Touch of Flame

Darcy felt like she was in heaven, wrapped in strong warm arms, surrounded by fuzzy clouds and an intoxicating aroma. Her heart kept fluttering in her chest as she remained in his arms despite the arriving sun. She turned in his arms slowly to see his face. This mesmerizing face that he kept hiding from her for so long.

She touched him, slowly following the lines of his masculine face, reaching his silky hair that always looked wet and running her fingers through it and then reaching his lips. Something strange tingled in her as she touched them with her fingertips.

All these new feelings, the deep longing, the intense tingling she couldn’t understand. He made her unable to think clearly with his touch and the more she got to know him and see him the more she wanted to be with him.

He stirred and she was about to pull her hand away when he grabbed her and kissed her fingertips without opening his eyes. Her face flushed.

“Good morning,” he said in a husky morning voice and heat fluttered low in her belly.

“Good morning,” she replied thinking that it was more than just a good morning.

“I do not wish to get up today,” he sighed pulling her closer.

Neither did she.

“Shall we have breakfast in bed?” He asked.

“Can we?”

He chuckled, his chest vibrating against her touch. “Yes. We can do anything you want.”

This had to be a dream. How could she find someone so good to her?

“I would love that,” she said.

Yet they remained in bed for a while, unwilling to let go of each other. Then he showed her to the privy chamber beside his room while he went to ask the servants to bring breakfast to his room.

As she freshened up, she thought still of what all of this meant. He said he wanted to spend forever with her then would he ask her in time to marry him?

Splashing cold water over her face once more she wiped it over her hair as well before patting a towel over her skin.

She realized lately that she had been feeling some strange worry in the back of her mind that she thought was the usual worry for Russell but now slowly she began to feel it was her sister. There was a different feeling that surrounded her when she thought of her sister and she had strange dreams where she called to her.

Pushing the strange feeling away as just worry and tiredness because of the blood she had been donating to Russell she stepped out and into Ephraim’s room.

She loved interior design. It was very much like him. Elegant, dark, mysterious yet warm and humble. The curtains were of velvet and grey matching the fluffy carpet. The bed was covered with black satin sheets, while the walls were a cold white. The warmth came from the brown, beautifully carved furniture that carried a feeling of woods and forest together with the few green plants near the window.

A large chandelier hung from the ceiling, the crystals clear and glistening from the sunlight coming through the large windows.

Ephraim walked with the bed table with food to bed, wearing a silky silver robe. His eyes settled on her as he sat down. Eyes of smoke and fire.

She walked over and sat across from him, the scent of coffee filling the air. He picked up a piece of cheese to feed her. “This is my favorite cheese,” he told her.

She smiled and ate it from his fingers. As she chewed and tasted the mild salty yet creamy flavor she nodded in agreement. “It is delicious.”

She picked up a piece to feed him as well and he didn’t avoid her fingers. The heat of his mouth surrounded her fingertips and his tongue licked at her. The strange tingling returned, now settling even lower. She watched his lips as he chewed, her gaze traveling lower to his neck and the part of his chest revealed under the robe.

Oh, Lord! Now she was too much. She went back to focus on the breakfast but he was just so enticing, unknowingly frustrating her with sweet words, the touches, and the feeding her now and then while chewing with that inviting mouth. She almost let out a sigh of frustration.

Ephraim removed the table between them as soon as they finished and then moved closer to her. Without warning, he grabbed her hair and took her lips in a kiss that left her breathless. His kisses grew more passionate each day and now her heart couldn’t handle it, yet she didn’t want him to stop.

“I can’t help myself when you keep looking at me like that,” his voice was gravelly as he spoke near her mouth taking the last of her breath before kissing her again; suffocating her in a way where she was willing to happily die.

Even the voice in the back of her mind that used to whisper “insanity” was now silenced by all the pulsing need in her. She grabbed his shoulders, her hands feeling his strength, seeking their way underneath his robe.

He responded to her touch by deepening the kiss and she marveled at the feel of him under her palms. Warm and strong, she touched his chest and went to his shoulders and arms, the robe coming off along the way. His mouth was maddening against hers and their bodies sought each other like magnets.

She suddenly fell on her back and with him on top, the delicious disturbing ache now reaching a forbidden place. Heat burned her cheeks knowing what it meant, knowing what passed between a man and a woman and the fact that what she was feeling meant wanting that very thing to happen between them.

He put some of his weight on her, causing her to moan into his mouth. Her hands went to his back and she pulled him closer when he tore his mouth from her.

Why?

He sat up with her trapped between his thighs and his torso fully exposed. This was what she had been touching? He was… tempting. She gazed up at his face, meeting his eyes. The golden in the middle burned like wildfire. Her heart skipped.

“Darcy,” he began softly.

Oh no! Not an apologetic look. She was utterly embarrassed. She pulled away from underneath him and sat up straight.

“It’s fine.” She hurried to say.

“No. I want you badly. Every bit of me wants to possess you and surrender to you.

Then?

“But I want you to know everything about me. We have spent time together but there are still things you don’t know about me.”

She frowned. He still seemed worried about that.

“Is it about you being a dragon?”

“Yes.”

“I told you…”

“I know. But it is also about you. About us.”

She listened.

“Half-breeds like myself have the senses of a dragon. We have the magic in our blood. The way we see, hear and feel things are closer to that of a dragon.”

Darcy nodded wondering where this was going.

“We have an instinct. One that helps us hunt, and survive but also find a mate.”

He paused and she frowned.

“You are my breedmate, Darcy.”

Bree-breed? Breed? Breed-mate?!

What was he talking about? How was she his breed…

She gasped just thinking of the word that he reminded her of all the horror she went through. Her blood turned cold as she recalled every time she was referred to as a breeder.

“I know what you think but…”

She stepped back, quickly getting out of bed but then her legs wobbled. He reached his hand afraid she would fall but didn’t get closer. “Darcy..” he began pleadingly.

“What… what do you… mean?” She shivered.

She was no one’s breed anything!

“It means you are my destined one.”

“And how do you know?”

He clenched his jaw, his gaze wavering.

“Is it my scent?” She asked feeling her eyes burn.

From the way he looked at her, she got her answer.

“It is my scent,” she breathed. The scent that made her a breeder and put her through all of that. He picked her for the same reason.

“What? Because I am fertile. I am… compatible or whatever twisted thing you have in mind.”

“No Darcy, I- that is different.”

“How?!” She almost cried feeling like her world was falling apart.

“A breedmate is not for the purpose to breed. It is to share a life together.”

She nodded, feeling anger rise within her. “Share a life when you merely picked me by scent. All this time, that was why you were helping me?” She said just now realizing how foolish she had been. She could no longer breathe. She was a breeder all over again. Just a breeder.

“Darcy..”

She tried to look at him but could no longer see clearly. She stepped back, her vision returning for a moment. He had a pained look on his face but he disappeared from her sight again. Her skin prickled with a frosty feeling, like every time she had been stripped of her clothes. She felt as if it happened to her just all over.

The world swayed and darkened around her and then it disappeared.