Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

THEO

Fuck, my little wench was really testing my restraint. More so, she was testing the hold I had on my dragon. The line between my logical human brain and the feral need of the animal within me was becoming precariously thin with Siyana in my life.

I hated to admit just how quickly she’d infiltrated my mind, especially when I had to accept that she never chose this life for herself. I’d forced her to be by my side, and that would never equate to finding my true mate.

My taloned hands curled into fists, ripping into my skin in a desperate attempt to ground myself with the pain. I wanted to give into the pleasure that threatened to drag me under from the sight of the supple curves of her body glistening in the water.

Perhaps I was taking advantage of knowing she had deplorable vision within the cave, unlike myself. Curiosity had won over to see what she was doing, though, and as I saw her body floating within the gently bubbling water, I’d attempted to avert my gaze. For all of five seconds.

I shouldn’t have stared for as long as I had, but the swell of her breasts and tanned nipples pointing toward the ceiling had been too tantalizing to ignore. I’d told her I’d remain near, and she knew of my excellent sight.

Had she truly taken me at my word to give her privacy? Perhaps it made me a brute to disregard the promise, but then again, I’d already told her I was her brute.

As her body suddenly shifted and was submerged as she stood, her head snapped in the exact direction I’d come to sulk in, wondering if she’d go home and marry this Brenson she seemed so fond of when I dissolved our marriage contract.

I slammed my eyes closed, knowing there was no way I could contain my dragon from sparking the magic that danced within my eye, giving away my position in the depths of shadows. The beast was here to stay, at least until I could find a way to release this pent-up energy rolling through me like a midwinter storm.

Hopefully she would glance away, considering whatever drew her eye a fluke, and I could resume my perusal.

A few minutes passed before I dared to open my human eye. Instantly, my hardened cock–that I had tried to calm down with a few deep breathing exercises in the last few minutes–was back and harder than I’d ever experienced. A groan escaped me at the sight that awaited my hungry eyes.

Her hands cupped her breasts as water droplets rolled down the swell of them. My mouth went suddenly dry as her fingers tightened around her nipples and twisted them between her fingertips. Her eyes remained trained on the exact spot I still occupied. Slowly, she waded back until she bumped against the rocky steps normally used to exit the water. Instead of turning and walking out, she dropped her hands and slowly lowered herself to lay back against them, lifting her feet to rest on the lowest step.

I swore she winked as she spread those sinfully long legs and watched me from between them.

Was she… I shook my head, trying to clear the thought. No, she wasn’t doing this for me. Right?

One of her hands snaked down from her breasts, trailing a finger down her abdomen to nestle within the center of her pussy. Slowly, she made circles around her clit and her head tilted back as her legs opened even further, giving me a look at the glistening center I wanted to bury my tongue in. A soft, needy moan echoed through the cavern, and I swore it was instantly and permanently etched in my memory. It was the most spellbinding sound I’d ever heard, and I never wanted it to end.

As her head tilted back up, allowing her to gaze at me once more, I found that I could no longer keep my other eye closed. I wanted to see every minuscule detail that she was offering me with my dragon’s superior vision. Her fingers delved inside of her, setting a pace I took note of, before her other hand came down to resume the swirls of pressure from the pads of her fingers on her clit.

Pain pulsed through my cock with the need to release within her. To breed her and mark her as mine, so that no other dragon or drackya would ever question who she belonged to. I wanted her so full of my seed that it slowly dripped down those pretty thighs as she walked next to me, reminding her that my cock would be the only one she ever needed to satisfy her.

She wouldn’t need Brenson’s or whoever’s cock she’d claimed to see before.

I watched as her body tightened and her head dropped back again, her cries of pleasure growing in volume and quickening.

I wanted to wrap those legs around my shoulders and learn every inch of her pussy until she was trembling, realizing that I could give her everything she needed. She needn’t satisfy herself.

She’d see that not only could I protect and provide for her as a mate, but that I could devour her.

My feet began to move on their own accord. I could go down there now and prove it… No. I forced myself to still.

My lips parted and a growl rumbled through my chest as my beast suddenly surged to the surface, detesting the restraint that I only barely held onto. My bones begin to shift, cracks and pops sounding as I felt the demand to give in to the dragon.

“Run,” I groaned quietly through the haze of futile resistance.

I couldn’t possibly protect her from what was coming. I should have recognized the surging possessive need to not only devour her, but dominate her. I’d been too lost in the shock of seeing her openly tempt me to recognize the direness of the situation.

She had no idea the danger she was tempting.

My dragon was determined to claim her, right here and now, by initiating the bond. She’d reciprocate or she’d die. My beast was too prideful to let her leave and find a different mate.

She was mine .

Just as I lost myself to my primal urges, her cries of pleasure reached a crescendo and I watched as she relaxed, pulling her hands from her pussy as it spasmed.

A roar shook the cavern as I leapt into the open air before I could destroy my nook of the cavern with the shift. My wings snapped open, carrying me with ease to the springs. Despite the heat licking at my scales and making them shift with disgust of the steam billowing around them, I was focused on the way her face shifted from one of pleasure and shock to horror as I drew closer.

My wife.

My mate.

She was waiting for me.

As my large feet landed in the water, spraying her, she tried to push herself up the steps and away from me. Her mouth and eyes were wide as I watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

“Theo?” she called out, her voice shaking as she did.

My name on her lips instantly earned a rumble of approval as I lowered my snout to her chest. I inhaled the scent of her arousal and felt the wild stir within my chest to begin the bonding.

A blazing blue tether appeared within my mind, and I pictured it reaching out to meet her own.

I saw the moment she felt it as she gasped and gently lifted her hands to settle against my snout. Her voice was barely a whisper as she leaned her forehead to rest against the smaller scales there, “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. I thought you said I couldn’t be your mate.”

I felt her mental walls lower despite me telling her to keep them firmly in place while here. I instantly surged into her mind regardless, not caring who in the moment might hear our exchange.

“I was an idiot for saying that. You’re mine.”

She pulled back to gaze up at me, and a look of fear sparked within her dark blue depths. “But if I’m not your mate…I…” she trailed off, glancing away as if it was too hard to get the words out. “I don’t want to die.”

Hearing her soft, broken words spoken aloud broke through the mating fog clouding my mind for a brief moment.

How could I force this on her right now? What was I doing?

Her fear was palpable and spoke to her not being ready for this type of commitment. She’d reject me and I’d be faced with the immense, near impossible, battle of holding my dragon back from meting out retribution for the emotional wound her choice would inflict.

Any chance of her being my mate would be stripped away. Even if she was mine, truly, if she rejected me now, we’d be fated to forever walk this world separately, unable to attempt the bond again.

Her hands on my snout began to tremble as tears formed in her eyes. “Theo, please tell me what to do. Do I accept it?”

Her words were like an ice spear to my chest, gouging through my scales and through the thickened hide of my skin, all the way to the large heart that beat within.

Every decision I’d made since realizing a soft spot for her had developed within me was to keep her safe and give her a chance at a life in which she was in control once we broke this curse.

If I went through with this, it erased all of that and placed her in direct danger from me.

I had to reign myself in long enough for her to escape.

“Leave, Siyana. Leave this cavern and return to the alcove we landed in. We cannot allow my dragon’s urges to put your life needlessly at risk. You belong with someone like Brenson, not me.”

I felt her shock reverberate through the mental connection, but it was quickly overcome by a feeling of rejection and pain. Her lips pursed as the tears rolled over her cheeks before they dropped to join with the endless water of the spring.

“Why are you so jealous of Brenson?” she screamed. “He is just a friend! Someone who has only ever supported me and wanted me to achieve my dreams.”

I snorted at the implication as the sound of his name on her tongue drove my rage to new heights.

“Jealous of this water that enveloped your body instead of my hands? Yes. Jealous of the tendrils of sunlight that dance along your flesh? Yes. Jealous of the air that enters your lungs, filling you so completely there isn’t room for anything else? Yes.”

Her pupils constricted and her chest rose with a sharp inhale.

“ Jealous of a human? Never. But that is who you belong with, Siyana. Humans.”

“Stop fucking with me, Theo,” she seethed, pushing herself back and up onto a step. She climbed to her feet and shot me a look that promised retribution. “You keep giving me glimpses into a life where maybe this could be more than a mere contract. That maybe this arrangement could be for more than just the well-being of our people. That it could be about us .”

Her words should have made it easy to put the beast away. The anger and betrayal she was feeling couldn’t have been more clear, but all the diatribe did was cause a renewed surge from the beast within me to show her that I could be all of those things for her. That we were more than that.

Leave, now.

Her bottom lip was sucked between her teeth before she bit down and shook her head. “The most fucked up part was that I actually let those glimpses convince me that maybe it was worth staying here, to figure it out, when the curse is broken and behind us.”

My head jerked forward as a chuff fell from my parted jaw. I managed to pull back before my snout could slam into her and knock her onto her ass to stop her from leaving.

To her credit, she didn’t even flinch this time. She simply gazed at me with a bitterness that had my dragon stomping the water, hating that I was causing her to reject us, now, in this moment. Somehow I’d never found her more beautiful, standing firm in the face of a snarling dragon while naked and vulnerable, tucking away the fear she’d felt just moments before.

“You are going to live a very lonely life, Theo,” she murmured before turning and giving me her back. “You don’t have to be this way, you know.”

“This is who I am. Nobody said you had to like it.”

A heavy sigh came from her before her shoulders rolled back, pinching her shoulder blades together. “Enjoy the prison of ice you’ve locked your heart within. I hope you get everything you deserve.”

This time her words hurt my soul, not just my dragon. I’d opened up and shared more with her than anyone. I’d shown her that she was melting away my walls with the fire of her own soul.

Yet it didn’t matter. All I needed was for her to leave, now. Yet despite her words claiming she was done–with me, with the situation, with us–her feet remained stuck to the steps of the springs.

Was she waiting for me to deny her words—to fight for her and this bond my beast was still projecting to her?

I had to put her life above the glimmer of hope she’d inspired within me for the first time in my own wretched life—that I wouldn’t be stuck alone to bear the weight of my burdens. I’d felt a spark of friendship kindling between us, and despite what I needed to do now, I’d never forget the kindness she'd shown me when her own walls were down.

You confuse me for someone with remorse. Leave.

And just like that, her walls were slammed back into place, sending me flying from her mind as silence descended in its place.

She rushed from the water and quickly grabbed her clothes. I dug my talons into the ground, anchoring myself into the mountain itself to stop me from chasing her.

As her body disappeared from my sight down the path we used to get here, I let out a roar so loud that it shook the stalactites of limestone from the ceiling, making them fall and crash off of my scales and into the bubbling water surrounding me.

Hatred and self-loathing pooled within my mind for how I’d hurt Siyana, and for once, my beast and her were in unison, both making it clear that I’d betrayed them with my choice.

Magic spewed from me as I lost control of the dragon, filling the room with ice instantly. What was once a steaming cavern was now an icy tundra, glittering like the quartz deposits on the ceiling did.

My prison of ice.