Can't Get Enough (Dragon Kin) - G.A. Aiken

1

“You whore!” Ailean the Wicked, veteran Battle Dragon of the Dragon Queen’s Armies, third-born son of Afton the Hermit, and one of the many from the Cadwaladr Clan, leapt naked and wet from the tub and made a mad dash for the door. Unfortunately, town guards and one blindingly angry father waited for him right outside that door, so he quickly turned and charged hard for the open window.

“Stop him!”

He heard the guards coming into the room, but he didn’t waste time looking over his shoulder to see how close they were or bid good-bye to the damsel he’d had his full of the night before. He’d done this enough times in his life to know you never stop and you never look back. Even if you feel their breath on your neck, you never look back.

Several floors up, Ailean dived right through the window, bracing his human body for impact and rolling when he felt the ground beneath him. By the time he pulled himself back to his feet, the soldiers were on the first floor, barreling through the door.

Ailean took off running through the city of Kyffin. An ancient city many leagues away from Dark Plains and Devanallt Mountain, the seat of power for the dragons of Dark Plains. Winding and congested with people, it was easy to disappear in Kyffin.

Unless, of course, you were a completely naked male with dark blue hair. Humans had a tendency to notice that sort of thing.

But he wouldn’t be caught. He should have known the woman wanted more from him than a simple tumble for the night. It had happened before. He goes to bed with a woman who promises no commitments and wakes up to a lass whose father wants Ailean dead for “deflowering” his daughter. A daughter the man had planned to sell off to the wealthiest lord looking for a wife.

After all these years there were still some things about humans Ailean would never understand.

And, clearly, they’d never understand him. For Ailean lived life on his own terms. He answered to no one. Not the human lords of this land, nor the dragon lords of his own. He lived as he wanted, fucked who he wanted, and never had a moment of regret about it.

As the years had passed, he’d collected many names. Ailean the Beautiful. Ailean the Killer. Ailean the Bold. Ailean the Wicked, which was still his personal favorite. And, over the last thirty years specifically, Ailean the Whore. Brutal but honest, depending on who you spoke to.

What he didn’t plan to take on for a name anytime this millennium was Ailean the Captured by Some Female Who’ll Try and Tie Me Down.

No, that name would have to wait for another four or five hundred years. With so many females to taste and enjoy, he had no desire to lock himself in. Why waste all his talents on just one?

Ailean felt the soldiers move closer. He could shift to his true form and destroy them where they stood, but what fun would that be? Besides, he’d kill other humans who happened to be standing around. He had no desire to do that. Not when he enjoyed humans so thoroughly. They had their many flaws, but that was to be expected of any lower creature.

Picking up his pace, Ailean lost the soldiers, at least for a time, when he dashed down a busy street filled with sellers and buyers. He kept moving, charging up a set of steps and inside a building. He immediately recognized it as a school. Perhaps a training ground for sorcerers or those who simply enjoyed learning. He considered himself a “learner,” but what he learned he never got out of a simple book. The world taught him all he needed to know.

His dragon hearing picked up the sound of the soldiers heading down the street, so Ailean went up many flights of stairs until he ended in an enormous room filled with books. They were everywhere. On bookshelves, piled on the floor, and on the tables. Students kept their heads down, not even noticing him. Perfect. Nothing had become more tedious than explaining his blue hair. After so many years, simply telling people his poor mother had been cursed while he slept in the womb seemed to quickly end the conversation and had many women going out of their way to prove it didn’t matter—which he never minded.

Moving among the stacks, Ailean slid to a stop in the very back, near an exit