Chapter 14

Chapter14

Briar

Sol palms me between my thighs. “Are you sore?”

“A little.” Possibly more than a little. He’s not small, and he wasn’t overly gentle toward the end. I try to close my legs, and I flinch. “Okay, yes. Very.”

He does that really cute nuzzling thing along my jaw, and then he’s up and moving. “Stay there.”

I couldn’t move if I wanted to. My legs won’t stop shaking, and the little tremors work north through my body. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s disconcerting in the extreme to have lost control of my limbs.

Sex has never been like this before.

I press my hand to my mouth to stifle a laugh. Of course, it’s never been like this before. I just had sex with a dragon. Except it’s more than that. Sol put my pleasure first. He didn’t use my loss of control to demean me. I’m pretty sure he could call me a dirty little slut, and I’d enjoy it because from him, it would sound like a compliment the same way bride does. I don’t understand it, but I’m too floaty to question it.

He returns and pauses at the edge of the bed, staring down at me. It’s then that I realize his penises are gone. I stare hard at his hips. Did the scales there split earlier? I can’t remember. I struggle up onto my elbows, but that’s about all I’m capable of right now. Better to look at his face than wonder where his cocks have gone. Safer, maybe. “I can’t read your expression. What are you thinking?”

He hesitates but finally gives himself a shake. “I’m thinking that you’re mine, Briar Rose.”

Okay, maybe not safer. I tense, waiting for the instinctive denial. I know what it is to be with a partner who thinks they can claim me as a possession instead of a person. It…doesn’t come. Still, I lift my chin. “I’m mine, Sol.”

“Yes.” He bends down and scoops me into his arms. “But you’re also mine.” He turns and carries me into the bathroom. The oversized tub is full of steaming water, and Sol just walks right into it. Suddenly, it’s not oversized at all. I tense, but he settles back against the edge and bands a forearm across my waist. “Relax. The hot water will help with soreness.”

The endorphins from the multiple orgasms are starting to wear off. Soreness might be the understatement of the century. Every muscle hurts as if I’ve run a marathon, but I don’t think marathon runners have a throbbing between their legs. Then again, what do I know?

I gingerly brush my fingers to the little cuts that line my lower stomach. I can feel a matching set on my ass. “You bit me.”

He hisses out something resembling a laugh. “If I truly bit you, I don’t think you’d survive it.”

“Probably not.” I relax back against him, letting the water buoy me even as Sol holds me steady. “What do you do for fun, Sol? When you’re not running this territory or visiting Azazel to fuck his humans?”

“You make it sound as if they’re his pets.” He snorts. "And, beyond that, I’ve only visited a handful of times.”

“Do you fuck a lot of dragons then?” God, why am I asking this? That jealousy from before is back and burning a hole in my chest.

He pauses as if weighing his response. “I have hardly been celibate since reaching maturity, even after my courtship ended. There were several dragon partners over the years, and we always had a mutual understanding about what our relationships could and couldn’t be.”

Because his parents wanted him to marry a human and save the territory. The knowledge makes me feel strange. “I…”

“Don’t stop speaking your thoughts now.” His forearm flexes against my hips. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t want to share you,” I whisper. “I can see why you’d prefer a dragon, especially since you almost married one, but if you’re my husband and I’m your wife, then I want to be exclusive.” Funny how I’ve gone from not wanting to be married again to demanding the dragon husband I never wanted to be only with me.

Sol nuzzles my temple. “There will be no one else but you, Briar. I promise.”

Another promise I have no business believing, but he’s given me no reason to doubt him. I stare at the stone wall, wondering how we got into such uncharted waters so quickly. He’s tense at my back, and coward that I am, I divert us back to safer topics. “Are you sure the humans aren’t Azazel’s pets?”

He relaxes against me. “They’re free enough, even if they remain in bargainer demon territory. I can’t speak to their motivations, but they’re hardly kept caged and passed around without consent. Not all of them choose to, ah, entertain Azazel’s guests from other territories.”

I trace a finger along his scales. Yes, better to talk about Azazel than the strangely territorial feeling coursing beneath my skin. “If he has that many humans, why did he have to bring in us five for you? Why not just let them intersperse with the rest of the realm’s population?”

“Azazel is a canny bastard.” He huffs out a breath. “It’s intentional. We might be at peace now, but we haven’t always been. He dangles a tempting fruit in front of us and withholds the true possibility of more than just a taste. The presence of so many humans when travel between the realms is rare is a tempting fruit, but Azazel’s lineage is littered with humans. He’s significantly more powerful than the rest of us, and as a result, his territory will never be conquered.”

This world is recognizable in some ways, but so foreign in others. “The balance seems to work well enough in this realm. You’re not at war.”

“Not currently.” He sighs. “I won’t lie and say I’m not concerned about what will happen if some territory leaders succeed and others fail. Our skirmishes have been just that for several generations. Skirmishes. But if the balance were to tip in a substantial way, war is all but inevitable.”

I shiver. Obviously I knew a child was part of Sol’s goals, but I hadn’t paused to consider the implications that all the territory leaders might be out for the same thing. Except… “But about the smoke and fire lady? How does that work with, uh, pregnancy and stuff?”

“Rusalka.” He says her name almost like a curse. “The succubi and incubi don’t choose leaders the same way the dragons do. It’s not lineage that determines who inherits the title. It’s strength.”

“Oh.” And a half-human child would be strong. I shudder. These territory leaders can’t force us, but will the others hold out?

Hopefully they’re doing a better job of it than I am.

Except that’s not fair. I know where my line is, at least in that. I can’t extend that to anyone but me. If one of the other women wants to have twelve babies with her monster, that’s her business.

Even if it hurts Sol?

I shut the thought down. Hard. I made my deal with eyes wide open, but I didn’t do it to help anyone else except me. I’m certainly not selfless enough to give up a child. I shiver again and wrap my hand around the pendant, letting its solidity steady me as much as having Sol wrapped around my tired body. “It seems very complicated.”

“Yes.”

I like that he’s rather blunt. He doesn’t play with words and talk circles around me. Even when he obviously doesn’t want to talk about something, he doesn’t make me feel like it’s my fault that the subject came up and now he’s irritated because I’m too dense to understand the problem.

I tense and slap the water. “Damn it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s like he’s haunting me. I can’t stop comparing the two of you, can’t stop my expectations that things will be just as messed up with you as they were with him.”

He rests his chin lightly on the top of my head. “I won’t pretend to know your experiences, but I would imagine that something like that doesn’t simply disappear because we’d like it to.”

I glare at the tiled wall of the bathroom. “I want it to go away. He had power over me for far too long. I won’t let him have more now that he’s gone. Not anymore.”

Silence except for our low breathing and the steady beat of Sol’s heart thrumming through his chest where I rest my head. Finally, he says, “Would you like to see the library tomorrow? The translation spell only works for speaking, but I believe there’s another that will allow you to read.”

I sit up so fast, he has to jerk back to avoid me slamming into his jaw. “We could do that?” I’d wondered if it was possible, but with everything else that’s happened since, I’d all but forgotten.

“I’ll reach out to Azazel tomorrow with the request.”

I turn in his arms, and he allows it. Maybe one day it will stop feeling so strange that I feel safer with a dragon with teeth and claws that could rip me to shreds than I’ve ever felt with a human. “I know the translation spell is very useful, but if I’m going to be here for seven years, I would like to learn your language properly.”

He stares at me for a long time. “You know that’s not necessary.”

I start to tense, but he’s being very careful with me in a way that isn’t familiar. I sit up, perched on his thighs, and push my hair back. “I know it’s not necessary, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it.” I don’t know if our mouths being shaped so differently will make it an impossible task, but he’s being so kind to me, and I want to know more about him. This isn’t for a week or even a month. This is seven years. I can’t spend all that time hiding away in a room. I want to know more about Sol and his people and their history. Our history, really, because there was overlap at some point in the distant past.

I cock my head to the side. “We have stories about dragons in my realm. But they don’t look like you. They were as big as houses. Had a thing for virgins.”

“Slander.” Amusement filters into his tone. “If we took virgins, it was only because that’s what your people offered. It wasn’t preference.”

It seems to defy possibility that dragons really did exist, but then again it defies possibly that I made a bargain with a demon and ended up in a different realm. “Are there still dragons that size?”

“Yes.” He sifts his claws through my hair. “Some of our ancestors chose not to interbreed with humans, so there are still dragons as big as houses.” Again, I get the faint strain of amusement, though he’s definitely not laughing at me.

I think about. Then I think about it some more. “How did they…”

Sol gives that glorious hissing laugh of his. “Records are unclear, but after watching the bargainer demons and the incubi and succubi manage to breed, the less humanoid races made attempts as well.”

Curiosity has me in a chokehold, but exhaustion rises in a tide I can’t fight. “I’m going to have a thousand questions tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it.” For his part, he actually sounds like he means it. “I’d like to sleep with you tonight, Briar.”

I should probably tell him no. Sex is one thing but… But what? I’m not someone who knows how to separate sex and emotion. I simply don’t. I’ve been with exactly two other people in my history, and both were long-term boyfriends. I shudder. Neither were particularly good men, though.

But Sol isn’t a regular man, is he? He’s a dragon.

My emotions are already compromised. I won’t allow that to change my mind about having a child with him and subsequently leaving them behind at the end of this bargain, but I’ve already suffered through so much. Heartbreak in seven years is a faint threat.

Heartbreak.

I almost laugh. Trust me to dive forward into the worst-case scenario. I like Sol, yes. I trust him in a fledgling kind of way. That hardly means I love him. “Yes, we can sleep together.”

I very intentionally don’t think about the fact it feels like I’ve just signed away far more than seven years.