The battle raged for a few short minutes, but she realized the dragons were circling back in formation, protecting her. All of them. Every single male Carpathian. Protecting her. She felt tears burn. The wind tore them away, but she knew these men, regardless of their inability to feel emotion, put her before their own safety.

She heard the screams of the puppets and humans as the dragons passed overhead, but everything was a blur and the dragons stayed in formation as they headed home, Tariq and Charlotte in the very center.

12

Charlotte woke with every muscle in her body aching. The dragons might have been illusion, but riding them took a toll on one’s body. She didn’t open her eyes, savoring the feel of just drifting, half awake and half asleep in a warm cocoon. She’d been brutally tired the night before and could barely stand when they’d arrived at the compound.

Tariq had been wounded when Fridrick attacked them. She’d seen the blood on his shoulder and neck, but he simply shook his head and told her the others were healers and they would take care of it. He would be a few minutes and then he’d join her.

She’d expected to have nightmares, but she’d slept like the dead. She’d taken one peek at Lourdes, grateful for Genevieve, who had put her niece to bed for her. The child was sound asleep although it was early morning. She’d left a note for Genevieve to wake her if she overslept and then she remembered standing by Lourdes’s bed, swaying, unable to think what to do next. Tariq had picked her up as if she were featherlight, cradling her to his chest, whispering to her to go to sleep. She’d done just that with the feel of his lips brushing her eyelids.

Now she was pressed against someone warm and solid and she found herself smiling, knowing it was Tariq. His legs were tangled with hers. One thigh was over the top of hers, and his arm was a band around her waist. His fingers moved along the underside of her breast and instantly she became aware of the fact that she wore nothing at all. She didn’t want to open her eyes and face whatever new nightmare would come along; she just wanted to stay there in the bed with Tariq and shut the rest of the world out. She let herself drift in a haze of drowsiness and warmth.

Tariq’s fingers stroked gently over her flesh, tracing patterns absently into her warm flesh. It felt… lazy. Nice. Sexy. She needed that. She needed to just lie in his arms and feel loved. Protected. Safe. His lips brushed her temple, and he shifted, sliding over the top of her, blanketing her. His hips fit snugly, perfectly in the cradle of hers. His hair was a glossy chestnut fall, drifting over her shoulder and her left breast in a sensual slide.

His eyes were warm blue, almost sapphire, like two gems staring straight into her soul. Her heart contracted. Her belly softened. Her womb fluttered and her sex clenched. His mouth moved gently over her face. Small, butterfly kisses, featherlight, yet each brush of his lips sent small tremors through her.

One hand went to her throat, circling it so her heart beat into his palm. He held her eyes as his kiss went to her chin, his teeth scraping with exquisite gentleness. His hand moved from her throat down her body, sweeping slowly over her breasts, the valley between them, to her rib cage and then her belly. His gaze never left hers and she saw it there. In his eyes. The claiming. The possession. The stark, raw love.

She didn’t know how he could feel that way about her, but it was there in his eyes and his eyes didn’t lie. She felt tears burning. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she belonged. As if she’d come home. She’d traveled the world extensively, looking… but for what she was never sure. She just knew she had never found it until this moment.

He circled his cock with his fist. “Are you ready for me, sielamet?”

She nodded, never looking away from his eyes. Of course she was ready. How could she be anything but ready for him? She felt as if she was made for him. Born for him. The broad crown nudged her entrance and her muscles contracted, wanting him desperately, needing to draw him inside. He was thick and hard, velvet over steel, pushing through her tight muscles, making her gasp, arch her back, buck her hips to meet his invasion.

Very gently, with unhurried motion, he took first her left leg and wrapped it around him and then her right so that she hugged him with her legs, digging her heels into his thighs. He caught both of her hands, threading his fingers through hers and raising her arms to either side of her head, pinning them to the mattress.

He began to move, slowly at first, his gaze burning into hers. She knew what he was saying to her. He was making love to her. Worshiping her body with his. Making certain she heard him and that she knew exactly what he was saying to her. He wanted her looking into his eyes so she could see what he felt. He wanted her to be in his mind so she could see his thoughts, so she could know him as intimately and as thoroughly as he knew her.

With his body locked in hers, moving slowly so that the burn built and built, looking into his eyes and knowing she was going to be there forever was the most sensual, intimate thing she could ever conceive. He gave her that and it was so beautiful.

Her body followed his every movement, reaching for him. Surrounding him. As the tension in her coiled tighter and tighter, her muscles locked around him, building the wonderful friction so that each time he surged into her, streaks of fire burned through both of them. She opened her mouth in a small gasp, moving her hips to meet his, tightening her fingers through his and holding him to her with her legs.

“So close, honey,” she gasped, feeling the burn building into an out of control wildfire.

“That’s it, sielamet,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful when you give that to me.” He leaned forward and took her mouth. The action pressed his cock right into her most sensitive spot so that lightning streaked through her. She gasped, tightening her legs, moving with him, catching fire, letting the storm take her.

“Mine,” he whispered softly, watching her, his eyes still holding hers. “Love this, woman, when I give you that, but love you so much more.”

Then he was slamming into her, deep and hard, taking her with him again, so that when he emptied himself into her, she tumbled into another strong orgasm, this one off the charts, stealing her breath and sending every nerve ending into sensual awareness. She lay under him a long time, wrapped around him, surrounding him, loving being so close. He hadn’t taken her blood, and a part of her had wanted that, but she knew he wanted to complete the conversion and she wasn’t quite ready for that.