Page 79 of Dragon Fight

“Pippin…”

Love, that’s what this was. It was hard for me to see it, feel it, because I’d been deprived of it for so long. But now? I felt like I had all I could take and more besides, the pleasure I felt rushing through my body paling in comparison to that which blossomed in my heart.

“Oh Pippin…”

He stroked my face, transfixed by me as we both came apart, and the only sign his body was erupting in the slight shiver down his spine in time with each pulse. I was full now, complete.

Well, almost.

Soren collapsed down beside me, holding me close so I heard the thunder of his heart. For a while, I stayed there, surrounded by the warmth of his arms and his love. Eventually, though, I tilted my head backwards to meet Brom’s eyes, trying to determine his thoughts. I turned towards him, breaking out of Soren’s embrace.

“How must you…?” Soren let me go, regretfully, but he seemed to sense what I did, that this needed to be raised, so he continued with his question to Brom. “How do you feel, watching your wife disport herself so with your wing mates?”

Brom pulled me close, stroking soothing hands down my spine.

“If Pippin was mine, and mine alone, and we had promised to be only with each other, it might break my heart,” he replied, noting my rapid intake of breath with a nod. “But when I walked into that chapel, I knew.” He cradled my face in his hands. “You are notmywife, butours.” He turned me around to face the other men. “They each own a piece of your heart, just as you own theirs, and the only way any of us will be happy is if we’re together.”

His lips brushed against my neck, the prickle of his beard making me shiver.

“You can do that, can’t you, Pippin? Let all of these desperate, wanting men into the safe haven of your heart, just as you have ours.”

“Yes.” I didn’t even need to think through my response, because his words had articulated something we’d all felt but not dared to say. “Gods, yes.”

Brom lifted my hand, the one that wore his ring, and brushed his thumb over it. “Five leaves,” he said, drawing my attention to the setting. “You might not be able to wear every man’s ring, but I chose it deliberately so this one ring represents the bond to each one of us.”

My breath caught in my chest, tears pricking at my eyes, and Flynn moved forward.

“We’ll buy you all the jewels you want, if this one doesn’t work for you.”

“No!” I said, wiping away my tears as they fell, but more came and all I could do was just smile through them. “No. It’s perfect.You’reperfect.”

I didn’t bother to identify who I meant, because they all knew: it was each and every one of them. And as my body settled against Brom’s, I felt the truth of that, bone deep. I felt everything go loose as I relished the peace, the contentment, in simply being held.

“C’mon cadet,” Ged said with a rakish grin. “You’ve got one more man to satisfy. No one said it wouldn’t be hard work having four mates… four husbands,” he corrected himself.

But he didn’t need to remind me. My head tilted so that my lips could find Brom’s, and he took what I offered and more. His hands moved across my body, shaping it, possessing it until, finally, he laid me down on the bed. I reached my hand towards his face and he tilted his head to meet the curve of my palm and he smiled tenderly down at me: the wing commander gone, the noble-born son of Lord and Lady Emberly nowhere in sight. As he leaned over me, as his body slotted into mine, there was only Brom: my man, my lover, my husband.

One of five.

49

Iwas woken by the stroke of a hand through my hair, and I screwed my eyes tight shut as I groaned. Something had shifted in the night, and the four of them had been insatiable as they’d rolled my body into theirs and swallowed down my moans over and over. Morning had come, but I wasn’t ready to meet it. I told that to the person stroking me.

“None of that, lass.” My eyelids fluttered open to see Ged dressed and looking down at me. “Quietly now. We’ll slip away for the day and—”

“Ged, we can’t just wander off.” I rose up on my elbows. He tried very hard not to stare at my breasts but ultimately failed. “We have to find the boys.”

“That’s what we’re about, lass, but I can’t take three burly riders with me where I need to go.” He tossed me some clothes. They reminded me a lot of what I’d worn as a pig herder, though they were clean. I started pulling them on, raising a brow. “Fancy accents and military bearing will do us no good down by the docks.”

Well, that was enough to pique my curiosity. I got dressed swiftly and then pulled on my boots, and Glimmer slipped from my bedroom to join us.

Your mate has ideas, knows people…She said in a musing tone.Knows where we might get information.

That was endorsement enough for me.

“We’ll take Cloudy down to a clearing off from the docks. Just an old common, no good for farming because it’s too close to the sea,” he told me as we walked out of the keep proper and into the dragon dens. “He’ll look after your Glimmer. We can’t have her lying around here, waiting for the queen to pick her off, and if she tags along, we won’t be able to mask her as some dog. We’re going undercover, you understand?”

“Pretending to be something other than riders of the corps?” I asked and he nodded.

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