It was there, right at the surface, where I needed it. I slid down his body, feeling the latent heat beneath the cool running water. My hot tongue against his skin brought his hands forward for just a moment.
“No.” Even my whisper was a command, but it was also a test. One he almost passed, as his hands hesitated before they returned to his sides.
Dammit. The beast was there, but it was still wrapped in his mental chains.
I licked at his quivering shaft, and his knees bent. Then I folded my lips around him and sucked as much of him into my hot mouth as I could manage.
“Ahh—” an exhalation, and a groan, all at once. His wings shot upward, sending water flying again, and his hands curled, the lethal talons glimmering in the sun’s last rays.
“Do you want me?” I asked.
“Shards. Yesss,” his words slurred, the beast was so close.
“I release you,” I said, and yanked back on my reluctant beast, disengaging the tendrils to set him free.
He groaned again, but he didn’t move. I ran my tongue over him, but he didn’t even touch me. Xumi reached from her dark grave to hold him trapped.
Rage raced through me. How dare she do this to him? He was so much more than what she’d made of him.
I rose, grabbed his hands, spread his fingers, and laid them over my breasts. The talons pricked my skin.
His nostrils flared, and his lips curled, revealing the sharp teeth within. Close. So close. His Dragon was right there.
I spun away from him and jumped to the next rock over.
Crikey, Angel. What are you doing?Suddenly, Matt was very present in my head.
Talakai bounded after me, and I sensed his worry. But his beast was riding him so hard, only growling resounded through the link.
Matt, however, was panicking as my feet slipped on the stones. I ran, leaping from one to the other. Heading for the resonating boom of water falling over rock.
Stop her, Talakai!His mindvoice was unusually shrill.Bloody hell, Angel—
I reached the boulders along the very edge of the falls. The water’s thunder obliterated the sounds of pursuit, but not Matt, now screaming in my head.
My foot slipped again, but it no longer mattered. I leaped as far out as I could.
For just a split second, I hung there, suspended as my momentum met gravity.
And gravity won.
53
Talakai
Anna pushed me to the edge of sanity without drawing a single drop of blood. She wrapped her power around me, and held me to her spoken word.
And I craved it. As her beast fed from me, my body trembled with repressed desire. I ached for her.
When she pulled the power away, I reached for it. And for a moment, my beast almost won. I hung on, just barely. Yanked it back. Her gaze met my own, and my heart froze at what I read within it. The glimmer of rage and grim determination, where there had been only passion and power.
Then she broke away from me and ran. With my brain filled with lust-induced white noise, I could only stagger after her.
Matt screamed in my head, and I finally realized what she was about to do. By then, it was far too late.
My Dragon seized control when Anna flung herself over the edge. It wasn’t me that dove after her. It was my snarling, frantic beast that folded its wings and sliced through the spray, eyes fastened on her naked, falling form. My wings expanded, the muscles in my arms writhing as they shifted form, the talons reaching—
Far below, the falls crashed against stone before forming the pond. I had to reach her, or she would surely die.
