And the red… The bright, potent red is like hot lava, steamed water, glowing ruby embers between us. A burning sensation surges through me, wrapping around my limbs.
“Do not run from me, Aida,” he warns. My spine stiffens. “I will eventually catch you. There is no place on Venys you can go where our bond will not connect us.”
“You do not know my tenacity,” I whisper. “Or how far I will go to keep my pride.”
His brow furrows but he steps closer. Moving back, my hands fist in the sand at my sides.
“Mate—”
“Do not call me that!” I yell, rising to my feet.
The wrinkles of his brow deepen. I don’t like the sudden concern on his face. “You are my mate,” he says.
“In my culture, a mate does not touch another for release! And to do so right next to me? How dare you. How dare you! And with my sister no less.”
Concern eases his brow. “Is that why you ran?” his voice lowers.
Opening my hands, I let the sand I collected drop. I want to run; I want him to come after me. I want him to hurt for the hurt I feel.
But most of all I want him to understand. Understand that I am worth everything, that I won’t accept betrayal, that if he seeks to punish me in such a way, I will fight him every day for the rest of my life and make my punishment his.
“Yes, that’s why I ran.” I inhale.
“Your sister… she—”
“I don’t want to hear it, please.” I shake my head. “She’s right you know. She is the elder’s chosen. Not me. But if you want her, you have to share her, for she’s already mated.”
The darkness in his eyes returns, and it all but stabs me in the gut.
Taking another step back, I continue, gulping down my pain, “Delina will make you happy.”
Unable to wait for an answer, I turn and run, my hurt doubling at mentioning my sister, at giving up so easily. Zaeyr shouts my name but it only gives me the strength to speed up. Ahead the beach turns to rocks. The isles in the water that signal Shell Rock and the lagoon are not much farther away.
It’s impossible to get to Shell Rock remaining on the beach—where the rocks became steep and jagged. The only two routes from here are by raft or by a secret path up into the jungle which leads to a hidden ladder down into Shell Rock’s lagoon. There will be apes and cats but…
I make for the jungle.
If I can just get there, if I can just get to Issa… she’ll know what to do—
Right when I reach the trees, I’m grabbed from behind and thrown to the sand. Zaeyr’s saltwater scent floods my nostrils as I gasp from shock.
He presses himself against my back before I can rise. His hands push my hair aside, and his hot mouth covers the back of my neck, opening wide, clamping his teeth on me. Digging my fingers into the sand, a fierce moan escapes my lips. His hips grind hard against my butt.
Arching up, heat ripples through me, pooling between my legs. My body reacts deliciously to his dominance.
It’s primal, rabid. Right.
It eclipses all other thoughts. For once, I’m not the strongest, not with Zaeyr. I can believe it’s someone else and not me. Him.
I can let go.
“Zaeyr,” I whimper.
His teeth dig into my nape. He reaches around to cup my brow to keep my face from the sand, pressing on me from both ends.
I stop fighting, giving into his dominion. He gnaws on my nape, unaware that I’m not responding, pinning me with his hips.
His teeth leave my flesh, though his soft lips remain. “No more fight in you, human? Have I won?” he rasps. “I told you I would catch you.”
My skin prickles. My mouth clamps shut.
He lifts off me, tosses me onto my back. His tail wraps around my right leg. “Where is my huntress?” he snaps.
“Gone,” I gripe.
He sneers. His horns sparkle in the comet’s glow.
“Punish me if you will, take me, but I won’t give you the adoration you could so easily get from Delina.”
“I do not want your sister!”
“Then why were you atop her?” I shout. “Why was she half-naked?”
Several birds squawk and fly into the sky.
“She undressed. I only touched her when she reached for me and put her wretched hands on me. I was shoving her away.”
I want to believe him, I really do.
“Do you think I would so easily leave my mate after our first rutting, when she is seeded and in distress? That I’d leave my mate for another? Dragons do not deny their chosen. It is sacred! I have won you, mounted you, taken away your human innocence, and you think that would mean nothing to me?” He grasps my hair and forces me to look at him when I try to turn away. “You could be carrying my child right now, Aida!” he bellows. “I will not have another, ever, not now that our souls are interwoven.”
His eyes brighten, and mine begin to water staring at them. “And if we weren’t interwoven?” I whisper.
“I had the choice to deny you. I did not. I could leave, still leave, allow fate to take its course on our lives, but I will not. I could find relief, eventually, from this mating heat,” he pants. “But I chose to stay, to deny your ridiculous human ways, and give my seed to you.”
“The beach,” I gulp. “I wanted to touch you, needed to touch you.”
Zaeyr twists his head to the side, staring down at me. Even now, I see his control splitting, the strain of his muscles, his cock near-breaking through the loincloth wrapped around his waist. His words fill me with hope. I won’t deny him.
But the beach… Did he feel what I did?
“I wanted
