“Continue?” I parroted like an idiot. A very horny idiot. I felt dampness forming at the juncture of my thighs and wanted to close them, but that would trap his enormous glacier cock between them and…Oh, hells.I felt my slick slide down my thigh as I thought about that scenario.
Felt the droplet fall from my skin to his.
He made a growling sound that sent vibrations through my entire body. At this point, the whole room smelled like a mint patch, and he drew breath after labored breath into his lungs, exhaling short puffs of iced mint back into my face. Without even being touched, I felt a series of pulses move though my core as a small orgasm crested. More of my slick formed and drippedonto him. His cock slid along my inner thigh as he lifted his hips slightly, rubbing the enormous head through the mess.
“Continue teaching me the lesson, little enemy,” he said, his smile widening, his slightly sharp teeth dangerous and enticing.
I slammed my eyes shut. His laughter made us vibrate again, even more, and I had to force myself to pull away, placing my hands on his broad, cool chest instead. “Not that kind of lesson,” I said, struggling to scowl. I opened my eyes slightly, just as his smile transformed his features again. He was so handsome. So big and pretty and dangerous and Alpha.
And I’d sworn off knots, so this one was twice as off-limits, I reminded myself, rolling off of him. Except he rolled, too, grabbing my waist so we ended up reversed, with him hovering over me, and my back on the ground below me.
“Consent, you said? You believe a god should ask for consent from a weak human like you?”
I blinked, hearing the confusion in his tone. He was asking honestly, so I answered the same way. “It’s even more important, when the balance of power is unequal. If a god just takes what he wants without asking, or won’t stop when the weaker person does ask, then they are an evil god.”
“Taking without asking is what the world thinks is evil now?”
“Wasn’t it always?” I wondered aloud.
For some reason, that made Skadi let go. He moved away, and I noticed a series of small ridges on his back. Not wounds or scars, but… the shapes were peculiar and familiar. Small vials? I moved closer, reaching out to touch one, but he turned to face me.
“Stealing is evil, then?” When I didn’t answer, he went on. “Taking without asking, without receiving permission. That is what the world sees as evil. What do you see as evil?”
I made a face. “Well, I don’t know about stealing in general… So, the thing is, stealing things like gemstones versus stealinga woman’s, or man’s, bodily—” I had to stop trying to explain, because he’d collapsed into laughter.
“Yes, little enemy, I remember what you said. You stole from a dragon’s hoard. I would love to hear how you are not evil.” His arm wrapped around me again, and he pulled me close. “Let me watch those small pink lips tell pretty lies to make your misdeeds seem like virtue. You cannot deceive me, though lies come easily to your kind.”
“How would you know?”
“You are not the first human I’ve met. But you are the first to attempt to hold me to your own petty moral standards.”
“My Goddess holds to them,” I stated, not reacting to his skin on mine at all this time. “When I told Her I didn’t want Her to use my body, even though there’s pretty much no one else in the world who could do what She needed, She listened. We bargained, and She gave me what I asked for: ten years off to live my own life, before She steps back in to get back to the grand plan.”
“Grand plan?”
“She’s remaking Her lines. The world, really.”
His head tilted slightly. “I want to hear this story of remaking. Much has changed while I slept. Why were these lines unmade? How? The seal man—selkie—spoke of plagues.”
“I’ll make you a deal, then. I’ll tell you the story. You agree to ask permission to touch me, or any other Omegas—other humans,” I clarified before he could answer.
“I am the wind, little enemy. I touch the world itself.”
“Right, then with your physical body,” I agreed. “You agree to get consent before you touch them with your physical body.” I didn’t know why that made him smile, but he agreed.
“Now, story,” he demanded, moving as far away from the fire as he could go again, and settling with his back against the wall.
I fought a grin. “Now, story,” was what the youngest in my crew of street rats had demanded at bedtime for years. This story was one I’d told a thousand times, though it had changed as I’d learned the truth of how the lines had been broken. I moved closer to the fire and felt a tiny burst of answering heat and pain inside, which was quickly blotted out by a small lick of ice.Huh.Pain relief on the inside.
I decided Skadi might be useful. I wouldn’t kill him today.
“They say the root of the human Omega Plagues stems from the betrayal of the Goddess by Her kraken mate. That his jealousy of Her dragon mate drove him to murder and caused Her to flee the world with Her remaining lovers. They say She cursed the kraken with endless hunger as She left. But that’s not the truth.
“She never cursed him. She only left him, and his kind, alone. Of course, loneliness could be felt as a curse, I suppose.”
He made an odd sound, maybe agreeing. I went on. “Not too long afterward, one of the older krakens fell in love with a dragon queen. She saw the same jealousy in him that the Goddess had seen in Her cruel mate, so the queen rejected him from her harem. In his rage, that kraken went to the sea witches and ordered them to brew a spell that would poison all the future dragon queens and their eggs. In only two generations, the dragons were as good as extinct. Desperate, they created wyverns by mating with human Omegas, in hopes of continuing their line. But the wyverns were born males and with a deeply possessive streak.
“Most went feral as soon as they scented their mates. Some caused their own Omegas’ deaths by refusing to allow others to enter their nests when they suffered through their heats. Eventually, the dragons drove the wyverns out, across the Wyngelian Sea. But the madness lingered. In Starlak, some wyverns had shared nests with human Omegas. When they wereforced to fly south, some of those women were pregnant. They gave birth to Alphas, who grew up with a seed of madness buried inside.”
