Chapter Eleven

F ACES AND MOMENTS came and went within the darkness. Dreams caught in nightmares. Someone loved her, then somebody hated her, yet all the while, Zane hovered close. A voice from her nightmare telling her not to go toward the door. Remain with him. Stay with him.

Yet, like always, the door called her. The light beyond beckoned her.

"Don't go," his dragon whispered into her mind. "Stay with me." Then his voice changed ever-so-slightly, sounding more like the Múspellsheimr dragon he had been in their last life. Moreover, he felt like Zane's darker personality. "Leave with me. Flee with me. Be my mate."

Just like that, she was her incarnate, wrapped up in his wings, part of the terrible moment they had just witnessed in a memory, only now she was immersed in it as she roused awake shortly after passing out. She felt terrified and broken. Held together by him and him alone. Loved so intensely, she felt it down to the deepest part of her dragon soul. And that was all she needed to keep going. The love he offered. A spark of hope no female experienced in their world.

A chance to start anew and protect her precious offspring.

Because no matter how evil its father, it was hers and deserved a life free of so much violence and hatred.

"And I will give it that," Zane's incarnate rumbled into her mind. "I will give you both that no matter what it takes."

There were no words to describe how she felt at that moment because his vow was no small thing. Especially his compassion for her offspring. In their world, he should have shunned her for carrying another's child. Shunned her because since her offspring wasn't his, she was worthless to him, but not Zane. Not the dragon who had so tirelessly watched over her even though he couldn't have her. Loved her from afar when emotions like love rarely sprouted on this world.

She nuzzled closer and breathed in his scent, finally ready to confess how much she loved him in return, but chaos erupted, and he was ripped away. Ruthlessly torn from her.

"No," she cried, reaching out for him, but he was lost to darkness and brutality. "Come back! Don't leave me!"

She cried out to him over and over again until the darkness fell away, and her eyes snapped open to Zane trying to wake her.

"Are you with me now, Savannah?" He had her on his lap in bed once more, cupping her cheek. His dragon eyes flared with worry, and his inner beast struggled to break free, eager to pull her from wherever she'd just been. "Are you awake, mitt hjertes flamme ?"

"Zane," she gasped, wrapping her arms around him and holding on tight. "You're here...back with me."

"Always." He wrapped his arms around her and held her just as tightly, making clear he'd been right there in Savannah's nightmare with her. "Whether on that world or this one, I will always be with you. Always find you. Protect you with everything in me."

"Yet I was supposed to protect you in the end," she murmured, certain of it. "Keep you safe, not the other way around." Savannah blinked back tears and met his eyes. "How did I lose my way?" She shook her head. "Because I didn't protect you in the end even though you had to have protected me. Somehow stolen me away from that monster despite..."

She choked on her last word, unable to go on because the sensation of him being torn away from her was too strong.

Overwhelming.

Something she would never tolerate again and made that clear by straddling him and giving him a long, hard, hungry kiss. A possessive, needy kiss that turned desperate. That made her skin catch fire from the inside out as she ground her hot center against his straining cock.

"I want this gone," she said huskily, chanting away his tunic. She took in his chiseled, tattooed muscles and bit her lower lip. Desperate to feel every inch of him, she ran her fingers down the light smattering of hair on his broad chest, then down his rock-hard abs until she teased the V above his cock with feather-light touches.

Meanwhile, his dragon eyes flared to life, and his skin sheened with his inner beast. He watched her with desperate, lustful desire, yet rather than touch her without permission, he clenched his fists by his side, forcing himself to hold back when she chanted away her tunic as well exposing her full breasts. Clenched them tighter still as she fondled her breast and rolled her center back and forth on his erection in a way she knew would force him to let go.

There would be no fighting how she made him feel.

Yet she found as her vision hazed red with her own inner beast that her need to finally have him was stronger than her desire to tease him. A deep-seated need born of another life. One where she had only ever suffered brutality but longed for tenderness.

Longed to finally make him her own.

He seemed to sense the shift of her thoughts because he wrapped one strong arm around her, cupped his hand around the back of her neck, and kissed her so tenderly tears came to her eyes. Loved her so thoroughly with his mouth that she wasn't aware he'd chanted away their clothing until she felt his steely, steaming hot, sizeable shaft against her swollen, sensitive center. Until she felt the overwhelming contact of their flesh touching in a way their scales never could.

Ready to have him in a fashion long denied them, she cupped his cheek as he dug his hand into her hair, and their gazes locked. She met his eyes in a way that made clear this moment was everything. More like drowned in the way their gazes held as she, at long last, sank onto him slowly. His eyes drifted right along with hers, and they both released a choppy groan of pleasure at the outstanding sensation of finally coming together.

Even though she was more than ready for him and thoroughly aroused, she had to work her way slowly to adjust to how much he filled her. Yet in the end, after almost more pleasure than either of them could bear, she seated herself fully and released another moan of pleasure because he was a perfect fit. Almost as if he were designed just for her.

"Because I was," he murmured before pulling her lips to his again and kissing her softly, then more passionately. She slowly rolled her hips and ground against him, much like she would if they were dancing closely. Erotically. Took him with her in a way she knew no other female before her had.

"As I was designed for you," she murmured against his lips before she sat back and raked her nails inch by slow inch down his chest. She never took her dragon eyes off of his while rolling her hips and, bit by bit, sliding up his shaft and then back down, enjoying the way his lips fell apart as he lost himself in how she made him feel. Lost himself in how she looked doing it.

Riding Zane was like nothing she'd ever felt. Sex on steroids. A swelling, mighty power trip only heightened because taming a beast like his was no small thing. Heightened more because she knew deep down, in a place made of him and her and all they had never experienced, that when he finally took control, he would bring her more pleasure than she ever could have imagined.

Then again, it was safe to say he was already doing that by letting her maintain control. Letting her find her way back to all they had in a fashion she would have been disallowed on their home world. And while she tried to make it last and seduce him in a way he would never forget, the more she rode him, however slowly and seductively, the more pleasure swelled inside her.

In fact, it built so quickly she grew desperate. Needy for what should have been hers in their last life. Desperate for something so primal, her skin sheened copper with her inner beast, she nuzzled close, gripped his back, rubbed her sweat-slicked skin against his hard body, and moved faster. Deeper. Rolled her hips, grinding, as she rode him, racing toward a release that swelled like a sky-high tidal wave inside her.

Just as desperate, Zane grasped her backside loosely with one hand, letting her remain in control yet still managed to take over when he trailed his fingers up her spine, scraping ever so slightly, and drove her crazy in a way she hadn't expected. Fueled her because she moved faster and nipped his earlobe.

Growling with approval, he dug his fingers into her ass and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck in a possessive way that, in combination with the swelling of his cock inside her, told her he was just as close to letting go. Just as eager to finally claim her as she was to claim him. To feel her in all the ways they had been denied before. She was certain of it. Yet now he could. Would. And his love would never waver nor lessen.

Something about that—knowing his feelings went far deeper than the flesh—made what they experienced now all that much better. Intensified the sensation swelling inside her until everything retracted into a tiny, quivering, tightly wound ball of pain mixed with pleasure that had her digging her nails into his flesh until the sensation expanded outward, exploding so intensely she cried out in ecstasy.

" Hell ," Zane half ground out, half roared, clamping her against him. He locked up inside her and let go so intensely, the feel of him throbbing inside her, filling her, made her climax even harder, and she lost control completely, trembling in his arms.

She had no idea how long they stayed that way, drowning in how they made each other feel, only that she felt a million miles outside her body, floating in some sort of untouchable sensual bubble with him. Completely saturated in a reality lost to them but found. A reality that should have always been theirs.

"One that will never be taken away from us again," he rumbled, vowed , against her neck, holding her tighter. He nipped her neck and then soothed her skin with a flick of his tongue, sending another shiver of awareness through her that resulted in more mini-orgasms.

Groaning in approval when she kept milking him, he nipped her neck again, then nibbled along her jaw until his lips hovered over hers. "You are mine now, mitt hjertes flamme . Mine until the Nine Worlds are no more, then far beyond."

Though usually no fan of any guy trying to lock her down, everything about the way he felt and the words coming out of his mouth rang true. Seemed engrained in her soul so completely she purred in pleasure and kissed him. Devoured him with her lips so hungrily, passionately , he swelled inside her again within seconds.

Growling in renewed approval when she ever so slowly rolled her hips, letting him know she was as insatiable as him, Zane flipped her beneath him, stilled her movements, and looked her over with such obvious admiration and desire fire ignited all over again. His fingers trailed from her lower lip and over her chin along with his gaze until it lingered on her neck where a collar had once been in her last life. She felt his inner struggle. Gave her honesty she didn't expect as he remained deep inside her without moving.

"I hated that he put it on you," Zane seethed. His dragon eyes flared brighter with emotion, and he caressed her neck as if trying to remove the sting of a too-tight collar. "I wanted to rip it from you." His pained gaze rose to hers. "Even as I wanted to put my own collar in its place. Even as I wanted to claim you as mine in the way of our kind." His voice dropped an octave as if he wasn't sure he should say it. "A feeling that has not abated to this day...to this very moment."

While some women, especially Savannah, given her past, might have cringed at his confession, she understood it. Felt his need to own her even as she desired the same of him. Knew it was deeply ingrained in them as Múspellsheimr dragons.

Even so, she wasn't quite there. Not yet.

"Eventually," she said softly, surprised by how much she meant that. But she had stipulations. Something she would want from him in return when the time came. "For both of us."

He raised his eyebrows, and the corner of his mouth shot up when he realized she wanted to collar him just as much. She wanted to claim him for all to see, just as he did her.

"You realize that I rule a kingdom of ruthless dragons on King Ulrik's behalf?" he mused, still moving his hips just enough to shoot tiny bolts of pleasure through her. "That something like that might seem far too subservient to our kind?"

"I do," she said choppily because the mere idea of him letting her own him as much as he owned her, in combination with his movements, was incredibly arousing. That he would allow her to collar the mighty red beast inside him until it bowed to her every sensual will.

"I have not agreed to it quite yet," he murmured, nipping along the delicate flesh where he hoped to collar her. "Not—" another nip, then suckle and lick— "just—" he bit her a little harder while thrusting deeper, making her cry out— "yet."

Where she thought for sure he would tie her up or do some other dominant thing, it seemed he was too caught up in the pleasure he'd pulled from them both because their lovemaking became less orchestrated and more wildly passionate. They kissed, rolled, tumbled, and clawed to get closer to each other, but in the end, they ended up wrapped up in each other's arms, cherishing the closeness as they let go repeatedly.

She sensed he wanted to dominate more, but his need to finally feel his mate in his arms, close to every part of him both inside and out, superseded these first times, so theirs was simple lovemaking. Or as close to simple as two dragons like them who lusted so intensely for each other could get.

And it was incredibly intense until they must have fallen asleep because when she awoke, the fire was down to embers, and Zane was sound asleep beside her with his hand resting on her womb almost tenderly, if she wasn't mistaken. The position touched her because deep down, she knew it had everything to do with the child she'd carried in another life despite it not being his, combined with his hope he might put a child there in this life. That they might at last share children together.

She closed her eyes and bit back tears, wondering if that would be possible. Would she be able to? Should she tell him?

"Tell me what?" he said softly, startling her when she found him sitting up on an elbow, looking at her with his hand still resting on her womb. "Why would you think you wouldn't be able to?"

Something about the way he looked at her as if staring deep inside her, past places she allowed no one to see, made the locks she'd sealed her greatest, most heart-wrenching secret away, come undone. When he cupped her cheek and his dragon eyes met hers, curious and too damn loving, the box that held the box came unlocked too. When that happened, she confessed something she hadn't even shared with Zoey.

Something that broke her heart to this very day.