8. Dakota

Dakota held Alexandra's hand and pulled her closer, just a step. He leaned in, pressing his lips to her forehead. "Shift slowly," he said. "Gently." He rubbed one hand down her shoulder and arm. "You can take your time."

They stood in the field behind the motel, an overgrown and forgotten place that had once been paved. Nature had mostly reclaimed it with weeds and dirt piled up on top of crumbling asphalt. It was, in short, mostly private.

Alexandra stepped back so they both had room. Dakota turned himself inward and shifted. He invited his human form in and stretched his dragon outward, muscles long and warm from their rest.

As a dragon, he swung his head toward Alexandra and watched her carefully. She tried, he could tell. The shift wasn't as brutally quick as she'd done in the past. But it was awkward, and moved along in fits and starts. Like full speed was the only speed she knew and the switch only went on or off.

It would take more than an empty field to help her work through that. Dakota leaned in to nuzzle her glimmering green head as she stepped out in dragon form.

Alexandra bared her teeth. Her head stretched above him and her wings fluttered half-open. Not quite a threat display. Not quite friendly.

He eyed her, then stepped around her instead of closer. He let his wings open larger, his tail lifted, and grumbled at her half-challenge.

Alexandra snapped her teeth. She was bigger. Faster. Stronger. She would prove it.

Dakota lunged forward.

She was in the air before he even came close. His heart soared with her. He sprang after her. His wings pumped as he chased right on her tail.

It was an instinctive thing for dragons to compare themselves in the sky. To outfly one another in a test of skill and strength. Dakota and Alexandra had gone about this whole thing backward, but he didn't mind. They flew together now and that was all that mattered.

She twisted upward and blew through the whisps of a cloud. Dakota pursued. His shoulders burned with the effort. His chest muscles hot with each beat of his wings. He strained to get above her, to go faster, to win.

Alexandra banked suddenly left. Dakota had to tuck a wing and roll to follow her. He shot through the edge of a cloud and caught up on the next turn as she flipped them both upside down in a wide arc.

He heard her snarl with pleasure.

He growled back.

The flight wasn't just a test of Dakota's skill in the air. When dragons had lived in tighter communities—when their island hadn't been swallowed by time and war, cut off from those who lived in the larger world—males would fly their challenge for females in groups. They'd jockey in the air for her, chasing and spinning, but also maneuvering around one another for position. The challenge flight was one of the first steps to courtship. When a dragon female had a chance to see her suitors in the sky and judge their strength.

Dakota had no other challengers to out-perform, but that didn't matter. Alexandra still twisted ahead of him, banked unexpectedly, dove to pick up speed and swooped back into the clouds. All in the name of pushing Dakota to the limits of his skill. Half the challenge was proving he was worth mating.

And she chose, suddenly.

Her next twist brought them belly-to belly and she offered her claws. He grasped them with his own, and flicked his wings to remain steady with her. Their heads tipped downward. They fell. Their bodies rotated in the sky, wings stretched wide, the earth rising like a meteor—or they were the meteor, plummeting to the earth.

Their mate bond had already been secure, but with this instinctive, ancient tradition, Dakota felt it lock together. His heart beat in time with hers. She belonged to him, and he to her.

Forever.

When they fell into bed back at the motel it was with animal-like ferver. Alexandra stripped her own clothes and tore at Dakota's when he wasn't fast enough. He pinned her to the bed, their mouths fused together, as he kicked his pants free.

She heaved under him. She glittered with the sweat of their flight. Her color was high in her cheeks and her breasts peaked. She grabbed his hand and directed him to her core. Her hot, wet slit. Dakota groaned as he pressed his thumb against her clit and sank his fingers in deep.

She arched under him, breath heaving. He couldn't resist dropping his mouth to one nipple and running his tongue flat across while his fingers explored her.

He circled her clit. Alexandra's body heaved on his fingers. Her breath turned to small cries of encouragement, then built into yeses as she rode the crest higher.

Dakota pressed his hot cock to her hip. He plunged his fingers into her body and watched as she worked herself into a frenzy.

Her eyes shot open and met his. She screamed her climax to the sky. Dakota stared at her, memorizing every single inch of that moment. The way her body shook. The way her muscles clutched his fingers in waves.

They way she clung to him like he was the only secure thing in the world.

He kissed her. She consumed him in return. It was the only thing he'd ever wanted.

While she still trembled from her orgasm, Dakota flipped Alexandra onto her belly. She shuddered as he lowered himself on top of her, pressing himself from shoulders to hips against her. His cock throbbed, but it nestled so perfectly against the line of her ass.

Dakota nipped at her shoulders. He dragged his cock lower and she spread her knees for him, perching up at the perfect angle. Her wet core still dripped and pressing himself inside was as easy as his decision to trust her in that shocking moment when he'd touched her for the very first time.

She cried out softly.

Dakota leaned in, filling her, feeling himself sinking more into obsession as he did so. He wanted to taste every inch of her. He wanted to make love to her in the open fields. He wanted to fuck her like a dragon and roar his claim to the skies.

He kissed his way up her spine as he plunged himself completely. She arched for him again, the angle sweeter. He gripped her hip and drove forward.

One climax wasn't enough. Dakota slid his hand to her front and tipped his fingers across her clit. She moved with him, then against him, driving the friction high and fast and hot.

Dakota's whole body tightened. He felt himself climbing, like soaring into the air and just about to tip over into a plunge.

When she came it was screaming his name, her body clenched around the core of him.

He followed, her name on his lips as he filled her. Claimed her.

Belonged to her.

She collapsed. His body followed, still deep inside and twitching. Some instinctive part of him insisted on staying seated, but he didn't have a knot in this form. There wasn't anything to prevent him from sliding free as their bodies cooled and softened.

Dakota knew without a doubt he'd do anything to keep her here, just like this. Even kill off an entire clan of vampires.

He gathered her in his arms and kissed her soundly until the both of them fell asleep.