“As is your little bottom hole,” he murmurs in my ear. “Especially with my jewel inside.”
“Driok.” I moan his name as he teases the jewel once again and it sends me spiraling towards yet another climax.
“I make you a promise, little mate, and I will keep it. You are mine, and my name will always be on your lips, as yours will be on mine.”
DRIOK
Maggie stares out of the bridge window at the stars. I have modified the seating so it is easier for her, especially as she seems to grow larger every day.
This wasn’t my plan. Had the burst engines been working, we would have caught up with my crew and the original ship by now. I have to hope they are still where the information provided by the baron says they are.
I have to hope the information is correct. All I have to go on is a feeling within my gut which says if our enemies were to take everything from me…there is only one place they would go.
“My spitfire.” I join her in the second chair, staring into space. “I have something to tell you.”
“If it’s about the food dispenser, I know you’ve been eating more than me,” she says. “Which is fine because you are bigger than me.” Her hand rubs over her stomach. “Even like this.”
“It’s not about the food dispenser. It’s about the place we’re going.”
“What about it?”
My heart thumps against my chest, needy, wanting all of this to be over so my mate and I can raise our sarkarnlings on Vorostor without any enemies, and without any battles.
It is time for peace. It is time I stopped being a warlord.
“You cannot come with me.” I put my hand over hers, the one resting on her stomach. “I cannot risk you and our sarkarnling.”
She stares at me and then shakes her head. “If you think you’re going alone…”
“I do think that,” I respond. “And you know it to be true.”
“I…I can’t let you go.” Words tumble out of her. “Perhaps we should have kept the Gryn....”
“This is no one’s fight except mine.” I give her hand a gentle squeeze. “I thought I knew it all, but as it happened, our enemy was one step ahead.”
“You were betrayed.”
“I should have considered it an option, rather than relying on my belief no one crosses a Sarkarnii. It was a stupid belief anyway, one I can’t quite recall the reason I held it.”
Maggie coughs. “Ego.”
I shrug. “Perhaps.”
She barks out a laugh. “If you have to say perhaps, then it was ego, Driok. You thought you were invincible. But it doesn’t take much, even one tiny betrayal, maybe one which wasn’t even a betrayal to the person doing it, in order for a house of cards to fall.”
“A house of cards?” I study her face.
“It’s a human thing. We have small pieces of stiff paper…parchment…which can be used to build a tower, or a house as we call it. But the paper isn’t held together by anything other than balance, so if there’s a gust of wind, or the slightest touch, the tower falls. It’s a reminder to build on strong foundations.” She looks at my hand on hers. “Not ego.”
“Humans have some strange customs.”
“You’re telling me.” Maggie forces a smile. “But we don’t have dragons.”
“You have a dragon.” I hold her hand a little tighter.
“One who wants to bugger off and do it all by himself.”
“Well, actually…” I say. “Not quite all by myself.”
