Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,149

he could down a six-pack of Tuathan ale. Then a bottle of Taal wine. He made her drink some too, not only because he knew it would help her, but because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out. Candy being dandy and liquor being quicker – and all that.

By the second night, Ares was losing his fucking mind. He had all but decided it was time to finish the spell once and for all. He could do that. He was the dominant spellcaster here. He could sink into his blazing, beguiling little mate with everything he had, take what he fervently needed, and break a promise just once in his wretched life, couldn’t he?

But he knew he couldn’t, especially not with her. And besides – he didn’t think he was going to need to. His svelte little dragon-to-be was almost relentlessly consumed by the spell’s compelling urges now, and she was weakening under their prolonged effects. Thank the gods.

By the time his sharp hearing caught the blessed sound of a final, reeling sob of anguish come from the guest bedroom where she’d gone to change, Ares was already slipping slightly into the mindless maelstrom that would allow his dragon out once more.

He put down the book he’d been reading, stood from the leather sofa he’d been reclined on, and transported with no more than a thought.

Annaleia was bent, her shaking arms braced against the dresser in the room, her shoulders hunched, her body wracked by some ravishing surge of arousal that left her drenched in sweat, barely able to stay on her feet. When she looked up and saw Ares in the mirror directly behind her, the pained look on her beautiful face became one of pliant, relieved surrender.

His gaze on her in the mirror was like a brand now, hot, heavy, burning its way into her. He waited, his entire body a rod of havoc-inducing obsession. But he waited.

And finally – finally – Annaleia nodded. Just once. It was all she could manage.

It was all he needed.

When Ares bent to lift her off her feet, her eyes were all-pupil, her lids heavy. He strode with her to his master bedroom, where he all but threw her onto his bed.

Before she could move away in her frenzied writhing, he was on her, grabbing her small form to pull her to her knees, spin her around, and maneuver to the head of the bed. There, he pinned her stomach against the carved stone headboard, which had been built into the wall of the cavern.

Column-like posters had been carved out of the rock so they stood separate and tall, thick and strong at each of the bed’s four corners. Anna glanced at the posters and shivered, the images they conjured up only adding to the fever-pitch of her aching body. He could read in her thoughts that she knew right away what they were for. And she was right.

He laughed darkly and grabbed her hands, placing them on the lip of the stone headboard and squeezing until she held it of her own accord. He lowered his lips to her ear. “Hold on,” he growled. “Do not let go.”

A split second later, Ares grasped the front of her sweat-damp shirt from behind with both hands. He pulled, fast and clean, and she cried out in surprise as the material was shredded, exposing her quivering form to the cavern air. Impatiently, Ares tossed the scraps to the side and moved in to press his chest against her back and his lips to her throat.

His very sharp teeth scraped threateningly, promisingly. She shuddered at the feel of them, and at his words. “Three times,” he reminded her a little cruelly. This would only be the second. Her poor little body had so far to go to pacify the waking monster within her. It wasn’t going to be easy for her.

He smiled at the thought.

That’s what she got for making him wait so long.

Chapter Fifty – Dragon’s Den

Annaleia was reeling from the flood of sensation she had already experienced to this point. She had been rocked to her core by everything he’d done to her that first night and in the hours since. And now the thought that she was going to have to feel it twice more was destabilizing her in a frightening way.

But his body flexed around her, as possessive and hard as the stone of the headboard she grasped onto. Feel me, Leia. I’m real. I’m here. The contrast