Dragonfury 01 - Fury of Fire

he would taste good slathered in heavy cream. Swallowing past her sudden case of dry mouth, she glanced at Bastian from the corner of her eye. Staring at his plate, he cleared his throat and shifted in his chair.
    His chest muscles rolled, drawing all kinds of attention from the peanut gallery inside her head. They urged her on. She stalled, drawing circles in icing sugar with the tines of her fork. When that didn’t work her, she took another tack.
    “So, energy-fused, huh?” she asked, desperate for a distraction.
    White-knuckling his fork, Bastian stared at his soufflé and nodded. “The bonding is rare for my kind. I thought it was a myth. Until I met you.”
    The compliment relaxed her a little, and she smiled. He was being honest with her, even though he found it hard. She understood, knew talking about his race, revealing secrets long kept, trusting her with the truth was difficult for him. He’d hesitated at first, the truth coming in stilted stretches of conversation. But true to his word, he explained as they ate, pausing only to allow Daimler to set course after course in front of them.
    She had so many questions.
    He answered them all, telling her about the Meridian, how its energy bands ringed the planet and held everything in place. It was fascinating, really. The vertical ribbons ran north to south, joining at the poles. Thin threads spread over the globe with magical netting, connecting all living things in a continuous loop. And surprise, surprise…she understood the interconnected landscape. Had felt it all her life, sensing more than believing that every organism—big or small—affected the next. The circle of life approach—the idea that all things turned inward, renewing themselves with the seasons—appealed to her.
    And Dragonkind? Their history and origins captivated her.
    Born of the goddess Mother Earth and the Dragon God, the race’s beginnings were right out of an A&E movie. Bastian told it perfectly: like a bedtime story, full of twists and turns, deceit and betrayal. He cranked up the tension in all the right places, telling of the Dragon God’s affair with a wood nymph…and the goddess’s reaction. Her weapon of choice? A curse that tied Dragonkind to her world—the earthly plane and the energy in it. But worse—at least in Dragon God’s mind—was the way she’d done it. She’d taken the ability to produce female offspring from Dragonkind, forcing the males to submit to human women not only to survive, but to procreate.
    Brilliant. Revenge with flare. An ancient goddess with a modern woman’s attitude and the guts to get even. And really, what woman couldn’t get behind that brand of kick-butt justice?
    Gathering all the factoids up, Myst categorized the information, filing everything away in the correct mental file folders. “And I’m high-energy?”
    “Very. The most powerful I’ve ever seen.” Bastian chased a blueberry around the edge of his plate. “I hadn’t known what being full felt like until I touched you.”
    Okay. She had to admit the whole feeding thing threw her. Unsure how she felt about it, she chewed on the inside of her lip and sorted through the mental minefield. When nothing exploded in the psychological sphere, she frowned. Maybe she could accept his hunger and the way he satisfied it with a little more information.
    Digging into her dessert, Myst carved a hole in its center, making a mess of the pastry with no intention of eating it. “You could hurt me while feeding, couldn’t you?”
    “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, squishing the poor berry with his fork.
    “I know.” And she did…deep down where instinct ruled and common sense took a back seat. Regardless of the risk, she trusted him: to keep her safe, to take only what he needed and…
    What do you know? Her uncertainty shifted, and all of a sudden, the energy feeding seemed okay. Erotic in a way that made her shift in her seat again. Bastian needed her, and she responded to that truth of discovery. A humming started deep inside her, the desire to provide all he required becoming clawing desperation. She wanted to be the one …the only woman to love him, feed him, hold him in her arms.
    “Bastian,” she whispered, her need for him tossing her into a void of uncertainty. “Please, look at me.”
    A muscle twitched along his jaw. He shook his head. “Not a good idea.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m wound too tight,” he said, his voice so deep she barely heard him. “I