The Dragon of Cecil Court (The Treasure of Paragon Book 5) Page 25

  By the time they pulled into the drive at Mistwood, she was a raw, hungry nerve. They slipped into the manor through the back door and went directly to his room, where he wasted no time trying to strip her out of her dress, his mating trill rumbling in his chest. She dodged.

  “So impatient. I don’t recall giving you permission to touch me,” she said through a smile. There was nothing she wanted more than to feel Nathaniel move inside her, but patience was a virtue, and a game would make the prize all the sweeter.

  His hands dropped to his sides and his lips twitched. “I can’t touch you?”

  “Not until I say. What good is having a dragon to ride if he can’t take direction?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’d like to be in control, Ms. Black?”

  She grinned. “Oh, I am in control. Hold absolutely still.”

  She raised herself onto her tiptoes and grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. It fell to the floor in a heap. To his credit, he did hold absolutely still. And didn’t that make her feel powerful? All that brutal potential, that lean, hidden power, was completely at her command. She swaggered around him, her eyes raking his body, then slid her hands over his ribs from behind.

  Arms wrapped around him, she unbuttoned his shirt, tugging the tails from his pants and sliding it off his shoulders from behind. She scraped her nails along his ribs, enjoying the hard peaks and valleys of his chest and abs. Her fingers dipped inside his waistband.

  “Clarissa,” he whispered, and her name on his lips sent a wave of heat through her. He said it with reverence.

  “Hmm.” She took a step back and then swept her fingers up his spine and into the hair at the back of his head. His muscles twitched and flexed under the soft graze of her nails. She pressed her hand against his spine, between the two crescent-shaped marks on his back. “Show them to me.”

  Obediently, he unfurled his wings. They were glorious, sparkling and purple tinged. She allowed herself a moment to take in their magnificence. She ran her hands along the place where the wings sprouted from his body, petted the flesh along the webbing.

  He moaned, his breathing growing faster. She stroked along the bony edge and then scraped her nails along the underside. A shiver traveled over his skin, and she grinned in triumph. She was just getting started.

  “For the love of the Mountain, Clarissa, I’m going to ruin my pants.”

  “We can’t have that.” She reached around his waist, unfastened the buckle of his belt, then circled to the front of him to pull the strip of leather off in one quick snap. She folded the leather in half and placed it in his hand.

  “What do you want me to do with this?” he asked lasciviously.

  She backed up a few steps. “Hold it in both hands, behind your back.”

  He obeyed, the motion causing the muscles of his arms to bunch and strain. Her blood pounded in her veins. She was going to enjoy this. She unbuttoned his pants and slid them and his briefs down around his ankles. He stepped out and toed off his socks. She tossed them over the chair against the wall.

  He was hard and erect. Magnificent. Her eyelids felt heavy. Deep inside, her body opened and wet heat bloomed between her legs.

  “Well, Ms. Black, what do you plan to do with me?” His irises had turned bright, burning violet, the way they always did when he was doing magic. Behind him, his wings tensed. Desire flowed off him in waves.

  “This.” She dropped to her knees and wrapped her mouth around him.

  Nathaniel felt the leather in his fists stretch as Clarissa drew his erection into her mouth. He was going to need a new belt. Her tongue slid slick and wet along the underside of his shaft. By the Mountain, he’d never felt pleasure like this. The act itself was delicious, but the way she reveled in controlling the pace, in absolutely owning him, ignited the thrill.

  She opened her throat and drew him in deep. His mating trill boomed loud enough to rattle the walls.

  “You’ll make me come,” he whispered.

  She slid her mouth faster, wrapping her hand along the base of his shaft. His release rushed through him and his wings spread as the belt finally snapped and dropped from his grip. He laced his fingers in her hair as she licked the last bits of his release off him.

  “Mmm, so you can take direction,” she said in a tone that was nothing short of indecent.

  “You are an exceptional taskmaster.”

  His hands found the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head. He made short work of her bra and her lace thong. Her breasts mounded warm and heavy in his hands, her nipples budding hard between his fingers. His mouth found hers and tasted the salty remains of his passion on her lips.

  Nathaniel had lived a long time, but there was only one thing he knew for sure: she was his other, his true and permanent partner.

  His fingers trailed over her abdomen, then lower to the junction of her thighs.

  She sighed against his lips. “I love you, Nathaniel.”

  He drew her against his chest as he hastened the work of his fingers. “Love isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel for you. You are my heart, my greatest treasure, the fire in my blood.”

  She arched her back and pressed her breasts into his chest as an orgasm rocked through her. He lowered her onto the bed through the aftershocks and thrust into her just as her body softened beneath his.

  “And the student becomes the teacher,” she whispered, tilting her head back.

  He kissed the underside of her jaw, moving inside her, magic building between them once more. “I think there’s plenty left between us to learn.”

  Together they found their release, their hearts and bodies entwined, but the bond between them ran far deeper. All his life he’d practiced magic, both the dark and the light, but he’d never experienced power like this. Or love like this. And that was the strongest magic of all.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Avery should have been happy for her sister. She watched Raven cradle her child in her arms with Gabriel behind her and thought that, despite the oddity of it, they seemed like the perfect little family. Still, all she felt was jealousy. Not of her sister’s happiness though. No. She was happy about that. She wouldn’t want anything less for Raven.

  No. It was Li’l Puff. Up until Raven had returned, Avery had a purpose. She was the only one who could handle the egg. Now no one needed her. What would happen next? Would she go home to New Orleans, go back to waiting tables and try to forget that dragons, witches, and vampires were real? That her sister was one? Would she ever know the feeling of raising a circle again?

  “We have to name him or her, Gabriel. We can’t keep calling it Li’l Puff. It sounds like a rapper.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “What about Michael?”

  “It could be a girl,” Gabriel said hopefully. “Why not Phoebe?”

  “Then what if it’s a boy?” Raven giggled.

  “Charlie,” Avery said softly toward the fire.

  “What?” Raven and Gabriel both looked at her.

  She spread her hands and shrugged. “Charlie. Charles if it’s a boy. Charlotte if it’s a girl. Charlie for short. Works now. Works for both genders.”

  Raven glanced between her and Gabriel. “Charlie.” She tried out the name, and the egg pulsed brighter in response. The silhouette inside pressed a hand close to hers. “I think he or she approves.”

  Gabriel grinned. “Charlie it is.” He pressed a kiss to the side of Raven’s head.

  Avery stood and headed for the door. “My work here is done. Just in time too. I’m exhausted. I’d better go to bed.”

  “Night,” Raven said. “Talk more over breakfast? There’s so much—”

  She held up a hand and nodded. “Yes. In the morning.” She slipped out of the room and into the hall.

  Nathaniel woke to the soft rhythm of Clarissa’s breathing and extracted himself from her side. His stomach was growling. Between the magic he’d expelled coming back from Paragon and what it had taken to vanquish Abore
lla, not to mention the hours of lovemaking with Clarissa, he’d built up an appetite. He could mentally call for Laurel or Tempest to fix him something, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted, and a thorough dig in the refrigerator was what was called for in this situation.

  He donned pajama pants and a gray T-shirt and jogged barefoot down to the kitchen. His wings unfurled in alarm when a face appeared in the dim glow of the appliances. The person’s hands shot up. He’d scared her as much as she’d surprised him.

  “By the Mountain, Avery! What are you doing up at this hour?” He flipped on the light.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” She looked down into her teacup. “I thought some chamomile would settle my nerves. You?”

  “Starving. I was about to make myself a sandwich. Care to join me?”

  She nodded. “Please.”

  He crossed to the fridge and pulled out some leftover curried chicken salad and found some bread in the pantry. Some lettuce and he was on the road to proper sandwiches. He nabbed two plates and started assembling.

  Avery watched him from the table. “I’d offer to help, but you seem to have things under control.”

  He nodded. “Relax. I’ve got it.” Her face fell again when she thought he wasn’t looking. “Something on your mind?”

  “I’m wondering if I should go home now. Charlie is back in Raven’s arms.”

  “Charlie?”

  “Li’l Puff. Raven and Gabriel settled on a real name.”

  “Ah. Yes. Charlie. Could either be a girl or a boy. Brilliant.”

  “Thank you. It was my idea.” Her eyes drifted down to her cup again.

  “You don’t want to stick around and be there when the little omelet hatches?”

  She chuckled. He brought the sandwiches to the table and set one in front of her.

  “I really don’t have an excuse to stay. I’ve already been away from home a long time. My mother can hardly keep up with things at the Three Sisters on her own.”

  Nathaniel stopped. “Wait… That’s the name of your mum’s pub? The Three Sisters?”

  She snorted. “Yeah. Weird coincidence, huh?”

  “Very.” He took a bite and chewed. He didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “The day Warwick raised the circle and we rebound Raven, Clarissa, and me together, I felt it. Magic. I floated off the floor… three inches. How do you go from flying to mopping up vomit from the last patron who didn’t know when to quit? Or having your ass pinched and getting flogged with beads the next Mardi Gras? I’m just so over it, Nathaniel.”

  “So don’t go back.” He bit into his sandwich and chewed.

  Avery laughed. “I… I have to go back. I don’t have the money to stay.”

  “Clarissa told me she thinks of you as family. I do too. I need help at Relic and Runes if you want to work. If you don’t, we have plenty of room and resources here to keep you quite comfortable until you figure out what your power is.”

  She snorted. “I don’t have any power.”

  He lowered his sandwich. “Of course you do. I thought we settled this, that afternoon when you showed us all you were the only one who could hold the egg?”

  “Yes. We figured out that Charlie tolerated me for some reason. So what?”

  He shook his head. “I think it’s something more.”

  She took a bite and spoke around her sandwich. “Like what?”

  He raised a finger. “Wait here.” He flashed up to his study, grabbed his pipe and his cards, and returned to the table.

  “I will never stop being freaked out by how fast you all are.”

  He shrugged. “All part of being a dragon.” He shuffled the cards in his hand. “Let’s consult the tarot about your future, shall we?”

  She gave him a skeptical look and took another bite. “This sandwich is sinfully delicious. What is that… sweetness?”

  “Mango chutney and cinnamon. It’s Laurel’s specialty.”

  “Mmmmm.” She glanced at the cards. “I come from New Orleans. As a rule, I don’t believe in tarot or other forms of divination. There’s a psychic on every corner, and most couldn’t tell you when their next meal is coming.”

  “Well, not everyone finds what they’re looking for in the cards, but tarot can be a way of tapping into your deepest intuition. The cards, after all, are just cardboard. The magic, if there is any, comes from you.”

  She set the stub of her sandwich down and licked her fingers. “All right. What do I have to lose? Deal a spread or whatever it is you do.” She waved at the table.

  He stopped shuffling and laid three cards in front of her. “Past, present, future.”

  “What do I do, turn them over?”

  “Unless you want me to do it for you. I think it’s better if you do it.”

  She nodded and wiped her hands on the napkin next to her plate. “Here goes nothing.” She flipped the first card. “The Hanged Man.”

  “Reversed,” he said. “The position of the card to you makes a difference.”

  “Okay. So what does it mean?”

  “It means imprisonment. Forced sacrifice. Martyrdom.”

  She scoffed. “In my past?”

  “Yes.”

  Her face turned from disbelief to wonder. “Maybe I underestimated tarot cards.”

  “You see some truth in it?”

  “You may have heard that Raven had brain cancer. She had the front seat in our family for most of my life, which was fine with me. She needed my parents’ attention more than I did. But it wasn’t exactly what I would have chosen for myself. I wouldn’t say I was a martyr. I just did what I had to do. I mean, she was dying.”

  “But she’s not dying anymore.”

  “No.” She scowled. “And now I find that all that energy I poured into loving her has nowhere to go.”

  “Which brings us to the present.” He gestured toward the center card.

  She flipped it and gasped. A skeletal figure on a horse. She placed a hand on her chest. “Death?”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “The death card does not mean physical death. It means change, rebirth, transformation. You, Avery, are the caterpillar in the cocoon.”

  “Cocoon, huh? No wonder my life feels so suffocating.”

  “Change could mean opportunity.”

  “Or tragedy.”

  He nodded toward the third card. “Why not check what the cards see in your future?”

  She shrugged and rubbed her palms together. “No whammies. This butterfly would like to spread her wings.”

  “Whammies?”

  “Old American game show. It means I only want good luck.” She bobbed her dark eyebrows and reached for the third card. “Let’s see what the future has in store.” She flipped the card.

  Nathaniel stared at the exposed face of the moon and rubbed his chin. Difficult. Very difficult.

  “What? What does the moon mean?”

  “This one has many different meanings. You can see how it depicts a crab crawling out of the primordial sea? That represents evolution in action, which makes sense given the card before it, Death. You are becoming, Avery. That is for certain. But what you are becoming is shrouded. This card almost always denotes some dark mystery.”

  Avery covered her face with her hands. “Excellent. So my future is a shadowy uncertainty. Thanks for clearing that up. The cards were a great idea.” She gave him two very sarcastic thumbs-ups.

  “There is one more-pleasant meaning associated with this card.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It usually portends romance.”

  “Now I know these cards are liars. There is no one in my life that leaves the slightest whiff of roses in their wake. No one.” She rolled her eyes.

  He leaned back in his chair and took her in. As a mated dragon, he wasn’t attracted to Avery, but in a strictly objective way, he could say with some certainty she was an attractive person. And her kindness and courage were undeniable after what she’d been through. Plus he was sure there was more to her.
Although he didn’t understand its nature, it was clear that magic lived just under the surface of her person. It just needed the right circumstances to wake it.

  He folded his arms and studied her. “You’re a grown woman, Avery. You can make your own decisions. I’ve invited you to stay. I’ve shown you what the cards say. Now you have to decide. Just realize, if you go home…” He pointed to the Hanged Man. “You’ll be an almost-butterfly trying to crawl out of its cocoon a caterpillar again. You’ve already been changed. You can’t be the same as before. Not without cutting off your wings.”

  Her jaw dropped open. He cleared the plates and left her to her thoughts.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Three Days Later…

  Nathaniel would never grow tired of sharing the company of his siblings or their mates, and the bond between them was perhaps stronger now than ever before. From the head of the table, he watched them over his wineglass, absorbing their endearing idiosyncrasies.

  Across from him at the foot of the table, Gabriel was singularly focused on his mate Raven, who sat beside him.

  “What about this one?” Raven said, showing him a picture on her phone of a crib made of some dark, polished wood.

  Gabriel smirked. “Where is the top?”

  “Top!” Raven squealed.

  “It’s a crib, not a cage,” Avery interjected, laughing.

  Gabriel shrugged. “Human babies don’t fly. Dragon babies do. You need a top. And, while we are discussing dragon realities, I would suggest you avoid wood in place of something that won’t burn.”

  Avery and Raven looked at each other in openmouthed horror. Without another word, they both reached for their wine and drained their glasses empty.

  On Gabriel’s other side, Sabrina and Tobias enjoyed the lamb that Tempest had prepared.

  “Nathaniel, my compliments to your oread,” Sabrina said, her green eyes shifting in his direction. “This is the best I’ve ever had.”