Page 33 of Smoke and Moon

She sucked in more air, a roasted cinnamon-scented air—Aodh.

“Good.”Aodh’s deep, rough focus came to her through the mental fog.“Open your mouth and take a big breath for me.”

Finally, she was feeling a bit more like herself.Her mind was starting to become clear again.Doing what Aodh said, she parted her lips and breathed shallow and then deeper.A tingling sensation shimmied around her mouth, down her throat, and into her lungs.From there, it saturated every part of her body.

When she lifted her lids and stared into Aodh’s soft emerald-flamed gaze, his calming concern reached her through the soft smoke, filling the room and her lungs, which made her nerves settle.The corners of her lips curled up.It was just like Aodh controlling everything around him.She was sure if not for hisdeatach glan heyl, healing smoke, she would have passed out.She glanced around the bathroom.The fixtures and things usually clearly visible appeared like shadows in the smoke.

Kai felt the hard surface beneath her backside and was pretty sure she was sitting on the counter.

“I don’t think this level of smoke was necessary, Aodh,” she teased as she cupped his strong jawline with one hand, trying to communicate that she was all right.“I wasn’t dying.Just a little lightheaded.”

“Doesn’t matter.I must ensure both you and our offspring are well.”

The baby.A baby.She recalled his words before she started to faint.“Aodh, you’re mistaken.There’s no way I’m pregnant already.”She thought about her words.“Okay.As much sex as we have, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I got pregnant.However, it would be weeks before we know.”She placed both her hands on his shoulders and patted him.

Aodh shook his head.“No, mate.You’re mistaken.”

She tilted her head and stared at him.“Trust me.Pregnancy information was rampant in the Dispatch.It was the main commodity people lived on.The government wouldn’t even allow a woman to test until it had been at least two weeks since she’d had sex or a week after her expected cycle day.”

However, what Kai didn’t say was that with the problem of malnutrition, a lot of women in the district had inconsistent periods, and some lost them for years, making it harder for them to conceive the first time and get the government stipend.

“No.”

“No?”She shoved at his shoulders.She hated it when someone doubted her knowledge.There wasn’t much for her to do when she wasn’t caring for sick family or working, so she filled her mind with information from the archive center.Most of it was random, but it was still knowledge.“Trust me, Aodh, I know—”

“Nothing of Drahks.”He leaned in and placed a loud kiss on her mouth.“Sorry, little flame.I will work to rectify your ignorance of my kind, but as I do, you must agree to believe my words.I am the Mckenna, after all.”

She felt Aodh’s arms wrap around her as he pulled her close.There was a light tone to his gravelly voice, but she knew even as he teased her, all the power of his authority was in his words.

“You are Mckenna.’She squeezed his bare hips with her knees, fully aware of their nude state and the heft of Aodh’s semi-erect cock along the top of her thigh.However, as much as her body always craved his, she needed answers.“So, tell me, Mckenna, what makes you think I’m pregnant?”

“Not think.It is how my dragon claims his mate.”

Absently, her fingers glided along the curve of his shoulder to his neck.“Didn’t that happen when he let me touch his heart?”

Kai recalled the heat radiating under her palm from the dragon’s chest and up along her arm until it built inside her.

Aodh leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose, then a corner of her mouth.“That was only part of it, little flame.His acceptance and trust in you as he offered the most vulnerable part of any dragon, their heart.”His large hand caressed her back and drew her closer.

“Then what?”Her ass hovered on the edge of the cool marble counter.Her sex pulsed and clenched at his touch, but she wouldn’t be distracted.

“Then we claimed you in the only true way and made you our mate.”Aodh’s hands slid beneath her cheeks and hoisted her up off her seat and against his body.

The smoke had dissipated, and she could see the bathroom clear again.However, the only thing she focused on was Aodh.She frowned and wrapped her thighs around his waist as he held her tight, her sex pressed to his stiff shaft.

“Through sex.”

“Yes.”He ground against her, and her slickness made his glide easy.

She moaned and couldn’t stop herself from rotating her hips and pressing her clit along his thick cock.If she didn’t discover what had happened from Aodh, her mind would be too far gone to think.She bit down into her lip to make herself focus.“We’ve had sex many times, Aodh.How was this time diff—?”

As the words came out of her mouth, she knew.Her mind replayed everything and the sensation she felt when Aodh was making love to her.Not just the flame, even though she couldn’t wait until that happened again.She could spend a lifetime having flame-induced orgasms.However, it was the part that happened after that, when Aodh was deep inside of her.There had been something more.Deeper.

Aodh leaned back and cocked a brow at her as if he was waiting for her to figure it all out.

Like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, her mind began to fill the pieces in.There had been pain, pressure, then euphoria.

“He was...Your dragon was inside me.My womb.”

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