A shudder ran through him, and both hands shifted to my butt, lifting me. The sky had grown ever darker, and thunder was a near continual rumble that shook the ground, but I barely heard it as he rotated us until my back was against the tree. There was a moss-covered branch at just the right height, sprawling horizontally. I planted my butt on it and lifted my legs to invite him home.
He was there in an instant, poised at my entrance, quivering with need. His lips found and plundered mine. I hooked my heels around his waist and pulled myself onto him.
The sheer girth of him—and I wanted it all. Every last inch. I squirmed and pushed, and his fingers tightened on my butt, easing himself in. When he was fully sheathed, he groaned, long and low.
Lightning danced around us, hitting the pond, reeds, and even the tree itself. It excited me as I began to move, and he matched me, thrusting at first slow, but then picking up the tempo as I moaned and twisted around him, seeking all those delicious friction points. And there were many—it was almost as though his shaft sought and electrified each one, zinging straight to my core. My inner walls grew tighter and tighter, and his groans turned to growls so deep they reverberated through me.
We climbed with every stroke, and I couldn’t breathe through it—skating an edge that I hadn’t known existed. And then, with an explosion, we shattered.
At that same instant, the storm erupted around us, lightning dancing and thunder rolling as the rain pelted down. It drowned out our cries as we rode the waves, clinging to each other as though we’d never let go.
As they subsided, I looked up into eyes the same color as the sky beyond them. They matched the dark scales lining his cheeks and arms, each one revolving around a central peak that was almost a spike. The spikes glowed and flickered like they contained lightning.
When they reached his forearms, he looked down—and started to pull away. To my astonishment, as he backed, I saw that the skin scales weren’t the only modification. His dick had a long series of small bumps running the full length of it. No wonder it had felt so damn good…
“It’s okay, Marcus—”
“No.” It was almost a roar, and barely decipherable. The bones of his face shifted beneath the skin, and something was happening behind his shoulders—the air glowed, flashing in time to the lightning strikes, forming two arcs.
Wings. They looked like wings.
His eyes, when I met them, were wild. A mix of rage and sheer panic.
Panic not for him.
For me.
Dammit. I lunged toward him, but he was not only backing away at speed, but fading. In that second, he vanished into the drizzle. And a moment later, everything around me did, too.
I blinked myself awake. Sunlight streamed in through the window. But my mind danced with images of Marcus. Of a pond, and a strange, twisted tree.
The world swayed as I sat up. I had no time for this weakness crap. I dug into my pocket and pulled out more crystal dust.
I inhaled half of it in two gulps.
28
Marcus
When I awoke, I was already halfway to my feet, and in excruciating pain.
I raised arms that rippled with new muscle while scales the color of the night sky chased along them. Each one was adorned with a small spike that glowed in response to the lightning flashes. I pulled the cloak off and stared in horror as they marched across my chest.
“What the sharding hell—” Havoc had emerged from his meager shelter and was now near the pond, staring at me. What he saw must have alarmed him. He flung off his cape and stood there in the driving rain as his Dragon took control.
I had my own worries. What was clawing its way free from inside me was no freking Wyvern, and it was powerful.
Iskar was screaming.Get the dust. I can’t hold it back!
My legs were contorting so that I could barely walk, and my shoulders and arms were in agony. Half-transformed, Havoc jumped away as I lunged past him and ran for the saddlebags. My fingers now had talons that glowed. I had a hard time extracting the packet of folded leaves. Instead of dumping it into my mouth, I crammed the entire thing into jaws growing long with teeth sharpening…
I chewed, and the dust tingled as it broke free and trickled down my throat. The sensation spread throughout the rest of me—and the scales cascading down my body paused in their march south.
The pain got worse. I gasped and fell to my knees, curling in on myself as Iskar and I waged a battle against the beast.
I teetered on the edge of an abyss, wrapped in an agony with no end in sight.
Until—it stopped. Awareness returned slowly. I lay on my side in the driving rain, curled in a fetal position—but I was human once more.
