Page 3 of The Dragon Queen

“Why?”

“Because it’ll look like he follows her authority rather than his own.” He took another drink of the red wine. “Why have you decided to stay here rather than in his accommodations?”

“When Queen Eldinar granted me asylum in Riviana Star, it meant a lot to me because I had nowhere else to go. I know her intentions were to keep me close, but I appreciated having a home, nonetheless. The elves have been my people ever since.”

His eyes slowly softened as he stared at me. “We have something in common.”

“I understand your love for them.”

“What will happen if Talon wins his war and the dragons are free?” he asked. “Will we still be your people?”

Talon and I never made plans for the future. He could barely acknowledge his love for me until I’d demanded it. But I knew my life would be vastly different than it was now. There was no scenario where the forest would be our home. “You will always be my people.”

He continued to stare, the sadness slightly noticeable.

“As much as it pains me to leave you, I imagine we’ll live in the Southern Isles. It’s where his kingdom resides, the reason he’s doing all of this. I’m sure he would do whatever I asked, but what I want most is for him to be happy.”

His eyes flicked down to the wine bottle, but he didn’t take another drink. He just stared at it, the sadness wafting from him because he produced so much of it. “That’s what I feared…but I understand.”

Time passed with painful slowness. I waited for Talon to come to me, but he still hadn’t. I wanted to remain with my uncle and the people I considered my own, but being apart from Talon like this felt like knives under my fingernails. I reached out my mind to Inferno.Tell Khazmuda to inform Talon that I’ll be joining his ship.Just had to figure out a way to do that.

Inferno was quiet as he relayed my message. It was minutes before he returned.TALON IS ON HIS WAY.

I didn’t ask him to come to me.

KHAZMUDA SAID HE WAS ALREADY ON HIS WAY WHEN I SPOKE TO HIM.

The tightness in my chest released when I realized that the separation hurt him too, that he was as miserable as I was. I left my quarters, the sun still above the horizon but quickly descending, and made it to the deck where the sailors continued to man the ship. My eyes were on the sky, searching for Khazmuda’s dark scales against the faint blue sky, but there was nothing to see. I looked at the fleet that surrounded us, looked at the first ship ahead that everyone followed. Then I heard the commotion behind me as the sailors spoke to someone who had joined the ship from the rear.

I turned around to see him, his black cape billowing behind him in the sea breeze, wearing the armor embedded with black diamonds, the hilt of his heavy sword appearing over his left shoulder. The breeze ruffled his dark hair, and the sun lightened his dark eyes.

I stared at him like I hadn’t seen him in a lifetime.

He finished his conversation before his eyes locked on mine. The intensity was like a spreading vine that snagged around my wrist and gripped tighter and tighter. His possession was like the thorns that cut into my skin and made me bleed.

He broke contact and came down the stairs to the lower deck where I stood, his cape still dancing brilliantly behind him. As he came closer, his harshness vanished, the softness he showed only me coming through. Instead of embracing me with a kiss, he continued his loving stare.

“How did you get here?”

“Once a sailor, always a sailor.”

“I know I said I wanted to stay here, but I don’t want to do that anymore.” The elves became home to me when I had none other, but now I’d found a home in the man before me. Wherever he was, I wanted to be.

“Good,” he said. “Because I don’t want to do that either.”

His arms were pinned behind my knees as he took me in the corner of the small bed, his muscular body flexing over and over every time he thrust inside me. He couldn’t grip me because his hands were locked behind my knees, but his stare was strong enough to hold me captive. We rocked together as the ship shifted from side to side, our breaths loud in the small cabin below deck, the sound of the waves against the hull when there was a powerful wave.

Our time on different ships had made us long for each other physically more than emotionally, so he took me like a whore he’d paid for the night, like his body craved the release only I could give him. He didn’t care if he gave me too much and caused me to wince. Didn’t care if other people on the ship could hear our moans and grunts. It was cold out on the open ocean, but it was an inferno inside that little cabin.

My nails left marks from clawing so deep, and the tears in my eyes felt like raindrops from a storm. Even when I clenched around him in a release, he continued to plow me into the headboard. Even when he came inside me, he kept going as if there had been no interruption. He fucked me like I meant nothing to him, but it somehow made me feel more loved.

When there was nothing left in either of us, he lay propped against the headboard, eyes glazed from fatigue and satisfaction, the gleam of sweat all over his chest and shoulders. His fair skin was blotched red from the rush of arousal that simmered underneath his skin. He stared across the cabin to the storage bins that contained wine and water but didn’t move.

I lay on my side with several inches between us, both of us trying to cool off after the blaze that swept through us both. I studied his body, seeing the cords in his neck and the tightness in his arms, his enormous chest and the abs beneath, the long legs that were thick with muscle and covered in dark hair. Every inch of him was perfect, even his large feet.

His breathing returned to normal, but his empty stare continued. The high from our reunion faded, and a shadow of darkness replaced the euphoria we both felt. It reached every corner, and its origin seemed to be Talon.

My fingers moved to his arm.

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