“Yes.” Mikkel is certain, as I feel him do something to his inner magic, like erecting an iron wall up all around it. It’s firm and impenetrable, cool as he sits beside me now. His power is no longer flowing out, but contained in a way I’ve never managed with my magic.
It tells me yet again that Mikkel is a far more powerful Blood Dragon than any of us in my Bloodbond. Though he’s not much older than Bjorn, Ström, and me, the strange and effortless way he restrains his power when it counts is something I’ve only felt ancient Blood Dragons do, like Trublut.
I wonder now how Mikkel is so vastly mature in his power, when it takes most drakes centuries. I have no more time to think about it, however, as Mikkel’s fingers touch down on Aesa’s Truthstone.
And all hell breaks loose.
I thought that Mikkel touching Aesa’s stone would have opened up his missing memories, like it did with Ström. I thought that resonance might have pushed him into going Wraith as his dragon, and that we might have needed far more muscle in here than we have to take care of it.
I was so, so wrong, as Mikkel touches that stone on my chest and it produces a massive resonance between us. Where both my dragon’s instincts and his have been telling us to mate, Aesa’s opinion is in the mix now—blasting through us both like a chorus of hammering bells with her incredible knowing.
As her silver stone roars at my chest now, a towering wave of battle-brimstone magic crashes through me, along with a blinding wash of crimson-gold light. It’s my own Bloodwalker power, united now as it resonates with Aesa’s stone—harder than I’ve felt it yet.
As it does, that massive resonance hauls Mikkel’s and my magic together, hard. As Mikkel’s old-world herbal cocktail scent inundates me, flooding me with heady smells and dark bitterness, everything inside me screams,mate!!
It crashes Mikkel’s iron wall in an instant as it hauls our bodies together. Mikkel’s mouth is suddenly on mine, and I’m eating at his lips like a wild thing as all that power crashes through us. Because it’s so much more than either of us, alone. We’re experiencing the resonance of what we could be together; the incredible power we could have, joined rather than separate, as we devour each other with our kiss.
Our dragons crashing together, hard.
Mikkel thrusts me down and I grunt as I hit the couch, power exploding out around us in the room as both our dragons go wild inside us. But it’s a good grunt as he’s on me, all that energy and power grinding onto me as I thrust up, devouring him like a demonic wildfire has possessed me now.
I don’t even know what I’m doing or where my hands are as a passion so hot and blistering, yet so cold with our mutual darkness, rips through me, scalding through the room in a searing Bloodwave. It leaves me breathless as Mikkel shreds his shirt away, reaching down and ripping off the black strap that covers Aesa’s stone on my chest as he presses our bodies together, skin to skin.
Skin contact is essential for shapeshifters; it makes us go wild. I am awild, insane thing as I rage and buck now up into Mikkel’s kisses, thrusting into him as he heaves down hard into me.
Dry-fucking on the couch with our dragons’ powers braiding through the room isn’t what either of us wants, however. We want the whole kit and caboodle, as Mikkel hauls me up with his hands under my ass and I wrap my arms and legs around him, clinging to him like a monkey.
He strides us to the nearest wall, slamming me back on it as our joined magics surge. It knocks my breath out, but it only roars my fires hotter as I growl and dive into him now, biting at his kiss for hurting me that little bit.
I want so much more, as my Bloodwalker power seethes inside me and my dark Bone Magic roars. I grip him tight to me now by my legs up around his ass, as Mikkel grinds upon me and slams me into the wall yet again.
It’s the best kind of pain; pure, renegade passion unleashed as I roar at him and twist my fingers into his hair, pulling it hard and making him succumb to me as I bite kisses into his throat. Mikkel groans, shuddering with the dark, massive ecstasy of everything I’m doing to him, and what our powers are doing now as they braid together, hard. Because when a dragon bites the neck, we’re claiming our partner.
A true mate—we just want to fuck, and fuck, and fuck.
He roars now as he rips his neck away from my bite, staring down at me with dark eyes blazing with copper and cinnabar fire. There’s very little human left in those eyes; Mikkel’s beast is staring at me now, like he’s ready to devour me and let me devour him until we both come, and come, and come.
I know then that fucking him will be brutal, in the best kind of way, as our joined powers surge all around us and dance. I want it—just as he does—as our mutual darkness, powerful in the extreme, explodes from us now.
Twisting completely together in the night.
I feel our Bloodbond form, then. Like with Ström, there’s a precursorto such things; it’s a space where our magic connects and we realize we could be true partners, if we play our cards right.
With Bjorn, I know now that initial connection happened long ago, when we were first together in my youth. With Ström, it was a latent thing, discovered these past weeks as we reconnected.
Now, with Mikkel, it’s an instant thing. Because this is only the second time we’ve met, and I know our love could be great, as we bond our inner darkness and fire.
Powerful together—always.
But even as Mikkel dives into me again, I know something between us is also bright. Like Ström, Mikkel’s power has the capacity to be endlessly dark—but there’s something inside every Bone Mage that is somehow incredibly bright, despite the temptation to use their power for nefarious things.
Though Mikkel has been far more dark than Ström over the years, regretting his darkness far less, there’s a part of him, too, that would like to be the brighter side of his nature. I feel him realize it, then, what he could be with me and my drakes.
Though it would mean giving up Lærke—the twin he has lived for, and loved, all his life.
I feel Mikkel realize that with a start, as a massive shudder rips through his power. Even as he hauls his kiss back from me, he slams me up against the wall again, grinding into me and growling into my face now from his immense frustration. Because Lærke means everything to him, I know, as his power twists into mine. She to him, and him to her.
And despite all his heartlessness, he could never abandon his sister like that.
