STORY EXCERPT

“This is ridiculous.” Orvan huffed and took another sip of wine from his goblet. “What are we waiting for? We should be hunting down those wolves and bats already.”

Kael scanned the map he’d been given and absently replied, “We need the cooperation of the fae if we’re going to have any luck with our task.”

“That’s another thing that pisses me off,” Orvan answered. “Why did they insist on meeting us here? Why not invite us to their capital? Don’t they trust us?”

“We’ve given them no reason to,” Kael answered. Hmm… It seemed that the vampires and the wolves were far more numerous than he’d thought in the beginning. He needed a good strategy if he was going to tackle this problem and expect success.

 Meanwhile, one of his commanders, Lord Cordellien Zager, approached and said, “I have that census report you requested, Prince Kaelezrin.”

Cordell’s tone finally made Kael look up. “And?”

“The numbers aren’t encouraging.” Cordell handed Kael the scroll. “We hope to find more people, but for the moment, these are the soldiers we can count on.”

Kael took one look at the report and groaned. “Damn it. If what the fae king told us is accurate, this is never going to be enough.”

Orvan scoffed. “For all we know, it’s complete nonsense. They have to be exaggerating. Not even the humans could succumb to a disease so quickly and in such large numbers.”

Kael threw a glare toward his sibling. Sometimes, it awed Kael how a draechen could be so ignorant of basic historical facts. “It’s happened before. Or have you forgotten?”

“Hundreds of years ago,” Orvan pointed out. “The situation was different then.”

There were a lot of things Kael could have said to that, but before he could reply, a sudden strange emotion gripped him, unsettling his dragon. Kael reined in his beast, frowning. The last thing he needed now was to lose control over his powers.

Before he could come up with a reason for his strange feeling, the doors of the meeting room opened, revealing the cause. A lovely male fae walked in, immediately providing an answer to Orvan’s comment. “Not much has changed in human settlements, in terms of hygiene and medical advancement.” The vision of beauty offered them a small, polite smile. “Greetings. I’m Prince Talrasar. I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

This was the Ivenian general famous for crawling in ditches with his men to honor the dead and giving every drop of power he had to heal the sick? Somehow, Kael had imagined him less… delicate. No, that wasn’t the right word. He simply had never thought that someone on this world could be so impossibly beautiful.

Talrasar Myrthylar wasn’t a short man. In fact, his frame likely reached Kael’s shoulder, which was remarkable given Kael’s own height. The robes he wore did nothing to disguise his slender but athletic form. A lovely blue gem shone in the center of his forehead, but his silver eyes seemed to glitter like jewels themselves. His long white-blond hair appeared to be wet, and Kael imagined that he must have just come from taking a bath. That sent Kael’s mind to how Talrasar looked like naked and how much Kael wanted to bathe him, with a washcloth or preferably with his tongue. It also made him frown at the thought of how many servants had assisted Talrasar in the washroom. That wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all. No one got to see Kael’s mate naked but him.

Wait, what? His mate? Overlords… It couldn’t be. But it was. Kael’s dragon reared inside him angrily, demanding that he reach out and touch Talrasar, to make sure that this was real and not just some dream Kael had conjured. As most of his friends—or rather, acquaintances—found their mates Kael had become increasingly convinced that he wouldn’t be so lucky. After all, who would want a black dragon? He carried a curse, one that could drain the life of any living being. Some people had taken to calling him a blight, a plague, at least until the real plague had started. And even now, he wasn’t exactly popular. To this day, he hadn’t met his own mother, and had only seen his father a handful of times, in an official capacity. His brother was the only member of his family who kept in contact with him at all, albeit reluctantly.

This was one of the reasons why Kael had insisted that Ornoz needed to get involved in controlling the plague. His two hundredth year was rapidly approaching, and he wanted to at least leave the world a better place when he was gone. But now, his previous resolve had become irrelevant. By some miracle, his mate had appeared in his life. That changed everything. Or so he hoped. His mate could always refuse to acknowledge him. Kael honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be the case.

As their gazes met, though, Talrasar’s eyes widened and his breath caught. There was no disgust in those silver orbs, just recognition. Talrasar could tell that they were mates.

Kael forced himself not to get too enthusiastic. Draechen had virtually no contact with the fae until now, so Talrasar might not be aware of Kael’s curse. Overlords, he must not even know who Kael was since, in his dumbfounded infatuation, he hadn’t even introduced himself.

He opened his mouth to correct his mistake, but Orvan stopped him before he could do so. “Greetings, Your Highness,” he said, smirking as he scanned Talrasar from head to toe. “I am Prince Orvandel Tersain of Ornoz. I must say it is a great honor to meet you.”

As he spoke, he took Talrasar’s hand and brushed his lips over the fae’s fingertips. Kael simply saw red. As the older brother and commander of the troops, he should have been the one to say that, not Orvan.

ADULT EXCERPT

Kael looked torn. “No one should force you into anything, Tali. This is dangerous. Besides, you already need to handle too much on a regular basis without me pushing you into—”

Talrasar didn’t allow his mate to finish the phrase. Instead, he pressed his lips to Kael’s just like he had before. This time, though, he also reached for Kael’s dick, engulfing it in his fist. Whatever Kael might have said, he was very much aroused and still wanted Talrasar. It was the first time Talrasar had held a dick not his own, but he went with his instincts and brushed his thumb over the leaking tip. He actually felt the moment when his mate gave up the fight.

Not that it was very hard. Kael released a sound that seemed like a cross between a groan, a growl, and something unidentifiable and very animalistic. Before Talrasar even knew what was going on, his clothes started flying off, ripped apart by an increasingly zealous Kael. If Talrasar wasn’t mistaken, the draechen even had claws now, but somehow, they didn’t touch Talrasar’s skin. His garments weren’t so lucky, though, and soon, Talrasar found himself completely naked and at his mate’s mercy, which was exactly where he wanted to be.

The moment Kael’s greedy hands touched his skin, Talrasar forgot about anything that resembled shyness and lost himself to the desire. He touched back, mapping his mate’s body with his fingers, acquainting himself with every delicious muscle. Every inch of Kael was like a treasure just begging to be discovered, so much so that Talrasar didn’t even know what to focus on first. With one hand, he went from Kael’s hair to his neck and his pectorals. The other simply refused to leave his mate’s dick. Not that Kael seemed to mind. If anything, he grew even more frantic with every second that passed. When he tore his mouth away from Talrasar’s, his gaze was feverish, desperate. “I’m sorry, love. I have to take you. I promise I’ll stop if anything’s off.”

His voice was so low that it nearly sounded scary. Talrasar loved it. Kael was unlike anyone he’d ever met before, so strong, so intense, an untamable force of nature. Talrasar wanted to be claimed by him, to lose himself in his power. And yet, in spite of the lust consuming them both, Kael still worried about him. That emotion made Talrasar’s heart clench, pointing out that Kael had been right all along. This wasn’t just about the sex, not at all.

He’d have loved to somehow vocalize how much he wanted what Kael offered. But at this point, he was beyond words. He could only nod and desperately reach out to Kael, wordlessly begging for Kael to have mercy of them both. Fortunately, Kael understood, although he didn’t do at all what Talrasar had expected. Well, Talrasar hadn’t exactly known what his mate planned, but Kael’s choice certainly didn’t disappoint him.

Unexpectedly, Kael lowered his mouth over Talrasar’s dick and took it deep, all the way into his throat. It was Talrasar’s turn to release an inarticulate noise. He’d never felt such sinful pleasure in his life, never even believed it possible. The volcanic heat that surrounded Talrasar’s aching prick awoke every nerve ending in Talrasar’s body. His vision went white, and for a few moments, he thought he’d come right then and there. Miraculously, he didn’t, although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why that was. Perhaps the pleasure itself was so intense that the orgasm was simply short-circuited somewhere within his body.

He ended up threading his fingers through Kael’s soft hair, fucking the draechen’s mouth in jerky, uncoordinated motions. He truly wished he could have been more experienced and seductive for Kael, but that seemed about as likely as him giving up this mind-melting pleasure.

Kael, however, appeared to actually enjoy Talrasar’s loss of control. He groaned around Talrasar’s dick, making deep sounds of enjoyment that caused delicious vibrations to flow through the shaft. He kept bobbing his head up and down Talrasar’s prick, devouring him, just like he had earlier, during the kiss.

Under the circumstances, it truly came as no surprise that soon, even with the incredible resilience Talrasar had demonstrated, he was on the verge of orgasm. He lingered at the edge of the abyss for what seemed like forever, burning, writhing, dying, and yet unable to fully succumb to the ecstasy. And then a dry finger wormed its way into Talrasar’s passage. At the unexpected sensation of fullness and the surprising burn, the heat that had been gathering inside Talrasar finally exploded. As he came down his mate’s throat, Talrasar had the foresight not to close his eyes, and was therefore regaled with the sinful sight of his mate swallowing his seed. At the last moment, Kael pulled back, making some of the spunk land on his face and hair.

In all honesty, Talrasar suspected he could have come again just from that had he not been in the throes of orgasm already. As it was, the sight of it prolonged Talrasar’s pleasure. And even as he started to descend from the high of it, his dick didn’t actually go fully soft. But Kael wasn’t done with him yet, oh, no. He gathered Talrasar’s cream off his face and slicked his fingers with it. The angle didn’t allow Talrasar to see too well, but he suspected some of the seed went on his mate’s dick.

“You ready for me, love?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” Talrasar gasped out. “I’ve been ready for ages.”

It was completely true, and Kael knew it. He lifted Talrasar’s legs on his shoulders and positioned his dick at Talrasar’s opening. Slowly, ever so slowly, Kael pushed inside.