Lord Dragon's Conquest (6 page)

Terror blanked Keltie’s mind to white nothingness. She couldn’t tell whether or not she screamed. The dragon’s grip was gentle, but almost unbearably hot. Keltie squirmed to escape the razor teeth and dragon spit, but that only made her rescuer clutch harder.

They flew up and up, Keltie seeing snatches of motion around her. In a blur of color, the bronze spread his wings and chased the viridian queen into the air. The pair spiraled toward the dark, cavernous ceiling and out of sight. Instantly, the other dragons turned and took to the air, two at a time. Torn clothing scattered the ground. The festival was officially underway, and dragons fountained through the air like fireworks, disappearing until the theater was silent.

The whole thing took less than a minute. Almost at once, Keltie and her personal dragon were alone.

The beast landed on the path above—the path that led to an exit and freedom. He set Keltie carefully on the ground. She crawled away on her hands and knees, a part of her tempted to bolt the moment she was clear of the fangs. But as she scrambled to her feet, she turned, because she knew. This was the largest of the dragons, a huge male shaded from black to the lustrous blue-green of the peacock, and he had brilliant green eyes.

“Larkan,” Keltie whispered, and her legs gave way. She fell to her knees, exhaustion, wonder and relief robbing her of the power to stand. She reached up, and the dragon pushed its huge head into her hand the way a cat would. “You saved me.”

There was a shimmer, and then Larkan knelt over her in human form. He wore no clothes, but it was his expression that was entirely naked. “I want you.”

The pure, raw lust in his voice heated her blood like strong drink. Whatever drove the festival—pheromones, full moon or magic—was affecting her, too. All thoughts of danger faded like smoke, blown aside by an intense need to feel his body against hers. She wound her arms around Larkan’s neck, her darkest, most childlike need bubbling up from deep inside. “Prove you want me. Prove you think I’m good enough to be one of you.”

“Of course,” he said, with the solemnity of a vow. “Anything you ask. You are the only one I want. You are my tribe.”

He kissed her, leaning forward until she was on her back on the hard stone floor. She made a noise of protest, wanting something softer to lie upon. But then he was a dragon again, and she was clutched in his talons, securely tucked against his inky black chest. With a mighty snap, his wings carried her up and up over the amphitheater, circling skyward as the other dragons had done. And then she understood where they were going. There was an upward path through the mountain and in moments they burst into the open, starlit sky. Keltie whooped as the wind tore through her hair, but Larkan’s body sheltered her from the worst buffeting.

Exhilarated, Keltie turned her cheek to the soft, warm hide of his chest so that she could see. She gasped with delight. The night was filled with the gossamer wings of dragons. Blue, green, white and gray, they veiled the moon with their muted hues. Tails and necks wound together in the elaborate ballet of the mating flight, starlight shimmering on jewel-like hides. The sight was as elegant as a ballroom in the sky.

Larkan set her down in a hidden valley that was sheltered from the wind. It was cold, the air icy with the kiss of coming winter, but there was a small cave lined with soft leaves and sweet-smelling pine. A bundle of skins made their bed, and a fire was already laid. It was lit in an instant, and then Larkan was human and naked beside her. There was no need for words. Just his lips, and his strong arms, and the hot drive for the two of them to be one.

Her clothes were lost before she touched the bed. His mouth was on her breast, kneading and pulling at her until he had almost suckled her to madness. The hard length of him pushed against her belly, tantalizing her. She writhed against him, aching for relief, but he merely switched to her other breast, turning her insides to liquid heat.

“Now,” she begged. “Now.”

He cupped her aching core with his hand, teasing her with his fingers. “Not yet.”

She made an angry, needy noise, pushing him over until she was on top. “Now.”

He slid two fingers inside her, making her gasp and shudder. Her mind went fuzzy with an overload of sensation as she pushed against him, but that only made the tension inside her build until she thought she would break.

Two could play at that. She reached down and grasped the hard length of him, stroking until his breathing grew ragged. She eased away from his touch, resettling herself until she just grazed his tip with her heat, but no more. A rumble escaped his chest, and he gripped her by the waist.

She leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Now you know what it’s like to be at the gates of paradise and be allowed no further.”

He flipped her over, pushing her down into the fragrant boughs. “Do not tease a dragon.”

“Then don’t tease me.” The plea went beyond the moment. She was losing her heart to him.

“I won’t,” he murmured back. “I claim you, Keltie.”

Then his mouth was on hers, and he eased himself inside, letting her take the fullness of him slowly at first, then plunging with a greedy force that brought a cry of satisfaction from deep inside her. Something released in the core of her, as if her body knew this was exactly right, and she abandoned herself to pleasure.

Chapter Eight

Keltie drifted back to consciousness, her head pillowed on Larkan’s chest. Sunlight played across the greens and golds of the leaves piled around them, a light breeze stirring against her cheek. At first she didn’t want to move. She could have remained nestled in the warmth of furs and skin, listening to Larkan’s strong, steady heartbeat for an eternity. But then she remembered why they were there. Memories of the festival and the angry queen brought her fully awake with a start.

Larkan stirred, stretching his long limbs. Keltie tried to reconcile the man with the great dark dragon. Oddly, the task was easy. Man and beast had the same power and grace. Both possessed an alert readiness that reminded her of the cats she’d seen patrolling the high mountain places. A shiver skittered down her backbone, a mix of fear and pride that such a being had chosen to be with her, even for a night.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice thick with sleep.

“Good morning.” Keltie craned her neck to kiss his rough, dark cheek.

He caught her and kissed her properly, nearly plunging them back into the maelstrom of heat and desire, breaking away only as Keltie felt herself losing her grip on reason. She reached up, her palm cupping his face and her thumb tracing the curve of his mouth. Something flashed in his eyes, a fierce energy as hot and bright as dragonfire.

“I can’t let you go,” he said simply.

The declaration struck with a soft pain. “And I want to be with you.”

“Then we shall be together.”

Keltie’s breath caught, but she snatched her heart back before it could fly free. She had to face facts, though the weight of them crushed her into the mountainside. “I can’t hide in your cave forever. Nadiana knows I’m around, and she’s not very happy with me. It might have been the ax.”

The corners of his mouth quirked as he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “You got the best of her.”

“Almost,” Keltie said, her tone dry. “I doubt she’ll let that happen again.” With that, she rose and snatched up her shirt from the heap of leaves beside them.

“Keltie,” Larkan protested softly.

She wanted to lie down again and curl into him, but worry chafed her. She would leap over most obstacles for the sake of a relationship, but she wasn’t getting them both killed in a mountain filled with angry dragons. “We have some decisions to make, and I’ll need my clothes on to think.”

Larkan muttered in his own language, and then he got up and began dressing himself from a stash of clothes bundled at the back of the cave. His were drier than Keltie’s. Dew had soaked anything dropped outside the shelter of the rocks, but she was too preoccupied to care.

Until Larkan’s hand fell on her shoulder. She finished lacing her boot and looked up to see the outline of a dragon rapidly blotting out the sky. She recognized Rand, the great bronze dragon, at once. She rose, instinctively stepping closer to Larkan, but the dragon landed and transformed at once to the tall, fair man Keltie remembered from the amphitheater.

“He’s not going to fight us, is he?” Keltie asked anxiously.

“Unlikely,” Larkan said. “The festival is done.”

They fell silent as Rand drew closer. He said something to Larkan, his tone urgent but not hostile.

“Speak the language of humans,” Larkan replied. “This woman, Keltie, deserves respect.”

Rand’s expression flickered, passing through understanding, alarm and finally a touch of humor before he bowed. “Of course. I am sorry, my lady.”

His accent wasn’t as good as Larkan’s, but she had no trouble understanding him. “Apology accepted.”

“Why do you come here?” Larkan asked. “As one of the Flameborn, to take my head? Or as a priest, to remind me of tribal law?”

“I come as your friend, to warn you,” Rand said, turning to Larkan. “The queen demands your immediate submission for punishment.”

“I don’t think so!” Keltie shot back at once, startling both men.

Rand pressed on. “Larkan, it is my duty to remind you that you cannot leave the den, much less consort with a human.”

Keltie ignored the bit about consorting, but moved to stand between the dragons. “Of course she doesn’t like it if he leaves the den. It’s a lot more trouble to keep tabs on your subjects if they’re flying wherever they please.”

“Keltie,” Larkan said softly.

She whirled so she could see them both. “You know she keeps you under the mountain because that’s where she can control you. She told me so. She said that was the secret recipe her ancestors had used since the Old Ones flew into the rift.”

Rand’s expression grew weary. “Nadiana is young and foolish.”

“That’s it?” Keltie said. “That’s all you have to say?”

Rand looked away. It was Larkan who answered. “You say nothing we have not come to expect. Traditions are hard to break. Dragons are loyal and change is slow.”

“Yet you have come among us like a stone thrown into a still pond,” Rand added.

Keltie shrugged. “All I did was nearly get myself killed in your trials.”

“The trials were never completed,” Rand said. “Though the festival is over, the queen has chosen no consort.”

Larkan looked at his friend sharply. “How is that possible?”

Rand shook his head. “The den is in disarray. Everything is coming under question and Nadiana’s authority is in tatters. The example of a lone human has shattered generations of obedience.”

Keltie frowned. That seemed a bit dramatic, even for dragons. “Why? What’s the big deal?”

It was Larkan who answered, taking her hand as he spoke. “Nadiana failed to defeat you.”

“Only because you got me out of there before she killed me.”

“Whatever danger you faced, she did not make you cower.” His smile was rueful. “You defied her even though you knew the fight was hopeless. You did what we should have done long ago.”

Keltie blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“You are an example to us. You refused to surrender what you loved. Dragons have all the strength we could wish for, but have never embraced our right to freedom, to mate where we love and fly where we will. You fought for that. Can we do less?” Larkan’s green eyes transfixed her, seeming to suspend her soul in their light.

Keltie felt herself melting. As declarations went, this was unusual but oddly sexy. “Go on.”

“You’ve changed everything,” Larkan said, his voice sunk to a husky growl. “The dragons have been turned inward, caught in our mountain and ruled by tradition. The festival has occurred four times a year, at the quarters of the sun, from time out of memory. We fly for ceremony, but never for ourselves.”

“Then what was last night?”

“Last night I flew for you.” Larkan’s eyes darkened. “And for myself.”

And he’d seemed to enjoy it. Keltie couldn’t hold back a tiny smile. “Do I have to wait until the next festival for it to happen again?”

“No. The festivals are celebrations. Whatever our customs, they were never meant to be the sole occasions for love.”

Her mouth went dry with the promise hidden in that statement. “Any day is fine with me. But why haven’t the dragons rebelled before?”

“To speak of such things is forbidden, so I do not know what has happened in the past. Perhaps no one dared to make a challenge. Perhaps some tried and failed. All I know is that I need to be with you, and that means I am no longer content with scraps of liberty. I’m leaving the mountain.” Larkan swallowed hard, the sun etching the fine, strong lines of his face. “Come with me, Keltie. Come to the Summerland.”

The power of his words tingled like electricity against her skin. “I thought no one knew how to get there.”

“I will find it.” Gently he pulled her close, reminding her of how he had carried her through the sky. “I know I can, if you are with me.”

Keltie’s mouth dropped open. Until now, their time together had been an adventure straight from a fantasy—mysterious caves, dragons and a flight beneath the stars. If she went home now, she would have memories that could never be rivaled. Yet what Larkan was proposing had all that and more. It had tomorrows, and she desperately wanted those. She knew without question that she wanted a future with Larkan in it. They were bound in ways she couldn’t explain.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Larkan put a finger over her lips. “Before you answer, know this. Wherever I fly, I can return. I know we are different, and I’m not asking you to abandon your life, just to share it with me. I will learn to walk in your world if you spend some time in mine. And do not think you must abandon your studies. Just think what wonders you might find when in the company of dragons. We have a talent for finding treasure, and once we have left the mountain there will be no need for secrets, no hidden doors and hiding. What you and I find together will be yours to study.”

He removed his finger and smiled in that way that turned her to putty. She would have promised him anything. Together, their lives would be more amazing than either of them could dream.

Finally, Keltie let her heart fly free. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

If possible, his smile grew even wider. “Then we shall be unstoppable.”

“Larkan,” said Rand.

His voice startled Keltie—she’d forgotten everyone but Larkan. She shaded her eyes and looked in the direction Rand pointed.

Another dragon, this one a rusty red color, landed on the crest of the mountain. It was smaller and more delicate, and Keltie wondered if it was female. It reached its long, sinuous neck up and bellowed into the sky. Moments later, a green dragon landed nearby, then a gold, and then a black. More and more came until the ridges of the mountains were covered with every size and shade of them. Keltie’s breath caught in wonder.
They are so beautiful.
Beautiful
,
strange and miraculous.

One smaller blue-black dragon thumped to the ground nearby and quickly transformed into a boy.

“Mickel!” Larkan exclaimed, and followed that with something in the dragon’s own language. Keltie didn’t have to know dragon to tell it was a gentle scolding.

The boy said something back as he ran forward and grabbed Larkan’s hand.

“Is he yours?” Keltie asked, a sudden shyness overtaking her.

Larkan shook his head, but it looked more like exasperation than denial. “He is mine by affection only.”

Mickel gave a grin of pure mischief, and Keltie relaxed. She’d had brothers. Young boys were something she understood.

It took a moment to realize the crowd of dragons was utterly silent. The pressure of waiting silence made her look up, first at the assembly and then at Larkan. “What’s going on?”

Rand answered. “These are the dragons who believe Nadiana lost the fight. They want to know your orders.”

Shock made Keltie stammer. “M...my orders?”

“It seems that you have started a revolution,” Larkan said, more than a little amused. “They want to follow your example.”

“I’m not their new queen. I got away in one piece. That isn’t exactly a victory.”

“That’s good enough for them,” Rand said. “They are eager for change.”

With a pang of sympathy, she could tell Rand’s feelings were mixed. He’d flown away with Nadiana last night, but he’d come in peace to Larkan. He was caught in the middle and trying to be fair to everyone. She almost forgave him for toasting her truck.

Keltie cleared her throat. “You want orders? Fly as much as you like and to go wherever you want to go. You don’t need to live underground if you don’t want to.”

Both Rand and Larkan turned to look at her. The weight of their combined gazes made her want to squirm, but their eyes held a wild, vital hope.

“You are first among the Flameborn,” Rand said to Larkan, his tone grave and full of ceremony. “Do you endorse her words?”

“I do,” Larkan answered.

Rand raised his hands. “Then speak them to those who have gathered to hear, and whoever follows you shall be your tribe.”

Larkan turned to the assembly and repeated Keltie’s words in their own tongue. Every last dragon raised its head in a triumphant bellow, wings fanning out as they roared, and then they shot into the air, one after another. Mickel ran in circles through the valley, popping into dragon form and back again with whoops of delight.

“They accept you as their leaders, though one of you is but a human,” Rand said, his face troubled. “Half the dragons of the den have joined you. Nadiana will be wroth.”

Larkan put a hand on his shoulder. “Will you come with me, friend?”

Rand bowed his head. “No. Nadiana needs someone to lead her to wisdom, by degrees if necessary. I must be there for her.” With those words, Rand turned and leaped into the air, transforming before his feet even left the ground. The huge bronze dragon lifted high above, flapping his massive wings.

“He must love her,” Keltie said.

Larkan nodded. “Rand is not easily dissuaded once he sets his heart upon a task. I have hope for them both, though it is fortunate he has a thick hide.”

* * *

From decision to action took little time. Keltie stopped long enough to pick through the wreckage of her campsite, but Rand’s flames had reduced almost everything to ash. She gathered what supplies she could, and by the time the sun reached its zenith they were in the air.

This time Keltie rode on Larkan’s back, perching between his massive wings. They flew north because that was where legend said the Old Ones had gone to find the rift that would take them to the Summerland. The other dragons fanned out behind them, a dozen of the Flameborn in a protective ring around the others. There was an almost equal balance between the males and females, along with a handful of younglings, including Mickel. Keltie craned her neck to take in the sight of the tribe flying behind Larkan. It was breathtaking, their bright coats like a multicolored tapestry sewn with gems.

Larkan flew high, skimming through pockets of cloud. Of the dragons he was by far the most comfortable in the air. He did not rush the pace, but by the middle of the afternoon, she sensed that the smallest of the dragons were growing weary.

She was tired, too, but curiosity kept her from complaining. Keltie had never seen the mountain range from that viewpoint, the valleys and rivers mere wrinkles in a relentless landscape of rock and snow. And it was cold. She leaned forward, almost lying down on Larkan’s back for warmth and shelter from the wind. The air was so icy her nose had gone numb, and her eyes were half-blind with tears. And yet despite her blurred vision, she saw something she hadn’t expected.