He paused to wipe his hand on the towel. “My turn, baby,” he said in a growl. Kael’s hands fisted the sheets as Zack dug his fingers into Kael’s hips. He started slow, bottoming out at the end of every stroke and withdrawing until just the head of his cock was still tightly fisted by Kael’s ass. Then he picked up speed, harder and faster, until his balls slapped against Kael’s rump with every stroke.
“You want it?” Zack asked.
“Yes!” Kael gasped. “Give it to me!”
Zack pounded into him, holding back as long as he could, until his cock practically ached from the strain. When he let go, he slammed hard and deep into Kael one last time, happily groaning at the satisfaction of shooting his load deep inside him.
Both men collapsed onto the bed. Zack didn’t want to move. “You okay?” he mumbled.
“Uh-huh. I can’t believe we haven’t fucked each other’s brains out yet.”
“I thought we just did.”
Kael chuckled. “I meant completely out of our bodies.”
Zack kissed his shoulder before slowly rolling off him with a grunt. “Now I’m ready for bed.”
Kael kissed him, then left the bed to clean up. He brought back a washcloth for Zack, and then they curled up together, with Kael spooning Zack, his arm thrown around his waist.
“I love you,” Zack mumbled.
Kael smiled and nuzzled his ear. “I love you, too.”
Kael lay there long after Zack fell asleep cuddled against him. He couldn’t help but smile at his lover. Their relationship had too many dynamics to begin to count. Although he was physically older than Zack, and a dragon, Zack was mentally and emotionally far older. They switched back and forth in bed and in life, each seamlessly taking the lead when necessary. Like tonight, he knew Zack had wanted to do the driving, and he was happy to give it to him.
He also didn’t begrudge a second of the time Zack spent with Lina. Zack had a calming, soothing, peaceful aura about him. Just sitting with him and talking always relaxed him.
He could only imagine how much of that calming presence Lina needed on a daily basis to keep her from losing her mind over the recent events.
Zack let out a soft snore and shifted position, snuggling even closer to Kael.
Kael had given up on ever finding love. If it wasn’t for Bertholde insisting that Andel send him to Rick and Jan to help out with the prophecies, he might never have met and fallen in love with Zack.
Given the recent events, he suspected that’s exactly why Bertholde insisted specifically on him. Not just because of his past experience with hunting the cockatrice, or his translation skills, or even because he was cousins with Jan and Rick through their mothers, but because she’d seen in a vision that he’d fall for Zack.
He smiled. I wish I could thank her.
He’d spent the first decade after his family’s murder seething with rage and hunting down the people who had killed them. Too wrapped up in his anger to even think about really grieving. Then as it became more and more clear that unless something changed he might never find the killers, depression set in.
He wouldn’t deny he’d even considered killing himself a time or two just to be out of misery.
Finally, it was Bertholde who’d slapped some sense into him, literally, at a small dragon Gathering at her home. She’d cornered him in her kitchen and laid into him about how his parents wouldn’t want him to end his life or spend it entirely in search of their killers.
Then she’d slapped him. Hard.
With her eyes glittering in anger, she said, “You dishonor their memory by simply giving up! You let the killers win if you do not live for happiness. I’m not saying do not remember them or grieve for them or sometimes feel sad. But to waste your life because you are too entrenched in grief to find your way out is not what they would have wanted!”
He’d barely heard her words, because the slap, while not terribly painful, had shocked the crap out of him. As had her harsh tone. Bertholde, while feisty, never acted like that.
As he tried to recover, she grabbed him, pulling his head down and cradling it to her chest. “Grieve, but live.”
Just as shocking, he burst into tears. She sat with him there in her kitchen, holding and rocking him as he cried in her lap while she softly talked to him in a loving, soothing tone. Finally, when he regained his composure, she’d wiped his tears away and offered him a loving smile.
“There is my sweet Kael,” she said. “You are a good man with a loving heart. You will find the man you are destined to meet. Have faith.”
That, alone, had shocked him more than anything. He’d assumed he’d hidden his sexual orientation from everyone. She smiled. “You hide nothing from me, little dragon,” she said. Then she kissed his forehead. “Your mother and father loved you very much, and they would not have cared one bit about that. Anyone your heart told you was your mate, they would have welcomed him in.”
From that moment on, even though he didn’t get to see her very often, he’d made a point of giving her a big hug every time he did.
Wiping away his tears, he let out a sad sigh, rolled over, and tried to go to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Lina stood in the shower under water as hot as she could stand it. Jan couldn’t stand it for long and quickly lathered, rinsed, and escaped with no repeat after giving her a quick kiss.
“I’ll wait for you in bed, lovely.”
She smiled. “No problem.”
Rick, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the hot water or his showering companion. He wrapped his arms around her and nibbled on her neck. Her fiery dragon loved the steamy heat. “Want company, love?”
She sighed, leaning against him. “Yes, but just company for now.” Her mind was too full of everything she’d learned at Baba Yaga’s to think about being romantic right at that moment. “Nothing personal.”
“Fair enough. Care to share what your talk with Zack was, or was it personal time?”
The twins had quickly grown to not only like Zack, but trust him. They also trusted that Lina needed her personal time with him, both as Lina and as the Goddess. She had an unbreakable bond with Zack that only strengthened her love for her men without threatening them in the slightest.
“It was Goddess stuff, but I don’t mind sharing.” She turned in his arms and looked up into his face. Now, with the old memories called to the surface, she realized he looked nearly identical to how he had in his first life.
He just couldn’t remember their life together before this one, even though it was fleetingly short before the battle with the cockatrice.
“You look troubled, love,” he said, his own brow furrowing. “Anything I can do?”
Might as well fess up. “I paid Baba Yaga a visit.”
He frowned. “When?”
“While we were in the van. I closed my eyes and found myself there.”
“But you never left the van.”
“It was in my mind. But it was real.”
“Ah. And?”
She rested her head on his strong shoulder. “We have to stop the cockatrice,” she said, her tears flowing. Would she ever stop crying? She hated feeling helpless. “We have to stop them this time, or they will kill us all. Along with a lot more innocent people, like Kael’s family.”
He tried his best to console her. “We will, love. I swear we will.”