Page 64 of The Dragon Warlord
Now here he is, having a sex dream. Was it the honey mead?
River squirms on the bed and moans. His moan goes straight to my cock. Fuck. This is bad. I have to wake him up. “Riv. River?” I shake him gently by the shoulder until his eyelids flutter open.
“T-Tristan?”
I can list on one hand how many times he’s let a Tristan slip out. I collect each one and store them in my memory bank.
Rage swirls in my blood, plus a horse-cart load of anxiety. Despite his insistence that sex wasn’t important to him, I told him to approach me if he did want to take a partner and we’d deal with it. That I’d find a way. Otherwise, in addition to being a terrible person, I’m a hypocrite because whichever one of my men I see first, I’m jumping him.
His eyes widen when he meets my angry face. Not a fun thing to wake up to, especially when that face belongs to your alpha. I would know.
Taking a breath, I school my features, but I think I’m already caught. I’ve learned to wear a mask, one I call my dragon Warlord’s mask, with most everyone, but I can’t seem to hide myself from my omega. There’s no point in trying. He can feel what I feel even if he can’t always interpret what those feelings are about or what they mean.
“Sorry, Warlord. Did I do something?”
“No. You don’t need to apologize I just…” I take a breath. “You were having a private dream and I heard.”
He flushes dragon-scale red and covers his face. “Noooo. Oh, Gods. What did I say?”
“Not much. I don’t know who you were dreaming about so don’t worry, I have no idea who to murder.”
“Do I have to tell you, Warlord? You said I could have some private things to myself.”
I’ve tried to explain a few times that it’s not just because I said so, but that it should be his right. He nods along and says “Yes Warlord,” but I know he’s spent too many years living as a dragon to believe that an omega is allowed any privacy from their alpha. Just one of the many reasons I won’t cross certain lines with him.
However, it’s encouraging that he would remind me of that little fact this time. It makes me all the more curious and all the more tempted to make him tell me. But I’m a man of my word. “You get privacy, Riv, and it’s probably better you don’t tell me anyway.”
He nods. “Thank you, Warlord. It won’t happen again,” he says as if he has any control over what he dreams about.
“It should.” I huff. “Is it time for us to have the conversation? Do we need to figure out how to get you a partner?”
My hands squeeze into fists and my sharp nails cut my skin. This is going to fuck up our bond.
“No. Gods, no. It was just a dream, Warlord. I’m happy with you just as we are. I know you’d try for me, but even if I wanted to I wouldn’t because it would be awful for you and I’m not willing to make you suffer like that.”
That’s howIshould be. Not an over-possessive beast.
“If you ch-change your mind, promise me you’ll talk to me about it,” I force myself to say.
“I promise, Warlord.”
* * *
Ican’t stop thinking about River’s dream and it’s a problem. What I’d kept dormant or more like on a low simmer, has come boiling to the forefront. Things had calmed down for us. He could mostly come and go as he pleased so long as I knew where he was going.
He wouldn’t even tell me the details of his dream. I know I’m his Warlord and alpha, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be best friends, does it? We do everything together. He’s my only real companion. Over dinner, we rehash the best and funniest moments of our day. Or complain when the time calls for it, though the complaints are mostly from me. I’d be upset to learn he’s crushing on some other handsome dragon alpha, but I thought he’d trust me enough to tell me.
No wonder he doesn’t. Listen to me. I’m having a hard enough time respecting his privacy.
I’ve got to get a grip on this before it gets out of hand. I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but I’m going to voluntarily go for discipline.
Dragons have an interesting approach. No dragon is free from discipline and so there is a place available that all dragons have access to at all hours of the day and night. It’s become ingrained into dragon culture and the discipline academy can carry a waitlist. Or, if you’re a lucky dragon like me, your alpha will make an appointment for you.
I have a standing one, once a week. The dragon lord considers this a graduation. When I first arrived, he spent four long months showing me that I belonged to him with nightly discipline. Originally, it was meant to be thirty days, but I earned myself another month, then another month, and then another until I finally got tired of my arse being constantly sore.
After that, we did it three times a week until we whittled our way down to once a month. Oh, how I miss the once-a-month days, but apparently, I got too lippy and disobedient. I earned a whole bunch of punishments. So many that even the dragon lord grew exhausted with punishing me. He allows others to discipline me, but only he executes my punishments. We experimented with various times a week and landed at the once-per-week standard with more added if he feels I need them.
I was shocked to learn that so many discipline and punishment sessions made the dragon lord weary. Rayne explained it to me like this. At his core, the dragon lord is a brat, and therefore running his brat muscles gives him energy. You have to be a purer alpha to want to discipline and punish someone as often as I apparently required at the time. Someone like Bayaden is a good example. He lives for spanking my naughty arse. Alrik enjoys the odd punishment, but he’s the kind of sadist that would rather have pleasure-type sessions and pleasure-type sadist fun outside of the bedroom. He’d rather if I just behaved.
