Chapter 5

Chapter5

Briar

The first thing I notice is how different the air feels. It’s as if I just stepped from a desert to the high mountains. I inhale deeply. Maybe not the high mountains. It just feels like the country, or at least how I imagine the country would smell. I’ve never spent much time outside the city. But it smells…green. I don’t register Sol following me until the door shuts softly behind him.

It’s right around that moment when I realize we’re alone.

It leads into a wide and airy stone hallway. The blocks beneath my feet are so large, it defies comprehension that someone created a building with them, but the scale of everything seems larger in this…realm. There are even charming open arches overlooking greenery down below.

Even as I tell myself to hold still—that’s what you’re supposed to do with a predator, right?—I can’t stop from scrambling away from Sol. The hallway that seemed to have plenty of space before is now too narrow with his presence filling it.

Sol looks down at me, his features too dragon for me to read whatever emotion might be found there. “Come along.” He moves down the hallway, leaving me to either follow or stay huddled here against the wall.

I try to calm my racing heart. He didn’t do anything. He barely looked at me. Staying here might satisfy the terrified gibbering part of my brain, but if I’m to be here for seven years, I’m hardly going to spend it all in this hall.

It still takes far more bravery than I want to admit for me to push away from the wall and edge my way after Sol.

I move slowly to the half wall—which hits me about chest level—and peer down into a lush garden. Or I assume it’s a garden. It looks like a mini forest, the only indication it’s enclosed at all are the corners where my hallway makes a ninety-degree turn at either end.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You’re welcome to explore. Later.”

I jump nearly out of my skin. I’d been so enraptured by the garden I hadn’t thought to clock Sol’s location. I spin around to find him a few short feet away. Distantly, I’m aware enough to realize he’s being very careful with me the same way I would be with a wild animal that wandered into my apartment. Not that there are many large wild animals in New York, but there are a lot of pigeons, and they can be real bastards.

I slap a hand to my mouth to keep my giggle inside. Not yet. I can lose my mind later. Right now, I have to focus. It takes several beats before I have enough control to drop my hand and say, “Okay.”

Once again, he leads the way. I study his back as I follow him around the corner and through another series of halls leading away from the garden. His pants are obviously tailored around the existence of his tail. It’s a nice enough tail, I guess. I don’t know how such things are measured.

I’ve never seen a dragon before.

Now I’m about to be married to one.

Sol takes me down a set of stairs. I struggle with them, the height of the individual stairs different than I’m used to. Once we reach the ground floor, we start seeing other dragon people.

I’m too shell-shocked to remember not to stare, but it’s just as well because they’re staring at me, too. Some of them have breasts, which surprises me, though I don’t know why it surprises me. Sol is obviously a dragon person, rather than just a dragon. He has pecs, for fuck’s sake.

Moving helps keep my panic at bay. I can’t quite make the details of the place and its people stick in my head. The only thing I truly register is that the dragon people seem to be a wide variety of shades of either brown or green.

Another door leads us outside to a heavily wooded area with a neatly maintained gravel path. There, Sol slows until he’s walking next to me. “The ceremony won’t be long, and then you can rest.”

I miss a step. No matter how I cling to the calm, it’s slipping through my fingers. “I don’t want to be married again.” I agreed to it. I signed the damn contract. It doesn’t mean it’s what I want, though. I should be going along with this, making him happy, but I can’t quite manage it.

“It’s necessary.”

I have every intention of keeping my mouth shut, but this has been too much in too short a time. “In case I have a kid.”

“Yes.”

Later, I’ll appreciate that he’s not trying to talk circles around me and make me doubt myself. Maybe. I lift my chin, staring up into his dark eyes. If he opened his mouth, he could probably bite my head clean off. “How would that even work? You’re massive and I’m human. Having a kid would kill me.”

“The magic mixes in a way that prevents that.” He’s holding still, answering me patiently even as the answers make me want to flee. “To my understanding, children are born humanoid in size and features and then become more dragon-like as they grow in the first year or so.”

“To your understanding,” I repeat. “You don’t know.”

“There hasn’t been a human-dragon child in generations. It’s why you’re here.”

I stop suddenly. “Azazel says you can’t force me.”

He rears back, his crest flaring a deep orange flash that startles me. Sol makes that hissing noise. “No one is going to force you to do anything. I don’t know what it’s like in the human realm, but we’re civilized here.”

The giggle I’ve been fighting to contain bursts free. “Civilized. Right.” I wrap my arms around myself and bend in half, gasping for breath. “As if there’s a society in existence that doesn’t have sins. Please.”

The bones go out of my legs, and I start to slump to the ground. Sol moves faster than he has a right to, scooping me up and continuing down the path as if nothing happened. I try to tense up, to demand he put me down, but my body and brain won’t cooperate.

Instead, I slump against his broad chest and let him carry me, his long strides eating up the distance and taking us away from the building. His body is so warm, his scales curiously soft against my cheek. No, soft isn’t the right word. Maybe smooth? He’s almost pebbly in a really pleasing way that makes me want to drag my fingers over him.

Thatthought brings me back to myself.

I will not be touching this dragon man in any way that might be construed as an invitation. I open my mouth to tell him to put me down, but the path opens up, the trees falling away to reveal a clearing tucked back against a low cliff face. A small waterfall trickles down into a pond about the size of a very large hot tub. The soft sound of water instantly loosens something in my chest. Or maybe it’s the golden light that filters through the trees overhead. Something about the space feels like I just popped one of my fast-acting anxiety meds. “What is this place?”

“The sacred grove associated with this part of our territory. There are four in the dragon lands, and the location of the keep was chosen for its proximity to this spring.” He carefully sets me down, his big hands spanning my waist and then some. “All our rituals and important events happen here.”

I turn in a slow circle. The clearing is larger than I first thought; the sheer size of the trees make it feel more closed in than it should be. Still, if there are only four locations in…dragon lands… “Are they all this size?”

He follows my gaze. “No. This is the smallest of the four. It’s meant only for those in the keep and my family.”

I’ll have more questions later. The curiosity that gave me a boost of energy is already fading. “Oh.”

“Come.” He moves to the edge of the spring, and I follow a few steps behind. This close, I can see the water is perfectly clear and there are natural steps leading down. Sol motions at them. “We enter separately and emerge as one.”

“This is your marriage ceremony?”

It’s hard to tell, but I think he’s biting back a hiss of frustration. “Yes.”

I frown at the spring, waiting for my earlier panic to surge forth. This isn’t anything like my last wedding. There’s no crowd of friends and family. No carefully curated color scheme. No walking down an aisle to a man I thought was my Prince Charming.

Honestly, it sounds more like a baptism than anything else, but I’ve never been overly religious, so that’s one of the few things about this scenario I don’t find triggering.

I can do this.

I nod slowly. “Okay.” He starts to move, but I throw up a hand. “Can I go first?” Descending to him might not be close to last time, but I’d rather not risk it.

Sol motions with his clawed and scaled hand. “By all means.”

It’s not until I’m carefully navigating down the steps that I realize the dress is going to be a problem. The layers of fabric go sheer as they hit the water.

Oh well. We’re about to be married and he wants to seduce me into having his children. I’m too tired to care about a little nudity. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does to me.” He hesitates. “But no, this isn’t an invitation for anything but the marriage itself.”

There’s no use arguing. His compromise, if it can be called that, is enough to reassure me. I take a deep breath and finish descending into the spring.

The water is warm and comes to my chest. I don’t know why that surprises me. Nothing about this situation has been what I expected, so why should this? I trail my fingers through the water and turn to find Sol watching me.

His expression is too alien for me to read. I think I detect hunger, but is it sexual or violent? He hasn’t done anything to harm me, but we’ve been alone for a less than an hour. Surely he’s too smart to break his contract with Azazel so quickly? It took Ethan months before he started encroaching on my confidence, whittling away at me. That old saying about the frog in boiling water has more than a little truth to it. We’d been married three years before he hurt me physically the first time.

Sol moves, jerking my attention back to the present. He descends the steps smoothly, and I can’t help examining his body. His chest is very human, broad shoulders descending to well-defined pecs and a solid stomach. I should stop looking there, but curiosity sinks its claws in deep and drags my gaze farther south to where the water licks at his hips, molding his pants to his body. The intent way he watches me sharpens, and the front of his pants shifts.

Look away.

Stop staring.

I don’t. I stand there, frozen, and watch his cock harden just from the sight of me, from my attention on him. Except it looks strange and… I blink. “You have two cocks.”

“Yes.”

My mouth works, but I can’t find words. Two. And they look to be in proportion with him, which means they’re massive. I don’t… What… “Two.”

“Briar.”

His saying my name for the first time is enough to pull my gaze from his hips and up to his face. Sol makes a hissing sound that seems almost agonized. “You’re not making an offer to do more than look.”

It’s not a question. I have no reason to argue. He’s talking like he fully intends to honor Azazel’s promises, which boggles my mind. The curiosity coursing through me only gets stronger, but I wrestle it back under control. “Have you been with humans before? Are you even sure it will fit?”

“It will fit,” he grinds out.

So he has been with humans before. I frown but understanding dawns quickly. “Azazel really is clever, isn’t he? He gave you a taste before this with others.”

“Yes, but this bargain isn’t about sex.” He stalks past me, keeping a careful distance between us. “Now, stop talking about my cock unless you intend to do something about it.”

I snap my mouth shut against a horrifyingly flirty response. This man—this dragon—might be strangely intriguing, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to do more than look. Even if I were…

No.

The consequences are too dire. It’s not worth it for simple curiosity.