“The price for our services will be thirty-four casks of gold.” Ghreid gestured toward Rydel. “Draw up a contract. I’ll have Lapryda handle it.”
“The thirty-two casks are to be considered dowry. The two casks are a formality. Consider the debt unenforced. Because there is an outstanding debt, our efforts to aid you are not war, but collection. Oh, and we’re keeping your guard.” Ghreid waved his hand dismissively. “Make of it what you will. Are these terms acceptable?”
King Tauf nodded once, jaw set.
“I assume this concludes our business?” Varis folded his hands.
“Not exactly. I still need to meet King Mezerath and his—my nephew.” Tauf cleared his throat.
“Word of advice, then.” Ghreid stood up, extending a hand to his mate. “Don’t threaten them to get what you want. Be straightforward and you’ll find them to be very generous. And Asha can be a little… Trampled. He wasn’t given a very good life before Rath.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a guard to send to be retrained and housed, contracts to sign, and my mate to soothe before his temper rubs off on our young.” Ghreid took Varis’s hand for a soft kiss and escorted him out, glass crunching underfoot, each step reminding him of his fierce mate.
The fates have chosen well for me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Varis
“I really want to go for a flight, dear.” Varis sighed as he leaned against a silk cushion, staring at the sparse ships bobbing in the bay’s gentle waters.
In just the weeks since the Rammolian convoy had arrived, so many things had happened. And even more hadgrown. Varis rubbed a hand over the fullness of his belly, pushing out over the belt of his pants with a firm, aching quality and slightly misshapen in a way that made it difficult to breathe at times.
Because they owed a debt to a dragon, Rammolia was under their control, in a way. Their entire shipping network, state funded, would forever and always be owned in part by Sauria.Silly humans.Even Varis knew that much.
Never bargain with the fae nor owe a debt to a dragon.
“You need to lay there, relax, and enjoy the sedentary luxuries, my love. Birthing eggs isn’t an easy task, nor is carrying them.” Ghreid, ever the doting mate, swept from his place nearby with a ledger and notebook and placed the well-worn leather down on expensive velvet with hypnotizing grace.
“Sedentary?” Varis lifted a brow and hummed as a heavy knee sank into the goose down and horsehair stuffing. A quill somewhere poked Varis, and he adjusted his hips, the gesture immediately mistaken for something far more erotic than it was if the heat in Ghreid’s golden eyes flaring to life had anything to comment.
A win is a win.Varis’s thoughts didn’t stray far from his belly full of eggs and his mate. And since his fathers had gone back to Kaliman, it was easy to take their leisure in any room they desired. Especially when Ghreid caged him in with shaking arms, breath heated and drawing free in little flutters, as if hewere sniffing the air around him for some hidden sign. “Speak, dragon. What is it you wish of your lowly mate?” Varis feigned as he leaned his head back and yelped as clawed fingers struggled to draw his fitted trousers to his knees. The material rolled on its way as already-stretched lacings slacked.
“Do not speak ill of my treasure. You are my crowned jewels.” Ghreid bristled as he leaned down, still sniffing, hand wandering his flank with the barest of pricking nails. With a gentle ripple, a change overcame the hand on Varis’s outer thigh, and newly blunted fingertips dug into soft and ample flesh.
The scent of arousal, musky flesh, and sweetness caressed Varis’s senses. Each beat of his heart pulsed and pushed blood south. And carrying eggs had made him far more amorous. Scientifically, there should have been a reason, a need to be with his mate that way. “Well, your scepter could use some polishing.”
“You’ve not let a patina gather on it a day since you realized you were carrying.” Ghreid leaned down to kiss Varis’s neck as he roughly pinned Varis’s legs in the tangled trousers, pushed him onto his side and engaged his fingers in a gentle journey over his ass and back. They glided between his cheeks, his rough digits no doubt finding his slickness.
“And you’ve not left me alone, either.” Varis closed his eyes, the dimming light from outside throwing a beautiful sunset of colors that made Ghreid sparkle at the right angle. So, when Varis peeked over his shoulder to take it all in, he lost himself in adoring eyes and tense jawline, holding back from having his way as rough as the animal he could be.
“C-can’t leave you alone. I need you.” Ghreid slid two fingers into his waiting channel, rocking them gently into his inner gland.
Lightning shot up his spine, intense sensation aching in his cock with every nudge. “Ghreid… Don’t. Get inside me, please. I won’t last like this…”
“What’s wrong, love?” Ghreid drew his fingers back and guided his cock into place. He could use more prep, always could, but in the heat of the moment, Varis felt things so intensely that he couldn’t handle foreplay at times. A finger alone pushing against that magical spot had his entire core tightening, winding like a wringer, squeezing cum from him in a way like nothing else could.
“Gonna—” Varis threw his head back with a wild moan, his entire body shaking. “I’m…”
“Not yet!” Ghreid adjusted Varis’s legs, pinning his knees together just enough to make things uncomfortable. The pressure kept him stable, pleasure quivering at the tip of his peak, where one wrong move would inevitably send him falling.
Sweat, tickling his brow, beaded, a wet rivulet sliding down his neck. Both Ghreid’s hands pushed into view, clenching the cushion of the couch with one hand and the back with another, a strained look dominating his wild face. “If you weren’t already filled with my eggs, I feel I could do it again right on the spot.”
Varis gasped and flinched as his cock pulsed a streak of pre-cum, balls aching for release. Even still, he held back. Magic told him to. With each passing moment, the urge grew stronger, and Ghreid sheathed himself in Varis with a few gentle strokes of his hips.
There. That was heaven.
Pleasure boiled through Varis, a maze of it that he navigated with breathless ease. The prickle of the odd quill bit into his back, a reminder he still lay on that plane, cock pulsing to the rhythm of Ghreid’s desperate thrusts.
