The second he bit down, we shattered. He screamed through the bite as the waves took us, my legs spasming around him as I rode him through it.
And the storm came with us, lighting up the surrounding forest with bolt after bolt of lightning, the thunder rolling in one continuous booming wave.
43
Havoc
I sat on the cliffs well above the wild gate, and stewed.
I couldn’t see it from where I brooded, but I sensed its power. It called to me, enticing my spirit to pass through.
To be free.
The trees were thinner up where I sat, and the sun’s warmth encouraged me to stay. Plus, every time I crouched in preparation to glide down to the gate, Fang’s little feet tickled at me.
A suggestion or a warning? I was no longer sure.
Between one eyeblink and the next, the sun vanished. I looked up and saw dark clouds rolling in. Thunder rumbled.
If my scales had been hair, they would have stood on end. Because I knew who—or rather what—was behind that storm.
Nipping teeth and tangled tongues, dark scales rippling over smooth skin…
It hit me hard, striking right through me. I was rigid and aching in an instant, with no way to ease it. But try as I might, I couldn’t shut the images out of my head.
Only they weren’t images of Riley.
They were images of Marcus, seen through Riley’s eyes, felt through first her hands—and then through something that I didn’t possess.
Storm clouds were spitting lightning, great long forks struck the ground repeatedly in one area of the forest. It sounded and looked like the end of the fucking world. And it didn’t matter that it wasn’t my anatomy, or that it was Marcus—the lust coursed through me, my entire body vibrated with need.
I wanted them.
I was shifting to human before I’d even consciously formed the thought to do so, and my hand folded around my dick while the talons were still detaching. A few scratches didn’t matter. My eyes rolled back in my head as I stroked. In my mind, Riley rode the Centaur.
I was one with them. And it felt—right. Like a piece of me I hadn’t known was missing, was finally found.
Before I could assess that, he sank his teeth into her.
That Centaurs weren’t supposed to do that was lost in the explosive aftermath. It was so powerful that I couldn’t help the shout that escaped me, or the fact that my legs couldn’t hold me as my body pulsed, sending great streams across the rocks. I fell to my knees and ended up leaning back on my heels as I shook my way to the end.
I sat like that until my breathing steadied. Which was when they started up again.
Time no longer had meaning. And it seemed that the Centaur’s recuperative powers were at least on par with my own.
At some point they collapsed, and I leaned against a boulder, breathing like I’d just flown for miles at 40,000 feet.
As I slumped there, panting, something came through the gate.
I felt it open. If I’d still been in Dragon form, the new arrival would have seen me for sure. But I was half-prone between the boulders when a lithe, golden form flew right over my head.
My mind raced. It hadn’t been Vali, this was male, with paler, shimmering gold scales. I only knew of one golden Dragon. The Oracle, who saw the past, present, and future.
That he was here meant fucking trouble. He and his mates had their permanent home in a nearby cave, but he’d obviously been elsewhere. And when he banked, he wasn’t heading for the mountains.
He was orienting on the forest and treehouse.
Instead of steadying, my breathing increased. Fang crawled out from beneath my hair and blinked her beady little eyes at me. Then, she chirped. Several times in a row.
