Page 105 of Beautiful Beast

“I won’t let it happen.” My voice was unrecognizable. “No.”

She smiled then, lighting up the world around me like she was the sun. “It’s funny to hear you say that, since you were the one meant to kill me.”

I buried my face in her neck. Inhaled her skin. Touched her wherever I could reach. Because she was mine. She was ours. “Lena,” I groaned. “I can’t.”

A hand landed on my shoulder, and when I pulled away, I saw the first shadow of doubt on her face. Grief too. She didn’t want to die any more than we wanted her to, and it was a long time away. We would have years and decades to figure out how to turn our beautiful mate immortal.

“Zovai,” Endre said quietly. “We’ll figure it out.”

I knew I should step away and let the others near, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Instead, I lifted her straight off her feet and back to the bedroom. Idroal had known what they were doing taking Varí with them.

“We just found you.” Her clothes burned away under my hands before I spread her out on the bed. “I can’t feel like I’m losing you.”

“You’re not,” she said. “I’m right here.”

My teeth closed down on her neck, not hard enough to break the skin but enough to make my beast see nothing but red. The need to mark her was so strong, I almost couldn’t resist it.

“What happens?” Lena’s breathless moan made me harder than I already was.

I stroked my tongue over the place I’d nearly bitten, leaving my brothers to answer the question. I was too entranced by her naked body beneath mine.

Amusement was clear when Sirrus spoke. But I felt his unspoken pain too. All of us were in pain because she was everything and now she had been threatened by her own nature.

“What happens when, Princess?”

“When you mark me. What happens?”

Easing her legs apart, I searched her face, looking for signs of resistance or pain. She was still new to this. But she smiled and nodded. I didn’t hesitate, thrusting into her perfect body and the heat that even made my dragon groan with satisfaction.

Lena’s eyes closed, her legs wrapping around my hips, even as she grimaced in pain. I poured flames into my hands and spread them over her skin to ease it. My beast could not be without her, but I would not let her hurt.

“We feel you,” Endre said. “Your pleasure and your pain. Your emotions, in the same way that we are bound as Heirs. The same way the Elders are bound to each other, and separately, to their mates. Though,” he added. “None of the Elders have a true mate.”

I rolled, pulling Lena on top of me. She gasped as I gripped her hips and rolled them, pulling her down and showing her exactly how to ride a dragon.

“Will it make you feel better?” She asked. Her eyes remained closed as Endre lifted her hair away from her neck and kissed the same place I’d almost bitten. I released her for a moment, breathing fire into my palm once more and drawing it over her clit. Thrusting up, my beautiful mate broke, delicious cry echoing through the room with her head thrown back.

I would never get tired of the sight and sound of her pleasure.

Lena hauled in a breath before she opened her eyes. I swore a dragon’s fire burned there. I shared Endre’s disbelief. How we didn’t know before…

Our entire world was bound by fire. Fire bound the dragon to the sheyten. To the humans. Fire bound the sheyten to Viria. Fire bound us together too. Was it really a wonder matehood was revealed by fire?

Sirrus knelt at her other side, palm sliding up her ribs between her breasts to rest over her heart. “I will mark you any place and any time, mate. No, it will not make me feel better about your mortality. Yes, it will make me feel better knowing that you’re mine and everyone will be able to see it.” He lowered his voice. “And feeling everything you feel? Understanding every little move that will make you moan? That will be the best feeling of all.”

He drew one nipple into his mouth, and Lena squeezed down on my cock in response. “That’s a dangerous game, mate.”

She smiled, eyes dazed and face dreamy. “This?” The deliberate squeeze had me fucking upward into her perfect cunt, not caring about anything else. She was mine. Mine. MINE.

An inferno swirled through me. I erupted, my release filling her up. I loved the way she shuddered. But she swayed, body still not having the stamina that matched our desire for her.

I pulled her down against me, rolling to the side and cradling her with my cock still inside her. The feral beast in my mind had quieted. At least a little. Lena in my arms would always calm the storm.

“Do we have time?” She asked.

“For what?”

Stretching up, she kissed beneath my jaw, giving just a hint of her curiosity. The passion she’d never had a chance to explore. “To mark me. If it’s going to make the three of you hold me hostage for days of sex, we can wait until we go back to Skalisméra.”

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