“Well, we heard shouting,” Nikolai said defensively. “We worried you were terrorizing the pretty one, as you usually do to any female who gets in your way. And the sun was setting. You said to return at nightfall.”
“He came barreling in here, and I followed with the intention of stopping him, lest you rip his idiotic head from his shoulders, but when I saw you….” Daniil studied at Marina intensely. His mouth curled into yet another mysterious smile, making Koen want to fight him all over again. “I was curious what female would dare raise her voice to, let alone lay angry hands on, the infamous dragon ki– Koen Raad.” Daniil dropped Koen’s title at the last moment when he stiffened. Koen knew the man was close to figuring out exactly what was going on.
“Then you both attacked us.” Nikolai pouted, angling his body so he could preen in all his glory. “She flew at me like a vengeful goddess and….”
Nikolai touched the side of his head, trailing off when he saw the blood. He started feinting a serious hurt, hobbled over, and cried out pitifully.
Koen and Daniil shared an amused look.
“Murder!” Nikolai cried. “She had killed me brother. I bleed.”
Biting back a smile, Marina shushed him, and took his head between her hands to pull him down to her height. She prodded at the side of his face, and cooed at him, shaking his head from side to side in her cupped palms. “It’s just a scratch. Come, I’ll clean it up.”
Delighted, Nikolai scooped her up, and walked her over to the saddlebags. “My sweet angel, you are merciful and kind.” He nuzzled her neck and she giggled, smacking him away playfully.
Koen gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.
Daniil turned to him and his face was serious. “You must return. People are beginning to worry.”
“It had been but two days. I am resting.” He paused and in a rush asked. “Is the hunt over?”
Daniil nodded and Koen breathed out a heavy sigh of relief.
“It has been declared void by the Regent,” Daniil said. “Was it necessary to kill the Wyvrae queen to begin this whole farce again? Wouldn’t a maiming have sufficed?”
Koen glared at him. “She is an example to others.”
“Killing them isn’t setting an example nor does it dissuade them. You have taken over thirteen queens, and still they court you.”
“Hunting me down like a prized boar is not a courtship,” Koen gritted through his teeth. “Tatiana…?”
“Alive. Nikolai ordered the guards of House Raad to protect her. She sleeps.”
She sleeps. Koen released the longest breath he’d ever held, and his heart squeezed painfully. “My thanks.”
Marina slapped Nikolai’s hands from tugging on her hair, and scowled at them, her mouth pinching. “Who is Tatiana?” she asked in an odd voice.
Daniil smiled, even as Koen frowned at her for listening on what should have been a private conversation.
“You haven’t told her,” Daniil said in a low voice. “About what she is or who we are.”
“What of it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “It means nothing to me, but Nikolai is already fond of her, and he–”
“Has a big mouth,” Koen finished. He clenched his jaw and exhaled through his nose.
“Quite. It might be prudent for you to explain things to her so she can better guard herself against him.”
“She doesn’t desire him,” Koen said confidently. “The pull is not strong enough.”
“Ah, yes, because it exists between the two of you? I’ll take your moody silence as a yes. It would be better if we cleared the air now. I dislike lying and see no reason to keep the truth from her.”
Daniil leisurely made his way towards where Nikolai and Marina were bickering.
Koen rushed passed him, and pulled Marina up and away from Nikolai by the arm. He dragged her out the cave, with a thunderous glower on his face.
“Koen! What are you doing?” Marina protested.
She leaned back and dug her heels in to slow them down, not that it made any difference to their speed.
He released her once they were outside, checked to make sure he hadn’t hurt her, then dragged her after him again. She spluttered, and cursed him, and scratched at his hand, and whacked his arm. “Would you stop for a minute you stupid–”
Reaching the lake, he abruptly let her go, and she stumbled back.
Righting herself, Marina breathed out, and fixed him with a glare Koen suspected many men would have run bellowing from. Lucky then, he was part beast, and part man.
Her face softened into a look of pure female consternation, and she turned her face away, her nose jutting in the air as she muttered under her breath.
Koen ignored her and looked out over the water, phrasing, and rephrasing his explanation in his head. He had no idea how she would react to what he had to tell her, and found his dragon fretting if she would be angry.
He slanted a glance at her and relaxed. Marina stood beside him, peeking up at him curiously, no longer radiating resentment.
He held out his hand and she placed her hand in his, blushing faintly.
Koen walked them by the water’s edge, and smiled when Marina sighed and sighed again.
It was difficult to relax around her when he was a man compared to when he was a dragon. He had to be on guard, keep himself held aloof from her so that his rational mind didn’t fall down the same treacherous path his dragon self had. Funnily, despite his dragons failing to control its emotions regarding Marina, everything was easier, simpler when the dragon was loose. Marina discussed her feelings with the dragon and laughed freely. Koen himself found the world amusing as a dragon and found it easier to express affection without fear of consequence.
As a man, knew he was bad-tempered, and it was not gratifying to know Marina thought the same without knowing the real him.
Possibly the awkwardness came from the physical attraction.
As a dragon, Koen was not a threat to her in that way. When he was a man, the dynamics changed drastically. He wondered is she felt the hot, pulsing glow when he spoke her or looked at her, the same things her experienced around her. She made him breathless and dazed.
“As a man you confuse me,” she murmured suddenly, revealing her thoughts ran along the same lines as is. Her fingers flexed within his, and flash burns blazed over his skin.
Marina made a noise of alarm. “I’ve just realized that when I climbed all over your back as a dragon or kissed your snout that doing so when you’re like this would be…” She trailed off.
If she was this flustered just touching his arm, if he kissed her, really kissed her, her head would probably pop off.
The thought made him decidedly smug. Koen stopped and turned to face her. “This seems….”
“Uncomfortable,” she muttered.
“I find myself thinking of how nice it is when you rub your face on my thigh, but, that wouldn’t be appropriate as a man.”
Her face went a pretty shade of pink, and she scratched her head. “Ah, no.”
Fingers manic, her hand slipped into her back pocket, and she took out a shiny stick. She unwrapped it, and stuck the white stick into her mouth, chewing furiously, starring down at the floor.
“I understand you find the dragon easier to talk to, but I would like to come to you as a man.” He frowned. “I know it’s wrong, and I may seem … unkind, but I like you, Marina.”
“Well, that’s something I guess.” She was amused. “Between the scowling, the growling, and the cave man style dragging I’d never have guessed. You haven’t said anything even remotely flattering about me since you turned into a man.” She shrugged. “Not that you were flinging compliments at me when you were a dragon. But that would have been weird.”
Hearing a wistful note to her voice, Koen straightened, and sought to remedy his lack of compliments. He wanted to keep her at a distance, but there was nothing wrong with her knowing that she pleased him. “You are impulsive, reckless, proud, fastidious,
and though at times improper….”
To his chagrin, her face was dismayed. “Wait just a minute you overgrown–”
He placed his hand over her mouth to muffle her words. His brows plunged. “I’m not finished. You are also brave.” He smiled. “You can beat my brothers in hand to hand combat. You are intelligent. You are,” he cleared his throat at her inscrutable expression, “appealing.”
She stared at him, and face twisted into displeasure. “Why are you such an idiot? Couldn’t you have just said I was pretty or something?”
It hadn’t worked. Koen didn’t say sweet things to women. He didn’t need to. Women chased him. Women said sweet things to him, sickly, and disgusting as he found the tradition. “What do you expect from me?” he snapped. “Sweet, Marina. My lovely dove, the sunlight of my life. I love you madly.”
She clenched her fists. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor.”
“That is what you want, isn’t it? A heart felt deceleration of some kind whilst I stare into your eyes.”
“When have I ever given you that impression?”
“You just did. I told you I like you, and you act like this.”
“After listing to about a dozen things you didn’t like.”
“Are you addled? I never said I didn’t like them, I merely stated them as fact. You are impulsive and reckless, look at how you dealt with Nikolai. You have pride. Look at how you’re reacting to my words now. And you are at times improper, though you don’t realize it. It’s just like a women to take a man’s words and twist them into something they never were. Interpreting them in completely the wrong way.”
Bouncing on the spot, Marina fumed. She hopped back then skipped forward. “So now you’re generalizing, and lumping me in with the rest of female kind? I’m nothing like what you’ve described.”
“Stubborn. You are purposefully misunderstanding me.”
“Why can’t we be friends?” she interjected. “Why must you argue with me? Why are you attacking me when I asked a question and made a straightforward observation?”
“You aggravate me. I was being nice to you.”
She scoffed a laugh. “You call this being nice? I asked you why you were being an idiot, and making this more complicated and strange than it already is. I asked a perfectly reasonable question that deserved an answer not delivered snidely or condescendingly. Frankly Koen, all this just highlights your obvious jealousy of Nikolai, who is, if you’d like to know, a saint compared to you.”
“Woman are you–”
She held up a finger and her eyes flashed wildfire. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare call me addled. Insult me again, just one more time, and so help me you will be limping back into that cave.”
Deciding he couldn’t talk to her when she was in such a volatile mood, he gave Marina his broad back, and caught her motioning strangulation with her hands when he glanced over his shoulder. Thinking on what she said, he immediately spun back around.
His lip curled aggressively. “What did you mean by jealousy?”
She blinked. “What now?”
“I’m not jealous of Nikolai. I am king of dragons.”
She smirked. “I knew it, You just had to be something like that to be so conceited. You could be a god and still be jealous of a pauper, Koen, if he had something you coveted. Nikolai has a charm that you lack. There’s no denying it. You shouldn’t envy him such a gift.”
“I’m not jealous,” he bellowed.
“Yes, you are,” she shrieked. “Just admit that you hated it. That you hated him touching me, kissing me – eek!”
Koen griped her upper arms and hauled him against her. Finally, she was quiet. Smiling grimly at his triumph, he kissed her. She gasped, and at first, went rigid. He used the brief parting of her lips to push his tongue into her mouth, seeking her tongue. He wanted her, needed her.
She was mad, prodding, and poking at his sensibilities until he was struggling to contain his dragon’s feral response.
Marina didn’t melt into him. She didn’t swoon or collapse into his arms. She fisted her hands in his tunic and dragged him closer. Clutching him to her, she pushed him to pull more.
Koen couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it. She boiled his blood and made him so bloody angry and hot.
She bit his lip, and gripped him tighter, growls purring from her throat. Shivers ran down his spine when she all but climbed him to get even closer. Her hands were in his hair, and his were grabbing at her ass and crushing her even closer. He broke away to breathe, and kissed her throat.
There was a ripping noise, and Koen realized he clutched fabric. He’d literally ripped the clothes off her back.
She cried out softly, and dragged his head back around so her lips could mate his.
Koen pushed Marina back and lowered himself over her. He poured all the frustration and desire into his embrace. She matched his force with her own, and yanked him closer, not caring rocks dug into her spine, or how cold the mud was beneath them. Koen nuzzled her neck, and her eyes rolled in the back of her head. His tongue rasped over her rapid pulse, and smiled in triumph when her breathing turned ragged.
Their eyes met, clouded with passion, glazed with pleasure.
She murmured love words in his ear, but he barely heard her over the rush of blood in his ears, and the pounding of her heart racing his.
Clothes were torn and yanked away. Her skin met his and it was glorious. She was perfect. Mean. Stubborn. Prickly. All fire, and anger, and pain wrapped into one troublesome bundle he swore had been created to drive him and him alone to the brink.
He kissed and thrust into her at the same time. She cried out and he swallowed the sound, driving himself deeper inside her, needing to reach the same place she was.
She was beautiful.
Her eyelids fluttered, gaze became unfocused as her back and neck arched into him. Head flung back, lips parted she came undone in his arms, body writhing beneath him.
This was wrong.
The thought doused his passion. Koen’s fervor cooled, and dread gushed over him.
He swore and tensed as Marina’s legs wrapped tight around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back.
Panting, she sank beneath him with a sigh and her head dropped to the side.
Koen held himself taut, reminding himself much too late of the reasons this wasn’t supposed to have happened.
Chapter 7
She and Koen lay in a sprawl of limbs. Legs entangled, fingers entwined, chests crushed together and panting hard.
Nekked, not naked, nekked on a mountain, hot and sweaty, Marina groaned as the fog lifted, and she realized what she’d done.
Stupid. Stupid.
The awkwardness came back full force when Koen shifted off Marina, and rolled onto his back.
Devoid of his warm weight, reality encroached on her happy haze, and she wrapped her arms over her chest and puffed out her cheeks. Now what? Her plan had been to strike a truce with him. Instead, she’d ended up mauling him by a picturesque lake as the dying rays of the warm sun kissed their bodies, and the crickets started to thrum.
It had been faultless.
He had been faultless, perfection.
She groaned again. Her heart would never recover from this. She had known them all of five minutes, but she knew Nikolai and Daniil were going to be shamelessly pleased, and tease her about it if they found out.
She turned her had to look at Koen and shriveled inside at the look of disgust on his face. Her confidence took a battering. It wasn’t what she had hoped to see. “You didn’t… .”
“It’s not you it’s me.”
She would have laughed if she wasn’t so close to tears. “Wow. I’m sure a boy has girl has never told a girl that before.”
He finally looked at her. He made a soft noise and swiped away a runaway tear she tried to stop from seeping out the corner of her squinted eye. “You don’t understand.”
Marina’s features were pinched, and her fa
ce turning red from the effort of keeping a good crying jag at bay. She blinked back more tears and refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her wipe tears off her face that she cried for him. “No, apparently not.” Silence. “Do you mind if we … don’t tell the other two?”
Koen stiffened. “There is no hiding this.”
“By the way you’re … I didn’t think you’d mind. I don’t see why we have to announce it.”
“They’ll smell it on us.”
Her exhaled and shook her head, decidedly fed up, and wondering how on earth she ended up here. “What now?”
Koen lifted his hips to pull his leggings over muscled thighs. Marina blushed, and looked up at the stars that started peppering the sky as she waited for his answer.
“We’re dragon. We can smell it on each other once we’ve had a women. The scent fades after a few days, and if they hadn’t known you they would have forgotten the smell on me after questioning why there was any scent on me at all since I’ve never let any female get close enough to–” He cleared his throat. “If you met them after it had faded it wouldn’t have been a problem. But since you’re right here… .”
“Perfect.” She scooted to the side, hand reaching, fingers creeping closer to the dark shadow of crumpled fabric, and grabbed what remained of her top. She pulled it over her head. “Have you seen my jeans?”
He leant over, and plucked her jeans hanging from a shrub, handing them back to her with an indecipherable expression on his face.
Snatching them from him, she waited for him to turn around. “Do you mind?”
“I’ve already seen everything… ”
“Just turn around,” she snapped.
Rolling his eyes, he did so.
Marina wanted to kick him in the back of the head. It was obvious she wasn’t feeling too positive about herself, and he was being a dick. Reasonably, she knew he had to know that was her first time, and she got that some guys didn’t place as much importance on it, but some consideration wouldn’t have gone amiss. He was so wrapped in whatever was going on with him he couldn’t see how mad she was for him.
Admittedly, acting like a shrill harpy every other moment she opened her mouth didn’t help matters. It did take two to mess something up no matter how much she wanted to blame it all on him.