Sex with a man I barely know.
“I need more time,” I blurt out.
He nods. “Then you’ll have more time.”
His men line up in a row, and he leads me to stand in front of them, then releases my hand. He slowly begins to walk back and forth in front of them, back straight, sword and dagger at his hip. “Men, I leave you now in body, but not in spirit. I am a Hollowborn, blood and bones. I fight with you, my brothers, whether I am at your side or not. But today, I have a more important goal: to make peace with the Dravari. Once the papers are signed, our lives will change forever. With access to fertile lands and pastures, we will no longer starve and struggle. A new golden age will be born.”
The men cheer, and it’s strangely frightening to see so much energy from such scary-looking men.
“Until we meet again,” he says.
“Until we meet again,” they all repeat, bowing low.
Sevrin turns back toward me and takes my hand. One of his men brings him his bag, and he hefts it onto his shoulders. Then he approaches Ebron with all the caution of one predator approaching a bigger predator, and I don’t blame him. Ebron watches his every move.
“Ebron, may I touch you?” he asks.
I look at Ebron.He’s going to ride you so…
Tell the Hollowborn he may touch me.
The men grow silent once more behind me, and Sevrin takes a step forward and gently places a hand on Ebron’s side. Hestrokes his scales with a look of pure wonder on his face, then turns to his men. “His scales glide against my fingers like they’re pieces of glass.”
Every Hollowborn looks on with barely concealed envy.
Sevrin turns to me. “Are you ready to ride?”
I nod.
He takes my hand and helps me up into the saddle, then looks at Ebron once more. “May I ride you, God of the Sky?”
It takes him a long minute to answer.He may.
“He says you can.”
The Hollowborn shift closer, watching carefully, but I turn my attention to Sevrin. Even for a man his size, it isn’t easy to get on a dragon as large as Ebron, but he manages to do it. He slips into the saddle behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, so that my back is against his chest. He radiates warmth.
“I’m ready. Are you ready, my bride?”
My bride. It still doesn’t sound real.“I’m ready.”
Ebron begins to flap his massive wings while the bone wrym fidget and shift around us. We shoot into the sky, leaving the shocked Hollowborns behind, and their creepy bone wrym. Behind me, Sevrin lifts his arms in the same way I did when I first started to love flying.
Those golden eyes of his focus on my face. “This is incredible. I’m on a dragon. Arealdragon.” And his beautiful accent is even stronger with his excitement.
I smile. “You never get sick of it.” We fly like that for a long moment before I ask, “Is this similar to flying on a bone wyrm?”
He shakes his head. “It’s as different as day and night. Bone wyrm aren’t alive. They’re cold and hard beneath you, nothing but bones and flesh. They feel like an extension of yourself, because your own magic is keeping them in an undead state. Keeping them ‘alive.’ But riding Ebron? He’sactuallyalive, andwarm, and magical. I can feel his breath. I can feel the tension and the movement of his muscles. It’s… beautiful.”
His arms drop, wrapping around me and pulling me tightly against him. I don’t even have a minute to think when his lips descend onto mine, hard and possessive, stealing the breath from my lungs. So much like the last time he kissed me on Ebron, except this kiss is deeper. His tongue dips inside, tangling with my own, and leaving me hot and aching. Finally, he pulls back, studying me, eyes darkened with desire. Behind me, I can feel the obvious evidence of his arousal.
“You, Harper, will make a fine queen, and an even better wife.” He rubs his thumb along my swollen lip. “Flying dragons is just the first of many extraordinary things to come.”
Looking in his eyes, for some reason, I believe him. This man. This king. He has a kind of charisma I’ve never seen before. It pulls you in and leaves you desperate for more.
Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into?
2
