“Wait. Wait.” He shook his head hard. “How does that work?”
“What? Love?” she said impatiently. “I don’t know, how does it ever work? We’re all shifters, aren’t we? Same magic.” She wiggled her fingers, a mischievous look on her face, and he felt the shiver of magic in the air as scales rippled over the backs of her hands.
“I thought…”
“I’ve known for weeks,” she said, her smile fading. “I thought you knew, too. I thought you just… knew we couldn’t be together.”
His heart clenched. “Why not?”
“I’m Queen? You’re Alpha?” He’d never seen such a vulnerable look on her face. “Neither of us are exactly free to… you know, run off together.”
“Why would we have to run?” Seth stared at her. “Why run, when we can stay? If we’re soulmates… Lana, can you think of a better way to bring wolves and dragons together?”
“They’ll be furious.”
“Lana, didn’t you just organize a whole royal wedding for the explicit purpose of bringing your subjects together? Don’t you see? Our being soulmates doesn’t need to conflict with our leadership. It willstrengthenit. What do wolves and dragons have in common?”
“Aside from hating each other? Soulmates.” Her expression was slowly changing. “There’s something in that.”
If leadership had taught him one thing, it was to quit while he was ahead, especially when he was trying to make a point that was important to him. He fell quiet, sitting back on his haunches by her bedside, looking at her face in the moonlight filtering through the window of the waystation and trying not to let himself pass out from the joy, relief and shock still ricocheting through his nervous system. She was his soulmate. He had a soulmate. All these years alone… but of course he’d had to spend all these years alone. How else would he have been ready to meet her?
“You know,” Lana said softly, her eyes sliding thoughtfully back to his. “This was the first bed where I dreamed about you.”
“First of many?”
“Every bed since,” she said. “Including the forest floor back there.”
“What was the dream about?”
“Mostly about me being a huge hero and saving everybody—”
“I meant the first one,” he said, huffing laughter. The grin that spread across her face sent a spike of arousal straight to his gut, and he reminded himself firmly that she’d just narrowly avoided death and needed her rest…
“Why don’t you come here, and I’ll show you?”
Well, he’d done his best to resist. Seth was already shrugging off his shirt when he climbed into the narrow bunk bed, Lana giggling as she pulled back the covers and wriggled over in a somewhat futile attempt to make room for him. But it was difficult to care when all the narrow bed meant was that they were wrapped all the more tightly together, her legs tangling around his, her body pressing against him as he tilted her chin up with one crooked finger and finally took her lips in a tender, lingering kiss.
The heat between them was undeniable, inevitable, and deliciously familiar… but there was something novel about the bunk bed, the close quarters, the quiet in the room and the buzz of the forest outside. They kissed long and lazily, drinking each other in, their breathing deep and relaxed—even if it hitched occasionally with the shift of a hip or the casual press of her thigh against his groin. They could both feel the pressure growing, the heat between them prompting them to wriggle out of layer after layer of clothing until there was nothing between them but skin and cool night air… but in the tight confines of the bed, there was a delicious sense of restraint, of having nowhere to go.
Still, that didn’t mean his hands couldn’t roam. He grinned against her throat, where he was seeking out the places that made her gasp and whimper when he kissed them. Something about stroking the soft skin of her hips under the blanket, unable to see her, forced to rely exclusively on the sensation under his fingertips… it was delicious. By the time he’d reached her hipbones, she was gasping for breath, grinding her hips against him in wordless entreaty… and while the friction against his cock was undeniably wonderful, there was a reason he was holding himself back. Right now, he wanted to take his time with her… and if that meant they were here all night, then so be it. His pack, her subjects… they could take care of themselves for a night, couldn’t they?
Maybe a morning, too. Maybe even an afternoon… and Lana groaned as his fingers parted her thighs and slid into the wet heat that was waiting there.
Something about the sounds of the forest outside put an odd pressure on them to stay quiet… Lana quickly claimed his lips in a kiss with the clear ulterior motive of stifling her whimpers and moans. Well, he wasn’t complaining. His eyes slid shut, all his awareness narrowing down to his fingertips, finding exactly the right amount of pressure to stroke and tease with, diving deep into the heavenly heat of her body and back out again until she was groaning and slamming her hips forward against his hand, urgent, desperate for more. Then the bed shook, its legs squeaking across the floor, and they both froze, eyes comically wide, as though they’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Not as sturdy as the stone beds in the Palace,” Lana murmured after a pause, her voice sending a shiver of arousal straight to his cock. “Guess we have to be gentle.”
“Slow and steady,” he murmured, driving his fingertips hard into her with every syllable—and she uttered a guttural cry as she slammed her hips helplessly back against him. The bunk bed shifted again, and Lana made an impatient sound in her throat as he tutted at her.
“What? Worried we’re going to wake the other campers?”
“Worried I’m going to lose control and break the bed, actually,” he admitted. He wasn’t ready for the way her eyes went almost black in the moonlight, for her to reach down and take his manhood in a grip so exquisitely tight he felt his eyes roll back in his head.
“Break it,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m your Queen. Break it.”
What could anyone say to that? His body moved before his mind could even finish processing the words, flipping her onto her back in one deft movement. He positioned himself between her limbs, the blanket still wrapped tightly around them, the narrow bed keeping them close. She grinned up at him, eyes alight, self-assured and smug and the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen in his life. And just to prove that he was still at least a tiny bit in control here, he slid his cock into her agonizingly slowly, inch by inch until she was moaning desperately for him to hurry up…
“As you command,” he murmured against her throat… and then, with all the pent-up longing of the last weeks, he drove himself into her, again and again. She met him with equal force and then some, her legs clenching around his waist, every muscle in her midsection taught and straining as she met his thrusts. So much for being quiet—the bed legs were squealing against the floor as each powerful thrust slammed it another few inches towards the far wall—Seth closed his eyes and buried his face in her throat, inhaled the sweet scent of her hair, kissed her hard and desperate, trying to pour all the love he hadn’t been able to give voice to into their lovemaking instead.