The (Not) Satisfied Dragon - Colette Rhodes Page 0,14

her any differently now he knew. She was vengeful, brave, ferocious even. But she was still Shira.

“It hurts,” she whispered hoarsely, looking up at me with unshed tears in her glittering dark eyes.

“I know, Shira. If I could take the pain away, I would.” The ache in her voice cut me deeper than the dagger on her lap ever could. “You were trying to get rid of the blade, weren’t you?”

Shira nodded, her hand reaching for it reflexively. Escaping her mates hadn’t done it. Sneaking into her enemy’s den and taking their lives hadn’t done it. No, it was her hoarding instincts that had prompted her shift.

“Can I help you do this?” I murmured, running my hand over hers, gently prying the blade from her grip. She nodded even as her fingers tightened. Progress. A small step towards accepting that she didn’t have to do everything on her own.

Another wave of pain rocked her, and I took advantage of the distraction to extricate the blade from her grip and toss it into the river before she could object. Fortunately, the rest of my flight appeared at that moment, landing in a semicircle around us on the river’s edge, their dragon forms dominating the quiet space.

Ezra didn’t even shift before getting up in Shira’s space, pushing his huge black snout into her hair. I shoved him away, and he huffed smoke at me in warning.

“Can you douse me in ice instead, big guy? I’m so hot,” Shira sighed with a sleepy giggle. I remembered from experience the feeling of tired euphoria between the bouts of pain. Those delirious moments were the most I’d spoken in years until Shira came along.

Ezra’s dragon blew out a long stream of icy air that made Shira sigh in ecstasy. Fucking show off. Ezra shifted back and quickly pulled on his trousers just as another wave of pain hit. The other three had already shifted back and crowded around us, and I knew my time holding Shira was ending. We all needed physical contact.

Shira bit down hard on her lip, tilting her head back as she fought the urge to scream. Acting on instinct, I pulled her lower lip free of her teeth with my thumb and guided her mouth to my shoulder.

“Bite. It won’t hurt me. I hate seeing you hurt yourself.” She’d done it a lot at the den — using her nails and her teeth to distract her when she was about to panic. No more. Shira’s teeth sunk into my flesh and fuck me. Under any other circumstances, I’d come in an instant.

Ezra made a strangled noise as her pain subsided and to both of our surprise, she reached for him. He was an asshole, and he’d fucked everything up, but I could respect that he was trying to turn it around, and that was crucial. He couldn’t lead a flight that didn’t respect him. Our deference was a gift, not a right, even if the gods bestowed all four elements on him.

Ezra scooped Shira into his arms like she was made of glass, sitting in the dirt with her curled up in his lap. She buried her nose against the pulse in his neck, taking comfort in him subconsciously.

“Don’t let her hurt herself,” I muttered, watching her obsessively.

Ezra caught her lip as she tried to pull it back between her teeth again, making Shira snarl. The fierce sound of a grumpy female dragon. Instead of biting his hand like we all expected her to, she shot upright and sunk her teeth into his lip. Ezra made a choked noise that had nothing to do with pain, his fingers flexing around her waist.

Fuck.

There was a reason that a gold’s emergence was usually something private between her and her new mates. It was intimate, affectionate. All of which would be fine if our mate didn’t hate us when she was in her right mind.

Shira sucked Ezra's bottom lip in her mouth, soothing the bite, her healing instincts probably riding her hard now her dragon was fighting to the fore. Was this a kiss? She'd only ever kissed me before, I didn't think she'd want her second kiss to be with her least favorite mate. Maybe her second least favorite, now Hiram had decided to make a fool of himself.

To his credit, Ezra seemed to think the same thing. His hand came up to cup her jaw, holding her face still so she couldn’t deepen the half kiss into something she’d regret when her