Chapter Thirteen

ZOEY FELT A lot all at once. More than she'd ever allowed herself to feel during such a diplomatic time, but how could she not? From Magnus's marriage proposal in the Forest of Memories to ending up in his father, King Knud's kingdom, to much fanfare and very little warmth from his father, a lot had happened.

Or so was the case until her friends and their husbands were escorted to lodgings for the night, and she found herself not just finally greeted properly by her future father-in-law but wrapped up in a big hug she hadn't seen coming. More than a little stunned but feeling his genuine warmth right down to her core in a way only dragons were capable, she allowed the hug, even returned it a little before Knud held her at arm's length and, for lack of a better way to put it, beamed at her with pride.

"You are every bit as beautiful as I dreamt you would be both inside and out, Zoey," Knud praised, nodding once with approval as he looked from her to Magnus and kept smiling. "I look forward to learning more about your past life with my son. More than that, I am proud you have accepted Magnus into your life. That you will be his queen and my new daughter." He blinked back moisture and nodded a second time. "A queen just as lovely and welcome into our tribe as his last queen."

While some women might be put off by being compared to Magnus's deceased wife, she wasn't. If anything, not just her human half but her inner beast felt honored by his praise. His forthrightness. By the very fact she could begin to measure up to the woman who had birthed Magnus's daughter.

"You dreamt of Zoey, Father?" Magnus said.

"I did." Knud smiled in reassurance at her one last time before he urged them to join him at a small table in front of the fire laden with food and drink. "And she brings grandchildren. A future to us all."

Nothing like going from zero to sixty in a heartbeat because that's what the past few hours had felt like. More strangely, even though everything had felt incredibly fast, it was still paced just right. As if somewhere deep down inside her, she'd been waiting her whole life to embrace her inner beast and look into Magnus's dragon eyes for the first time. Waited to understand she could only ever be with him. Only ever need him like she needed to breathe.

So as strange and surreal as the moment had been when it came, and Magnus dropped to a knee, lowered his head, and held out his hand to her, she knew the moment had come. He didn't gaze into her eyes lovingly like most men would have during a proper twenty-first-century proposal but bowed to her. Submitted to her in a way that dragons understood. Humbled himself in a way she never thought he could.

Loved her deep down inside in a way she knew no other would.

At that moment, despite his words and her ultimatums, she knew her answer had been yes since the day she was born. Since she was old enough to walk, talk, and live a life.

She had been his from a beginning neither could ever fully understand.

"We can only hope," Magnus said respectfully in regards to Knud dreaming Zoey would bring him many grandchildren. A solid enough statement, she supposed, given she was in heat, and all dragons here must sense that.

"You need not hope, son." After they sat, Knud filled Magnus's mug with ale and hers with mead, having clearly sensed that was her preference. "Tonight, we will talk and get to know each other, and then tomorrow, we will see what comes next." He looked from Zoey to Magnus. "See how this great web of bitterness and battles we have woven over the years will unfurl, ja? See who will be considered friend and foe in the end?"

Magnus nodded in agreement, and they ended up enjoying one another's company for hours. Knud was different from how he'd initially presented himself, but it seemed necessary during these trying times. Fronts needed to be upheld.

"Where communication and a willing to better understand one other's viewpoint would be so much more effective," she said at one juncture.

"Perhaps where you are from," Knud granted, clearly not put off by her bluntness. "But not so much here. Not these days."

"Clearly not." While she knew it was the last thing either wanted to talk about, she needed to understand Zane's actions after Magnus's family had been slain. "Why would Zane have carried your daughter off like that, Magnus?" She'd frowned at him. "Why, when he so clearly grieved, would he deny you giving her a proper burial? Holding her in your arms one last time?"

"Zane's actions are forever unpredictable," he'd grunted, his father nodding in agreement with a heavy frown. "Who knows? Mayhap she was some sort of trophy. Or even a means to show his tribe that he could be affectionate to his kin if need be. Because even Múspellsheimr dragons and Ancients are close to their families. Moreover, they would be more likely to follow a leader who shared the same traits."

"But wouldn't you have gotten word of that?" She'd frowned from Knud to Magnus. "I would think no matter how devoted most seemed to Zane, something like that would have been talked about."

"Not necessarily," Knud grumbled. "Not when it comes to Zane, his dragons, and what they're capable of."

Sensing that was all the men were willing to say about it at the moment, she'd let the matter drop but continued mulling it over because, frankly, it was odd. Perhaps not to them, but most definitely to her, given Zane's behavior before carrying Magnus"s daughter off. Zoey had seen a lot over the years, so she understood people in the thick of longtime dissent didn't always see things clearly. That said, Magnus and Knud certainly weren't.

As it turned out, despite Knud's feudal ways when among others, as the night wore on, she found him surprisingly level-headed and longing for peace just as much as Magnus. Even better, he wasn't oblivious to his faults and recognized his issues with Rafe had more to do with his own history than with Rafe himself.

Zane, however, was another story.

Knud"s longstanding anger at him seemed to have waned little despite what he'd just witnessed via their memory. Something Zoey addressed when she and Magnus eventually retired to their own lodge and enjoyed a nightcap together in front of the fire.

"It sometimes sounds like your father and Zane killed one another's mates themselves, but that wasn't the case, right?" she said. "It was their commanders?"

"It was," Magnus concurred. "In fact, my father's second-in-command started it when he ended the life of one of Zane's favorite mates. One he'd been close to since he was young. So it was no surprise when he sent one of his commanders to do the same to one of my father's mates."

"Why not target the mate of the guy who actually harmed her?" Zoey wondered, finding the whole situation barbaric. "Why target your father's mate?" She frowned and shook her head. "I can only assume it wasn't your mother, as she's a fellow Sigdir."

"No, it was a female who came after her," he replied. "Otherwise, things would have gone far worse than they already did. As it were, things escalated fast enough back then. Not surprising, given my father was a more troublesome sort in those days. Fortunately, as you just saw, he's changed quite a bit since then, without a doubt, because of his latest mate. She's been a good influence on him."

"So it seems," she murmured, feeling out what she sensed inside Magnus about Knud"s current mate, and it wasn't good. "Oh no...she's got the illness too, doesn't she?"

"She does," he confirmed. "And it's been truly difficult on father. Harder, I think, than the loss of my mother."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." She sighed. "I can't imagine what it's like having so many of your women getting sick like this. So many mothers and grandmothers. Sisters, nieces, and mates."

"It has not been easy on any of us," he rumbled. Quicker than most might think a man his size, Magnus scooped Zoey out of her chair and sat with her on his lap. "Yet I have not experienced my mate getting sick." He shook his head once and traced the pad of his thumb along her jawline tenderly. "Truth told, now that I have met you, feel you, us, I would not wish it on my worst enemy."

She meant to respond, say something, anything, but thinking clearly became impossible when his fingers trailed down her throat and wrapped around the back of her neck.

"What did you think of my father dreaming that we would have many children?" he said softly, his erection painfully obvious beneath her backside, fanning her own need tenfold.

"That it felt entirely possible with you," she said, her voice thick with arousal. "I haven't given children a lot of thought because of my fire issues and my career. The things I've seen."

"Yet you enjoy them," he said, without a doubt catching her thoughts as his other hand wandered, stroking her here and there, kicking her breathing up a notch. "Wanted them more than you admitted."

"I suppose I did," she whispered, her vocal cords pretty much useless now due to his touch. The way his pale turquoise eyes took her in. "I wanted to give them a chance despite my reservations..."

Magnus didn't need to ask her what she meant by that because they were connecting so rapidly now. He felt her uneasiness about her inner flames, yet at the same time, her ever-growing sense that she would never harm their children. And she knew that because the closer they grew, the more her inner fire seemed to stabilize. He also felt how sad she'd been for children caught in warfare over the years. Children left homeless, wounded, or even killed.

Rather than let her dwell on the horrible things she'd witnessed, he cupped her cheek and dropped a soft kiss on her mouth. Then another and another until their kisses grew deep, passionate, and all-consuming. Until they groaned into each other's mouths, and everything became a blur of intense, explosive need.

She wasn't sure when he carried her to bed, only that she wanted his flesh against hers. Needed to see him. Feel him. Take him into her in a way he had disallowed the previous night until she fully understood what this meant. How likely it was he would impregnate her. Now she did and wanted it with every fiber of her being. Wanted it so much more than last night, if such were possible.

So when he came over her, she rolled him onto his back and straddled him. In no mood to waste time fumbling with clothing, she chanted them away and relished the sight of him. Loved how he felt against her hot center.

She barely recognized the sounds she made as she ran her fingers down his slightly hairy muscular chest to the thin line of hair that trailed over his rock-hard abs down to the ‘V' above what she so lovingly straddled. Whatever the sound, it was on the spectrum of the dragonly purr she had released when she'd cuddled against him in dragon form earlier. A deep-seated purr of approval that told her she was very much where she was supposed to be.

He, in turn, seemed equally enthralled as he rested his hands on her thighs and watched her enjoy him. Understood how fascinating she found his body. Magnus would have never been her type back home with his strong build, tattoos, thick hair, and bearded face. In fact, he would have been the opposite of it.

Not now, though, and she couldn't, for the life of her, understand why she hadn't found his type appealing before this. Then again, they didn't make men like him back home. Not even their male dragons could measure up. Not nearly.

"And you would know," he rumbled, the sound deep in his chest, vibrating under her fingertips. His dragon eyes flared, seeming to challenge a man long gone. "Because you laid with one."

"I did," she admitted, strangely aroused by the jealousy in his voice. By the possessive way his hands tightened ever-so-slightly on her thighs. "And he was—"

"Not me," Magnus growled, flipping her onto her back so swiftly the wind knocked out of her in a good way. In a way that made pleasurable chills race over her flesh and burst into flames between her thighs. Made every part of her feel alive and hypersensitive.

"Never me," he murmured against her lips, pinning one hand above her head.

He ran his free hand down her body, touching her in all the right places. Touching her as his lips hovered over hers without kissing. He stroked her breast and tweaked her nipple until she groaned and instinctually opened her thighs wider to him. Tweaked harder until she released a choppy, strangled burst of air against his lips, into his mouth, and pressed up against his heavy erection.

"He could never be you," she echoed, groaned, trying to capture his lips with hers, only for him to pull back just enough to stay out of reach. Enough that he could watch her wanting more. See her expression as he rubbed his stiff shaft against her swollen flesh without entering her. Watch her as she spread her thighs wider still and moved with him, racing toward a pinnacle that came so fast and hit her so hard she arched and cried out, only to drift down with his lips finally on hers. Drift down into such a sweet, loving kiss as her body let go that she felt lost in another.

Truly felt deeply loved in a way she'd never experienced until him.

And good God, he might've been without a female for a while, but he certainly knew his way around a woman's body. So said the way his kisses turned from soft and gentle to coaxing and deep as she drifted down and the throbbing in her core ebbed. He clearly timed it to get her desperate for him all over again because the second her body calmed, not only did his kisses grow hungry, but his arousal grew so hot and hard as he moved it against her needy flesh everything inside her caught on fire.

"Magnus," she groaned against his lips, struggling for more of him. All of him. Needing him in ways she hardly understood as her vision hazed red and her inner beast surfaced.

He seemed to understand because he bunched the fur under her hips so her pelvis was angled upward, then grabbed the headboard, looked into her eyes, and finally, at last, pressed inside her. No doubt their sizes were different, but somehow, the way he'd positioned her aligned them perfectly and helped ease his substantial girth into her with no discomfort.

If anything, it felt like a thousand little bombs went off inside her as he worked his way in without ever losing eye contact. As his dragon eyes flared to life and held hers, Magnus possessed her in ways she'd never thought possible. Not just in body but in spirit. Totally and completely as he kept thrusting slowly until he filled her completely. So completely, she whimpered in relief at the feel of it.

Then, despite his body trembling with a tightly restrained need to let go, he lowered his lips to hers again and kissed her. Loved her with his mouth until, confident she was as aroused as she could be and wouldn't be hurt by him, he moved. When he did, nothing existed but the way they felt together. The heat and friction and blazing pleasure as he thrust deep inside her. Filled her again and again as his muscles flexed and sweat glistened over his gorgeous body.

What got her the most, though, outside of the tremendous pleasure building inside her, was the pleasure mixed with desire on his face as he raced toward his own peak. The way his eyes grew heavy, yet he couldn't seem to look away. Could not tear his gaze from her any more than she could him.

Rather, they moved together in such perfect synchronization that tears leaked from her eyes with the sheer perfection of it. With the way every tiny bit of her bloomed and expanded as he moved faster.

"Please," she gasped hoarsely, racing closer to something she barely understood because it was no mere orgasm. Instead, it had her digging her heels into his ass and pulling him closer. Had their slick, overheated bodies sliding against each other as he seemed to grow harder and swelled inside her before he thrust one last time, locked up deep inside her, and released a strangled roar.

Right there with him, her vision hazed a brighter red at the feel of him throbbing inside her, and she catapulted into such a surreal, painfully intense climax that she gasped, arched, and lost all ability to breathe. She felt suspended somewhere between reality and the pure erotic pleasure he had wrung from her. Caught in euphoria until her body let go, and a full-bodied orgasm hit her so hard she lost all control of her limbs.

The pleasure Magnus pulled from her took over entirely, and her core clenched onto him hard, wanting everything he had to offer. That's when she realized it wasn't just her body but her inner beast.

His inner beast.

The life they hoped to create.

The desperate need she had to welcome his seed into her. Nourish it.

Make it hers.

Theirs.

"Magnus," she sobbed, pulling him closer, needing him against her and in her always. Needed him making her feel like this. Giving her a future she hadn't known she wanted so much.

Seeming to understand, undoubtedly feeling the same, he kept the bulk of his weight off her but came close. Stayed inside her as she milked him. Cupped her cheek and kissed her tenderly as he made her his.

In fact, he stayed with her past pleasure and into her dreams before he eventually pulled her tight against him under the furs, and they dozed off. Slept until she was abruptly woken by Savannah.

"Wake up, Zoey," her best friend exclaimed, anguished. "Wake up and find her!"

Zoey bolted upright, confused, only to realize she was somewhere else entirely. Not just that, but she wasn't alone.