Page 34 of The Sapphire Dragon Prince
Misha seemed to understand what was happening all at once. “Oh no!” he gasped, writhing slightly, as if his body were suddenly sending him other signals he couldn’t ignore. “I’m going into heat! Of all the times. What am I going to do?” He glanced up at me in a panic.
I laughed. “Don’t you worry, little omega of mine,” I said amorously. “I know exactly how to take care of your heat.”
Misha whimpered, both with desire and with embarrassment. He peeked briefly at my mother, mortified.
“Do not feel ashamed of the ways of Nature on my account,” Mother said, raising a hand. “I invented the ways of Nature. I know precisely how you feel and what you need.”
“That’s even more embarrassing,” Misha mumbled.
I laughed and folded Misha into my embrace, partly because I needed to feel as much of him against me as possible and partly to shield him from Mother, mostly for his own sake. “Mother, would you be willing to send us directly back to my lair to spare us the strain of the journey?” I asked.
Mother laughed. “Absolutely.”
She raised a hand, waving it over us like a blessing as well as a practical act of magic. In an instant, the world of her garden faded and Misha and I found ourselves in the master bedchamber of my palatial lair.
“Now, my sweet omega,” I said, clasping Misha’s face in my hands, a growl in my voice, “we’ve come to the moment I’ve been waiting for since we first met.”
Chapter
Twelve
Misha
My heart hadn’t stopped pounding from the moment Azurus and I had arrived in Queen Gaia’s throne room. I could still feel the frantic pulse of fear and victory that had come from defeating my father—or perhaps it was defeating the lingering hold his abuse had over me, at least for the moment. Those residual emotions had masked the physical and inner heat that had been rising within me since the moment The Black Mirror had shattered.
“I don’t know what to do,” I gasped, glancing warily up at Azurus.
All this time, I’d been desperate to go into heat. I’d felt myself somehow lesser because I hadn’t launched straight into the same state of nature that my brothers seemed to have embraced without any hesitation. Now the moment was upon me, and I was damned if I knew what to do about it.
But looking up into Azurus’s eyes somehow stilled my panic. He loomed somehow larger above me. His delicious, rain-likescent enveloped me, and the wickedness of his grin as he gazed down at me, like he was contemplating how he wanted to devour me, went a long way toward melting me out of the uncertainty that gripped me.
“You are a brave and passionate omega,” Azurus told me, caressing the side of my face with one large hand. “You know what to do.”
“I—”
He silenced my further protest by tilting my face up to him and bending to slant his mouth over mine in a searing kiss. We’d kissed before now, but something about the need and openness behind that kiss felt as though it reached into my soul. It was hot and filled with desire, and as my mate explored me with his tongue and lips, I caught my breath, realizing what the difference was.
I could feel him deep within my heart. His love and desire for me wound its way through my body and soul as if they were my own emotions. I could even sense his thoughts through the wide-open cord that seemed to join us now.
“Yes, my sweet,” he said in a low growl between kisses. “Somewhere in the midst of all this, we bonded.”
I leaned back to study him, my mouth slightly open. “I thought bonding only happened through heat,” I said, my cheeks flushing hot as images of exactly what that entailed swirled through my mind.
“Apparently not,” Azurus said, taking my hand and leading me across the room to the huge bed. “But I’m willing to attempt to see if we can make the bond even stronger through joining and knotting in heat if you are.”
His words shot through me like lightning, bringing several things to my awareness at once. I could feel his confidence within me, which changed how I felt about myself. Azurus believed in me, which made it so much easier to think I wascapable of greatness. But also, a wave of fiery warmth spread through my body, making the clothes I wore feel ponderous.
More than that, my body seemed to be opening up to my mate. For the first time in my life, I felt a welcome rush of slick seep through my eager hole. The sensation made me moan with need and embarrassment. I loved it and was mortified at the same time.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said, clutching at Azurus’s tunic but turning my face away from him. “I feel so?—”
There were no words for how I felt, but as I breathed in a strong burst of Azurus’s scent and glanced up to find him watching me with fierce, unconcealed lust, my hole spasmed, sending even more slick spilling from me.
“Oh, Goddess!” I gasped, writhing where I stood, desperate to get out of my clothes.
Azurus laughed softly and stroked his hand around my head, finishing the motion by starting on the fastenings of my tunic. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he said, making quick work of the buttons of my dirty things. “It’s only heat. Haven’t you gone through heat before?”
I nodded tightly, not wanting to remember those horrible, painful, hollow times. “It was never like this. It was like a sickness, an ache within me that wouldn’t go away.”
