Dragon Fall: Masters of the Flame 3 (Mating Fever) by Elsa Jade Page A

hurt?” she whispered.
    “Always. For centuries. I should be used to it.”
    Her hand traced down his spine, following the outline of scales where he knew they wrapped around his ribs.
    She sucked in a little breath, and he knew she’d cut herself again. He’d tasted the blood on her tongue before.
    He spun and grabbed her wrist, glaring at her.
    She gazed back with deep, dark eyes. Slowly, she lifted her hand to touch his cheek. He smelled the blood and the musky sweetness of her juices on his palm. Swaying, he closed his eyes, seduced by the essence of her.
    “What have I done?” he murmured. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.”
    “But you said the dragon might, so I knew the risk.” She touched his lip, and he couldn’t stop himself from flicking his tongue over the razor-thin cut on her fingertip. So sweet and dark, so wild.
    “You don’t, really,” he said. “With the stone blight destroying my ichor, I have less and less control over the dragon. One day soon, it will go cold and dark and deadly. I could bring the entire Keep, the whole Nox Incendi clan down with me before I die. I’m a threat to everything I’ve sworn to protect.”
    “And you’re crushed under all that responsibility. So much for the stories that say dragons only care about treasure and sacrificial virgins.”
    Her voice was somber, but for some reason her seriousness took the edge off his anger and regret. “Dragons like lusty wenches too.” He tilted his head into the cradle of her palm. “All the stories are wrong. Everything I wanted to do for the Nox Incendi has gone wrong. This world doesn’t have a place for us, and soon we’ll be nothing more than dust in this desert.”
    “No.” She curled her hand back behind his neck, bringing his head down to hers to rest her forehead against his. “You made this Keep. You might live in secret, but you live.”
    “Not for much longer,” he confessed. “I feel the petralys weighing me down, until my heart can scarcely beat under the burden. I am a shadow of what I was, who I was.”
    “And I’m a ghost,” she murmured. “No wonder you make me feel safe and protected.” Her breathy voice dropped even lower. “You don’t have to be anything more than what you are with me, Bale.”
    Not dragon or man, but some ugly, deadly fusion of the two. Not lord. But lover.
    With a groan, he stripped her clothes from her with a single swipe of his dragon’s talon. The white fabric fluttered away, fragile as moth wings, and she arched gracefully against the stone. Gleaming jewel tones and firelight turned her pale skin to art more rare and precious than any ancient cathedral window. But it was in her unblinking obsidian eyes that he saw himself, reflected back dark and broken.
    And still somehow beautiful.
    He wrapped his withered wing behind her, shielding her from the stone and drawing her closer. She leaned into the tough membrane, and though he hadn’t used that arm in too long, he knew he’d rather cut it off completely than drop her.
    Within the curtain of his wing, she sank to her knees at his feet. Her hands went to the fly of his trousers.
    “Esme…” Desire strangled the rest of the words.
    She gazed up at him through half-lowered lashes up. “Is this wrong?”
    “By all the stars, no.”
    Her fingers curled over the top band, tickling his belly. “No meaning I should stop?”
    “Never.”
    Her smile was secretive and just a little wicked. “Never ever?”
    He threaded his fingers through the blond silk of her hair and tilted her head back. “You are playing with fire,” he whispered.
    Her dark eyes sparked. “Promise?”
    “With all that is left of my heart.”
    Delicately, she undid the buttons. Indelicately, his cock surged out to meet her.
    There’d been a time when he’d wished that part of him would turn to stone, to spare him the longings he could no longer fulfill with unsuspecting human women. After a few decades serviced only by his own hand, the