Lisette Ashton - Dragon Desire

His dark-grey travelling tunic was rent from his shoulders exposing a broad, manly chest. Tavia straddled him as he lay on the bed. She writhed her groin against his loins. Raising her face briefly from his, tossing her head back so that her long blonde curls were no longer covering her features, she murmured, ‘Take me.’ There was a deep and desperate longing in her voice as she insisted, ‘Take me and then take me again.’

She slid a fist around his shaft and groaned as though what she had found there was sadly pleasing. The sound of her heat-fuelled longing echoed from the walls of the tower room.

Robert pushed her to one side. Calmly, he stepped from the bed. A small and roguish smile played at the corners of his lips.

Tavia glared at him from where she lay on the tapestry-covered blankets. She had lifted her skirts to expose her woman parts. Her fingers delved into the wet flesh there and she rubbed at herself with furious determination whilst she fixed his back with a look of venomous fury.

Robert had left his torn tunic on the bed. He stepped out of his hosen and braies revealing an impressive hardness. His length swayed provocatively from between his legs. The end was swollen and ripe, like a plum tomato. He walked over to the ceremonial tray and lifted both the remaining goblets. Swigging the contents from one, he held out the final goblet for Caitrin.

‘Will you be joining us, Caitrin of Blackheath?’

There was a taunting challenge in his voice.

Responding with characteristic defiance, she snatched the goblet from his hand and drank.

A week later, when morning sunrise touched the room, it found the three of them in a bed of naked flesh. They were wrapped in sex-damp sheets and ensconced in the stink of delicious satisfaction. Robert remained hard and ready for either sister, although only Caitrin was greedily stroking and sucking at his length. Her sister sat up in the bed examining the carafe.

It lay on its side.

The contents had been drained during the course of their final night together.

She lifted the crystal carafe and sniffed the neck. Her nostrils were touched by the sharp memory of alcohol. Her exposed nipples hardened. A tremor of raw need shivered through her bare flesh. Upturning the bottle she allowed a final single droplet to fall from the rim and touch the pout of her lower lip.

It was only a droplet but it was enough to make her moan with soft urgency.

‘Where did this come from?’ Tavia asked.

He was called Robert of Moon Valley, but she knew the barren lands of that dark shire could never yield so rich a harvest as dragon horn.

‘This dragon horn,’ she urged. ‘Where did it come from?’

Robert shook his head. Caitrin was trying to kiss him whilst her hand worked swiftly up and down his engorged length. He clutched a clump of her black curls and guided her head back toward the thrust of his erection. Obligingly, she encircled him with her mouth. The sounds of her greedy slurping echoed wetly around the room.

‘The source of the dragon horn is a secret,’ Robert told Tavia.

But she noticed that his gaze had flitted toward the window.

Nestled on the horizon, across the Last Sea, she could see the lowering shape of Gatekeeper Island. The black specks of a pair of broad-winged dragons circled the temple that sat atop the island’s southernmost peak. She had a small fear of dragons. It was a justifiable fear, she thought, considering the creatures had a reputation for burning and killing. But Tavia knew; if there was likely to be a source of dragon horn anywhere in any of the Ridings, it would come from Gatekeeper Island.

The deadbolt slammed home with deafening force. The clang of metal sang against metal. The sound reverberated through unyielding oak doors set in solid stone walls. Tavia knew the thick silence that came afterwards was locked in the dungeon with her. She swallowed as she studied her surroundings. She struggled not to be afraid. And she doubted the sense of paying two gold pfennigs for this dubious and dangerous privilege.

Blazing torches hung from sconces on the walls. The flames splashed shadows and a glaring orange light onto the cobbled stones of the dungeon floor. Spirals of black smoke spewed upward toward the faraway roof. Sulphuric smells and unearthly stinks crept from the shadowy corners.

‘This is not a waste of time.’ Tavia muttered the words like a mystical chant, determined to invest them with truth. ‘It was not a waste of money. It is not a waste of time.’

She had entered the dungeons against the advice of her twin, Caitrin, and without the knowledge of her father, Duncan, castellan of Blackheath. It had cost her dearly to bribe guards and key-keepers to get this far. And she wouldn’t let herself believe that it could all be for nothing. She brushed a stray lock of blonde tresses from her brow and stepped nervously from one foot to the other.

She wore wooden pattens with leather straps. The heels tripped loudly against the stone floor. Drawing a deep breath she tried to decide which way she needed to walk to find the man she had come looking for. A stirring to her right made her hesitate. For an instant she feared she had woken some dangerous and malevolent creature from its slumber.

There was the growl of a man clearing his throat.

She glanced toward the sound. ‘Hello?’

‘Fuck off,’ a voice called. ‘I’ve got a hangover and I’m in no mood for damned visitors.’

Tavia stiffened.

In a corner of the gloomily lit dungeon she glimpsed a shadow. As her eyes became used to the contrast of fire-bright light and pitch-dark shadows she made out the shape of a figure slumped over an escritoire. He was round-shouldered, slovenly in silhouette and hunched like a predatory reptile.

‘Seer?’ she asked doubtfully.

He raised his head and fixed her with a sullen glower.

There was a dirty smear of beard stubbling his cheeks and jaw. Even in the black and orange of the dungeon’s illumination, Tavia could see that his eyes were red from the memories of too much ale. A mop of unkempt hair, dishevelled and as dark as winter nights, fell loosely over his brow.

He picked up a pewter tankard and sniffed the contents. A sneer of disgust wrinkled his lips. Reluctance shaped his features into a frown. And yet, he drank from the tankard anyway. As Tavia watched he drained the contents.

‘Seer?’ she repeated. ‘Is that you?’

‘No. I’m not a seer. I’m a prisoner. Now fuck off.’

She was annoyed to catch herself thinking of him as handsome. She supposed it must be a remnant of the dragon horn floating through her system. There had been times since taking the dragon horn when she found herself admiring men whom she normally wouldn’t have considered worthy as suitors or lovers. There had been times since taking the dragon horn when she had briefly lusted after farm hands, serfs and night soil workers. Her interest in this uncouth specimen seemed an obvious illustration of that condition. Unsettled by the moody glint in this man’s eye, and appalled by her own growing need for him, she willed herself to believe that his appeal was merely an after-effect of the dragon horn. She told herself that was the only reason why her loins were now warming.

‘You are Alvar, son of Erland.’ Tavia stepped closer as she spoke. Her heels clipped crisply against the cobbled floor. She wished she felt as confident as she sounded. ‘You were the famed seer from the Red River. You were respected counsel to Kendric of Cambrai Typus. You were –’

‘I’ve had a change of career,’ he broke in. ‘I’m now the prisoner of scītanhole dungeons. I no longer have the gift of second sight. I just have a tankard and a bucket. Now don’t let the dungeon door bang your arse on your way out of here.’