To Tame a Dragon - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,62

faded during his years of slumber and Dragonsbane’s intense cycles.

And yet the Red Heat could not be blamed in this. While he couldn’t deny its influence upon him, which he strained against even now, it hadn’t compelled him to say those words. It hadn’t forced him to hurt his mate.

Falthyris clenched his jaw and drew in a slow, deep breath despite the discomfort in his chest. As though in response to his thoughts, the Red Heat flared inside him, rushing through his veins and quickening his heart, which had only just begun to slow. His scales tingled, suddenly far more sensitive to the feel of Elliya’s body against them. That too-familiar stirring sensation pulsed in his loins.

His only concern now was for his mate’s wellbeing. He would not succumb to Dragonsbane again, not while she was in this condition. She needed to rest and recover. Falthyris’s lust would not help her.

I nearly lost her today because I did not control my fury…and she may not yet be safe.

That thought struck Falthyris with a fresh blast of guilt, sorrow, pain, and impotent anger. The effect was sobering. Nothing in all his centuries of life had ever been so precious or important as Elliya. Knowing that he’d driven her away—potentially forever—was nearly more than he could bear.

I am not losing her. She is mine for all eternity, and she will remain at my side throughout.

Barely suppressing a growl, Falthyris forced his mind to still, just as he would have before settling into a decades-long slumber. All those thoughts and emotions continued roiling within him, but they were now well below the surface.

Though he kept his eyes closed, he shifted his full attention to Elliya. He listened to her breathing, which remained somewhat labored. He felt her smooth skin, which was currently too cool for his liking, and measured her slow, weak heartbeat through the contact between their bodies.

His body was surprisingly weary—likely the result of the transformations rather than the battle—but sleep did not claim him. That was for the best. He neither wanted nor needed sleep, especially not while his Elliya was in this state. And yet, just like it did during his long naps, time ceased to hold meaning.

The torches burned out at some point, and it was an infinitesimal dimming of the light in the cave afterward, paired with an equally tiny dip in the air temperature, served as his only indication that night had fallen. Elliya stirred not long afterward, groggy and disoriented, eyes opening to slits as she ponderously lifted her head. Her skin was warmer than before—he mistakenly believed it to be result of sharing in his body heat.

Despite her grogginess, she complied when he held the waterskin’s spout to her lips and told her to drink, though she managed only a few sips before withdrawing from it. She laid her head down again and fell asleep immediately.

As more time passed, Dragonsbane’s call strengthened, and the Red Heat thickened in the air around Falthyris. He could not stop the ache in his loin, but it was her body heat—which seemed to be steadily intensifying—that held his attention.

Unfortunately, though he could resist Dragonsbane, there was another force at work, one he could not withstand completely—weariness. He turned his will toward Elliya, toward staying awake to monitor her condition, but darkness was pressing in from the edges of his consciousness, making his thoughts cloudy.

Sleep took him some time before dawn.

16

Falthyris dreamed, and in those dreams he could not escape the comet’s glow. Crimson stained everything. But whatever visions to which he had born witness in the realm of dreams vanished, disappearing faster than a drop of water spilled in the Forsaken Sands, when a sound awoke him. All that remained was a fading red haze and a lingering sense of dread that sat like a lump of molten stone in his gut.

The Red Heat thrummed through his body as though it were part of him, creating a fast-throbbing ache in his erect and fully extruded shaft. That torturous pressure was already building in his loins, as powerful and desperate as ever. Seed seeped from his cock with its every twitch.

Falthyris gritted his teeth and released a heavy breath, battling the urges racing through him—he would not tear off his female’s loincloth, would not plunge into her sex, would not even take himself in hand. His only purpose now was to care for Elliya, to ensure she recovered. It should not have been so much of a struggle to