And that was the problem with trying to be human. We weren't. No person looked at others and knew the taste of their flesh. Though I had never eaten one, I had certainly torn one to ribbons when he came for my mother in the old days.
I had no regret of that incident. We had warned him away and he had decided that he wished to slay the dragons on the edge of the village. He had been the one to sign his death warrant, not me.
Eyes. Eyes, I felt eyes on me. My head whipped down and I spun, trying to find them. There, at the bed and breakfast a few miles up the road from me. The eyes stared at me; her mouth open in shock. I descended, claws out and ready to make the kill. No one could survive, could see me and know what I was. Visitors disappeared now and then, largely due to hunting trips that went poorly.
No one would think to blame the real estate investor.
I was halfway to her when I saw the blonde hair, recognized her face, and shot back into the sky once more.
Olivia's team was staying at the hotel across town. What was she doing so close to my den?
I hurried back to my den, the house, and landed in the yard. Without hesitation, I shifted back and strode inside. It did not matter that I was naked or that I smelled like terror. The human had seen me. The human, the only one in the area who probably knew what a dragon was, had seen me and I had done everything I shouldn't have.
"Eskal?"
Vadriq's hands rested on my shoulders. I spun, angry with myself. I had mistakenly sold the werewolves land that held our eggs in its soil. I had assumed the girl knew of her powers; still did, yet her reaction said more than anything that it was likely she didn't. I had, sure of myself, taken flight in a residential area to blow off a bit of steam at the end of the night. I wanted to break something.
And the only thing within reach was him.
I grabbed his hair and yanked him tight against my body. What had I told him? I kissed first; and so I did, my tongue swirling to meet his. He stiffened, surprised, then melted against me as I drew his hips to mine. The table was a convenient thing. When I broke from him, I let go of his hair and shoved him over it.
The door from the patio opened. I snarled at it and it closed again. Whether it had been Iyadre or Nariti was of no concern of mine. They knew what my growl meant when it was only I and Vadriq in the house. It was one of the few times I wanted privacy, if only because I was going to make him scream.
Nariti was not a neat cook. I snatched up the bottle of olive oil and trickled it down Vadriq's body, ending at his ass. He quivered beneath me, biting the tablecloth and bunching it beneath his fingers. I put the witch from my mind and bore down on my mate, instead. I was a dragon, a fearsome predator that took what he wanted.
And no one, witch or wingmate, was going to stop me.
Without bothering to give him the courtesy of a fingering, I lubed him quickly and plunged into Vadriq. He gasped, bucked back against me, and trembled. The thick, meaty clap of thigh to thigh sounded throughout the kitchen as I broke him in, a growl caught deep in the back of my throat.
I wanted to tear his hair out at the root, to slash him with my claws, sink my teeth into his soft, dark flesh, but my violence wasn't due to him. I would not punish him for her-
No, no, no. I shook her from my mind again and concentrated on Vadriq, lowering my head to run my tongue along his spine. I ignored the fact that I had lost control so deeply that it was forked rather than the pointed, single digit that humans typically had.
One of his hands reached desperately beneath the table and I slapped it away, replacing it with my own. Vadriq was as hard as a rock, frantic after only a dozen thrusts. I soothed the rage coating my mind and stroked him, my lips touching the side of his neck, the nape of it, his shoulder.
Vadriq had been with me for too long to treat him so viciously over something he had not done. My fist, tightening around his cock, sped along the length in time with my fucking. The curled ridge along his cock thickened, bulging as the veins did in a human's. Were he mating a female, he would have remained locked within her until he softened.
Yet, he had only me. We all had only each other. I panted against him, not quite a moan, and wrapped my fingers in the hollow between each curve as I worked him over. His head shook as he clung to the tablecloth, fighting what had to be, what I would bring about for what he had given me.
I was close. Too close to consider anything other than my baser instincts. To breed. To fuck. To rut against him until he came. I bit the blood from my cheek as his cock pulsed to life in my palm. Three hard, savage bucks back against me and the first shot sprang from him, soaking into the cloth overhang.
He moaned, loud and long. Not quite the scream
