Claimed by the Dragon King (High House Draconis Book 5) Read online

  “So fucking sexy,” he growled in that deep, throaty rumble that men developed when they were fully aroused. “Goddamn, Kyla you’ve got one hell of a body, and I like fucking it.”

  The crude comment would never have flown with her normally, but in the moment it just made her want him more.

  “Harder,” she urged, craving him in her deeper, lusting for that feeling that spread out as his hips slammed into the back of her legs. It was so base, so primal, and she let him know it, wordless cries urging him on.

  “Kyla…” he gasped after a few minutes, though he didn’t stop.

  She knew what that meant. “Don’t you dare stop,” she begged. “I’m so close.”

  Galen just nodded, a jerky, twitchy movement now that he was close.

  Without warning, he snaked a hand through her arms, and another under her waist. With a mighty roar, he lifted her clear of the bed. She hung face-down in mid-air, knees still up near her face, held aloft by two powerful arms.

  She bounced wildly every time his hips slammed into her. Never before had she been so manhandled, so treated like nothing more than an object, and it lit her body on fire. Kyla’s walls tightened almost immediately and she knew she was going to come hard.

  Galen swelled inside her and she lost control. Her body was immobilized under his control, but she spasmed and writhed like crazy as he pounded into her from behind. Warmth exploded inside her and almost immediately began dripping down her legs, but she didn’t care, her screams bouncing off the walls as Galen came.

  He roared her name, the sound giving her another minor orgasm all on its own as he thrust into her with lightning speed, emptying his load deep inside.

  Then all at once he was done and they crashed down onto the bed side by side, his arms still holding her still, cock still all the way inside her.

  Both of them heaved for breath, unable to do anything but focus on keeping their lungs pumping as their endorphin-riddled brains began to shut down.

  “Wow,” she said quietly after a minute or two had passed. “That was something else.”

  She could feel Galen breathing behind her, but his only response was to withdraw from her. She felt his contribution coating her leg, but it only brought back memories of what had just occurred.

  “You sir,” she said with a half-crazed laugh. “You are pretty damn good. My, oh my.”

  When Galen still didn’t say anything, or make any noise, she looked over her shoulder. His eyes were open, and he was staring up at the ceiling. Confused, she rolled onto her back, pressing a palm to his chest.

  “Galen?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  There was no response. Just more of the blank, almost troubled stare.

  “Hey. Galen,” she said, shaking his shoulder, growing worried. What the hell was going on? “Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, the words so quiet she had to strain to hear them. “I’m so sorry Kyla. But I can’t.”

  “You can’t what?” she asked, sitting up. “Galen, what are you talking about?”

  He got up abruptly and moved to a drawer, pulling out pants and a shirt. Slipping them on, he turned to face her.

  “I can’t do this. I’ve made a huge mistake. I’ve betrayed…I’ve betrayed…”

  Then Kyla knew. She understood what he was saying.

  “Your mate,” she said, remembering another bit of information about dragons. They mated once, and only once. “You’re betraying your mate.”

  Galen could only just nod.

  18

  “You have a mate.” She repeated the words. “You have a mate, but we just…”

  Galen looked pained. “Kyla, I…”

  The pain on his face, in his voice, it was very real.

  And it was very much not directed at her, she knew now. It was directed at the woman that he had just betrayed. That she had just betrayed.

  “What have I done,” she moaned, burying her hands in her face, emotions cascading over her in a waterfall, one after another.

  Sadness. Anger. Guilt. Shame. Embarrassment. Rage. Horror. Betrayal.

  “You made me do this!” she cried, clutching one hand to her chest, covering her breasts even as evidence of her wrongdoing continued to leak out from between her legs. “How could you do this to me? How could you put me in this position?”

  It had been stupid of her, of course. Stupid to assume that this could actually work. That someone as attractive as Galen might actually be both single, and interested in her.

  “Turn around!” she snapped, reaching for her clothes as he did just that.

  “Kyla, listen to me,” Galen said, trying to plead with her, but she wasn’t having any of it.

  “No. I’m not going to listen to you,” she said icily. “I can’t trust anything you say, or do. Not anymore. So just keep your mouth shut. I’m going to get dressed, and leave, and then you can go explain everything to your mate. Tell her yourself what you’ve done. She can hate me too, but you had better tell her that I didn’t know,” she growled.

  “Wait. Please. Kyla.” Galen started to turn around.

  A dark red bolt of energy flew past his cheek and scorched the wall beyond.

  “Turn. Around.”

  Although she wasn’t ready to take on the wind dragon, Kyla’s anger was getting to her, and she certainly wasn’t going to let him see her naked again, that much was for sure.

  But Galen resumed facing away, his voice shut off.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, pained.

  “What am I doing?” she yelped, stunned by the question. “I’m getting dressed, then I’m going home. Now. What the hell do you think I’m doing?” she snapped, her one palm glowing dangerously for a moment before she forced a bit of calm through her.

  Attacking Galen was not the answer, as much as she wanted to blast him through the wall to teach him a lesson, to show him just how badly he’d wronged not only her, but his mate.

  Kyla moaned all over again. “You made me a homewrecker, you asshole! You did this to me! How could you be so selfish?!”

  Galen’s shoulders sagged at her accusations, but that only fueled her fury more. “Just when I was starting to think that perhaps dragons aren’t as bad as I’ve always been taught. That perhaps shifters and mages could learn to co-exist in time. Then you go and do something like this, that justifies every warning and story told about you.”

  She snatched up her jacket and staff from where they’d fallen next to the bed and stormed toward the door.

  “How are you going to leave?” Galen asked. “The vampires are still out there.”

  “I’m going to go over one of the other walls as fast as I can. I’ll run to the edge of the wards and open a portal immediately. It will be too fast for them to react,” she said savagely. “Or I’ll blast a path through them and be gone that way. I don’t really care, but I need to go. Now. Away from you. Away from this place,” she ranted.

  “Kyla, please, just…just let me explain,” Galen pleaded, his face bearing a haunted look so unlike anything else she’d seen before that it actually caused her to pause in her steps.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why the hell should I give you anything, let alone a chance to try and convince me why what we just did wasn’t wrong? You are pathetic, and a scumbag. I should never have tried helping you. You and the vampires deserve each other,” she snapped, hurling the last insult at him.

  “You don’t understand,” Galen said, taking a step toward her. “Kyla, please.”

  “Don’t talk to me,” she said. “I understand plenty. It’s you who doesn’t understand. You’re the one who should feel horrible. Who should ask for forgiveness.”

  “I have been,” he said. “Believe me, I have been.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, looking around. “There’s nobody else here. Go ask your mate, Galen. She’s the one you need to ask.”

  With that, Kyla turned and stomped toward the door. A blast of magic pulled it open so she
could storm through it without pausing.

  Just as quickly, a furious blast of wind slammed it back shut and held it there. Kyla turned to see Galen staring at her, looking sick to his stomach.

  “She is the one I’ve been asking,” he said weakly. “Ever since we finished.”

  Kyla frowned. “What are you talking about, Galen? She’s your mate. Go ask her in person.”

  The dragon shifter shook his head solemnly. “No, Kyla. You’re wrong.”

  “I am?”

  “She was my mate,” Galen finished, in the ghost of a whisper.

  19

  He watched Kyla’s face, tracking her thoughts as she interpreted his last words, and what they had to mean to a dragon.

  Seeing her like that, after what they’d done, after everything, had left Galen more distraught than he’d been since…since she died.

  “She was your mate?” Kyla asked.

  Even despite knowing the question was coming, it didn’t do anything to urge the pain that entered his heart as memories beyond counting came to life in his mind. Memories of good times. Memories of bad, and worst of all, memories of the end.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  “I…I’m sorry,” Kyla stammered, obviously not understanding. “But why…I don’t understand.”

  Galen’s lips twitched upward, but it wasn’t a smile. There was no joy in it.

  “And why would you?” he said, asking the question rhetorically. “There’s no reason you should.”

  He looked at the mage, his concentration on the door fading away, leaving it open for her to leave if she wanted.

  But she stayed. Whether by curiosity at his words, or anger not quite satiated, Kyla noted the freedom, but she didn’t move, her attention fixed firmly on him, those gray eyes that just minutes ago had been so open and available to him, now hidden behind an impenetrable wall.

  Galen didn’t think he was wrong about there being something between them. Yet he still wasn’t sure what, and he doubted Kyla would be willing to hang around just to test it out. After all, it shouldn’t be possible for him to find someone again. That didn’t happen to dragons.

  Yet he hadn’t felt this way in a long, long time.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said. “I should not have let this happen. If my willpower was greater, than we wouldn’t be in such a spot. So it’s my fault.”

  Kyla frowned. “Galen, I’m not going to pretend that this hasn’t caught me by surprise, or that I’m confused beyond belief about, well, everything going on in my life since I arrived here, but you did not force yourself upon me. I was a willing participant. I just didn’t realize that…” she shrugged.

  “Perhaps.” He sat down heavily, burying his head in his hands as emotions threatened to well up again.

  Calm. Collected. Controlled.

  He needed to control himself. To rein in those thoughts and feelings, and conduct himself as he had for so many years. To act the way a Dragon King should act. Whatever that was supposed to be, he knew this wasn’t it.

  “Why are you so upset?” Kyla asked softly. “I mean no disrespect, I hope you understand that. But if she is…if she has passed, then why is what we did hurting you so badly?”

  Galen bit his lip. He wanted to tell her, to explain that she was making him feel a certain way, that it had snuck up on him and worked its way through his defenses without Galen even realizing it. That he hadn’t had sex in a very long time.

  “I gave into something tonight,” he said softly, looking up with as much calm and control as he could muster. “Something I have avoided for longer than I care to admit. I haven’t let myself indulge, because that would not be right.”

  Kyla frowned. “I don’t understand. Why is it not right? There’s nothing wrong about two consenting adults doing what we’re doing. What we did,” she corrected.

  Yes. Past tense. Because whatever we had going on, I’ve ruined it with all this. As it should be. I do not deserve this. My focus needs to be on my people, not myself!

  “I’ve betrayed her memory, Kyla, can’t you understand that?” he said, getting up, feeling his confidence return. He was right to feel awful for what he’d done. To admit that he’d enjoyed it.

  “No,” she said softly. “No, I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  “Dragons only mate once. Once. For life. Everyone knows that,” he explained. “Yet here I am feeling…doing…things. Things that I have spent centuries preventing myself from doing, to ensure that her memory was honored. Respected.”

  Kyla’s eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t had sex in centuries?” she gasped, stunned at his admission.

  “No,” he said, not appreciating her disbelief and inability to believe he would do something like that. “It wasn’t right.”

  “Galen. Did you never ask yourself what she might want for you? What she might wish you would do with your life, since she’s unable to be in it? Wouldn’t she want you to be happy?”

  Galen snorted. “I doubt she would be happy that the first time I lay with somebody after her death, was with someone like you.”

  Even as the words came out, he started to backtrack. “Wait. Wait!” he said, holding up a hand as Kyla’s eyes blazed with fury.

  “You had better have a very good explanation for those words,” she hissed. “And you’d better give it now.”

  “Old prejudices,” he said quietly. “My feelings toward mages have been altered by more than just the war as a whole.”

  Kyla’s glared only intensified. “That’s not an explanation.”

  “Don’t you get it?” he growled. “You were the worst possible choice for me to sleep with.”

  “That’s not doing any better,” Kyla pointed out, her eyes practically glowing silver with fury. “Are you saying that it was bad?”

  “No!” he shouted, struggling with the words. He sucked at this. “I enjoyed it. It was good. Really good. But that’s the problem. I enjoyed sex. With a mage.”

  Kyla’s anger faded into confusion. “So? I’m still a woman, Galen.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said softly.

  “So make me!” Kyla cried in frustration. “Stop dancing around the point and just tell me. Talk to me. Make me understand! Quit the tiptoeing around!”

  “She was killed by a mage!” he snapped, getting to his feet, anger filling him as he remembered the war, the surprise attack. Attempting to flee, his mate in his arms.

  The bolt of blue magic that he’d not seen coming. Galen had tried to turn, to take the impact. To sacrifice himself for his mate so that she might live. But he’d been too slow. He’d watched with horror as she died, right there, in his arms.

  Now he’d betrayed her memory by sleeping with a mage, who made him feel the exact same way his mate had, centuries later. It was all too much. Too much to handle, to take in.

  He stormed out of the room, angry at himself, at his weakness, but also for the way he was treating Kyla. She didn’t deserve any of this, because she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  But most of all, as he pushed past the mage and out into the Keep, Galen felt another emotion. Stronger than all the others, and weighing heavily on his shoulders.

  What he felt most was shame.

  20

  Kyla stood stock still. The seconds ticked by, and nearly a minute passed before she turned to look out the door into the Keep’s hallways.

  “What the fuck just happened?” she asked the room, leaning back, letting her shoulders and then head thud against the wall as she stared up at the high ceilings, confused and yet understanding all at the same time.

  You need to leave.

  It was that time now, she had no doubt. There was no point in staying. Galen didn’t want her there, not when she would remind him of his long dead mate.

  “Centuries,” she whispered. How the hell could someone go that long without sex? It boggled the mind, the willpower needed to endure a celibacy lasting that long.

  Grief will do a
lot to mess with a person’s head though. Don’t forget that. Still. Centuries?

  She shuddered at the thought of what Galen must have put himself through to stay pure and honor his mate.

  Kyla wondered if she could do the same for such a long period of time. It seemed…foreign to her.

  And yet. Yet if she truly loved someone in a way that she’d not experienced yet, maybe that would seem like the way to go? Knowing that no one else would ever make her feel the way that person had, why would she want to put herself out there? Knowing it would only ever be disappointing.

  Galen had said he’d enjoyed the sex, but that was understandable. Physical desires were often unrelated to mental, even more so in men. It was possible that he had enjoyed sleeping with her body, but didn’t care about her mind.

  Yes, of course, that’s what it is. If dragons only ever mate once, than I’m not, I cannot be, anything more than a body to him.

  Gathering herself, Kyla moved out of Galen’s room. She would never be coming back here, not just his room, but the Keep as a whole. It wasn’t a place for her, that much was clear to her now.

  She was starting to learn the layout now, and after a few wrong turns, ended up in the large hallway that she knew would lead her out of the Keep.

  “Kyla.”

  The feminine voice preceded a rapid set of footsteps as someone came out of another side hallway and chased her down.

  Chased might have been a bit inaccurate, Kyla realized as she turned, noting the swollen belly of the woman coming after her in hot pursuit.

  “Can I help you?” she asked politely.

  Despite having spent several days in the Keep, her time had mostly been confined to dealing with the dragons, and though she’d seen the woman in passing, Kyla had no idea of her name or who she was, besides the mate of one of the dragons.

  “I just passed Galen in the hallway,” the woman said, pushing her long silvery-white hair back over her shoulder. “He didn’t even acknowledge me. Looked horrible. Is everything okay?”