Dragon's Treasure, page 9
“Keep touching yourself, just like you are, good girl,” he says. “Is your hand making you feel good?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I bet it is. You look delicious, your legs splayed open, your cunt wet and open for me. I’d love to touch you, Leana. I think I’d like more than anything to suck you, suck your sweet little clit into my mouth. And I think you’d like that too, wouldn’t you? My tongue, right where your pretty little finger is. And speaking of fingers—once I had you wet and dripping on my face, like the good girl you are, I’d use my finger to slide right inside you. There’s a spot inside you that would make you see stars, treasure. Between my finger and my tongue, I’d think I could have you thrashing, ready for release in mere moments.”
I bite my lip. “Release?” I ask when I think I can speak without any embarrassing noises.
He hums. “You can feel it now, I imagine. A tightening inside you?”
I hesitate, then nod. “Something… something…”
“Yes,” he agrees, clearly hearing through my inadequate explanation. “And it’s going to be the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen. But don’t worry about it, Leana. It’ll come. Just keep stroking yourself, just like that.”
“What about…inside me?” I ask. I know how this works, I know what the purpose of intercourse is.
He hums again. “Do you want something inside you?”
“Do you want to be inside me?” I ask instead of answering.
“Oh, treasure—I want few things more in the entire world. But I would never just shove inside you. I’d be a poor mate if I didn’t ensure you were pleasured first.”
“Because you being inside me wouldn’t pleasure me?” I ask, although I think I know the answer. Surely it must hurt.
He rumbles. “When I’m inside you, treasure, you will feel pleasure like you’ve never known. I will make you scream for me, beg for more, and I’ll give you exactly what you ask for each time, like a good mate. I’m going to make you come first because your pleasure is what I desire most in the world. It’s the most erotic thing I can imagine, and I want to watch it.”
The raw hunger in his words startles a moan out of me, one loud enough to echo around the cavern. My finger has sped up without my conscious thought, and without him needing to suggest it, I trail my other hand along my throat again, down my collarbone, to my breast once more.
That seems to be all it takes. I feel like a string pulled taut between the two points of pleasure, like some sort of spark has caught. Then the whole string combusts, and I moan his name while something incredible washes through me.
16. Osir
I had half a thought that if there was any force on this earth that could inspire me to spontaneously find the strength to break free of these chains, it would be my mate touching herself right in front of me.
Alas, no such luck regarding the chains, but I can hardly think about them as I watch her come apart.
Her climax is beauty personified. She still has her eyes closed, and her head is thrown back against me as she moans my name, her fingers still working her body as her hips thrust, seeking more.
She didn’t like hearing it, but I was right earlier—this one moment would make a thousand years of confinement worth it.
“How do you feel, treasure?” I ask her, watching her come down from her climax. Her legs are still spread, and her eyes are still closed as her head lolls against my scales.
“Sooo good,” she mumbles, and pulls her hand from her wet cunt. I watch avidly, eyes torn between watching her slick cunt and her slick fingers.
“I want to taste your fingers more than I want my next breath,” I announce before I can think better of it.
She opens her eyes and tilts her head. Just when I think she’s about to tell me off, she hesitantly holds out her hand.
I stare at it for a long moment, unable to even think when confronted with the sight. “Were you…were you just saying that? Did you not really want to…?” She asks, hesitation creeping into her voice, and I simply can’t abide by that.
My too-long lizard tongue darts out, wrapping carefully around her fingers. A dragon’s tongue is abrasive, so I’m careful not to drag it over her skin. Still, the moment my tongue makes contact with her slick fingers, my life changes forever.
She’s sweet, and if I thought this one taste would be enough, I was sorely mistaken. I want more, desperately. I want to bury my head in her cunt, I want to taste her on my tongue and my fingers. I want to be inside her.
I need to be free.
For me. For her. And not just for this, although my brain cannot hope to think about anything besides her taste right now. No, because my mate deserves to have me fuck her soft and slow in a feathery soft bed. And when she’s done, she deserves a warm, relaxing bath.
Speaking of… “I suppose you’ll need to wash off again.” I say, pulling back and watching her closely.
She doesn’t look startled from my closeness. She doesn’t even look disturbed by my tongue. No, my mate, my perfect mate, is looking at me through heavy-lidded eyes, and I think perhaps her thoughts line up with my own.
“Is it always like that?” She asks, voice soft.
“It’ll only get better,” I promise her. I’ll show her things she can’t even imagine. I’ll dedicate every moment of the rest of my long life to her pleasure. I’ll give her everything I have to give.
Like jewels, I think with a pang. A thousand jewels, but most prominent whatever that first piece is, the one that will seal our bond forever. I’ll choose something worthy of her—a tall order—and she’ll accept it, and then I’ll shower her with every other piece in my hoard. And she’ll look ethereal wearing them, lying back in our bed, with that same heavy-lidded look.
I told myself not to think about that future, about having her be mine, until I had something worthy to offer her. But I can’t stop it now. I’m desperate for that future.
∞∞∞
Leana eventually gets up and washes herself off once more, then rinses her trousers. But her clothes are still wet, so I motion her closer to me. “Let me keep you warm,” I implore.
She comes to sit where she was before, leaning against my snout and allowing me to wrap around her.
“I don’t get cold like normal humans do,” she reminds me, but she lets me take more of her weight regardless.
It’s silent for a long moment, and I close my eyes, basking in the feel of her against me.
“What do you get out of that?” She asks me.
“I?” I ask, baffled that she can’t already tell. “I get to see my perfect mate come apart.”
“And that’s it?” She asks, like that’s not everything. “What about…you? I’ve been told that men want a certain type of thing, and—”
I cut her off before I can hear what vile thing she’s heard about other men. “Whatever they’ve told you, you deserve far better,” I tell her. “You deserve a mate who will treat you like the treasure you are. Who doesn’t find any pleasure at all unless you do.” I clear my throat, slightly embarrassed to bring up the next part, but she deserves to know anything I know. “And in this form, all those feelings are…muted.”
She looks at me with alarm. “So I…did that…and you aren’t even feeling those things?”
I try to nudge her by just moving my snout slightly. “I enjoyed every moment,” I promise her. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I would watch you touch yourself that way every day for the rest of my life, even if I was never in a position to touch you back. Although, I much rather be able to touch you back,” I say, putting as much promise in my voice as I can.
She looks at me with something that seems uncomfortably close to wonder in her dark eyes. “You really mean these things you say to me,” she marvels.
“Of course.” Was there ever any doubt?
“I just…you really mean it. Ever since the beginning?”
“I have known you were my mate since the moment you first walked in here,” I confirm.
She frowns. “I can’t…you know I’m just a human.”
“My mate isn’t just anything. She’s a human, and a glorious one at that.”
“How can you…how can you say that? How can you believe that?”
If it wasn’t Leana questioning me, I’d be angry. Who would dare question my mate? Who would question her worth, and would dare to do it to my face?
But it is Leana. And I need to parse through what exactly is worrying her, so I can correct it.
“How can I believe that my mate is perfect?” I challenge. “Because you are, treasure, I see you and I know—”
“How can you believe that I’m worthy to be your mate as a human? You don’t like humans. You killed humans. Even if you’ve changed your mind in the last century, surely you didn’t change that much.”
She says it in a rush, like she must get the words out now, and I’m left staring at her.
I don’t need to ask her to clarify. I don’t need any more information. I’m sure I can guess what stories are told about me.
Especially to the pretty human who’s forced to visit me regularly.
I’ve never told her how I ended up here. I’ve never had to tell anyone what brought me this low. But I’ve hurt her, clearly, by not telling her. And it’s time to rectify that.
If anyone in the world is owed the complete, unvarnished truth, it is Leana. And she deserves to make whatever decisions she will with it.
17. Leana
“You asked me what I saw in the mirror,” he says, voice low and almost expressionless.
I nod. “You said fire.”
“That’s half of it.”
I wait, not sure if I want to hear what will come next. I shouldn’t have disturbed the past, maybe.
But I need to know. And he’s apparently going to tell me.
“And the other half?” I ask softly, trying to let him know that I’m ready to listen.
“It was all shadow, but there was a shape. A human shape, and I knew that fire could never come from any dragon. It was too much, too bright—if it was dragon fire, it was like no dragon I’d ever seen.”
“So there was a human. A magic user?” I ask. Like me? Someone else who can wield flames?
“That’s what I thought. And I was…determined. I told myself it was mostly curiosity. I know my reputation has likely drastically changed in the last century, but I used to largely be known as a researcher of sorts. Oh, people knew I was fierce, and no one doubted I’d kill for this kingdom, and I’d like to think I ruled relatively effectively alongside my brothers. But by and large I was a researcher. An eccentric, probably. As liable to go traveling to make trade agreements as to find some obscure magical artifact. So I convinced myself that I was just curious. That I wanted to understand the mirror, and needed to see it work to properly understand it. And to do that, I needed to force the moment in the mirror to come true. It was a charitable view of myself. But who turns down power when they’re confronted by it? My brothers couldn’t, and now my nephew is desperate for it. And I was no better.”
“What did you do?” I ask, because I’ve never heard the story quite this way. I know where it has to lead; hundreds dead, including all his brothers but one.
How does a man start how he describes, commit the atrocities I know of, and end up here, today, being the man who he is? Something in the middle simply feels like it doesn’t fit.
“I treated it like an experiment,” he says. “Of course. Exactly as foolish, young me…anyways. I gathered every human magic user I could possibly find in the entire kingdom. Some came willingly. Others…I acquired them.”
“You took them,” I say bluntly.
“Folly of the dragon. We tend to view things as ours. And when one is already a ruler, with power over people…” His tail hits the wall. “Well. I did that. I gathered them all, testing them.”
My stomach suddenly feels queasy at just the thought. “What does testing them mean?”
“Not what you’re thinking, likely. I wasn’t…I won’t pretend it was the right choice to make, what I did. But I wasn’t cruel. I demanded to see their powers. I wasn’t kind about it. I was their king; I demanded their allegiance. But I didn’t hurt them, at least not physically.” He sighs. “But then my brothers learned what I had. And what I was trying to do. And as you’ve seen in our current situation, treasure, that damned mirror is essentially irresistible. Each of them wanted it, and they were willing to kill each other to get it. But first, they could agree they were willing to kill me to get it from me.”
I’m beginning to imagine how this story might go, and it makes something inside me ache.
“None of the magic users I found could cause the flames I saw in the mirror. They could do many things, but not that. And then…most magic users aren’t immune to dragon fire,” he says. “And my brothers attacked, and I…countered. If any of the humans survived, they were very few. Some must have, otherwise I don’t know if magic ever would have flourished in this kingdom again.”
But there are barely a dozen of us at the castle with magic, and most of them can’t do a quarter of what I can. Osir bringing all the strong magic users to one place and painting a target on their backs destroyed the magic for a century. It might never recover.
“I never got a good look at the devastation, truth be told. I made a decision. I hid the mirror, and then I came back, and even the briefest glimpse I got was enough. I knew my brothers weren’t going to stop…so I killed them.” He turns so I’m no longer leaning against him, so he can look me in the eye. “I say this because you need to understand. Deserve to understand what you’re getting into with me. It’s better and worse than the stories you’ve heard, I imagine. But you deserve the truth, so you can make up your mind.”
I swallow, doing my best not to break his eye contact, although I have no idea what to say to that.
He didn’t round up human magic users just to kill them. He’s not single-handedly responsible for such a massacre, although he is culpable. And the ferocity in his eyes when he talks about killing his brothers, the grim determination…
Can I blame him for it, given what he’s just told me? But I suppose that wasn’t his point; he wanted me to know he was capable of that type of violence, whether or not I blame him for it.
I say the only thing I can think of. “I see now why you’re insistent that the mirror remains hidden.”
He’s silent for a long moment, but then dips his head in a nod, breaking eye contact. “Yes, you can see the terrible ramifications of it. I wish I never uncovered it nearly every day.” He doesn’t move for a long moment. “Leana, treasure—I’m begging you to tell me what you’re thinking.”
“A whole generation of magic users lost,” I say quietly.
His tail shakes the cavern again. “Yes,” he agrees, and I think that it’s shame in his voice.
“The story is…the story is you rounded them up and killed them yourself. A fit of insanity, a refusal to let humans have magic. That you single-handedly and deliberately took that away from us.”
“That was never my intention, but I suppose…Braxil was the winner. Four brothers dead, me imprisoned finally…he gets to tell his story.”
“How’d he imprison you? If your brothers were already dead…”
“Oh, he had plenty of dragons on his side. Enough to overwhelm me. And here we are.” He jerks one of his chained legs. “Once these were on, it was done. I can’t change my shape, can’t use my strength…I’m helpless.”
I take a deep, deep breath. The story is horrifying, but I’ve believed my whole life this man killed human magic users with deliberation. Is the tragedy more tolerable now that I’ve heard the story?
For me, I find that it is. And perhaps that would be shameful, to all those who died. But I can’t speak for them.
I deliberately lean back against him, letting my full weight press into his scales. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”
He blows out a long breath, and his shoulder muscle relaxes under me. “I will always tell you the truth,” he promises. “Even when it’s not favorable to me. Even when…I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that you could leave right now, Leana. All the wealth I hid is yours. You could run off, be safe, build a life for yourself, and never see me again.”
Something in me goes a little soft at hearing that. Even though I have no intention of ever taking him up on that offer, the fact that he’s so insistent on making it is touching.
“And what if I only want treasure that you give me?” I say, feeling bold. This man has promised me so many things, and I find myself believing him now. Me, a nobody, worth nothing, but I can’t keep out his words, assuring me of my worth, my value to him, and it’s made me bold. “You, yourself, from your own two hands?”
Because he will get out of here, I refuse to doubt it any longer. How can a man feel so much, think so much, and be confined down here?
He’ll get out. He has to.
He’s silent for a long moment, and I begin to worry that perhaps I did overstep, that my boldness isn’t appreciated. But he finally says, “I will give you more treasure than you could ever possibly wear. I’ll give you a mountain of it, mate.”
I close my eyes, pressing my face against his warm scales. “I don’t want a mountain.”
His tail flicks. “You’re worth a mountain.”
I’ve never had jewels or any fine things in my entire life. I don’t need it. But I can tell it’s important to him. “From your own two hands only,” I remind him, lethargy creeping up my spine.
I’m exhausted. A lot has happened today, really.
“You underestimate me, treasure. A new piece every day for the rest of your life, delivered from my own two hands every morning. I’ll await your approval, will live for nothing else.”
The idea is ridiculous, but I play along. “I would never reject anything you give me.”
“And when you do approve of it, it’ll be my honor to put it on you, to watch your beauty give purpose and radiance to whatever piece I find you that day. It’ll be a poor comparison to your beauty, of course. But I’ll try my best, Leana.”
