Crouching Tigress Horny Dragon (Fire Mates #3) (11 page)

He sank his dick into her heat over and over again, his balls slapping at her butt. He claimed her, fucked her, staring into her eyes the whole time, drowning in the concentrated pleasure he saw burning in their silver-blue depths.

He took her there on the floor, his body on fire, his soul alight, and watched her lose herself to her desire through a shimmering haze of blue heat.

The shimmering blue haze of his dragon surging for release.

Shifting. He was shifting. He was on the verge of coming, of filling her with his seed. He was on fire and his dragon was taking control. He was—

“Oh God,” Deanne cried out, “that’s it. That’s it. I’m going to…I’m going to…”

He watched her pleasure twist and contort her face. Watched tendrils of blue wispy smoke rise past her parted lips. It was glorious to witness—a dragon in the throes of lust. In the throes of the mating fire.

His
dragon.
His
Fire Mate. And she was here. She’d come to him. Willingly.

“We’re going to ignite, babe,” he murmured against her temple. “Are you ready to burn with me again?”

“Oh God, yes!” The words burst from her. The second her inner walls squeezed Ryan’s cock with such constricting pressure, he knew her orgasm claimed her.

She cried out, her nails tearing at his shoulders, his neck, her pussy pulsing around his length, her eyes closed, her body as hot as molten steel against his.

A shudder rocked through Ryan, bone-deep, coming from the very center of his existence. Detonating through his core. His orgasm erupted, first in his groin, his balls, and then up his spine, in his chest, his heart. He threw back his head, his roar that of the creature he was.

Fire razed his human flesh, incinerating heat tinged the air…the room…

His fire. Her fire.

The blue flames engulfed them, fed by their mutual pleasure and magic. The air blurred and shimmied with heat, ancient power and united force beyond comprehension.

Deanne cried out again, the sound as inhuman as Ryan’s. It undid him. Tore him apart with rapture. It was the first real display of the dragon she was, and his dragon responded.

The blue flames burned brighter, hotter, until there was only Deanne and Ryan.

In the shimmering heat, he watched as her orgasm took her. Lived it with her. In his mind, he saw what she looked like in her other form—an exquisite dragon of burnished copper with majestic wings, satin-smooth scales, and burning silver eyes.

It pushed him over the edge. He closed his eyes and let himself drown in the moment, pouring his seed into her. Filling her.

Making her his as surely as she made him hers.

A lifetime later, as Deanne moaned Ryan’s name over and over, her sex throbbing and contracting around his embedded length, the flames of the mating fire abated until they were gone.

Breath ragged, Ryan lifted his head from the side of Deanne’s neck and cast their surrounds a slow look.

“Looks like my travel insurance is about to take a hit,” he murmured, casting a look at the scorched walls, and the blistered and blackened paintings hanging on them.

He lowered his attention to the floor beneath them, the melted carpet they now rested on making him raise his eyebrows.

It was an interesting sight. Natural flames the intensity of the mating fire would have turned the hotel room into incinerated ash. The burn pattern around them, however, spoke of a flame with selective heat. The synthetic fibers of the room’s carpet had, it seemed, returned to their original liquid form and then solidified immediately upon the flames’ disappearance.

Thankfully, the smoke detectors hadn’t activated. Nor the fire sprinklers. It seemed the mating fire fucked with science just as much as it fucked with everything and everyone else caught in its sway.

“There’s something to be said for fucking in a park,” Deanne said, laughter in the observation.

He turned back to her, a smile playing on his lips. “There is. Although the last time we did that, you bolted and I dropped you from a great height. Plus a squirrel shat on my…” His words faded away as the dark torment he’d witnessed earlier in her eyes returned.

She shifted beneath him, not so much to move him off her, but nonetheless, he could sense her agitation. “Deanne,” he said, touching the back of his knuckle to her jawline. “You really,
really
need to talk to me.”

Letting out a sigh, she closed her eyes. “I think…” she began, and then stopped.

“Think what?”

“I think this is a conversation requiring clothes,” she finished, giving his back a soft tap.

He studied her for a silent moment before dipping his head in a single nod. “Okay.”

Her pussy contracted around his length as he withdrew from her. The caress sent a lick of arousal through him and he all but groaned. Their twelve hours weren’t up yet, it seemed. How much longer before the insane rutting of the mating fire passed?

“Here,” she said, handing him his jeans as he levered back onto his knees.

He took them, unable to stop his laughter. One leg was a blackened, burnt mess. The other…spotless and untouched.

Deanne’s wry chuckle drew his attention to her.

She sat cross-legged exactly where she’d lain, his shirt in her lap, watching him.

Biting back the desire to kiss her, Ryan straightened to his feet and tugged on his semi-destroyed jeans.

She snorted, rolling her eyes. “It’s very hard for me to be confused and angry with the situation when you do things like that,” she complained, before pulling his shirt over her head. It covered her body like a loose dress. He wanted to rip it off her.

“What situation?” Ryan lowered himself back to his knees. The melted slickness of the carpet rubbed against the one left bare by his burnt jeans.

In his chest, his heart tripped over itself.

Could a Fire Mate tell another the relationship was over? Was that possible?

He didn’t know. Why would he? He hadn’t planned on finding his Fire Mate for at least another century.

When he got back to Australia, he was kicking Tyson’s arse for not preparing him better for all this, and giving Sera a damn good lecture about how inconvenient it was for her to go into labor when he needed some guidance.

“How long have you known you were a dragon shifter?”

Deanne’s soft question made Ryan frown. “What do you mean, how long? I’ve always known. Do you mean, when did I know the mating fire had—”

He stopped when she shook her head.

“I mean,” she said, distress a faint note her voice, “how long have you known you could shift into a dragon?”

The question made no sense to him. His expression must have made that clear.

An exasperated sigh tore from her. She dragged her hands through her hair, her gaze jumping around the room.

He studied her, once again wishing he had a way of dipping into her thoughts at will. A heavy knot twisted in his stomach. “You…you weren’t kidding when you insisted you weren’t a dragon, were you?”

She slid her stare back to him. His throat tightened at the conflict in her eyes. “I…” She looked away, her jaw clenched. “If I’m a…a dragon shifter…I’ve…”

“Never shifted into your dragon form?” he finished for her.

His head roared. Christ, what would it be like, to never know a part of who and what you were? And then, to discover via a rush of carnal lust and hunger so potent, it rendered you defenseless and powerless to ignore?

Swallowing at the weight pressing on his chest, Ryan frowned. “Are your parents—”

…my parents…

…what happened to my mother…

…my father…

…Julian…

The thoughts—Deanne’s thoughts—skipped through Ryan’s head, and with them, images of a short man with cold, dark eyes striding across an endless expanse of knee-deep snow. A short man with corded muscles, holding a hunting knife dripping blood in one hand, and a crossbow in the…

Ryan bolted to his feet. His heart smashed into his tight throat. “
Extraho Venator
,” he said on a breath. “Dragon killer.”

Deanne’s eyes widened. The blood drained from her face. “Ryan,” she said, scrambling to her knees. “Let me explain…I need to—”

He staggered back from her, incapable of processing what the jumbled turmoil of her thoughts had shown him, told him.

“Your father…” The words scratched at his dry throat. His eyes burned as he stared at her. “
Julian
. He’s an
Extraho Venator
.”

Deanne flinched at the title. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “And so am—”

The door crashed open with a crack of splintering wood, a second before the man Ryan had seen in his head strode into the room, crossbow raised.

“Thank you, Daughter,” he said, bolt leveled at Ryan. “Good girl.”

Deanne lunged at Ryan just as the man—her father—smiled and squeezed the trigger.

E
verything turned hot. But unlike the exquisite inferno of the mating fire, this heat seared through Deanne like a scorched blade. Cutting and icy-cold at once.

Something thick sank into the back of her shoulder. Pierced her flesh. Penetrated her muscle. Scraped at her bone.

The impact drove her forward, smashing her chest-first into Ryan.

Behind her, Julian roared, his incensed “
No!
” tearing at her fraying sanity, and then there was nothing in her mind except pain. Agonizing heat.

“Deanne!” Ryan’s voice scraped at the edges of the pain. His fingers flailed at her arms, her face. “Fuck, Deanne…”

She tried to scramble backwards off him, tried to turn to her father, tried to speak, but the pain in her shoulder intensified.

A cry tore from her throat, wild and inhuman.

Ryan’s hands flailed at her arms again. Something hot and wet poured down her back.

“
Daughter
,” a male voice bellowed. “
Move!
”

Male. Father. Julian.

I’m going to fucking kill this—

Ryan’s thoughts snarled through the pain in her shoulder and the terror in her head a heartbeat before the world blistered into red-soaked heat.

Whatever connection she had with him vanished. All she could sense, all she could feel, was the agony in her body. All she could hear was her father demanding she move.

Her heart shattered. Her mind splintered. A lifetime of knowing who she was, what she was, fractured as the reality tore into her.

Raised to kill dragons. Mated with one.

Born one…

She swung her stare back to Ryan.

“Deanne!” Julian—the man who had raised her—yelled at her. “Get off him!”

Ryan tried to haul her to his side, his enraged stare locked on her father.

Kill…

One word. One thought. Ryan’s. In her head.

Existence blistered again. A pulse of heat slammed into her like a ball of fire, so fierce she was pushed backward. If it weren’t for Ryan holding her, she would have been propelled through the air, toward her father.

Her father, who she knew without even looking was cocking another bolt in his crossbow.

Kill the…

Ryan’s thoughts snarled through her head again, his fury hotter than the air around them.

…Extraho Venator. Kill the…

She slammed Ryan to the floor.

The pain in her shoulder turned to a screaming heat. She shut it off. Ignored it. Julian had taught her how to deny pain. The lessons had started when she was only a little girl, barely able to stand.

Pain served no purpose.

“Deanne,” Ryan growled, fingers digging into her upper arms. “Get off me. I have to—”

“I won’t let you kill my father,” she ground out, smashing her palms to his chest.

His eyes widened as he fought against her.

And then he roared as a crossbow bolt slammed into his left shoulder.

A shrieking cry drilled through Deanne’s head. Was it Ryan’s? The dragon that he was? The dragon she’d just mated with?

Ryan writhed, clawing at the bolt embedded in his body. Agony contorted his face as he wrapped his fingers around the shaft and pulled it from his shoulder. Blood pumped from the hole, flowed over his flesh, even as his stare locked with hers.

Deanne…
Hate and torment filled his voice in her head.
Get off me. Get…

“Deanne!” her father roared, closer behind her. “Get out of the way so I can kill this fucking blight to all things natural !”

The order lashed at her. Ice filled her veins.

“Fucking dragon killer,” Ryan snarled, scrambling onto his feet, his stare locked on Julian.

Julian, who was bearing down on them.

Julian, who was cocking another bolt into his crossbow…

Deanne shoved Ryan back, her head roaring.

“Get out of the way, daughter,” Julian ordered. “I need a clear shot of his—”

Ryan scrambled for him again. Threw himself forward from the floor. The air crackled as heat blasted from him.

Deanne gasped, tumbling sideways. And then cried out as her father was flung backwards, hit by the invisible force of Ryan’s burning rage. He struck the wall behind him, the impact knocking his crossbow from his hand.

“
Extraho Venator
,” Ryan snarled, stalking toward him, fists bunched. His skin rippled, its color no longer that of a man but a mottled, shimmering red.

Deanne’s stomach clenched. Her throat seized shut.

Shifting. Ryan was shifting. Right there.

As he bore down on Julian, he was changing. His dragon was rising to the surface.

Revealing itself.

Exposing itself.

“I’m going to turn you to nothing but ash, dragon killer,” Ryan promised.

Slumped on the floor against the wall, blood seeping from somewhere at the back of his head, the skin of his face red and blistered and weeping, Julian pulled his hunting blade from inside his singed jacket.

“You’ve been
fucking
a dragon killer, blight,” Julian sneered back, inching up the wall. “How’s that make you—”

The air shimmered as Ryan blasted another invisible ball of heat at Julian. “Die,
Extraho Venator
,” Ryan said on a low growl. “Burn in—”

Deanne threw herself at Ryan.