Dragon Betrayed (Immortal Dragons Book 0) (16 page)

With only the slightest squeeze against her airway, the euphoria crept in like a warm breeze. On that breeze she flew, higher and faster than before, her orgasm coursing through her body as though on wings. Nikhil rode out his own, keeping up his punishing thrusts through the hot pulsing of his seed into her.

“That’s my little beast, you need my collar tight around your throat to find your pleasure, don’t you? Good girl.” He let his hand fall away and she grabbed it and put it back to her throat. The soft pressure of his palm against her windpipe kept the fluttering pulses of her climax going until she shuddered and fell limp in his arms. He pulled her back down to the bed with him, wrapping her in his arms.

“I have no wish to kill you again,” he said. “Death has been my instrument too many times. I will gladly kill for you,
‘Iilahatan
, but your death is something I could not bear.”

Belah curled into him, relishing the way he cuddled her like a kitten in the aftermath of their lovemaking. He stroked her cheek so gently she let out a soft sigh. Still, his reluctance to test her limits disappointed her. He had never once hesitated before, why would he hesitate in this?

Looking up into his eyes, she drew his hand back to her throat and held it there. “I can tell it pleases you to do it. It pleases me more than I can express when you do. I am immortal, Nikhil. Death is one experience I will never truly have, one I crave for all its remoteness from me. That you don’t fear to push me into that abyss is one of the reasons I love you, and I trust you to push me all the way to the edge and beyond. But trust
me
to tell you that I will always return to you.”

His gaze clouded and he grimaced as though she’d hurt him. “Do you really wish for death? Is my love, my manner of loving you, not enough? You desired a true master, and I am that man for you, yet you would prefer the darkness of the realm your brother rules over the sensations I can give you?”

She wanted to argue that in this scenario she and her brother were not the god and goddess siblings Nikhil had worshiped his entire life. Ked may embody darkness, but he had no significance where her fascination with death was concerned.

“I can never truly reach that realm, Nikhil. The place you take me is not the darkness my brother rules. It is a darkness
you
rule, that is only created during our union. When you took me there last night—that was the first time I have ever experienced it with such depth. Today was only like opening the door and refusing to let me walk through. As my true master, I trust only you to send me there, and to give me the reason to return again.”

Nikhil relaxed, letting out an audible exhalation. His hands resumed their soft petting of her skin. He had often commented on the unusual texture and how he loved it. His fingers trailed down her stomach and began tracing patterns over her lower abdomen. The touch was enticing enough to arouse, but mostly it lulled her and she found herself dozing against him, her head nestled against his strong, scarred chest.

His voice roused her some time later, and she woke to find his hand cupping her cheek and urging her gaze to meet his.

In a decisive tone, he said, “I will fulfill this desire of yours to the extreme you wish, but only once more and according to my own plan. On our wedding night, I will give you the gift of that darkness one more time. Until then, and after that day, what we shared today is all I will give you. It’s all I
can
give you,
‘Iilahatan
. You may ask me to kill a hundred thousand men in battle and I will enjoy every cut of my blade. I will come to your bed covered in the blood of your enemies and let your own cries of pain finally slake my bloodthirst. You may ask me to hurt you in any way you wish, because it makes you feel as alive as your cries make me feel alive. But after our wedding night, never again ask me to kill you. I cannot bear the silence of you in death, even knowing you will return.”

Belah’s skin prickled with excitement at his promise. “How will you do it?” she asked.

“Exactly the way you wish the most, my love,” he said. He pushed her down to the bed and hovered over her, tracing a single fingertip in small stripes over the most sensitive areas of her skin. “I’m as skilled with a blade as I am with my cock.”

The hard cock in question grazed against her opening.

“I can pierce you to the quick if I choose. Kill you quickly.” He shoved himself into her once, hard enough for her to cry out. “Or I can tease you until all your juices flow before you even realize I’ve opened the floodgates.” His fingertip made soft lines over different parts of her body, each touch making her shiver, while his cock teased around and around her swollen cunt, teasing at the opening.

The agony of his restraint drove her mad. She lay panting and begging after only a few moments.

“Do you wish for a quick death or a slow one, little beast? When I slaughter you, how bloody do you want it?”

Belah’s mind was already gone from his teasing. Her thighs were flooded with her juices and growing wetter with every teasing swipe of his fingers, every promise of a blade cutting her. She could imagine him vividly with a blade, torturing a prisoner tied down to a stone slab. She’d seen him in his element many times and marveled at his precision and cold enjoyment of the process. The thought of herself tied down while he cut her with his blade made her muscles clench and ache for just that.

His soft touches made her wet from her pussy crying out to be penetrated. Her entire body craved that promise of bloodletting, of having his blade cut her.

“Make me bloody.”

With a wicked glint in his eye, he shoved his cock into her again and fucked her even harder than before.

“It would be my pleasure,
‘Iilahatan
.”

Sweet Mother, what had she become?

Chapter Sixteen

B
elah lived in a dream for days on end, sometimes floating on the elation of her impending marriage, and other times in a dark cloud of loneliness. She fulfilled her responsibilities as empress. Nikhil returned to his duties as general of her armies. Threats to her borders were ever present and his expertise was sorely needed after his latest absence. Every night she ached for him to return to her bed, and spent too many evenings alone.

She still visited her harem, but with less enthusiasm. When she did, she took her fill of her pets’ pleasure without taking her own, then gravitated to Nyla and Zeb and spent the hours talking to them and marveling over Nyla’s progressing pregnancy, wishing she could share the same experience with Nikhil.

When the children were born several months later, their parents elected to stay in Belah’s temple because their home villages were in a contested area of her kingdom Nikhil was intent on taking back. Belah gave them private quarters, but still visited them and their children regularly. The twins, Neela and Naaz, were a delight to her, and helped distract her from her despair over Nikhil’s absence.

Her Blessed children.

Nikhil’s promise of one last gift of oblivion on their wedding night never left her mind, but it seemed less important with the weight of her empire on her shoulders. She continued planning the wedding, which became more elaborate every day she waited for word that the guests she’d invited would attend.

Once the dragon messengers were sent with the formal invitations, she began her work with palace staff to plan the event itself, which would not take place for two more years, to allow time for all the attendees to arrive, and for her messengers to reach the most honored guests and return with them.

Those guests were her oldest friends, and Belah had no doubt they would come. She’d been long without a mate, to begin with, and requesting her friends’ favors would be enough to signal the significance of this marriage. It was particularly significant because her own race traditionally never settled down with a single mate. Of course, Belah had her harem, but she didn’t breed with them. Her own kind were encouraged to take several mates—and by and large they did. She and her siblings were the exceptions, but their descendants frequently had many husbands or wives. Collected them like the most treasured spoils of war.

Belah had no need to bear more children now, after the ones she’d already born. She had no wish to witness the death of them anymore, either. Unlike her, her offspring were mortal. They may be long-lived, but they eventually died after about a thousand years. She often wondered if that were the same for the first child. Would a son born from two immortals also be immortal? She didn’t know. He’d been taken away upon birth—before even suckling at her breast—and her mother and Fate hadn’t seen fit to tell her where they’d taken him. She’d spent thousands of years searching without any prospects and had all but given up hope she would find him. Reports of brother’s fruitless searches proved painful reminders of the loss. Even now, Ked still had a small network of Shadows covertly looking for any sign of where their child had been hidden.

She spent too many days in Nikhil’s absence wondering about that loss and alternately wishing she could bear a child with Nikhil. One last child. But perhaps it wasn’t her place to bear a child out of true love. Besides her first, all the rest had been conceived by necessity, and while she loved them dearly as her blood, she had no lasting connection to them. Their fathers had been too weak to last with a dragon as powerful as she was.

Nikhil might last, but only if she destroyed his will.

Some nights she fell asleep fantasizing about marking him in the hope that he might miraculously withstand her magic. The subsequent dreams always twisted her wish into the worst outcome. Nikhil a drooling waste of a man begging at her feet and bound to her for eternity.

She always retreated to her harem the day after those dreams. Her pets had become more accommodating to this new Belah, who simply needed company more often than sexual sustenance, and strove to entertain her in other ways. She learned they had many varied talents and grew to know and love them even more than she had before.

Zeb and Nyla were doting parents, who never begrudged their mistress a chance to spoil their son and daughter.

Idrin was a protective uncle to the children, believing somehow that he had some part in their conception.

The truth was more complicated. During that one day when Nikhil had led the disguised Belah to her harem to be a toy for her pets, pieces of all of their essences had been transferred to the twins through Belah’s Blessing. They may never manifest—the dragon magic itself would always take precedence—but the children would always feel an innate kinship with the members of the harem, or any of their offspring.

Belah ached to see the pair grow. They may not be the last children whose lives she had a direct influence in shaping, but it had been centuries since she’d been a mother, and she was so far removed from her own line that new generations of dragons barely gave her a thought, aside from the understanding that she was one of the few who made the rules that governed her kind.

Rules she herself was currently breaking.

As far as her siblings knew, she intended to mark Nikhil on their wedding night. That would never happen.

If everything went how Belah planned, something more amazing would come from the night, and she could prove to her siblings that they could have love with a mate without destroying their wills.

She hoped she wasn’t wrong.

Chapter Seventeen

I
n the midst of the chaos of her wedding day, Belah realized that she’d never actually had a wedding before. Not a true wedding, at any rate. Most of her former mates had been prizes or religious sacrifices to her. No wonder they’d expected to die. The prospect of death had shrouded them from the start, and her power had done nothing to counteract their fears or preconceptions. She hadn’t endeared herself to them in any fashion—only marked them and used them.

Their pleasure had been apparent. They wanted her the way a zealot wants to be blessed by their god or a martyr wants death for their cause. Their desires had been so all-consuming, and after losing their wills thanks to her mark, they succumbed to the power of her apparent divinity. In their eyes, she was a goddess, and the purest way to please a goddess was to die in her name.

Nikhil had nearly done so himself, before even coming into direct contact with her. His touch on that first day they’d met was enough for her to know he was nothing like the others. He had made his sacrifice for her, no doubt, but he had his own craving for glory, too. He’d said as much when he believed he was near death—he wanted to be revered as the gods were.

Belah remembered that day as her attendants were dressing her in her bridal finery. She smiled at the thought that now Nikhil would find his glory in full view of the entire kingdom and all the gods, but his chief reason now wasn’t for glory. She knew without a doubt that he wanted this day to prove that she was
his
and for no other reason.

In another room somewhere in the palace, he was being similarly outfitted in finery. Within the next few hours, they would meet together on the grand promenade outside the palace, be paraded through the capitol together on separate gilded litters for all to see. Behind them, wagons full of celebratory prizes would be thrown to the crowds in their wake.

Once in the gardens of the Temple of Ra, the ceremony would begin, with all the gods looking on.

Belah held back a laugh, picturing how that particular scene would play out and had to endure a scowl from one of her maids who was arduously attempting to secure her elaborate headdress.

All the supposed “gods” in attendance were close, personal friends. Her oldest friends. All immortal like her. Five of them were her own siblings. One was the Ursa high shaman, one the Turul grand seer, and the last two were the twin thiasoi, the brother and sister leaders of the Nymphaea.

The idea of kneeling before the nine of them seemed silly to her, but the significance of their presence still wasn’t lost on her. A wedding like this one was unprecedented among their kind. That they had agreed to be present honored her. Even more, that they had agreed to bless her soon-to-be-husband with their magic was the highest honor that she would be indebted to for a long time.

Before she knew it, her maids urged her to move and she went. Her headdress tilted off center when she walked and the woman who had been fixing it let out an alarmed squeak, making Belah stop. She turned back to the mirror to examine the contraption that rested on her head. It was a high, tapered cylinder painted in gold and stripes that secured to the top of her head and flared out wider as it went up. All her hair had been braided and piled inside it, but it wasn’t nearly as secure to her head as it needed to be.

Seeing the quickest solution, she brushed off the panicked maid and manifested her horns inside the headdress. Once she was certain it was securely in place, she made a show of pressing the whole thing down harder, and then tilting her head side-to-side. The maid sighed in relief and they made their way out the door.

With each step down the corridor to her private exit to the palace, her thighs were jabbed with the delicious little spikes of Nikhils pre-wedding gift to her: a brand new set of barbed bands to remind her that she was his.

And on one of those bands she’d secured a sheath for her gift to him—but he wouldn’t receive it until much later, after they were alone together as husband and wife.

The blade itself had taken some time and thought for her to come up with. The perfect gift for him would align, she hoped, with what his true gift for her would be.

Every day since their last discussion, she’d played his words over and over in her mind. He would give her the gift she wished for, but by his rules. Nikhil had a reputation as a torturer among his soldiers, and strangulation was not part of his repertoire. It had become clear to her that he only did that because it was what pleased
her
, not because it pleased him. After several inquiries of her guards, she learned that his methods were designed to cause much pain and bloodletting, but little permanent damage other than scars if a prisoner turned pliant quickly. He’s a master, they said. His blades were his most treasured tools.

She wondered why he’d never approached her about using those blades during their games, but then their games had never crossed the line into true torture before. He’d been testing her with greater and greater pain all along, but when he learned her skin couldn’t be pierced, he scaled back and redirected his efforts into other areas. That was when he’d tried humiliation at the hands of her pets, followed by strangulation by his own hand.

She raised a shaky hand to her throat, her body heating at the memory of that first squeeze and how focused every other sensation became when her power of true thought broke down as she ceased to breathe. How would it feel to reach the abyss through Nikhil’s chosen path? If he indeed led her there tonight, would it be as glorious a journey as every other one he had taken her on so far?

Her eyelids fluttered closed with the fantasy just as her maids all let out simultaneous exclamations. When she opened her eyes, a huge shadow filled the entire corridor and a wall of black leather and fur stood before her.

She scowled up at her brother, peripherally aware of all her maids kneeling around them.

“You’re scaring them,” she spat in her native tongue to keep her maids from catching on to the conflict.

Ked glowered at her and responded in the same language. “This marriage is a farce. You have to mark him, Belah, and you know it.”

“He’s sane enough with my breath. I won’t destroy his will by marking him. I don’t care if we never have a child together. He is the one I want.”

“And what do you think he wants? Is it only you or the glory you represent? He won’t just be elevated to the status of a king after today. He’ll be the consort of a goddess.”

“No,” Belah said, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “He’ll be my equal in the eyes of my subjects. But he’s even more than that in my bed. Is that what bothers you, brother? That another man commands my respect besides you?”

Ked closed his eyes with a grimace. After a harsh, defeated sigh, he said, “I love you, sister. I only wish for your happiness, but any dragon marriage not meant to produce offspring can be nothing but destructive. I fear this misplaced devotion for him will destroy you somehow, and the rest of us as a result. We can’t live without you.”

“He’s only a man, Ked,” she said softly, peering up at him. “I am still fully in control of my powers. I promise if I ever thought he would hurt anyone besides me, I would destroy him in a heartbeat.”

Ked’s eyes darkened, and along with them the entire corridor grew pitch black. Around them her maids whimpered in fear.

“He does hurt you, doesn’t he? Did you lie to me before?”

“I have never lied to you,” she said. She eyed the dark corridor beyond, wishing for a way out. She wanted nothing more of this conversation. Not on her wedding day.

Ked grabbed her wrist when she tried to move past. His unwelcome touch incited fury deep inside her. Her other hand shot up and gripped his throat. She shoved hard, her native strength surging forward enough to lift him off his feet and slam him against the wall.

Dark black eyes met brilliant blue—her own rage reflected in his deepest depths. His throat worked against her palm and she wondered briefly if being strangled would turn her brother on the way it did to her. Their games were ancient history, though. Child’s play, compared to what she enjoyed now.

Through gritted teeth, she said, “You didn’t make me this way, brother. I was this way before you ever touched me. That day when we did unspeakable things to each other—I will remind you, that was
my
idea. The pain you gave me, I begged for. Every moment of agony that resulted is
mine
to bear. Not yours. Nikhil gives me succor from my hatred of myself for that day and the aftermath, but never forget… IT. WAS. MY. CHOICE.”

Ked’s eyes only widened and he let out a strangled sound and a nod. Belah blinked and shook her head, coming back to her senses. She released him as tears began to stream down her face.

When her strength gave out, Ked caught her and held her. In a rough, tight voice, he said, “Hush, sister. I never blamed you. I always loved you.” He let out a small chuckle, followed by an agonized cough that signaled she’d done some damage to him after all. Clearing his throat, he said, “I forget sometimes how strong you are. You always were the strongest of the six of us. It’s no wonder I couldn’t resist you then.”

Belah exhaled slowly, finally regaining her bearings. “We didn’t have many options at the time. We were too young and humanity was too primitive.” She pulled back and looked up into the black eyes of one of the few people in the world who made her long life bearable.

She rested her hand against his cheek. “Nikhil makes me happy. Do you truly begrudge me happiness? I know it’s not ideal, but this is how it has to be for us.”

Ked gave her an affectionate squeeze. “My only wish is for you to be happy, sister. Whatever that means, I will be here for you, but I will be on my guard where your lover is concerned.” He lifted a hand and swiped a thumb across her wet cheek, his brow furrowed. “I fear I’ve ruined your makeup.”

She sniffled and laughed. Glancing around at her maids to ensure they were still prostrated on the floor, she simply let out a breath of her magic and let her will set her appearance how she wished it to be.

“Go, brother. If you are willing to sanction this wedding after all, you need to be in the hall with the rest of them.”

He righted himself and turned to go.

As Belah was rousing her frightened maids, she heard him call her name once more.

“Belah. If he ever hurts you, you can trust that I will destroy him.”