Rion Page 4

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  He increased the tempo. Upped the friction.

  She exploded right into his mouth and had to clamp shut her lips to deaden the scream. Pleasure strong and sharp consumed her, shook her, racked her with spasm after spasm. And she rode the wave to the end, taking in every last rift and eddy.

  When she opened her eyes, Rion grinned and with a sparkle in his eyes he shoved her clothes into her hands. “You’ve got two minutes.”

  “But”—she glanced at the bulge in his pants—“what about you—”

  “I can wait.”

  His words implied there would be a next time, and warm, happy heat flowed over her. “You sure?”

  “The first time I’m inside you isn’t going to be a rush job.” His gray eyes glinted pure silver. “I plan to take my time.”

  That sounded like a very good plan. A plan she could look forward to. Who would have thought that after years of being alone, she could feel so alive again?

  She might have felt like skipping and singing, but she dressed quickly, then opened the door, bracing for her brother’s wrath. But to her relief, Lucan and Cael still hadn’t returned.

  Good. She and Rion would have another few moments of privacy.

  “You were wonderful.” Standing on her tiptoes, she threw her arms around Rion’s neck, fully intending to kiss him.

  But before her mouth touched his, he staggered sideways. Had he stumbled? No. Rejected her? No.

  He clutched his arm almost as if it were broken, his face racked in terrible pain. His lips twisted into a grimace, and she suspected that if he hadn’t clutched the wall, he would have fallen.

  “Rion?” Totally baffled, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” His voice raspy, his eyes glazed with pain, he yanked from her touch, staggered toward his room. “I have to… go.”

  The truth lies somewhere between Earth, Pendragon, and Honor.

  —ANONYMOUS

  5

  With the sting of a million wasps, fiery pain burned through Rion. His tormented muscles jerked. The pain-induced blindness had him certain he was about to pass out, but he staggered into his room and closed the door before he collapsed.

  Agonizing jolts of energy ripped through his system. Blinding blasts of purple fired his optic nerves. He jerked on the floor, his limbs spasming. Sweat broke out under his arms and across his chest, then streamed down his neck.

  Sweet Goddess. He gritted his teeth.

  “Are you okay?” Marisa’s voice trembled with concern from the other side of the door. When he didn’t answer, she pounded on the wood, tested the knob. “Let me in.”

  “I’m… fine.” He spoke between gritted teeth. “Go back to the babies.”

  “Lucan and Cael just returned. And if you don’t open this door right now, I’m going to get Lucan.”

  He winced. “Hold on.”

  Shoving to his knees, he gasped as more needle-like pains stabbed his optic nerve. He dragged himself to his feet and yanked open the door. “Told you. I’m fine.”

  And with that emphatic statement, he fell backward and cracked his head on the floor. Tiny red stars exploded behind his eyes, and bolts of pressure made his head feel like his skull would explode.

  Marisa leaned over him, her cool palm pressed to his forehead. “You’re burning up.” Her clothing rustled, and he blinked hard to see that she’d shoved back to her feet and hovered over him, her tone worried yet calm. “I’m calling for help.”

  “No.” He grabbed her ankle and groaned as pain shot up his neck and into his brain. “Give me… a… minute.”

  “You need a doctor.” She yanked her foot to get away.

  “No.” He gripped her ankle, refusing to release her, his anchor in a world of pain. “Don’t…”

  Her tone softened. “At least let me bring you some water.”

  He watched her hurry to his kitchen, grab a bottle of water from the fridge. As promised, she returned and twisted off the cap.

  Sitting beside him, she scooted under him, until his head rested in her lap. “Drink.”

  Cool fluid trickled down his parched throat. He’d never tasted anything so delicious. “Thanks.”

  Worry radiating from her every pore, she demanded, “Tell me what else to do for you.” Her voice was hard, but her hands smoothed across his forehead in tender circles.

  Ignoring the pain, he focused on her gentle touch. Enjoyed the softness of her thighs cradling his head, her sweet female scent. Her concern for him.

  Slowly, finally, the searing pain faded.

  “I’m recovering.” He paused. “Pain’s fading fast.”

  “Good.” Questions burning in her eyes, she ran her hands through his hair.

  He used the silence to gather his strength. To regroup. Guilt stabbed him, and he quashed it. Now more than ever, he had to stay on plan.

  She offered him more water. Lifting his own head this time, he sipped, then lay back in her lap, letting her thighs pillow his head.

  Biting her lip with worry, she peered into his face. “So was that one of your flashes? Because if so, you forgot to tell me about the part where you look like you’re frying from the inside out.”

  “It wasn’t a flash.” Thank the Goddess.

  “Then what happened?”

  “The Unari invasion took us by surprise.”

  She tensed in concern, and the furrows between her eyes deepened. “Rion, you aren’t making sense. You aren’t on Honor. This is Earth.”

  “I know.” He had to get a grip. “You need a bit of history to understand what just happened.” He continued, “During the first days of conquest, the Unari destroyed Honor’s communications and closed down our transporter, preventing Honor from asking our allies for help. With the transporter down, I had to try and escape the Unari in a creaky spaceship left over from the old days.”

  “What does that have to do with the pain you just went through?”

  “I’m getting to that.” He paused. Distilling his four-year quest into a neat explanation took some doing. “My spaceship needed repairs, so I flew to Tor, the closest planet to Honor in our solar system. While engineers retrofitted my ship, I had a vision that suggested I might not return for many years.”

  “Are you saying Tor wouldn’t help?” she asked.

  He shook his head. A mistake that he paid for with a residual slicing pain. “Our worlds have been enemies since the time of King Arthur.”

  “But then why did you go there?”

  “My ship wouldn’t fly any farther. And though I couldn’t use Tor’s transporter, Honorians have some friends on Tor.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following.”

  “The conflict between our worlds is an old one. According to legend, long ago, a man named Gareth had two sons—one ruled Tor, the other Honor. During an ancient war with the Tribes, the father had the resources to save only one world. He chose Honor, a world of dragonshapers, over Tor, a world of people who couldn’t morph. Since then, there have been many wars between our planets. To this day, Tor both covets and fears our dragonshaping abilities.”

  “So while you were on Tor, you couldn’t dragonshape?”

  “Luckily, the Toran engineers rebuilt my ship before morphing became necessary.”

  “Did you convince the Torans you were one of them?”

  He shook his head. “Some of them, like Phen, my contact on that world, want peace between our planets.”

  “I see.” She wasn’t certain she did, but she allowed him to tell the story in his own way.

  “But with communications out on Honor, I still needed a way for my people to contact me.”

  “In case of an emergency?”

  “Exactly. So Phen found a doctor to implant a communication and translation device into my arm.” He touched the lump on his forearm and placed her fingertips there. “This is why I can understand and speak your language.”

  Blu
e eyes curious, she gently traced the bump. “The device sends messages to you from home?”

  “I wish.” He sighed. “We modified the language translator to receive a simple onetime alert. We weren’t sure it would even work. The device was never engineered to be more than a last-ditch effort to contact me. The situation on Honor must have gone critical.” His gut churned. He had to go home.

  She caressed his arm. “Maybe you should have one of our doctors remove—”

  He rubbed away the last of the stiffness from his arm. “I wasn’t supposed to experience that kind of pain. The transponder must have malfunctioned, but it’s now harmless.”

  “Good.” In direct contradiction to her words, her eyes suddenly narrowed with suspicion, and she removed her fingers from his arm. “But if that device translates language, and it just died, then how come you’re still speaking English?”

  Did her suspicions stem from dealing with her ex? Or did she suspect Rion’s motives?

  Rion recalled her passionate kisses, her warmth, her taking care of him while he’d been in pain. No. She couldn’t suspect his motives, or she wouldn’t be with him now.

  His guilt was making him anxious. And his worry over the deteriorating situation back home had him off balance. Still, he’d give everything he had not to hurt her again. At least this question he could answer honestly. “After being immersed in your language for six months, I know English.”

  She accepted his explanation with a simple nod. As the tautness in her shoulders eased, she resumed playing with his hair. “So this contact, Phen, I assume he wouldn’t panic for no reason?”

  “Exactly. The transponder’s activation just confirmed my vision might already be coming true. I have to get home. The sooner the better.”

  “You still don’t have proof,” she insisted softly. “Maybe a design flaw set off the transponder.”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “But if the Tribes jammed all communications, and Phen is on Tor, how does he know what’s happening on your world?”

  “Phen’s resourceful. If anyone can find a way to stay in touch, it’ll be him.” Rion swiped a hand over his face. Clearly his vision and the transponder’s emergency signal weren’t enough proof to convince Marisa of the coming disaster.

  Tamping down his sense of urgency, he forced himself to move slowly. He shifted to the side and pulled Marisa into his arms until he was close enough to see her eyes sparkle. Ever so delicately, her nostrils flared, encouraging him closer, until he was breathing in her crisp strawberry scent.

  She placed a hand on his chest. “You’re thinking about kissing me again.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He allowed a slight smile to play over his mouth.

  “Good.” She grinned saucily. “Because for a minute back there I thought that overloaded circuit must have fried your brain. But now I can see you’re back to normal.”

  She lifted her head, and their eyes met and locked. Her pupils dilated, and a rosy flush rose up her neck.

  He slid his hand to her nape, and a soft tendril of her hair tickled his wrist. Tingling with anticipation, he wanted to get her naked all over again and finish making love.

  And yet he needn’t go that far. Satisfying his own needs wasn’t really necessary. But there was nothing wrong with satisfying his lust, either.

  Angling his head, he looked straight into her eyes. And while his fingers delved into her hair, he brought her closer. Close enough to breathe in her sweet exhalation.

  He dropped his head until his lips were within an inch of hers. Catching a dangling tendril of hair between his thumb and forefinger, he played with it, grazing her cheek, her neck, her ear with his fingertips.

  “Stop. That tickles.”

  “Whatever you say.” But he swirled the curl around his finger, watched the pulse in her neck leap.

  Her lips softened. “Quit playing around. Are you certain you don’t need a doctor?”

  “Yes.” Nuzzling aside her hair, he whispered in her ear. “And I’m not playing. How about dinner?”

  She blinked, licked her bottom lip, and frowned. “Dinner?”

  “You know, when two people sit down together for a meal, share a bottle of wine, and talk over food,” he teased. “How about tomorrow night?” He’d have suggested something sooner, like breakfast, but he couldn’t arrange everything that quickly.

  Her gorgeous eyes sparkled with happy confusion. “You’re asking me out?”

  “We’d have food. Good food. And excellent wine.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “And then for dessert, I’m going to kiss you again. Only this time I won’t be rushed.”

  Turning, she placed her hand on his shoulder, slid her palm up his neck, and slipped her fingers into his hair. “I like to have my dessert first,” she said with a breathy sigh. “That way, we won’t be losing sleep wondering…”

  He didn’t know about the not-losing-sleep part, but he wasn’t arguing. He’d given being noble a shot. This was her choice. She was offering her sweet mouth to him. And she tasted smooth and rich and heady, kissing with a red-hot heat that almost succeeded in driving his mission from his mind.

  A pounding on the door broke them apart. “Marisa!” The hard edge in Lucan’s voice shot her scrambling to her feet.

  Rion swore under his breath.

  Lips bee-stung from Rion’s kisses, she flung open the door. “What’s wrong?”

  Lucan, still in a dark suit, black shirt, and white tie, burst into the room. “Marisa, we need you. The dragonshapers are going wild.”

  Relief washed over Rion. He didn’t want to have to deal with an angry Lucan.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked Lucan.

  He tugged his sister into the hallway and kept walking. “The females are drawing blood over food. The males have gone berserk. They’re biting and clawing and ripping one another apart to get to the females.”

  “I don’t understand,” Marisa muttered, hurrying to keep up with her brother’s longer stride. “This has never happened before.”

  “Hurry. You have to calm them down before the guards shoot them out of the sky or they kill one another.”

  Beware the man with the gift of sight, for knowledge is a dangerous thing.

  —HIGH PRIESTESS OF AVALON

  6

  According to Marisa’s schedule board, the crowded sky should have been empty. But overhead, dragons bellowed fire, their mighty wings maneuvering them to take tactical advantage of deadly claws and razor-sharp teeth.

  Marisa stood beside Rion on the university’s grass field, trembling with the effort of sending her telepathic message to over a dozen dragons. No biting. No fighting.

  Lust blasted her through the telepathic link. Primal fury ricocheted down the connection. With three giant males fighting over one female, blood dripped from beaks, claws, and necks.

  So far, the guards had refrained from shooting the dragons with tranqs, but their trigger fingers were ready, the weapons aimed. Marisa spoke to the guards over the radio. “Stand down. I’ll deal with them.”

  The guards lowered their weapons but remained alert. Wary.

  Marisa turned her attention back to the dragons. Calm yourselves. Control the primal urges. You are dragons, but you are also human.

  To her right, four females battled. This time over turf and platinum pellets. The females were about Marisa’s age but they outweighed her by twenty tons.

  Share the platinum. There’s enough for all.

  Marisa kept her messages short and simple. In dragon form, their brains were primitive, and more complicated thoughts became difficult to process. At least the females sheathed their claws.

  But the males flew straight up, then engaged in a deadly air battle filled with squawks of pain, flapping wings, and bellows of fury. They weren’t listening to her. She wasn’t getting through.

  Two dragons shot fire at each other, and the air reeked of burned flesh and roars of rage. If Marisa didn’t stop them, the dragons were going to kill
each other.

  Stop it. Stop. Stop.

  The male dragons broke apart. Had her own fear gotten through? Relief filled her.

  But then three males dived straight at Marisa, their deadly mass targeting her.

  No.

  She held up her hand, signaling the guards to hold. At the same time, she closed her eyes as the dragons flew at her in attack formation. I am your friend. Friend. Friend.

  As a huge roar rolled like thunder across the sky, she opened her eyes and gasped. The largest dragon she’d ever seen had placed his body between the three angry males and Marisa.

  She recognized the clothes on the ground beside the massive dragon. That dragon was Rion. He’d dragonshaped. And now, rearing up on his hind legs, he trumpeted his fury.

  But even with his tremendous wings and fierce bellow, he couldn’t defeat three blood-hungry dragons. Not if he stayed rooted to the ground. An easy target.

  Fly. She shot him a message.

  Not leaving you.

  The guards fired tranqs at the three attacking males. And missed. Their darts fell short, unable to reach the dragons barreling down on them. No way could Rion stop them; it was like a semi-truck trying to stop a freight train.

  While the guards reloaded, Marisa pleaded with Rion. If you don’t fly, you’ll die. We’ll both die.

  Rion roared fire, his flames flaring across the sky in bright reds and fiery oranges, singeing the attacking trio.

  Fear sliced Marisa until she trembled with it. Fear. Fear. Fear.

  Just as the guards fired again, one of the attacking dragons swerved right, the other left. The third pulled up short, tumbled.

  Thank God. They’d broken off the attack.

  Still shaking, her fear easing, she sent soothing praise. Good work. You did well. We don’t fight. We are friends.

  Marisa sighed with relief. “That was close.”

  “Too close.” Rion humanshaped and tugged on the clothes he’d left behind.

  She flung herself into his arms. “You idiot. You could have died.”

  His arms closed around her, warm and powerful. She felt safe as he gathered her close and murmured, “You’re shaking.”