Mated to the Dragon King Page 4

  “Ingrid,” he said, interrupting the heavy silence, “you spoke of a room behind a passageway?”

  She nodded, watching him.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  “Under a back storage room.”

  He stood up, excited. “May I see it?”

  She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “I suppose your confinement is finished today anyway.”

  Ingrid excused herself to change, and returned a few minutes later wearing form fitting pants and a blouse. He tried not to stare, but he had only ever seen her in a dress, and eventually he just tried to make his staring not so obvious.

  She packed away the papers she had been sorting through, and stood to face him. “Ready?”

  •••••

  Ingrid was pleased that Helias was completely ignoring the embarrassing subject of the night before, but also, strangely, disappointed. She supposed that was because she really wanted to be kissing him again. He followed behind her as she led him to the back storage room. She looked over her shoulder to see if he was keeping up, and noticed that his gaze was intently fixed on her backside. With a smirk, she resumed her pace. She supposed her pants did hug her ass more closely than the dresses that she tended to prefer.

  “Alright,” she said, stopping in a small, chilly back room. There were large boxes lining the walls, most filled with potatoes and onions. “On the floor here is a trap door.”

  She kicked around with the toe of her boot, listening for the distinctive hollow sound.

  Upon finding it, she crouched down and examined the floorboards. “I know one of these comes up,” she muttered, pulling gently on each of them.

  Ingrid made a small noise of excitement as a board easily lifted, revealing where the trap door was hidden in the floor. She pulled at the handle and it wouldn’t budge. After a minute of pulling on it hopelessly, Helias gently nudged her away from it and lifted it easily.

  Cold wind blew up from the opening in the floor, and together they looked down into the dark hole.

  “Why do you need to see this?” Ingrid asked quietly.

  Helias was staring distractedly into the hole. “I believe this is where the plague— the corruption came from,” he murmured, not looking away.

  “It’s just a horrible illness, Helias,” she began gently. “One of the servants caught it at the market or something and brought it back and—”

  He was shaking his head. “Dragongrove was the origin of it. No one was sick before it was here, and it’s spread in a perfect circle from this house. I’ve been researching this a long time, and I’m sure now.”

  “Illnesses don’t come from a hole in the ground,” she maintained.

  “They have to come from somewhere,” he shrugged. “Who was the first to fall ill?”

  Her mind drifted back to the day that she tried to avoid remembering. “It was Madeline.” A chill that had nothing to do with the breeze from the hole was creeping up her spine.

  “Did she spend time down here?” he questioned gently.

  She looked down at the dark hole again and shuddered, nodding slightly. “Every day,” she began, then looked Helias in the eye. “You absolutely can’t go down there. You’ll get sick.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He was avoiding meeting her gaze.

  “I’m serious,” she said, pulling on his hand to force him to look at her. “You haven’t seen what the plague does. You can’t expose yourself to it.”

  “Ingrid,” he started, facing her and putting his large hands on her shoulders, “please trust me. It won’t affect me. I’m not like-” he paused thoughtfully. “You know as well as I do that I won’t get sick.”

  She heated at his touch and nodded reluctantly.

  She took a minute to explain the layout to him. They would drop down here, and then the passage closed in a bit so they would need to crouch or crawl about twenty feet until the passage opened into a large room with smooth walls. The large room seemed to light itself so there was no need for a torch, but the passage to get there would be very dark.

  Ingrid descended first with Helias right behind her. Once they stepped out from under the trapdoor, they were in complete darkness. Helias reached for her and she clasped his hand, squeezing gently and then pulling him behind her. She stopped abruptly as she came to the large room, and Helias bumped into her from behind. She warmed and blushed at the full body contact before taking a deep breath and assessing the room.

  She hopped down the large step into the room, and uttered a tiny “oh,” as something caught her eye. Sweeping across the room, she bent over, picked up a small doll and clutched it tightly in her hands. Her breath shuddered and her shoulders shook. After a moment, she composed herself, turning to find Helias right next to her, looking concerned. She held the doll out to show him, still holding it possessively with both hands.

  “Emily,” she muttered quietly.

  He pulled her gently against him.

  Eight

  Helias stood up from where he had been crouching for the last hour, examining every inch of the ground. He stretched and looked around. The room was cast in an eerie green light, thanks to strange glowing veins that seemed to run through the rocks. In the corner, there was a child-sized table with chairs which Ingrid had informed him had been made for the children by Madeline’s father. There were also several children’s toys scattered around, and knowing the fates of their owners made him uncomfortable to even look at them.

  “Ingrid, is anything different about this room from what you remember?”

  She looked up at him. “I’m really not sure, I haven’t been here for a decade. Maybe it’s...greener?” she finished lamely.

  She was lying prone on the ground, feeling along as he had been for anything of significance. He smiled toward her. He was surprised she was tackling this with such enthusiasm; he had expected her to show him the way and return to her chores. It was nice to have company down here, he thought. A short time later, she rolled onto her back and sighed at the ceiling.

  “Helias, we’ve been over this whole room. It’s one solid piece. I don’t think we’re going to find any kind of passageway.” She sat up. “Maybe this isn’t the right place?”

  He sighed, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall. “I was so sure.”

  Ingrid rose and crossed the room to him.

  He could feel her in front of him, but he kept his eyes shut. The air between them seemed warmer than the chilly air all around them. He felt her place her small, warm hands on his cheeks. “We’ll figure it out. There must be more rooms like this, and we can enlist the residents to help, and we-”

  He pressed his lips to hers suddenly, taking both of them by surprise. She gasped briefly before quickly melting into him. She moved her hands from his cheeks to entangle them in his hair, trying to pull him closer. His flesh tingled where she touched him, and his heart felt as if it would burst. His hands were everywhere, pulling her close, stroking her back, cautiously drifting down to grip her ass...

  “Wait,” he said suddenly, hands still resting on her backside. She looked up at him, confused and breathless. “You said it looks greener down here?”

  He released her then and crossed the room to look at something on the opposite wall. The glowing veins through the rock were much more concentrated here, and if Ingrid was right and the room truly was greener, then maybe what he was looking for was the source of these veins. If the color had changed, then something else must have changed too. He turned to explain himself, and saw that Ingrid was standing just where he left her; her fingers were gently pressed against her lips and her expression was still dazed.

  He smiled at the sight and turned back to the wall. Right in front of him seemed to be where the veins of light originated from; they were thickest and densest here. As he ran his fingers over them, he felt a seam. Ingrid was suddenly next to him, cheeks bright pink, asking about what he’d discovered. He explained his thoughts, then he placed her hand on the seam
so she could feel it.

  Ingrid grew excited and felt along it, pushing and prying with alternating touches. After a moment it gave slightly, and they both pulled at the loose rock until, in front of them, a small passageway took form. They shared an excited look, then Ingrid pressed a quick kiss to his mouth, smirked at him, and ducked down into the hall. This hallway was much more brightly lit than the room before; the veins of light were thick and overlapping each other.

  The passage continued a short distance before opening into a massive cavern, and they were at the top of a steep walkway leading down to the floor far below. It was bright here, brighter than daylight, and a vibrant, luminous green. Looking around, Helias could see that the veins weren’t veins here, the walls were entirely glowing. The glowing rock surrounded them, and looking down into the cavern, he could see a small lake. In the middle of that was a large island with a huge, strange, glowing gem.

  He recognized it. He had never seen this before, but he had learned all about them during his education as a child. A dragon shrine. He was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion; here it was, the answer he was looking for. Soon, very soon, he could return home.

  The green was unsettling though, and if he had to guess, unnatural. He looked over at Ingrid, and she was gaping at the sight.

  “Helias,” she whispered. “What is this?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Please tell me,” she said, raising her hands to cup his face. “There’s so much you’re not telling me. I want to know.”

  “Ingrid,” he began sadly, “I can’t—”

  “Please,” she interrupted him. She looked up at him with her big blue eyes, and his resolve crumbled.

  •••••

  “Please,” she repeated, her curiosity overwhelming her now.

  Something in his expression changed then. “It’s called a dragon shrine.”

  “So...something crazy cultists built?” she asked, pleadingly, looking mildly nauseated.

  He smiled gently at her, and pushed a strand of hair from her face. “Sweet, skeptical Ingrid.”

  She looked into his eyes. They were lovely and bright and green, and then, suddenly, they weren’t. There was fire in them, orange and red were roaring and burning. There was terror and destruction and something ancient there. The familiar dread washed over her, and she shuddered in his arms. She fought it, this time, quashing the feeling down until it was just a vague sense of unease.

  “What are you?” she breathed.

  “Ingrid,” he paused, looking over her shoulder. “I will explain everything, I swear. But right now, that,” he gestured to the lake below, “is making me really uneasy. Can we go back to the house please?”

  She nodded, brows furrowed, not taking her eyes from his face.

  Nine

  “Dragon?” Ingrid repeated from her seat at her desk, her face white.

  “Dragon,” Helias confirmed.

  She paused for a minute, staring at him unblinkingly. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I said I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me.”

  She sighed, thoughts whirling through her mind. She had suspected something in the eerie cavern, when his eyes were full of fire and devastation, but up here in the daylight and comfort of her room, it seemed so impossible. Still, what he said would explain so much.

  “Okay, we’ve established that I don’t believe you,” she began, “but let’s say I did. Why are you here? You just travel around selflessly trying to cure illnesses or something?”

  He chuckled darkly at that, and then told her everything. Of his life at home before the corruption came, of the sudden illness that stole away half of his kind, of his father’s grief and rage before the subsequent banishing of his remaining children to find an explanation, and of his time spent wandering and researching before he had come to Dragongrove.

  When he started, Ingrid was sitting at her desk, but soon, she was sitting next to him on her bed. Now they sat side by side, and Ingrid had an arm around his back while her head rested on his shoulder.

  Her heart ached for him after hearing his story, even while her mind was racing. Not only had he lost half of his family and friends, but he had been expelled from the only home he’d ever known.

  She picked up his hand where it was resting on his lap and brought it to her mouth. She looked up into his eyes; his gaze was piercing. She pressed a soft kiss into his palm, not taking her eyes from his, and heard his sharp intake of breath. The gesture, which she had meant to be comforting, had awakened something more immediate and primal between them. Her heart was pounding and her flesh was on fire, and she desperately wanted him.

  Helias was silent, but his gaze was intent as she kissed all over one hand, from fingertips to wrist, and then the other. She glanced at him and wondered briefly if she could catch fire from the heat in his eyes. He groaned almost silently as she pushed her lips against the inside of his wrist, so she did it again, and then once more.

  He was frozen, and Ingrid was feeling particularly bold, so she paused her work to place his free hand on her waist before returning her attention to his wrist. He gripped her immediately and tightly, almost painfully, before loosening his hold. She didn’t mind; she was happy for any signs that he wanted her as much as she wanted him right now. After another silent, slow, heated moment of kissing slowly up his arm, she gasped as he scooped her up and pulled her on top of him. She laughed at the sudden movement, and he flashed her a small smile.

  Ingrid put her hands on the back of his head and pulled him so close that their noses were touching.

  “Helias,” she whispered. “I want you.”

  That was all it took. He groaned again and flipped her onto her back before attacking her mouth. He was everywhere: his lips on her cheek, his hot breath on her neck, his teeth nibbling on her lips, his tongue carefully flicking across her earlobe. His entire body was pressed against her now, and she savored the delicious weight and feel of him. He was hard between her legs, and she exhaled as he jerked his hips once.

  Soon he was removing her shirt, and she was helping him; then she was removing his shirt, and he was helping her. His eyes roved over her in a way that should have made her feel exposed, but instead only made her feel more awake. And then he was there, insistent again with his mouth. His lips on the valley between her breasts, his teeth gently on the soft underside of them; his breath first, and then his tongue teasing her nipples before taking one and then the other into his mouth and sucking and biting and swirling with his tongue.

  She thought she would come undone.

  She reached down between his legs. He was hard, so hard. She wiggled out from under him, and when he looked at her with worry in his eyes, she grinned back impishly. “Roll over,” she ordered, and he obliged.

  As she unlaced his pants and pulled them off, his cock sprang free. She looked over him, fully naked before her, and smiled. He was gorgeous: handsome, massive, and muscular. That huge cock wasn’t so bad either, she thought to herself. She took him in her hand and enjoyed the feeling, like steel wrapped in silk.

  He watched silently as she lowered her head and wrapped her lips around him. She swirled her tongue around his length and she sucked up and down, and before he knew what he was doing, he pulled her hair gently to get her attention. She looked up at him, mouth still full of his cock, and his hips jerked. He gently removed himself from her mouth.

  “Please, I really want to fuck you and I can’t if—” he trailed off.

  He lifted her again to settle on his lap, this time with only her pants between his wet cock and her throbbing flesh. He kissed her hard while they both raced to get her pants off, and suddenly they were bare before each other, her body nestled in his lap.

  Ingrid was utterly desperate for him, and she was almost disappointed when he pushed her back on the bed. The disappointment faded quickly, though, as he lowered his head between her legs and put
his mouth to work there. She was so ready after a moment that one long, luscious lick up to her clit made her unravel. She was shuddering, her back arching, her lips moaning his name. He held her hips as she came down, then pressed a gentle kiss to her mound.

  “I want to stay here forever,” he started, “but I need you.”

  She nodded eagerly, and was quivering with anticipation as he settled on top of her, his thick cock pressed against her clit. She was already mad with need again, and she could see from the tense set of his jaw and veins throbbing in his neck how much he was trying to hold back. “Please,” she whispered, “please fuck me.”

  He kissed her hard, and a moment later he was inside her. He was perfect, filling her up in the most delicious ways, stretching her exactly where she craved him.

  He moved in and out; slowly, tentatively at first, then with more speed and confidence. She came quickly, quivering and throbbing with him still inside her. He came soon after her, kissing her, calling her name as he pumped his seed into her.

  Breathlessly, wordlessly they came apart, but remained just as close. Helias kissed her forehead softly as she rested her head against his still trembling chest. He stroked her hair, and a moment later she was asleep.

  She dreamed of great, gleaming wings and of freedom.

  Ten

  Ingrid awoke to golden sunlight streaming through her windows. She pressed back against the big warm body behind her, and in response, the arm around her pulled her more tightly and the stubbly cheek resting on the side of her neck rubbed against her tenderly. Her chest squeezed pleasantly, and she closed her eyes with contentment.

  She’d woken several times during the night and reached for Helias, and he had been there, hot and hard and ready for her. The last time had been as the sun was rising, and exhaustion had won over need as they both fell asleep before finishing, locked together and limbs tangled.