Page 46 of Dragons' Future

“I promise there shall be times when you’ll want to wring their scaly little necks. And yet you’ll love them still. How twisted is that?” There was a hint of a smile in Agatha’s voice as she said Cyril’s own words back to him.

Cyril shook his head. “It’s different. The hatchlings are innocent. What right have I to mourn a man who tried to hurt my mate?”

Agatha dabbed something against his wounds that burned like wildfire. Instead of flinching away, Cyril pressed into the ointment, hissing as he did. That manner of pain was easier to bear. A relief. But only for seconds. Escaping from the truth of his thoughts wasn’t that easy.

“How does one tell a mate that he mourns the death of a male who’d once ordered her death? Or that he is terrified each time he holds their hatchling? Or that he’d spent years shirking a responsibility, and only realized the truth of it when his father died?” Cyril drew a breath, his heart pounding. He’d not expected to say all that when he’d opened his mouth, and now there was no way of snatching the words back from the air.

“I imagine you use the same words you just tried on for size.” Agatha said mildly. Had she even heard what he’d said? “Raise your arm for me. Good. Hold it there.”

“There is a world, a whole bloody destiny riding on Kitterny’s wings now,” Cyril snapped. “I need to do better than that. I owe her better than that.”

“If you want an old woman’s advice, then here it is. What you owe your mate is your trust and truth. Her destiny, your past, the world’s fate itself—those are things you all might do. But the bond between you, the connection, what you mean to each other on a primal level, that’s what you are. That’s what gives your pack its power weather you are the lowest foot soldier in King Ettienne’s army or the crown prince himself.”

Primal connection.

Cyril jerked, twisting around on his stool as a sudden idea struck. Primal connection. Yes. That’s what was at the root of it all. Primal connection. “You are brilliant,” he told Agatha, and meant it.

A touch of color flushed her cheeks. “You are squirming.” She batted at him in reprimand. “Sit quietly.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Cyril grinned. “You just told me how to contact the rest of the pack.”

CHAPTER 26

Kit

“Why are we here?” I rub the sleep from my eyes as Cyril opens the door to Agatha’s small goat barn, its hinges groaning softly against the hush of pre-dawn. The air inside is cool, tinged with the earthy aroma of goats and hay. Everyone else is still asleep, which seems like the smarter thing to be doing right now. In fact, I’m still in the shift Agatha lent me. Cyril, on the other hand, is fully dressed in a clean shirt and loose trousers. And there is a slight scent of wood chips on him, as if he’d been whittling.

“We are here because no one else is.” There is a small gleam in Cyril’s blue eyes that I’ve not seen in some time. He pulls his hand out of his pocket.

“No one else is in a lot of other places,” I mutter. “Like my sleeping pallet. So how about we go there?”

“Oh, I think you’ll want to be here,” he says. “You still seem to enjoy privacy.”

“Only when we—” I rub my face, realizing what he is getting at. My treacherous body heats in visceral approval that my mind does not share. We are in the middle of a disaster for stars’ sake, with the rest of the pack missing. Not to mention that we are guests of an elderly human couple. “Really, Cyril? You think this is the time for a tumble? Are you even well enough to -”

Cyril’s mouth silences the rest of my protest. As he takes my mouth, he grabs my waist and draws me purposefully against his muscled body. I am suddenly and acutely aware of every point of contact between us, from the hungry lips now pressing insistently over mine to the hardness pulsating against my abdomen. His kiss is fervent, the kind that steals my breath—and he knows it. I grip his arms, riding the wave of need Cyril stokes inside me with his mouth alone.

“You are a horny, mindless male,” I tell him, my breaths coming in pants as we pull apart. There is a distinctly uncomfortable ache between my thighs now, and I shift my weight around in a futile effort to relieve it. “And I hate you.”

“Horny perhaps, but not mindless.” Cyril’s hands slide to my face, his calloused palms cupping my cheeks. “I know how to contact the pack.”

“Well, maybe we should do that first and celebrate after?” My sex tightens, casting its vote to reverse the proposed order of events.

Cyril shakes his head. “It’s one and the same. Primal connection.”

“Primal connection?”

“Yes. You have the ability to mindspeak with Tavias. We know you do. You just don’t know how to access it on demand. But there is one other thing we know about that dragon magic of yours… it comes out best when some of your human thought shackles fall away.” A corner of his mouth quirks. “And seeing how the rest of us were treated to a front row seat when you and Tavias barricaded yourselves in the bear den, well, I think my plan of attack to access your primal potential has a reasonably high probability of success.” Cyril’s voice hitches slightly as the bulge pressing against his trousers gives a distinct twitch.

I squeeze my eyes tight, but it does nothing to ease the rush of desire that shoots through the mating bond. “I don’t think we can ignore the possibility of it working,” I say. “It would be… irresponsible… not to try.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Cyril agrees. With that his hand slides under the shift Agatha had loaned me, his thumb trailing toward my clavicle, tracing the line above my breastbone.

My nipples tighten at the touch, and I moan as my head falls back against a prickly wall of stacked hay. I don't remember us getting here, but from the goats snide bleating I'm guessing it's a recent development. I reach for his shirt but he catches my wrists deftly.

"Oh, I'm much too injured to let you at me." The smirk in his voice is pure, infuriating provocation. My sex is screaming with need now and I want to touch him so badly that it hurts. He nips the top of my breast and the tiny spark of pain morphs into jolts of sensation that have me going up on my toes. Cyril transfers my caught wrists into one hand. "I think I better keep control of these. For safety's sake."

I try to knee him from sheer spite, but he blocks the feeble attempt with a seductive chuckle. "This is serious business, dragon queen," he whispers against my scales, his breath tickling the sensitive medallions. "Maybe I need to impart just how serious before we proceed."

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