Chapter 15

15

Tavi

T he back grassy fields behind the castle were bright and sweet. Alluresh kept up the landscaping with a team who came every week. An elaborate sprinkler system ran wall to wall throughout the estate.

Wearing only my shorts and a thin tank top, I jogged about the pristine lawn, weaving in curved lines, up to a copse of trees and then back toward the pools. Behind me, a dragon plodded forward, neck bent, head down, following me everywhere I ran.

It was the first time I'd allowed a truly happy moment to sweep me up since I'd gotten here.

The dragon made funny little roars every once in a while and shook his huge wings as he walked. He could have run, passing me by in a swift second, but then he wouldn't be focused on me as we played follow the leader.

"Are you going to catch me? Do you think you can?" I teased as I ran, the wind blowing my hair back from my face.

He grunted and darted his head forward, his mouth open, his sharp fangs glimmering. But he didn't snap. Never did he snap anymore the way he had when we'd first met face to face.

I playfully lifted my arms up, gave a little screech, and ran side to side as if to avoid his cavernous maw.

He came forward and the side of his head gently nudged me. I fell giggling into the soft bed of grass leaves beneath me.

Allure sniffed my body up and down, as if to make sure I was okay, then lifted his head and stomped his feet.

That was my sign to get up and run again. He liked the game. He liked to follow me and watch me no matter what I did. Once I climbed up a tree and he kept knocking at the branches with his snout.

He liked to watch me swim. The pools had no fences around them, so he could walk right up to the edge and claw at the water.

Allure had never played before. I could tell that much. So I taught him how.

Today I got hot and sweaty fast as our game progressed. I headed toward the pool, Allure following, the ground shuddering under his weight.

I ran across the cement and dived in, clothes and all. When I came up, sputtering, Alluresh stood naked by the side of the pool looking a little lost and dazed. I allowed myself to look at and appreciate him.

His body called to me. I had questioned my sanity over that for some time. Should a captive fall for his captor? Was that a moment of breaking for me? I'd felt more broken when my pack sold me. I thought about everything I had now. This huge estate. All that Alluresh had given me. Good food, warmth, a bed. And now a dragon who had learned to play. I gazed at his body, golden in the sun, Herculean, and I simply accepted it. I wanted this man for my heat.

I let myself stare now, uninhibited, whenever Allure abruptly shifted back to human. My gaze always went to the cock, dark on the shaft, pink at the tip, long and smooth and utterly breathtaking. I would need it soon. Would I be able to take it? I knew I would beg him to let me try.

My loins were already warm, even in the coolness of the water.

"Come in. It's so refreshing," I called out.

Alluresh, looking as serious as ever, bent his beautiful body and dived in beside me. Water splashed all around. I laughed.

My laughter these days had been hard-won. It came easier for me. Now that I knew I was safe, not to be tortured and treated like trash, I could wake up and see the new world around me. I would have a child, eventually. This was my life now. I would get to raise that child with my mate.

Mate. I had not thought of that word before now. But what other term could I use? Alluresh wasn't going to marry me, but we would be together like any creature on Earth, living in the same space, raising a fledging, sharing meals. Maybe even a bed?

I couldn't know that until after my heat and what it might do to us.

Wolf-mates created bonds. I didn't expect that here. But what I did have, I would take gratefully. And be happy that my fate could have been so much worse and wasn't.

Alluresh swam with me but in about five minutes he got out and put on one of the folded robes by the fresh towels under the patio. Again, I stared. I couldn't help it. He had such a tight, hard body, his back and ass like a sculpture.

I swam some more, then floated on an inflatable zebra. A week ago, I'd brought up the possibility of pool toys. The next day half a dozen plastic toys from beach balls to rafts lined up at the edge of each pool.

I had already realized gifts were Alluresh's way of showing he would take care of me.

The zebra had a tall neck and an innertube body. I lay back on it drifting and staring up at the sky. The waterfall sang to itself. Everything was peaceful and safe.

Alluresh sat facing the pool. He had on sunglasses so I couldn't tell if he was watching me. He could have been dozing. His robe lay open between his knees revealing shadowy secrets beneath.

I'd had crushes before. School grade ones. Quick flings where nothing happened but some handholding for a day or two. One boy had kissed me on the cheek once. I had never kissed anyone for real.

I thought about how important that part of my list was to me. I wanted to be kissed. For real. And it was going to have to be my captor who did it.

I was feeling more and more comfortable every day. Letting myself relax. Absorbing the essences and atmospheres of the castle and yards, of the amazing sculptures in the giant main room, of the routines I'd developed.

Every day I got up and showered and examined my body for signs of a heat. Finding none so far, I dressed in summer clothes and no matter if I woke early or late, Alluresh would be in the kitchen with breakfast prepared, as if he heard me and rushed to have it ready. I knew he always got up earlier than I did. It was one more way of showing me, without words, that he wished the best for my well-being.

We always ate together. Talk came easier now. Alluresh worked in the mornings, but we would discuss what we might do during the afternoons, which he now took off from work. Did Allure want to shift? Did I want to swim? Would it be video games and a barbeque of steaks and corn on the cob on the patio for dinner?

Fall was coming. I felt it in the new, low breezes and the changes of the shadows. The air smelled saltier, spicier. But we still had a few weeks of summer left.

My heat was due any day. We didn't talk of that, though I knew we both thought about it all the time. If I burned inside for Alluresh when I saw him naked, it was all my own body and emotions, free from my heat. I wrestled with that notion, then decided it was natural. I was a full-blooded omega male. Being attracted to an alpha was normal.

Today, I ran back and forth from the kitchen to the patio bringing things out for the table so we could have our picnic as the sun set.

I'd just had a nice swim and was still drying off. I wore a lightweight robe, open in front, and my pink swim trunks. Nothing else.

Alluresh tended the steaks in a thigh-length robe and shorts. He had swum, also. We got used to being this way together in the late summer hours.

When I had the table set, I sat back in a lounge chair close to the grill.

"If my pack saw me now, they would howl in disgust," I murmured.

"What?" Alluresh turned.

I shrugged, scratching my bare chest. "They can rot for all I care." They didn't own me. Alluresh did.

"Do you feel disgust?" He was serious, his eyebrows high, his tone concerned.

"Now? No. When I was sold, yes. But now," I turned my head, glancing around, "I kinda like it here. I like your wild as a March hare dragon."

He watched me for a span of seconds. Just before it became uncomfortable, he turned back to our food.

He had been waiting for me to say I liked him, too. If he didn't know that by now, he was a fool. Or I was.

"Plus," I added loudly, "you spoil me."

He kept his back to me, then asked, "Steak rare again?"

"Yes, please."

He brought a long serving plate to the table laden with steaks and corn and potatoes. He'd baked the potatoes in the oven beneath the grill. His outside kitchen was elaborate.

He took a two-pronged fork and slapped my fat steak onto my plate. My mouth watered.

When everything was served up, we dug in. We were having a party, just the two of us, and I liked it that way. Other people made Alluresh nervous, and he never invited anyone over. I realized I liked it that way just fine, too.

The patio overlooked the pool and the sea. We had a million-dollar view as the sun began to sink. The fairy lights around the patio had already been turned on. I felt like I was in a dream.

"Everything tastes twice as good when eaten outside. Ever notice that?" I asked.

"Agreed."

I cut through my perfectly rare steak and simply enjoyed myself. My potato dripped with butter, chives and sour cream.

"I want you to know I'm ha—" I stopped, nearly choking. I grabbed my water glass and drank. I was going to say happy. But was I? Comfortable or content would have been better word choices.

Alluresh stopped chewing and frowned. "Are you okay?" he asked.

I nodded. But then I felt something else deep inside. Like a dam breaking and all the water behind it frozen for one second, then breaking forward in crashing waves. The sensation nearly toppled me from my seat. I gripped the edge of the table.

"Tavi?"

"Oh, wow. Uh, yeah, I—" I took a deep breath as I felt a dampness begin to seep into the bottom of my swim trunks. "I don't know."

Alluresh put down his knife and fork.

I became immediately embarrassed. What had just happened? A rolling fever washed over me, like an oven-created wind, from toes to forehead. Little lights flickered out the corners of my vision.

"Are you sick?"

I wasn't sure. Was I sick? The weirdness had hit me so fast. I'd never felt anything like it. And then realization struck. My heat was upon me.

My first two heats had been mild to moderate horniness requiring me to wear pads for two days so I didn't soak through my pants. Nothing like the fire I was feeling right now. And those first two had come on slowly, giving me warning. Not like this.

My eyes widened.

"Tavi?"

I looked up from my wonderful meal, the food no longer appealing. I realized my breathing had gotten faster.

"Something's wrong," Alluresh said, standing.

I raised my hand to stop him from approaching. "No. Nothing's wrong."

"Then what?"

"I think I just went into heat."