Page 52 of Bartender Mate

No, I growled, feeling Tess’ monumental effort to send her own lifeforce down that bond, keeping it alive. I immediately joined her efforts, sending my healing magic down to bolster his own. My ailing mate responded with a tired kick of resignation.You’re not getting away from me this easily, Radon, I growled in my mind, doubling my efforts.We have plenty of angry words to exchange, yet.

I arrived to see the last of the Drakon Hunters being decimated by my enraged mate. Asteroid’s dragon had just snatched the final witch up into his bloody maw. His beast locked eyes with me as though to say “about fucking time” and ground his jaw. I relished the organic crack as he chomped down, breaking that fucker’s back before tossing his prey to the side, and then bent to nuzzle our fallen mate.

A rush of relieved breath left my frame when I saw Radon’s chest move, rising and falling with new-found determination, but I didn’t stop running. Sure, Radon’s complexion wasn’t great, but he’d live. Asteroid would guard him until assistance arrived.

But where was our fierce female?

My beast located Tess immediately. She was nearby and perched up in the foliage.

Clever mate, I thought, not wasting breath on words. Finding a safe spot to watch over our beloved while she summoned us.

I knew the exact wordage wouldn’t carry with the burst of energy I’d just sent through the bond, but the love and admiration I felt for our fourth sure would.

A weak pulse of wry acknowledgement returned to me through the bond. I could feel her energy waning, though, having shoved so much of herself into saving our mate. Barely able to make out her form, I gritted my teeth in determination as Tess’ body crumpled in on itself and fell.

With a final burst of speed, I ditched the weapons and dived.

Cushioning her more vulnerable frame with my own, I caught her mid-air and wrapped my arms and legs around my precious mate’s torso. We rolled and tumbled until my back came to an abrupt stop against the trunk of a nearby tree, cracking the back of my head. The force of it rattled my brain. I breathed through the pain, far more concerned with checking on the welfare of the courageous female in my arms than worrying about my own thick skull.

When I looked down at my mate, I found the tiniest curl of triumph on her beautiful lips. I took a moment to trace the wondrous mating mark on her throat with my fingertips as the breath fell easily in and out of her chest, then let out a shaky exhale of my own.

My bonded mates lived, but at what cost?

In the present, Radon was coming out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair. His skin was still half raw and a stark contrast to Asteroid and I, who had settled into a warm purple. Apparently, Tess couldn’t get enough of the new plum-colored hue of our skin. She said it reminded her of one of her mother’s all-time favorite fruits. I looked forward to tasting one of these Earth delicacies. But Radon’s skin had a long way to heal before his scales shone through with the same rich, earthy sheen.

“Stop staring at me like that. I’m not made out of clay,” Radon grumbled.

Although he was trying to pretend that he was as grumpy as ever, our mate looked as serene as I’d ever seen him. He’d stared down his greatest fear and come out the stronger for it. Good for him. I was the one who’d been left with too many nightmares.

While Tess celebrated the completion of our bond with Asteroid, I was stuck seeing the sightless eyes of the fallen Bromine and thinking how it could have been any one of us struck down by the Drakon Hunters’ stealth attack. Those witches had no honor, that much was plain, and the Stellar Misfits were going to have to do a much better job of adapting to this sort of cloak-and-dagger warfare if we expected to protect what was most precious to us.

“I’m fine, Q.” He rapped on the center of his chest, sending me a teasing zing through our completed bond. “I’m right here and just as snarky as ever.”

“It could have gone so different,” I whispered, looking up at him through my lashes. Watching Radon as he scrubbed the towel over his head while drinking in the sight of our feverishly coupled mates. Now that Tess had completed the bond, and accepted all of the upgrades which came with it, she couldn’t get enough of our knots. Right in this moment she was bouncing on Asteroid’s cock like a pro. “If Tess… Or you…”

I shuddered and couldn’t bear to finish either thought.

“Sure,” he agreed easily before offering me one of his rare and broken-beautiful smiles. “It could have ended differently if she hadn’t accepted our bond. But, come on mate, was there ever any question? Did you ever doubt her?”

I had to shake my head. I’d never doubted our fierce female, not for a second. My heart had been lost to her from the get-go.

Tess was perfect for us.

The onus had always been on us Drakons to prove ourselves worthy of her, not the other way round.

“Well, then.” Radon dropped his towel into the hamper and lowered himself to his knees, crawling toward me. Stalking me. His skin shone in the light where it was still healing, slightly waxy in texture, but his ploy worked well enough. The sway of his shoulders, the swish of his ass, the heavy member swinging free between his legs and growing thicker by the second, caught my eyes and turned my brain to mush. “You’ve been saying from the moment we saw her, that she would pick us.” He stopped between my thighs, a sly smile threading across his lips before he stuck his tongue out and wrapped it around the tip of my cock. I groaned, low and deep, and full of absolute need. “All it took was one of us nearly dying to nudge our stubborn female over the edge and admit that she couldn’t live without us, either.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered hollowly, even as my breath hitched at his sultry seduction. “Don’t speak of death. Not yet. Not with Bromine’s funeral pyre barely sent on its way to the stars.”

“Lighten up, my mate,” Radon growled, reaching my waist and spreading my legs wide so he could get up close and personal with my now rigid dick. “I’m meant to be the grumpy one. We want our sunshine back.”

I sighed in defeat, dropping my legs a little wider and welcoming him closer. My desire for my surly mate was never in any doubt, I simply couldn’t banish the terrible future which had almost played out. Radon eyed my cock with a devilish smirk on his lips.

My worries evaporated in an instant when my mate licked a long, hot stripe up from the base of my cock to the tip. Then he took it all the way into his mouth, allowing the head to bump impatiently at the back of his throat, before rolling his tongue in a decadent swirl. My breath fell out of me in whoosh as I gripped his hair for dear life and held on.

Clearly, Radon was determined to banish all of the busy thoughts from my head. As he was usually the king of moody, I figured he knew what he was about.

“Fuck me, Rad,” I whispered, throat hoarse with all the things I needed to say. Instead, I allowed my head to hit the back of the chair as I melted into his thrusting mouth and teasing tongue. “And don’t you dare fucking stop.”

---