Page 9 of Rejected By Dragons

"Make me do it again, then," I taunt him.

"Shit." He's never been one to shy away from a challenge. He manages to quicken his pace, fucking me fast and raw and so hard it hurts, but it also feels so good.

"Yeah." I cling to his shoulders, staring up at him, so in love I can hardly handle it. "Yeah, that's it--that's--"

"Ember--" He slams his mouth to mine again and pounds into me, over and over. Something crashes off the workbench, and I don't care. I don't care about anything outside this room. I'm untouchable. Perfect and ecstatic and wanted.

He slips a hand between us. His big thumb shoves into my clit, and I'm lost. A second orgasm sweeps me away, and this time he follows. His cock kicks inside me. Hot seed shoots into my spasming pussy, and I squeeze down, wanting it all. A dragon can't get pregnant before their Emergence; we can't spread disease. It still feels illicit and wanton. I take his come and savor the heat of it, filling me up. I dare to imagine that someday he could be filling me in a different way. Making me pregnant with his whelps. That we could be happy together.

Forever.

"Storm," I whimper, hopeless, even as I'm rocking with aftershocks and clenching my pussy around his cock.

"Fuck, Ember..."

He thrusts into me a couple more times, his muscles straining with the force of his climax. When it's done, he slumps over me, spent. I wrap my shaking arms around him and hold him close.

Of course, we never get to linger in the afterglow.

Returning to himself, he drags his mouth to mine. I cling to him, trying to prolong the slow, soft kiss. Too soon, though, he pulls away. I whine at the sudden emptiness, closing my legs the best I can in a futile effort to keep his come from leaking out of me.

"Sorry," he mutters, reaching over my head to grab a clean rag off the pile of them stacked on a shelf. They're soft; he switched out the rough old shop towels he used to use for these shortly after we started meeting here, and I don't think it's a coincidence.

"Don't be," I tell him.

I knew what I was getting into coming over here. I knew what I was getting into, the first time I let him touch his lips to mine.

Dropping my gaze, I clean myself up and start pulling on my clothes. He does the same. We're silent for long moments.

He clears his throat. "I thought you should know. The Oracle set the date for the next Emergence."

All at once, a cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck. I jerk my head up to find him staring at me, his expression somehow both hard and soft at the same time. Sympathy colors those gray eyes of his, but there's a firmness to the set of his jaw.

"When?" My heart pounds against the inside of my chest, and my pulse races, but I try to stay calm.

"Two weeks. The first day of the Shadow Moon."

Of course. The Oracle always has had a flair for the dramatic.

The Shadow Moon is the darkest day of the cycle. Normal people just call it a new moon, but whatever. Dragons have been telling their young for ages that the bright crescent in the sky disappears every month because it's been eaten by the Shadow Dragons.

I can't wait to hear King Zephyr repeat it as he invites the young shifters of the Air Kingdom to step forward and bring forth their beasts.

"Great," I say, my voice tight as I pull on the tattered remnants of my shirt. "Can't wait."

Turning my back to Storm, I reach for my bag and open it up to look for a couple of safety pins. My aunt is going to give me so much shit for coming home with ruined clothes again as it is. The least I can do is try to walk in the door looking like slightly less of a mess.

Storm doesn't let it drop, of course. "You can't do this again, Ember."

"Pretty sure I can."

I've read the old texts time and time again. Any member of the kingdom who has yet to have their dragon Emerge is free to step into the flames. It doesn't matter if it's their second, third, fourth, or--yes, even fifth try.

Even as I say it, I subconsciously rub at my palm. The rough, mottled skin there is one of the only scars I bear that isn't from Fury or Jasmine or one of my other torturers. It's one that I inflicted on myself.

At the last Emergence, I was so determined to call my dragon into my body. I stood in line with all the others. I didn't let it bother me that I was older than them. That the onlookers were jeering, just waiting for me to fail again.

That I couldn't even so much as glance in Storm's direction, because it would destroy me to see the pity in his eyes.

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