Page 123 of Dragon Fight

“Get Pippin there,” he barked then. “Get her off hard enough that she sees stars and then see to yourselves.”

Every time I’d reached my peak with one or more of them, it felt exactly as he described, but this was something else. He was a master at this, forcing us to transmute all the desperate energy of our return to the keep into what passed between us, then allowed us to expend it all explosively in one beautiful rush. My whole body felt like it prickled, every nerve ending coming alive, the world feeling like it swirled around us, the air caressing my skin as Ged and Flynn muttered terrible, beautiful things right up until the point I came.

My scream cut through the air as Ged jerked himself free, his seed splattering all over my breasts, in time with the desperate pulses of my body.

“Fuck… Fuck…!” Flynn hissed, right before slumping down on top of me. He pinned me to the bed and I craved the heavy weight of him, because it felt like it was the only thing stopping me from flying away.

I was empty, wrung out, and all thoughts and feelings washed away, each man flopping down around me. My eyes fell shut because it felt like I didn’t have the energy to keep them open.

“Now that was compelling.” I opened my eyes a crack at Draven’s voice, to see him leaning over, his fingers slipping through the mess left between my legs. “We could try that again, torment our poor queen by bring her close to the edge over and over and refusing to let her go, not until we’re ready.” His smile was cruel but it didn’t frighten me now, not like before. “Imagine the pleasures we could force you to endure.” His smile widened. “That’s the way it will be now, my love. Just one terrible pleasure after another until you beg us to stop.”

He had to ruin it, didn’t he? Not with his sharp smile and sharper words. I knew mating with Draven would be like carrying a pet scorpion around in my pocket. We might be tied as tight as two people could be, but he’d still find himself stinging me one time or another. But right as I had been ready to let go of everything, he had to remind me of what was to come. And thinking of the future was exactly what I as trying to avoid tonight.

And for good reason.

We slept tangledup in each other, not wanting to let go, even as we rested. My face was pressed into Draven’s chest, the sound of his heart reassuring, even as dreams pulled me deeper. I was in the darkness now, but it wasn’t silent. I could hear the chirp of crickets, feel the cool dew as it seeped into my boots as me and my fellows crouched in the bushes.

The dukes had all departed the city, going back to the seats of power on dragonback and waiting there until called. Draven needed to stand on his own two feet, show he wasn’t anyone’s puppet and while he and the general had apparently worked hard to eject the Harlstonian troops garrisoned within Wyrmpeak, each duke waited, gathering their nobles, their generals and their families around them to see how the chips fell.

They shouldn’t have.

Men crawled through the undergrowth, getting closer and closer to not one, not two, but three different ducal estates, under the dark of the moon. They were shadowy shapes, moving like shades right up until they reached the gates. Some sliced the throats of the guards on duty, others slipped into entrances left unlocked by secret allies that lurked within the dukes’ ranks, but proceed they all did, to achieve their mission.

I shifted on my plush bed, the scent of my mates in my nose half settling me as I tossed and turned. My sleeping body tensed as if it was my bed the assassins approached. But when each man loomed over the sleeping forms of the Duke and Duchess of Skane, of Tharfield, and Cantlyn, my breath sucked in and I shot straight up in bed.

“Pippin…”

Draven’s voice was drowsy with sleep, but it didn’t stop the visions from coming, and I knew Glimmer saw just what I did. We both stared out into the darkness around us, catching the moment when knives shone for just a second, before being stabbed down into their sleeping victims.

“Blood…” I gasped. “So much blood! They’re killing them, all of them!”

Not just the dukes and duchesses of all three duchies, but their sons and their wives, their children too and worse than that. When the Duke of Skane’s life blood bubbled past his lips, he stared his attacker down and mumbled, “Brother…” right before he bled out.

“No,” I said, shrinking back into the bed. “No, no, no…!”

“Pippin. It’s over. It’s all over,” Soren crooned, pulling me close. “It’s just a nightmare. Shh… shh…, it's just a nightmare.”

And if was, it wasn’t one I could wake up from.

70

"The Duke of Skane and his lady wife…” Draven said, tossing a letter down on his desk. “Your brothers, Flynn.” I held Flynn’s hand so tight, his skin pale as milk, apart from two red spots in his cheeks. “All that remains of your father’s line is gone, but for you.”

The look Draven gave Flynn then, one of a king, not a wing mate, not as one of my lovers, should’ve warned me of what was to come.

“We’ll have to look at the laws of succession. Your uncle thinks he can push himself forward and take the ducal seat like this!”

Draven forced himself to calm, then continued.

“The Duke of Cantlyn and his wife and his young boys. One of his daughters escaped the massacre but that’s because she is married to one of her cousins.” Draven’s lips thinned. “Coincidentally the very man who now claiming he is heir.”

He paced back and forth, his boots clicking across the floor.

“The Duke of Tharfield, his wife, his lover and their children are also dead, as is his brother and their children. It appears my uncle could only get to some of the malcontents in each ducal family, not all of them, and so the succession to that duchy is somewhat in doubt. I have no doubt that, shortly, my uncle will push forward someone who meets his needs.”

When Draven stopped, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, I took a step towards him. There was so much pain in this room and it seemed to me that it was my job to fix that. I reached out with a shaking hand, still able to see the assassins and their blades as I did. Then Draven grabbed me, yanking me close, burying his nose in my neck, his hand in my hair, so I was forced to listen to the shaky breaths he took in and out.

“Thank all the gods I have you.” His grip grew tighter, almost squeezing the breath from my lungs. “With you by my side, we will prevail, Pippin. Glimmer has always asserted you are a queen and she never knew how right she was. I need a queen with a level head, one who can fight these bastards with me.” He pulled back then, staring at me with such naked need I felt almost ashamed to witness it. “Someone I can trust to take every one of them down and make them rue the day they ever planned against me and mine.”

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