Neo, but they are both watching. The two of you keep that up, you'll get him off like a blooming rocket.

"No," Lucius growls, because he shares the psychic intimacy of a mating bond with Ronin. "Tonight I will spend my wolf's passion knotted deep inside our queen."

The burning embers of his stare drop to Zara, her vivid head bobbing as she kneels before him naked and labors so sweetly over his cock. Then his fierce gaze shifts to me. Now I am feeding her his length and milking his knot.

Gently his hand cradles my jaw, curved talons tickling my cheek, and lifts my gaze to his.

"Precious boy," his wolf grates, thick with gravel. "King of dragons."

Still kneeling at my queen's side, with a possessive arm wrapped tight around her waist, I lick the dark musk of wolf from my lips and gaze up at my teacher with all the loyalty and devotion that fills my dragon's heart.

"Wolf king," I rasp.

I am overcome by this moment. I am overcome by this wolf. I am so overcome by this entire situation that my English fails me and I must lapse into Russian. "If our sovereign will breed, then it is I who must breed her. But to you—you alone—will I yield the honor—to precede me."

Still lurking in my periphery like a coiled viper upon which one must be careful not to tread, Vasili (who is Russian) utters a scornful hiss.

Well, that is too bad.

Our queen's witchcraft is so potent that the strength of her desire alone, once she wills it, might be sufficient to overcome the perverse effect of those hateful shots she insists upon.

To render her fertile.

By his own admission, as he reminds us all constantly, our snake does not even want offspring.

In this case, our order of precedence is clear. For once in his self-centered life, my spoiled brat of a sweetheart will have to wait his turn.

Lucius does not share my mother tongue, but he peers deep in my eyes, deep into my very soul. I let him read in my face the silent oath of loyalty I am swearing. His fierce muzzle dips in a grave nod that acknowledges my vow.

Then his fiery gaze veers to Zara.

"Now, on the floor, before the fire." When Lucius speaks, his accent is thick as borscht. He is fighting not to shift, so his voice is barely human. "I want you on your hands and knees for me, my queen. I want you kneeling when you take my knot."