A hand emerged from the water, its clawed fingers slamming down on the bank and sinking into the mud. Big as it was, that hand was much too small to belong to a dragon. The arm that surfaced after it was large, muscular, and scaley, but it too did not belong to a dragon.
The figure hauled itself up out of the river, first onto its knees and then its feet, water pouring from its powerful, broad-shouldered body. Elliya tilted her head back to look up at the figure—tall and imposing, and in the shape of a man.
A long, thick tail slashed across the surface behind the male as he stalked forward, driving Elliya back farther onto her backside. His whole body was powerfully built and covered in golden scales of varying size. His chest was illuminated from within, as though it held a blazing fire rather than a heart and lungs. Two wings stretched outward from the man’s back, shedding excess water, and he shook his head, making his long hair—silver in the moonlight—whip around his head. That only drew attention to the long horns atop his skull.
His eyes met Elliya’s; they were glowing blue, their slitted pupils expanding as he stared at her.
Not a man at all. This was the dragon.
This was her dragon.
His nostrils flared, and his tongue flicked out from between his lips to taste the air. His eyes dipped down her body to fixate upon her sex. His jaw—lined with two small bone spikes on each side—clenched, and his lips peeled back to reveal sharp teeth.
Elliya’s gaze moved down his wide chest, his muscular abdomen, and narrow hips to settle on his cock. It extruded from his slit, long, thick, and pulsing, as golden as the rest of him with fine scales and pronounced ridges. Pale seed oozed from its tip.
Desire flared within her, and her sex ached with want of the male before her. Not wholly man or beast, but virile and strong, magnificent and menacingly beautiful.
He growled and took a step toward her, wrapping his hand around his cock and squeezing hard. More seed seeped from its tip to drip into the grass, wasted.
“Female,” he said in a deep, accented, gravelly voice.
Elliya tore her eyes away from his cock to look at his face, which was tight and pained, his blue eyes tortured but lustful. She smiled and leaned back onto her elbows, spreading her thighs wide. His hungry gaze immediately returned to her sex.
“Yes,” she said. “Your female.”
4
Falthyris had never experienced such pain, had never felt his heartfire blaze so intensely. He felt like he’d been swallowed up, burned from within, violently unraveled and slammed back together again with fire and force. He did not know what had happened, but he did not care—the Red Heat had claimed him, and his mind, body, and soul were all fixated on the female.
My female.
The truth of those words penetrated to Falthyris’s core, even through the Red Heat’s thick fog. His heartfire flared, and he surged forward, sped by his inner flames. He landed over her, wedging his body between her legs, and hissed as his shaft nestled along her wet slit. Fresh seed seeped from his cock. He shuddered and curled his claws into the ground.
With a snarl, he drew back his hips and thrust his cock into her sex.
He didn’t hear the female’s pained cry, didn’t feel her hands grasping him or her blunt claws scraping against his scales—all he could feel was the slick, hot, tight grip of his female’s sheath around his throbbing cock.
Falthyris withdrew just enough to shove himself deeper into that blissfully wet channel. It was overwhelming pleasure, it was unbearable agony, and he could not stop. He pumped again and again, sinking as deep as he could go and willing himself deeper still until his female’s sex had consumed him entirely.
He needed this. He needed her.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Falthyris pushed harder, faster, grunting and snarling.
His blood flowed like magma through his veins, his scales were tight over his bulging muscles, and an immense, impossible pressure was building in his loins. He felt as though his body could barely contain itself, as though it could barely contain his essence, his heartfire, which was stronger after his female’s touch than ever before.
My female…
Her heady fragrance filled the air. It was the scent that had finally roused him from his cave, alluring and feminine, but there was more to it now—it was enhanced by her arousal, made all the more maddening. That scent clouded his mind as fully as the Red Heat had.
She shifted, wrapping her legs around him, and Falthyris growled, snapping his teeth and dropping a clawed hand to her hip to keep her pinned in place. His thrusts increased in speed and brutality. His female’s sex contracted, clamping around him, drawing him farther in, flooding with more liquid heat.
So hot, so tight, so wet.
The pressure in his loins heightened, stealing his breath. He hissed, digging his claws deeper into the ground and flattening his wings against his back. His frenzied movements grew erratic as his inner flames and the Red Heat swirled together in a firestorm at his center. Waves of pleasure-pain raced up his spine and outward along his limbs to the tips of his fingers, toes, and tail.
For an instant, everything was still, and deafening silence enveloped him. That silence was shattered by a soft, gasping cry beneath him—not at all the sort of sound a dragoness would make.
Falthyris exploded, his heartfire blazing out from his core to seize his every muscle and force a roar from his throat. His wings snapped out as a jet of molten seed blasted from his cock, and ecstasy unlike anything he’d ever experienced devoured him.
His hips jerked as he poured streams of seed into his female, grinding his shaft deep. Each release provided more relief than the last until, with wings fanned out and body shuddering, he sagged upon her.
He still felt the Red Heat, still felt Dragonsbane’s curse beating down on him, but the worst of its effects had faded—for now. As much as it hurt his pride to acknowledge that he’d succumbed, he could consider this coupling a small but significant victory in the greater battle against dragonkind’s nemesis.
He'd given in to that burning need, but he hadn’t harmed his female—his mate.
Still, he knew his current relief would be short lived. The Red Heat would resurge before long.
Panting, Falthyris curled around his mate, drawing her close, and buried his snout against her neck. He inhaled her scent and released the breath in a contented rumble.
Her hands stroked his shoulders and back, her legs tightened around his hips, cradling him against her body, and when she spoke, he felt the gentle vibrations of her voice. “Cetolea, bless this womb. May it nurture and protect the seed it has been gifted, and may it grow strong new life in its loving embrace.”
Those words were as comforting as they were strange.
Continuing the soft slide of her hands over his scales, she repeated her words, and Falthyris focused on them. They were spoken like some sort of prayer, it seemed, but it was the words themselves that warranted closer attention—because though he understood them, they belonged to a language he’d not heard in several hundred years. She was not speaking in the tongue of dragons.
Something soft tickled his snout, and he released a huff through his nostrils. Awareness—both of himself, his female, and the situation—rushed to him, nearly as overwhelming as the pleasure-pain of moments before.
There was something wrong here. Falthyris himself felt wrong.