40. Lux

CHAPTER FORTY

LUX

T he most beautiful creature I'd ever laid eyes on wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close, filling my world with her scent. A haze of need blanketed my thoughts and stiffened my dick, which I was currently pretending I didn't have.

I was in trouble – a lot of trouble.

After years of abuse, I'd finally run from my dad. I'd drifted until I found the sisters of the air temple who took me in and gave me a home, with one major stipulation. I had to live as a woman, denying my dragon and very nature.

Until this moment, it had been easy.

My relationship with my dragon was unique, probably because of the pain we'd lived through. His aggression caused so much of my dad's rage. Now, my dragon stayed back, letting my rational mind make decisions which protected both of us. Furthermore, the air temple was populated with older women existing in shapeless robes. Our charges, to me at least, were sexless, growing bundles of joy who needed the love and support I never got. My dragon occasionally grumbled, but we both remembered living under Leberecht.

I had a peaceful life here, but one of denial and self-sacrifice. One my dragon didn't like, but didn't have anything else to hope for.

Jay changed all of that.

My dragon surged forward, urging me to pull Jay into me, begging me to cup her neck and tilt her head so we could taste her sweet lips. My thoughts fogged as red hazed my vision.

Rut.

The word echoed in my head. I'd been na?vely thinking there would be no consequences for denying my basic needs. Violence, anger, and uncontrollable aggression my human half didn't want to have anything to do with simmered under my skin. The moment I laid eyes on Jay in the tent, I felt a pull to her. These last weeks, she never strayed far from my mind. Putting my number in her phone had let me control my dragon, trick it into thinking I took action.

But now she was here, literally in my arms. If I didn't act, my base instincts would pull me into a world of thoughtless need. I couldn't afford that. But if I acted, this woman would discover my secret and destroy the life I'd meticulously cultivated.

She squeezed me, and my cock turned into a painful rod under my priestess robes.

A year. I hadn't even jerked off in that time. It felt wrong when I spent every day surrounded by kids and slept inside a sacred temple. I should have gotten over it and given in the moment she took over my thoughts, but I hadn't.

Rut.

A haze of anger and pure sex charged through my body, clouding my thoughts and threatening the edges of my sanity. Licorice, brimstone, salt water, and earth filled my nose. She smelled like love and joy. My headdress lifted as my horns grew. I could feel my tail tightening my layers of white.

I needed to fight and fuck, in that order.

Completely unaware of the danger she was in, Jay released me and turned. My arm brushed against her breasts, outlined perfectly by her red and gold bra. My gaze zeroed in, imagining freeing her breasts and burying my cock between her perfect heat.

Chalk squeaking against my board tore my attention away from her chest.

‘There's nothing wrong with you either,' she finished writing.

The fog of my rut eased, and I reread her words. A hot tear welled in my eye. I dabbed at it before it ruined my make-up. My rational mind swooped in and took control. I wasn't Lux anymore. I was Sister Abby. I couldn't be the dragon she needed.

I clenched my cybernetic fist between us as if its existence proved her wrong.

Jay raised an eyebrow before stepping forward and uncurling my metal fingers one at a time. Although I didn't feel her touch, the sensors connecting the prosthetic to my elbow sent little sparks down my skin to mimic contact.

I needed more.

My dragon and his rut pressed forward.

I couldn't have more.

I pulled my hand back and stepped away.

Rutting in an orphanage would be a disaster. Self-control. I needed it more now than ever. My days spent sitting alone in Leberecht's oubliette, hungry and going half-mad, came back to me. I hated using the tools my father forced me to learn, but I took steady breaths and slowed my thoughts, focusing all of them on a single point.

My dragon growled but eased off, taking his rut with him.

I could do this.

The woman stepped toward me, pointing at her writing on my board.

I bit my lips together and narrowed my eyes, the anger and hurt of my old life swelled my chest. She had no idea just how much was wrong with me. It wasn't just my missing foot and hand. My very personality was a black mark on my dad's beliefs… on dragon shifter beliefs.

Our isolation from the outside world gave me my physical defects, and our isolation from each other my mental ones. The scars no one saw shaped my reality. We weren't solitary beasts from the past. We were dragon shifters. Part human. Our two halves needed each other.

My stomach twisted, knowing I believed in something I refused to live.

She reached out to me, and I batted her hand away. This woman had come here, inserted herself into my life, and was working to destroy it.

I made sure my horns and tail were under control, though my cock refused to wilt before glaring at her. "You shouldn't be here."

Her face fell, and she stepped back.

"You don't understand anything," I growled. Tendrils of electricity snaked out of my mouth.

Fearlessly, she stepped to the chalkboard: Explain it?

I scrunched up my face, my insecurities already halfway out of my mouth, before clenching my jaw shut. I didn't know this woman. My threatening rut wasn't about her. It was my dragon and my denial. We would hump anything at this point. She wasn't special.

With a very un-lady-like grunt, I stepped away from my desk. "You need to go. Now."

She narrowed her eyes and wrote: Because I make you uncomfortable, or is there a reason I shouldn't be here?

"Both." I clenched my fists.

The woman stepped back, her gaze darting around the room.

My dragon immediately perked up, also looking for a threat. A violent need to protect this woman gripped me. "What do you mean, is there a reason?"

The woman eyed me, suspicion filling her gaze. She turned to the board: I need to go.

Her long, creamy, bare legs bolted toward my door. She opened it and walked out with her hips swaying. I swear my dragon's eyeballs bounced with her ass. My brain fogged. Need and violence stroked my nerves.

Rut.

"If I follow her, will you keep calm?" I asked.

Although my dragon couldn't speak, my base instincts softened, and the haze of my oncoming rut eased.

Casting wind at my back, I burst forward before slowing to fall into step with the woman.

"Did anyone show you around?" I asked.

She eyed me.

"I didn't like your last question." I grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop so I could meet her gaze. "You were the center of attention at The Hunt. A volcano erupted when you relit Tyson's fire. The rumor mill says you were at the heart of the sudden conflict between fire, earth, and water." I took a deep breath. "Now you're here at my orphanage, which has spent the last twenty years under the radar of all the elements. I am deeply uncomfortable."

Nothing I'd just said was a lie. But not a word of it was why I stood at her side.

The woman raised an eyebrow before gesturing for me to lead on.

My dragon pranced.

This wouldn't end well for either of us.