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- Herausgeber: Lynn Burke
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
A breeze from deep in the White Mountains reveals my intended female’s sweet scent after years of giving up hope another dragonblood walks the earth. I soar through the skies in dragon form, intent on claiming my destiny.
I find her camping in the wilderness—in another man’s arms.
My conscience battles my desire to tear the lovers apart, but my inner beast demands I take what belongs to us regardless of the cost to any human being.
But fate has other plans, ones I never dreamed possible.
Newlyweds Jon and Dakota agree to ride out a storm in my fire-hewn home atop a rocky peak. They don’t understand the supernatural energy that draws them to me, nor are they aware dragon shifters aren’t fantasy and that three of the ancient blood are required to breed a hatchling.
Revealing who I am and that a hint of dragonblood simmers within both of their veins uproots their existence and makes them question everything they believe.
Will Jon willingly submit to his alpha whose beast wishes to dominate him? Can Dakota accept she has no choice but to hurt the man she sees as her soul mate?
My destined mates must find the courage to make themselves vulnerable to me, or our legacy—and our species—dies with us.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Drawn by Dragonblood
BLOOD BORN 1
LYNN BURKE
Copyright © 2024 by Lynn Burke
All rights reserved.
Editor: Katherine McIntyre
Proof Reader: Deborah Peach
Cover Artist: Golden Czermak / FuriousFotog
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article, without written permission from the author.
Visit my website at authorlynnburke.com
Contents
1. Elijah
2. Elijah
3. Jonathan
4. Dakota
5. Elijah
6. Jonathan
7. Dakota
8. Elijah
9. Jonathan
10. Dakota
11. Elijah
12. Jonathan
13. Dakota
14. Jonathan
15. Elijah
16. Dakota
17. Jonathan
18. Elijah
19. Dakota
20. Jonathan
21. Elijah
22. Dakota
23. Jonathan
24. Elijah
25. Jonathan
26. Dakota
27. Jonathan
28. Dakota
29. Elijah
30. Jonathan
31. Dakota
32. Jonathan
33. Elijah
34. Jonathan
35. Dakota
36. Jonathan
37. Elijah
38. Jonathan
39. Elijah
40. Dakota
41. Jonathan
42. Dakota
43. Elijah
44. Jonathan
45. Dakota
Epilogue - Elijah
Destined by Dragonblood
About the Author
Also By Lynn Burke
Drawn by Dragonblood
A breeze from deep in the White Mountains reveals my intended female’s sweet scent after years of giving up hope another dragonblood walks the earth. I soar through the skies in dragon form, intent on claiming my destiny.
I find her camping in the wilderness—in another man’s arms.
My conscience battles my desire to tear the lovers apart, but my inner beast demands I take what belongs to us regardless of the cost to any human being.
But fate has other plans, ones I never dreamed possible.
Newlyweds Jon and Dakota agree to ride out a storm in my fire-hewn home atop a rocky peak. They don’t understand the supernatural energy that draws them to me, nor are they aware dragon shifters aren’t fantasy and that three of the ancient blood are required to breed a hatchling.
Revealing who I am and that a hint of dragonblood simmers within both of their veins uproots their existence and makes them question everything they believe.
Will Jon willingly submit to his alpha whose beast wishes to dominate him? Can Dakota accept she has no choice but to hurt the man she’s loved most of her life?
My destined mates must find the courage to make themselves vulnerable to me, or our legacy—and our species—dies with us.
Elijah
I stood on my veranda, arms useless at my sides and my shoulders sagging.
The anniversary of my greatest heartbreak had once more arrived, ripping through my chest with talons sharper than any dragon’s claws. I stared unseeing across the White Mountains where my cave-like home had sat unnoticed by humans for close to four centuries, my mind lost in past memories that intensified the ache my lover had left behind.
Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” filtered through the sliding doors I’d left open behind me, worsening the intensity of my loneliness.
I had first heard the song in September of 1939 by radio broadcast and promptly fell in love with the haunting, passionate piece—and the dragonblood beta who had sat beside me at the time.
We’d had over seventy years together, and still, he’d left as though the time we’d spent as partners held no meaning. No letter or verbal explanation of where he’d gone or why, but I understood his unspoken troubles, what had kept us from bonding as we’d both been desperate for fate to allow regardless of the fact we weren’t true mates.
I’d been born a royal alpha, intended to lead and protect. He was of a lesser family but a self-declared alpha all the same. He had never submitted himself fully to me in our bed and dungeon, but I’d felt sure if we had only located our third, a fertile female, we would have found fulfillment.
It took three dragonblood to create life, an accomplishment I would never be able to claim. I had let my three parents down—and every other Blood Born who’d perished over the years since my birth.
Releasing a sigh, I hung my head, my eyes as heavy as my heart.
Need.
My throat tightened at my inner dragon’s quiet whimper that echoed the isolation I felt in my soul.
After ten years of searching for my lover, I’d given up hope of his return and had given in to my beastly desires to seek out release elsewhere. I had stuck to females since I would never trust another male who got on his knees for me.
The last woman I had allowed myself to enjoy ended up bruised and exhausted because I’d lost control to my inner beast’s darker side. Even though I had left a large monetary gift to cover expenses while she healed from the cane she’d begged me to use, I’d yet to rid myself of the guilt for allowing my dragon to control my human’s better sense.
There would be no more rope or pain play to give pleasure, I had told my dragon. No more fragile humans, and definitely no giving into my animalistic desire to conquer and dominate.
Wrapping my inner beast in mental shackles had kept others safe since that affair, but his daily pleadings for release beyond my own hand wore my determination thin.
As far as I was aware, I was the last of my kind. The only ancient dragonblood with breath in their lungs. And I would die alone, never having scented or seen either of my mates that fate should have supplied for me to keep our kind from extinction.
My dragon snarled at my pessimism, but I’d given up hope after scouring the earth for proof otherwise.
“Enough,” I muttered, my tone not allowing him to argue further.
Same as every year, I would wake in the morning, my mind once more set on making the world a better place for humanity since they would outlive the last of the Blood Born.
I turned from the edge of my veranda, intent on the numbness of sleep, my bare feet shuffling along the worn stone patio.
A breeze caressed my cheek like a silken fingertip—and brought with it a scent of sweetness that stirred my blood. The coolness wrapped around my heated, naked body, raising the hairs on my nape and arms and causing my pulse to thrum.
Yessss.
Spinning, I inhaled deeply, sensing the one I had longed for and never expected to find.
Mate.
“Our female,” I agreed with my inner beast, elation making my emotions soar higher than my dragon’s wings had ever physically taken us.
A rumble sounded in my chest as I once more filled my lungs —my heart and mind—with who she was. All the subtle nuances of her floating on the breeze revealed to my mind exactly as my alpha father had promised would one day occur.
Longer golden hair framed her pale face. Her eyes shimmered between blue and hazel green. I couldn’t tell exactly which color and couldn’t wait to find out that truth once I pinpointed her location and claimed her.
Lush curves and…muscular?
Eyelids falling closed to better sharpen my focus, I fought to retain the image her scent had brought. Wide, child-bearing hips, yet her thighs and calf muscles spoke of hours in a gym, more like those of a human man.
She would be sturdy enough to endure my dragon’s darker desires.
A growl-like groan rose from the deepest recesses of my dragon, but I ignored him, grasping to retain more of what our mate’s scent suggested.
My same six-foot-two height?
No.
I frowned, my inner sight hindered by murky, contradicting shadows.
She was not even five and a half feet tall, perfect for me to take her mouth while thrusting deep into her wet heat and breeding her.
Need rushed through my body, awakening hunger I hadn’t felt in over a decade.
I often woke from dreams of my ex-lover who’d abandoned me—the intimate touches, the solidarity of two souls sharing themselves with each other in the most primal of ways, even if they would never be truly bonded.
Would I remember how to caress and stroke soft skin if fate gifted me a chance to know real love? Could I taste the musk between her thighs and open myself fully to a connection where no secrets hid? Or if she proved robust enough, might I allow my inner beast his own pleasure atop my human satisfaction?
Yessss.
Mine.
The pain of loving and losing wasn’t something I desired to experience again, but that didn’t keep my cock from swelling as my dragon pleaded with me with his usual simplistic words.
Seek.
Take.
I opened my eyes and looked in the direction of the wind that had caressed my face. One of my intended mates lay northeast toward the highest peak. Using my dragon-enhanced sight, I scanned every swell of mountain and valley from my vantage point on my cliff home’s veranda, my heart thrumming with growing excitement.
The idea that I wasn’t alone, the truth a female of my kind roamed the earth with me, flooded through my soul, weakening my restraint.
Shift and fly.
Find.
Claim.
My dragon’s insistence snapped through the shackles I’d mentally used to keep him contained. He threw me off the veranda, and I shifted mid-fall toward the rocks below.
The addictive burn of stretching muscle and bone pumped adrenaline through my system. A single flap of wings black as midnight caught the current along the cliff face, and we shot upward as one in a rush of wind, our pulse rushing and focus on finding what belonged to us.
The scales of our body reflected the sky around us, camouflaging our true form from human sight. If one stared closely enough, they might catch a bend of reality, of light around a creature who had secretly roamed the earth for generations without detection.
If only our ancestors had evolved their form of cloaking earlier, the knights of the medieval age wouldn’t have taken us to near extinction. Our alpha father might still be the leader of our kind—we might not be the only dragonblood alive.
We’re not the last of our kind.
My dragon rarely used full sentences as a means of communication, and my inner human grinned, relaxing as we ascended deeper into the wilderness.
Our gaze flitted from dip and valley to rock and cliff, the memory of our mate’s sweet scent teasing us as we rushed through the sky. Mouth open, our tongue dripped saliva in hopes of tasting her on the late summer air once more.
But she escaped us.
The sun set to the west, streaking pink and purple through the sky as we flew high above the White Mountains. We caught sight of countless hikers setting up their camps for the night but none appeared like the vision her scent had brought to us. Nor did we feel the actual physical draw toward the one fate intended for us as my mother had promised I would someday experience.
After darkness fully fell, we returned home, my dragon disheartened and grumbling.
Inky darkness coated the land like a heavy blanket, but I stood in human form at the edge of my veranda. Breathing deeply, I hoped to fill my lungs with the hints of my fated mate’s scent once more.
She escaped me still, the same way my ex-lover had done those years I’d searched for him before giving up.
But I wouldn’t lose hope with my female. Having tasted her on the breeze, being assured she walked the earth as I did, renewed my dreams from childhood that fate would one day gift me my mates. Exhaustion demanded I rest, but I would continue my search in the morning.
I crawled between my silk sheets, the glide of them over my nakedness reminding me of the softness of another body. Flesh and blood.
My throat tightened. I had been so long without companionship or a gentle touch.
She would be sweet. A kind-hearted soul I would treasure forever. I would lay the world at her feet, give in to her every whim, and she in turn would love me. Remain loyal and never leave my side. My female would only ever know my softer nature. She would never experience the darker desires my dragon often whispered in my brain. She would be my love, and I would be her protector.
Would she enjoy a sweeter coupling? Or would she prefer I thrust into her like my darkness desired—wanting to split her in half, my teeth sunk into her neck? Would she ask for more? Beg me to take her harder?
Need.
I groaned in agreement and wrapped my hand around my hard length with a steely grip. Copious amounts of pre-cum oozed from the crown, slickening my moving palm and fingers. Remembering the hazy images her addictive scent had brought to mind, I continued to stroke myself, my hips lifting to fuck my hand as I imagined her pouty lips parting on a cry of ecstasy. Even without our beta, I would strive to breed her, fill her womb with my seed regardless of the action’s futility.
Cum shot from through my aching shaft and coated my chest in thick, sticky ribbons. I groaned with every spurt, my muscles tensing until the fantasy of her sweet body milking my cock drained me dry.
More—need.
“Tomorrow, we will seek and claim,” I promised him in a near silent whisper.
My dragon purred his approval.
Elijah
For two days, I studied the mountains from the sky and on foot but hadn’t located the one I sought. Had fate played an evil trick on me and I imagined our female on the breeze? Was she no more than a figment of my imagination born of heartache and loneliness?
A lazy trail of smoke snaked into the sky, pulling my gaze a couple of miles northeast of my veranda. The setting sun caressed my left cheek as I blinked, bringing into focus the smoke’s origin. Two people sat beside the small fire in the far distance, but from the mile or so separating us, I couldn’t tell their sexes.
The breeze shifted the trees around me, their rustling leaves hiding my cliffside home from view. I breathed deeply.
A blast of cooler evening air hit my face. Hints of the ancient blood ran in her veins, calling to me, and my pulse thrummed lava-like heat through my body.
Her.
“Our golden goddess,” I agreed with a needy growl.
Mine.
I wanted to shift, shredding my jeans and long-sleeve T-shirt, and roar my savage declaration, but she was close enough to hear that I refrained for fear of scaring my precious gem away. Allowing my instincts to control us would be a mistake. I couldn’t cause conflict for the female fate intended for me to protect at all costs.
I strode into my house, grabbed a pullover sweatshirt, a small pack, and a couple of water bottles. One of the two hikers out there belonged to me, and I would claim her by night’s end as I’d promised my dragon.
My strides ate up the land, the rock and moss beneath my feet a blur as I hastened toward my destiny. Mind racing, my thoughts focused on the mostly-human woman I would soon see. Hints of fall cooled the air but it remained warm enough that being outdoors as the sun set wasn’t bothersome. Not that I would have been uncomfortable either way. The dragonblood pumping through my arteries had been born of the earth’s core and couldn’t be cooled until death claimed my spirit and I soared through the cosmos with the others of my kind.
Less than an hour later, the breeze still at my back, I approached another outcropping perhaps two hundred yards from where I had seen the campfire. I pulled up short as the flickering flames came into view. Its smoke trailed away from me, not allowing my nose a hint of its scent or another tease of my female.
Two blond tousled heads peeked from beneath a double sleeping bag beside the ringless firepit—two writhing bodies in the throes of passion if their movements and moans didn’t lie.
Rage roared through me, leaving my animalistic beast incapable of words.
I clenched my teeth, hands fisted at my sides, fighting off the push to shift and take what the human male had no right to touch.
Their erotic dance of two souls already connected held me rapt, arousal lighting a fire within me regardless of my burning jealousy. The female cried out her release, and the male followed with a groan so sensual and fulfilled that my heart stumbled in its beating. Blood rushed into my shaft with a swiftness that left me lightheaded. I palmed my swollen length through my jeans, squeezing away the need to spill my seed inside her. Claim and mark her.
My mate loved another, and he in turn worshiped that which he didn’t own.
Another burst of anger from deep within threatened to reveal me, but I managed to keep my aggravation contained. Knees weakening from the inner battle that made my human side despondent, I slumped onto a rock hidden by the growing darkness.
The couple’s murmurs reached my ears, however, their words remained indistinct as I fought to accept what I had stumbled upon, what fate had so cruelly dangled in front of me only to snatch away.
Mine.
Take.
Throat aching, I stared at the snuggling humans, my dragon obsessed and insistent in ways I’d never heard before.
The male tossed back the top of their sleeping bag, and the images I’d seen through their obviously combined scent I had tasted on the breeze came into view. Not just her with golden locks and lush curves but his muscular, taller form topped by a mess of similar blond, longer hair, the top portion of which he had pulled back into a ponytail.
He was gorgeous from what I could see, but my treasure stood, drawing my full attention.
My mouth dried at the sight of her.
Her petite frame showcased flawless, pale skin, and her perfectly formed breasts would fill my large palms. A small waist gave way to flared hips and a full backside I wanted to enjoy jiggling as I thrust into her slick heat from behind.
She tugged on her clothes, hiding her desirous body from me as joyous laughter reached across the distance to my straining senses. She smiled at her lover, the adoration in the curve of her lips like a knife to my heart. He caressed her cheek, her hair, his touch gentle on the one I was destined to pamper.
But she’d chosen him—and he held her heart.
Claim!
I ignored the inner growling, self-preservation demanding I contemplate rather than act on instinct as I’d done with my ex-partner. But my show of dominance hadn’t kept Dolyn by my side.
Not ours.
I had to agree with my beast’s silent voice, his reminder that a mate chosen by convenience rather than fate would eventually lead to heartache as we had experienced.
Would the one truly meant for me even offer a second glance my way? Would the bonding energy between mates draw her to me, steal her from the male she’d given herself to? Mostly human but for the tiniest fraction, would she even recognize the connection between us? Feel the insistent need to claim me in return?
An ache radiated through my chest. My dragon and I had barely survived when our ex-partner had left. The beast had nearly burned our home in the mountains to mere ash in his sorrow. How much more pain would being denied our true mate inflict?
Torn, I slumped where I sat, unmoving and watching as the two humans prepared a late dinner, their movements in sync as though they had spent centuries together even though they only appeared to be twenty-something. I listened to their indistinct words, their laughter. I studied them as the man banked the fire, and they both crawled inside their sleeping bag a short while later.
I swallowed my pain and jealousy as they curled together, two warm bodies intertwined, intimately sharing space as lovers did.
My dragon moaned his displeasure throughout the long night while I sat in silence, contemplating the situation I found myself in. I ought to leave, take us far from sure grief, but I couldn’t bear to abandon her. Every cell in my body longed for my female mate, and had I been a younger, immature dragon shifter, I would have stolen her without a care for either her or her partner’s feelings as many of my kind had done in centuries past.
But, how could I inflict on the human male the same pain I had lived with for a decade? The suffering, the loneliness of losing the one you shared your life with? I hadn’t been offered a choice—my lover had left without allowing me the opportunity to beg him to stay.
I refused to do the same to another, but by the time the sun rose, my tortured mind needed something to appease both parts of my soul.
Resolution at the very least.
My dragon grumbled like a petulant child, but I held full control over his instinctive impulses to take without thought of another’s heart.
As her alpha, it was my duty to protect her, emotions included. I would give her the chance to choose the mate she should be with or the one she had already attached herself to. It would be her decision as it ought to be, the male’s broken heart her doing, rather than mine.
Weak.
My teeth gritted at my dragon’s claim. Empathy was anything but a downfall. I’d become a better man because of my own misery.
Coercion is the only way.
I refused to bow down to his fears that also gripped my guts. We would show restraint and caution as always, allowing destiny to steer us toward a real bond that would last, unlike a forced one. Pulse racing and palms damp, I drew closer on silent feet, the delicious aroma of a mere hint of ancient blood in the air flooding my mouth with saliva. I could taste her sweetness on my tongue from a hundred yards away.
A low growl rumbled my chest, and I swallowed to silence my beast.
What would it be like once I closed the distance between us and touched her hand in greeting? Would energy crackle between our bodies or pull like a magnet enough to sway my mate into my arms?
Force.
“There will be no forced bonding,” I whispered fiercely, demanding my dragon submit to my human side.
I was well aware being a Blood Born allowed me a way to make our female submit regardless of her hesitations. I’d promised my three parents I would be patient as they’d been with one another rather than manipulating as our kind had done in the past out of fear of our dwindling numbers.
Through all my years, I never believed in any god or higher being, but at that moment, I wished to trust in something bigger, something more than mere chance that my mate would want and accept me as her alpha on her own.
The closer I walked toward the couple, the intensity of the draw shifted to near impossible to resist. With every step, I cared less about the human man’s heartache should my female mate choose the one she’d been destined for.
Those binds on my inner beast weakened as he strained forward.
Mine.
“Yes,” I murmured my agreement, allowing him equal rein over our human form so his senses could at least enjoy her as I would in the coming moments. Shouldering the small pack I’d brought along to make it appear I hiked the mountain trail as the couple did, I moved into sight of their camp, my strides evident of my resolution on having what belonged to us.
The male squatted beside the fire, putting a small pot over the red coals, his pants stretched tight over thick thighs and a plump, peach-like ass made for plundering. My fingers itched to map out his backside.
I swallowed against the sudden desire for him, my pulse thrumming hot through me. “Hello,” I called out, not wishing to frighten him.
His blond head jerked up, and he slowly stood, his blue-eyed gaze meeting mine.
Energy rippled like waves across the short distance separating us and wrapped around my body in a connection stronger than any I’d ever felt in my long life.
I stumbled to a stop as my heart slammed inside my chest, ripping the oxygen from my lungs.
Yessss.
My dragon purred his intense pleasure that flooded through my soul.
Our beta.
I fought to breathe, to accept what fate had gifted me after years of loneliness. The two humans were a bonded pair with ancient blood, in need of their alpha.
And I would find a way to claim them both exactly as my inner beast demanded.
Jonathan
The man standing at the edge of our camp held me captive like a deer in headlights. Couldn’t take my damn stare off him. He had inky black hair and eyes so pale I couldn’t discern their color. Wide shoulders and arms, even with the dark gray sweatshirt encasing them, hinted at muscles twice what I’d managed to build—and I wasn’t exactly a skinny little shit.
His hello had caused goose bumps to ripple across my skin, some sort of inner buzzing like a light switch about to short circuit inside me.
Something about the stranger…excited me?
I couldn’t quite figure it out, but the man exuded energy like a tractor beam, making me want to close the distance between us. Fall to my knees—
I blinked, shaking my head. That couldn’t be right. I’d never been attracted to a man, but I couldn’t deny the lust shooting through my balls.
Unable to find my voice, I dipped my head in greeting.
He took a few hesitant steps and paused less than ten feet away from me. “Sorry to intrude,” he said, his voice a deep bass, the kind women swooned over.
My legs went weak as visions of crawling toward him flooded my brain.
Frowning and locking my entire body up tight, I cleared my throat. “National forest is free to everyone.”
His gaze flitted down over me as if sizing up all six-foot-two of me.
I should have been wary, my usual cynical self. Should have been on edge, but nothing about the stranger or the images flashing through my mind threatened me. I’d always been pretty good at reading people, and even though the man could probably bench press five hundred pounds, his demeanor or stance didn’t appear alarming.
His pale eyes sat deep beneath thick brows. A thin, yet strong nose overlooked full lips, and a few days’ worth of stubble covered his jawline. He was the type of pretty face found on a runway model, yet rugged enough to enter the World’s Strongest Man competition.
Talk about intimidating—and hot as fuck. Even my straight ass couldn’t deny that fact.
What human wouldn’t want to be his sex slave?
We stared at each other for a full minute, neither of us moving. His nostrils flared a few times as though breathing the late summer air deep into his lungs, bracing himself for something. I swore his body heat emanated over the short distance between us, licking at my scruffy face and bare arms, causing goose bumps to rise along my skin.
Dakota’s familiar humming traveled my way as she rounded the boulders she had gone to squat behind, and I tore my attention off the stranger to glance over my shoulder. Head down and rearranging her long-sleeve T-shirt over her leggings, my wife approached.
“Hey, Jon,” she said, lifting her head, “did you—” She pulled up short, her jaw snapping shut as her gaze landed on our visitor. Her pupils dilated, and the pulse in her neck I loved to see throb heightened. Even her nipples tightened into luscious buds. She stared at him, totally enthralled with a man like she’d only been twice in the years I’d known her. Once, when our eyes had first met, and the other with the blond douche who’d been the reason we’d broken up for a short time.
I tensed, waiting for jealousy to knife me in the gut, but nothing stirred, not even a hint. Instead, I understood her reaction to the dark man…there was no denying the warmth of want tingling in my own groin because of his close proximity.
Dakota crossed her arms over her unbound breasts and, blinking, turned her focus on me, gaze troubled. She waited for me to throw a nutty, get all caught up in my head over her looking at someone other than me with even a hint of interest.
But I did. Not. Care.
“This is…uh…” I turned back around toward the monstrous man, one eyebrow raised, my insides a swarm of what the fuck.
“Elijah Tolzman.” He stuck his hand out.
My feet moved me forward as though he held me on his fishing line and reeled me in. “Jonathan Ebel.”
Our palms meshed together with a slow glide, sending a buzzing jolt up my arm and straight down to my dick. I’d expected a battle of the manly squeeze, but he merely clasped his long fingers around mine in a firm but seemingly intimate shake.
Another fantasy lit in vivid color inside my mind from his touch but with darker tones…chains and cuffs. Pain with pleasure.
Lust radiated from my palm to my cock, and I swallowed hard against the sudden lack of moisture in my mouth. Since when did that shit turn me on?
“Nice to meet you,” he said, his low voice sending another bout of shivers across my flesh. His pale eyes—blue as a crisp winter day—skittered over my face as though searching out my thoughts, desperate for them even.
Although he’d clearly been surprised by something at first eye contact with me, the stranger had shut down all emotion on his face except for his inquisitive gaze that caused my body to want to drown in pleasure.
Dakota stepped forward, startling me back to reality.
I tugged my hand away from Elijah’s, remembering that this man and I weren’t alone. How the fuck he’d managed to make me even briefly forget the love of my life, I had no clue.
“My wife, Dakota,” I rasped, putting my hand on her lower back, suddenly feeling the need to physically connect with her and let him know she belonged to me. Or perhaps I needed a reminder that I belonged to her.
“Wife.” A frown flitted over Elijah’s brow, so quick I thought maybe I imagined it. “A pleasure,” he murmured with a slight nod but didn’t offer her his hand.
Dakota’s lips parted as she stared at him.
A sensual smile curved his lips as he studied her wind and sunburned face.
I rubbed my fingertips along her spine, and she glanced up at me, her greenish eyes unsure and hesitant as though fighting off her desire to continue drinking in the dark stranger.
Smiling down at the love of my life came easy when I should have been annoyed as fuck she’d been checking him out. I offered her reassurance while my footing teetered on what felt like the edge of a cliff. She had been mine since the seventh grade. My one and only, and three months earlier, she had vowed before a Justice of the Peace to love me in sickness and in health, in good times and bad—and bad they had been ever since.
We had planned a honeymoon in the Bahamas so she could search for the mermaids she wished existed in real life rather than just the fantasy books she read, but I’d been dismissed from my job mere days after we’d gotten hitched. Definitely not for a lack of work ethic or having been found at fault of jack shit.
My only friend outside Dakota had trusted me with being in charge designing software for a start-up company we’d dreamed to fruition and he’d financed.
He’d been a goddamned flirt, but I’d ignored my inner voice suggesting I put space between the three of us because he signed my paychecks. That poor choice led to my demise when he’d approached me about a threesome without Dakota’s knowledge. I denied him even though we’d shared just about everything else, and he’d sent me packing the next day via a certified letter, dismissing me from his company.
The lessons I’d learned?
One, trust my instincts. Second, rich and powerful men took advantage of anyone and everything to get what they wanted. And finally, never start a new job without clearly lined expectations and a goddamned contract.
But Dakota didn’t know the real reason behind my being fired, and I wasn’t about to tell her the truth of why we struggled to make ends meet. All due to trusting the wrong fucking guy.
Finding work since then had proven impossible, and were it not for her support and love, I probably would have jumped off a bridge over my inability to provide for her. All because I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone having a sampling of what had been mine since childhood.
She was the one good thing I had to my name, and I wasn’t going to open a can of worms by allowing a third person’s lust to tear us apart.
My friend had claimed he simply wanted to fuck, but I knew better. One taste of Dakota, and he would have been addicted for life, same as I was. Her nurturing spirit was calming, her beauty breathtaking, and her sweetness impossible to ignore.
Dakota Ebel was craving personified.
“W-would you care to join us for breakfast?” Dakota asked, pulling me back to the present, her breathless tone betraying her unrest and arousal that should have had me raging with jealousy.
“I’m sure he’s just passing through,” I said at the same time his low, rumbled “I would love to” pebbled my arms again.
Dakota’s smile didn’t reach her hazel-green eyes as she slipped her hand into mine with a tight squeeze of reassurance. She peered up at me in question as though seeking my direction as she often did before making decisions, and being the sap that I was, I nodded.
Did she not know by now that I would give her anything she wanted, everything I could?
“Join us,” I echoed her invite without looking at the stranger, my words easing the tension on my wife’s face. “Please.”
“We’re just having instant oatmeal and some dried fruit,” Dakota said, bending to rummage in my pack and putting her ass on display.
In my peripheral vision, I caught Elijah enjoying the view too.
Again with the lack of jealousy slithering through my guts, but I forced a frown and cleared my throat, feeling the need to show who the alpha was on the small, treeless hill we’d camped upon.
Elijah’s focus flitted to my face. An intensity resided in his gaze, like an ancient wise one who could read souls and futures. The power in those unsettling orbs wasn’t something new to me. I’d been too fond of fortune tellers in my younger years before responsibilities had settled in.
One palm reader had called me a beast, curiosity in her watery eyes as she’d peered at me.
Another had stated an aura of blue like she’d never seen wrapped me tight in its embrace, one she claimed would be covered by a much darker one. She hadn’t been able to tell me what the vision had meant.
My foster mother, who’d been sitting beside me at the time, had laughed at the woman’s words, but Dakota hadn’t when I’d told her the next day at school. She’d been filling her mind full of fairytales about shape-shifters and elves long before I’d met her. She had also insisted she had a sixth sense about some people, and I hadn’t made fun of her when she said she felt as though she ought to know something about someone but couldn’t figure it out. Like a hazy picture in her mind, no matter how hard she focused on certain people, she couldn’t discern whatever it was that teased her brain.
Even though her wandering eyes had never been anything sexual, it was that draw to other people that pissed me the fuck off. Dakota belonged to me and no one else. I even hated sharing her friendship. Call me an obsessed, possessive asshole, but I couldn’t help myself.
When we were twenty, some douche had pulled her focus off me when I’d been mid-sentence about something I couldn’t even remember now. She’d followed after him like he had her on a leash, and I’d gotten jealous as fuck. Once I’d caught up, my instincts demanded she stay away from him since that magical bullshit sixth sense she claimed made her spine tingle didn’t actually exist, and I’d said as much. Our public fight ended in a breakup that had me ready to take my own life. We’d managed to talk through it a few days later after I’d calmed down, but I knew she still suffered from guilt when her gaze strayed on occasion.
Sometimes, I caught her doing a double take on a person on the street, her eyes narrowed, gaze thoughtful, but she never spoke of whatever she supposedly sensed anymore. I swallowed down my jealousy each and every time because I refused to make her feel like shit again even if no one had captured her attention like that guy had. She’d taken snapshots on her camera of all of the people she had a weird draw to except him, which I really would have hated. Dozens of pictures sat on her laptop, her “strange” file of random people who she claimed meant nothing to her but she felt connected to.
I would be fine as long as they stayed in pixel form and didn’t come between us physically.
Like I imagined Elijah Tolzman doing.
Older and no longer a fan of the fantastical, I never wasted money on fortunes or palm readers, but the man intruding on our breakfast peered at me in a way that made me want to ask if he could see the future I’d always dreamed of. Plenty of money to allow Dakota a life of luxury, even if she claimed to not want it. All the babies she desired to fulfill her dream of having a real family with children who grew up with unconditional love and acceptance like neither of us had. Enough of a cushion that should I ever lose my income again, we wouldn’t have to worry about the electricity being turned off in our one-room apartment. Cash on hand so dinner would be more than boxed mac and cheese—even if we both loved that shit.
Dakota stood, making me the one to break Elijah’s stare.
She handed me the oatmeal packets and one of the tin coffee mugs we’d already used and cleaned, her attention flitting toward our guest like he was a train wreck she couldn’t look away from. I recognized her curiosity and wondered how badly her fingers itched to pull out her camera and capture him from every angle.
Why the fuck didn’t I care?
Turning my back on both of them, I hunched back down, emptying the oatmeal packets into the two bowls and coffee mug.
We’d been hiking for a mere four days, and I’d about had it with the camp food. Jerky, tuna packets, and beef stew made up the bulk of our meals, supplemented with dried fruit and whole-grain wraps that tasted like cardboard. I was so damn ready for a bloody steak and a fluffy baked potato, loaded with all the good stuff.
“So where are you from?” Dakota asked, sitting cross-legged on the ground beside where I squatted. She’d tugged on a sweatshirt, big enough to hide her braless, aroused state.
Elijah sat on my other side, his closeness warmer than the bed of coals in front of me. Something inside me felt that tug again, the need to sit at his feet and hope he gifted me a soft word or strong hand.
The fuck?
I blinked hard, erasing the picture from my mind.
“My home is just shy of two miles in that direction,” Elijah said, pointing toward the southeast as his scent rolled over me. He smelled of fire and brimstone, spice and sex.
I stretched my neck side to side, fighting off the strange lust stiffening my dick, even though I wasn’t exactly disturbed by the attraction I felt for him. Last thing I needed was to come untouched in my boxers. That would make for one hell of an awkward situation since I wasn’t exactly quiet when busting a nut.
“I didn’t think anyone lived around here,” Dakota said, a smile in her voice. “Your own Castle in the Clouds like that mansion down in Moultonborough?”
“Something like that.” That sensual smile played on Elijah’s lips again, and I focused on pouring boiling water over the dry oatmeal, wondering why the hell I didn’t care that he looked at my wife like he wanted to lick her from mouth to toes.
I handed Elijah one of the steaming bowls and a spoon while shoving my bitterness deep and attempting to not salivate over the man.
“Thank you.” Elijah’s full-on smile weakened my knees, and I sat with about as much grace as a two-year-old on ice skates.
At least I didn’t spill my cup of maple and brown sugar oatmeal. Yay?
Dakota shifted so our legs pressed together. Her usual affection or a silent assurance of her faithfulness, I didn’t know. Either way, I appreciated the action because my brain and body didn’t know up from down.
“Just out for a stroll?” I asked and spooned up a mass of the grossest breakfast food on the face of the planet.
“Something like that,” Elijah echoed himself, his voice softer with a hint of the smile lingering on his perfectly formed lips above a soul patch.
I ought to be suspicious of his lack of a real answer, but my usual caution had gone into hibernation or some such shit. What about the dark stranger made me comfortable over being sexually attracted to another guy? I shouldn’t trust the man, but something inside me wanted to.
Fucking yearned for it so damn hard I swore I’d fallen into an alternate reality.
I tore my gaze off the dude’s face and shoved the too-hot oats into my mouth. The burned tongue at least kept my twitching dick from swelling to the point of needing my hand.
Seriously. What the fuck was wrong with me?
Dakota was all I had ever wanted. Hell, I’d never even thought about another woman that way—let alone a masculine guy who would look fucking fantastic decked out in black leather and a harness.
I shook my head, blinking that image from my mind too.
From the first time I’d seen Dakota in middle school, I’d known she belonged to me and I to her. Like magnets, we had drawn each other in, and tearing apart at the end of every school day had been painful for me.
I found out later it had felt the same for her.
The first time we’d kissed, the longing for happiness that had haunted me every day faded as true joy flooded through me from the gentle brush of her lips and the sweet taste of her breath. And when we’d finally had sex? We had only been sixteen, but the stars had aligned, the off-its-axis world of my foster parent’s home righted.
I’d found heaven and a different kind of magic buried deep inside Dakota’s wet warmth.
It would be another two years before I could light out from where I’d spent my childhood filled with verbal and emotional abuse. An eternity of being told I was a worthless piece of shit, daily reminders that I was unloved and unwanted by the people who had created my sorry ass.
Whoever the hell they were.
I had no desire to find my real parents. They hadn’t wanted me, so why the fuck would I go looking for them?
Like me, Dakota had grown up in a foster home, clueless as to her parentage and desirous of a husband and a bunch of kids to love. But at least she’d been lucky in having foster parents who’d nurtured and cared for her.
We were peas and carrots, just like Forrest Gump had claimed of him and Jenny, but so far, we hadn’t been able to get pregnant. The push for that had ended when I’d been fired since I couldn’t provide for the two of us let alone a third little human. We’d discussed IVF, but that plan got shot to shit when I’d lost my income. Even though my swimmers had failed for the previous handful of years in giving my wife what she wanted. Dakota had gotten an IUD to ensure didn’t have a kid at an inopportune time.
“Are you heading toward Mount Washington?” Elijah asked, and I glanced over at Dakota rather than laying eyes on the man who made me question who and what the fuck I was.
The trip had been my wife’s idea, and we’d been walking our feet sore up and down mountains I couldn’t remember the names of. Washington, though, that had been one hell of a sight.
“We’ve been there already,” she answered him.
“Back to civilization then,” Elijah said, deducing we headed out of the mountains toward the south.
“I wouldn’t mind getting lost up here.” The longing in Dakota’s voice, her eyes glowing with desire, made her even more beautiful to me.
My heart ached to hold her, protect and give her an easy life. Everything her heart desired.
Disappearing from the woes of reality sounded fine by me—if we’d been somewhere closer to the equator. A warmer location than where we’d been trekking the last couple of days. But Dakota loved the mountains. Who was I to say no?
If it lay within my power, everything Dakota wished for would be placed at her feet. She was my reason for living, after all, and no way in fuck would I ever allow someone to wreck the life we’d built together.
Even if the stranger led my thoughts down a dark, delicious-looking path I’d never dreamed of walking.
Dakota
Need burned in my core, a desperate yearning for the man sharing our fire and breakfast. His presence was a magical cinch on every atom in my body, attempting to pull me closer from where I’d firmly planted myself at my husband’s side.
A live wire of tension between Jon and Elijah sizzled and snapped in the open air as well, but I couldn’t tell where it stemmed from.
Lust or jealousy?
Jon was straight, so I feared the latter as the minutes slid past and my unrest continued.
I hadn’t been able to hide the instant connection I’d felt with Elijah like I would sometimes experience with complete strangers. That unvoiced whisper through my thoughts promised I knew him from a different reality. Or, rather, something about him hid from my mind like a fuzzy pane of glass when I tried to figure it out.
Years ago, a similar but not nearly as potent a situation as this had caused Jon’s and my one serious fight that had left both of us brokenhearted. But the draw toward Elijah was a hundred times more insistent—and sexual in nature unlike the others’ images I’d captured and stored on my laptop.
An all-consuming need owned my body to explore whatever it was that connected us on a different plane than anything I’d felt for a stranger before. My body urged—begged—to touch and taste. Become one with him emotionally and physically as I’d only ever done with my husband.
Jon had noticed my reaction. He could read me like an open book, always had, and he was well aware of my obsession with all things supernatural. Paranormal books lived rent free in my head. Daydreamer didn’t begin to describe my state of mind most days.
I trusted Jon to be my protector in the real world. I always deferred to him to keep me safe since he was critical and careful in making choices while my head floated in the clouds. In my imagination, I was secretly a fierce creature rather than needy and insecure, a woman who didn’t second-guess herself at every turn.
If only that other half of me existed in real life.
Even though Jon didn’t appear angry or shift away from where our thighs touched, guilt like I hadn’t experienced in years twisted my stomach. My body’s reaction to the pale-eyed stranger must have hurt Jon, and like an idiot, I’d invited Elijah to stay for breakfast without thinking it through beyond my desire to feed and care for a guest.
I’d promised Jon all those years ago when my sixth sense nearly ended us to never hurt him again. That he was my one and only, forever and always. Jon was my reason for living and had been since we were young. There had never been a doubt in my mind that we were meant to be together. Best friends as children, we’d bonded by our similar home life, but we became so much more as we had grown into adulthood. Our bodies changed at the same time, mine much later than most girls. A late bloomer but perfectly in tune with Jon’s squeaky voice and filling out.
I hadn’t ever considered touching another man, hadn’t ever desired anyone else in that way until the crystalline blue eyes of Elijah Tolzman met mine. My blood roused like I read about almost nightly on my e-reader. Unnatural, unquenchable desire even more than I felt for my husband flooded through me and refused to lessen as we ate.
The yearning to draw closer to the man disrupted more than just our peaceful hike through the White Mountains. He’d brought an unrest deep in my soul I couldn’t categorize in my head. And although Jon had always been the one I trusted with my emotional well-being, I feared my need of his direction in that moment. Knowing how Elijah made me feel would prickle Jon’s insecurities that stemmed from his never measuring up to the expectations his foster parents had put on him.
But what could I do other than defer to Jon’s leadership?
I would find a way to squash the stirrings inside me.
Had to. Then Elijah would leave, and Jon and I could move forward in the life we attempted to build together.
My eyes strayed to the one who’d disrupted our peace.
Elijah was the opposite of Jon, bulky with muscles compared to the lithe, swimmer-like body I’d had wrapped around me all night in our warm sleeping bag. An alpha, rugged mountain man aura surrounded Elijah although his carefully groomed facial hair and the styled hair atop his head suggested refinement. He spoke with clarity, enunciating every word, his manners impeccable even though we sat on the ground beside a campfire. If I truly believed in time travel as I did magical creatures roaming the earth among humanity, I’d swear the man had been born and raised a century or two earlier.
I wanted to capture his beautiful face from every angle, stolen images for me to ponder on as I often did over my laptop’s strange folder in attempts to figure out why I felt drawn to complete strangers.
Not a single one of them had ever tipped my life sideways as Elijah had done though, not even that man from the streets of New York.
I sat on uneven ground in a figurative sense, fearing leaning fully one way or another would send me tumbling into an abyss. While the unknown caused my heart to race with sweet anticipation, dread of what awaited me through the fog clouding my future tightened my chest.
I continued to brush against Jon with my usual affection, seeking assurance. I also hoped he took comfort in my nearness, but he seemed intent on Elijah rather than focused on the jealousy that must burn in his stomach.
My eyes stung over my body’s betrayal of my one true love.
How long would Jon be disappointed in me? Would I be given the chance to prove myself to him? Assure him of the faithfulness I’d pledged to him not that long ago before the Justice of the Peace that had declared us husband and wife?
Regardless of the tension among Elijah, Jon, and I, we remained social, Jon more gracious than I’d expected. Casual conversation flowed, all surface stuff that held no meaning beyond passing the time until we went our separate ways.
Hopefully sooner than later.
The three of us discussed the peaks Jon and I had climbed and the ones I still wanted to see and take pictures of. The White Mountains had always felt like home even though we’d both been born in upstate New York, and as with everything, Jon agreed to do what I wanted when it became clear we had to cancel our trip to Bermuda.
But would he forgive me this time since I’d gone way beyond my usual unusual interest in strangers?
I fought off tears all through our shared breakfast while faking a smile, my body and mind at war over arousal I couldn’t stop. Soaked panties clung to my pussy, my nipples tight and aching because of one dark stranger whose presence tempted me to be unfaithful to the man I trusted to be my partner until death parted us.
The crisp morning air hinted at an approaching storm like the one raging inside me. The dark clouds crept toward us from the southwest and trailhead where we’d parked our old car for the week, matching my mood and unsettled emotions I fought to keep contained.
Elijah glanced at the horizon then at the double sleeping bag Jon and I had slept in the night before after stargazing while enjoying our usual pillow talk. “Do you have a tent?” he asked.
I squeezed my thighs together against the desire his voice incited like an alpha in one of my shifter romance books.
Me and my damned fanciful mind.
“Yeah we do,” Jon replied, tucking an escaped strand of hair behind his ear, “but you know what they say, ‘If you don’t like the weather here in New England—’”
“—wait a minute.” Elijah finished with a smile, his attention still on the approaching clouds as though he too was wary of what they might bring. “The storm was forecasted to pass south of us, but that appears not to be the case. And, with the flash flooding and dangerous winds they said would accompany the storm...”
“Maybe we ought to hike out of here,” I said, setting my scraped-clean bowl aside, my feet itching to move.
Toward Elijah.
No.
Away from him, hand in hand with Jon who owned my heart.
My mind felt torn in two, my body doubly so. Eyes stinging, I stared at Elijah, wishing I could name what it was that drew me to him.
“You’ll be soaked long before making it back to civilization, regardless of what trails you take,” he said, his gaze on Jon, thank goodness, because I wouldn’t be able to deny him if he looked at me with the same desire as he did my husband.
Jon shrugged as though unaffected by Elijah’s blatant hungry stare, but I noted the tension in his shoulders and the tightness bracketing his lips. “Can’t be helped.”
“My house is a short distance away,” Elijah reminded us. “You’re welcome to wait out the bad weather there.”
Jon scanned the mountains and rocks around us as my pulse thrummed at the thought of spending more time with Elijah. Nothing good could come from it even though my body begged otherwise.
“You really have a place in these mountains?” Jon asked. “I thought this was a national forest.”
“It is, but my ancestors lived here long before the government made this protected land. We’re the ones who sold most of it to them, in fact.” Elijah spoke without any hint of bragging in his voice. “I’m the last of my line and have been able to keep the retained land in seclusion by a private road that I keep gated.”
“What do you do in the winter?” Jon asked.
“Helicopter when the weather isn’t too bad, Humvee when it is.”
“You have power all the way out here?”
“Being off-grid these days is easier than most think,” Elijah said, pushing up to his feet.
I tore my needy gaze off him and glanced over at Jon, who had tilted his head back to look at the man standing over us in a show of dominance that wasn’t as threatening as it ought to be.
A flicker of something I couldn’t name passed over Jon’s face, but it was far from trepidation or even anger. He’d claimed to be straight as long as I’d known him, but…
I glanced down.
Jon was hard, a wet spot at the clear outline of his swollen cockhead firmly pressed against his jeans.
Swallowing a gasp, I couldn’t help the pulse that clenched my pussy, causing an ache to radiate through my core.
“Want to take him up on his offer?” Jon asked me even though his gaze fixed on Elijah as though he was unable to tear his eyes off the man.
Mouth dry, I attempted to swallow and failed.
My gaze collided with Elijah’s atop Jon’s head, the moisture in my body pooling between my thighs at the barely restrained primal urge to claim residing in his eyes.
Fantasy. Not real, I told myself firmly even though my inner voice shook in time with the jitters inside my belly.
The man could prove to be a danger to my marriage if I didn’t get my head screwed on properly. Forcing my eyes downward, I slipped my hand into Jon’s.
“It’s up to you,” I managed to whisper, leaving the decision to him as I always did since I refused to be responsible for causing heartache again.
My husband finally turned his focus on me, studying my face. Did he see the war raging inside me? My fearful hesitation and hungry desire to say yes? Did he notice both?
Blue eyes, darker than Elijah’s but no less potent in intensity, peered into mine. The world slowly faded around us as I wove myself in the cocoon of the comfort Jon and I had shared for as long as I could remember. I found myself smiling as I always did when drowning in Jon’s love.
His unexpected double-dimpled smile made my shoulders relax even though sexual tension and energy lay heavy over our camp. There was no way in hell Jon would gift me that grin if he’d been jealous.
“Let’s go.” Jon squeezed my hand and stood, pulling me up beside him.
