Breath of Flame and Shadow

Rowan had a greater appreciation for meteorologists after discovering the joy of flying. Wind was moody. Weather was, too. She found she had an affinity for the changeability of the weather after a week of flying through Central American summer thunderstorms. The streaming wetness of the rain represented the tears she wouldn’t let herself shed over her heartbreak. Eventually, she learned she could just increase her altitude and escape it all. Too bad she couldn’t do the same for the turmoil that roiled inside her.

The wind became her friend up high, the steady currents shifting in ways that she was able to sense instinctively based on the temperature. It was colder. Much colder, but she found she enjoyed the crisp brush of the currents along her scales, much like she’d enjoyed the wind from the interior of Rafe’s car not long after they had met.

The wind did nothing to drown out his touch or his words still vivid in her memory. She grew weary of the images that refused to leave her mind. In an effort to purge the thoughts, she pushed herself to her absolute limits before stopping to rest. She soon discovered she could fly for thousands of miles without stopping, but the hunger that would overcome her when she finally did rest made it more and more difficult to regain her human shape and conjure the clothing she needed to blend into whichever human community she chose to land nearby.

The magic Rafe had shared with her during their lovemaking had left a ghost of sensation deep inside her that she wished she could shake. It was like she’d let herself get drunk on some delicious cocktail and was now waking up to the unpleasant aftereffects and she couldn’t shed the ache that didn’t seem to want to subside. Replacing the magic was the only method she knew to combat that feeling. She could drown her sorrows at the same time as replenishing her energy.

She found it too easy to return to her old habits when she chose an attractive man in a bar in Costa Rica. She’d chosen him because of how different he’d seemed from Rafe. He was dressed casually, in loose linen pants and a similarly comfortable shirt, open at the neck to display a suntanned chest lightly dusted with gold curls. His hair was disheveled and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a day.

She had the man wrapped around her finger in the span of ten minutes. Within twenty they were alone together in his rented hillside cabana, standing on a wide deck that seemed to overlook the entire world, including the dormant volcano that loomed against the horizon.

“Wine?” he asked. “Or something stronger? I have tequila, too.”

Rowan shook her head, keeping her eyes on the volcano in the distance and pondering the shimmering threads of magic that led to its peak. The trails felt familiar to her, and she believed they must be linked to other dragons somehow. It seemed to make sense to follow them once she had her fill with this man.

“Wine works,” she answered distractedly. The thought of tequila turned her stomach. The very scent of it brought back memories of the first night with Rafe.

“It’s a gorgeous view, isn’t it? One of the benefits of living in a place like this. Money goes a long way.”

The man rambled on about living as an ex-pat for a few moments while he poured drinks for them, but Rowan tuned out the sound, instead choosing to focus on the intriguing flow of energy that surrounded him, so different from the magic that made up the paths she’d been following.

She’d learned enough during her time with Rafe to know that magic was attracted to a person’s well of desire. It clung to them like iron filings to a magnet until their orgasm released the power that a dragon could absorb. Rafe had also taught her that dragons had their own similar wells, but the magic they absorbed was transformed, taking on special qualities that were unique to the dragon. “Like a fingerprint,” Rafe had said. A human’s magic was just as unique, of course, but less tied to their essences. It must be that essence of Rafe that she’d been unable to shake. She hoped to dilute it with this man’s energy.

Rowan glanced at the man. She smiled politely while sipping her wine and pretended to listen to him. His energy was average, and seemed a little bit uncertain at the moment. She shifted closer to him, let her arm brush against his. Her skin tingled in response to the tickle of the hairs on his arm. The rise in his arousal was subtle, yet almost painfully apparent to Rowan amid his hesitance to make the next move. She desperately needed what he had to give.

“Do the other women like the view as much as I do?” Rowan turned to look directly at him and sized him up with a sweep of her gaze over his body. He really was a fine looking man, broad-shouldered and square jawed. Just self-possessed enough that she enjoyed the way she’d shaken him with the question. She loved that she could do that to even the most controlled men. Like Rafe.

He tensed and cleared his throat. “Do you mean the mountain, or…?” He left the question hanging, shot a look out at the view of Irazu, then back to her.

“I do enjoy mountains quite a bit, yes,” she said. She set her empty wine glass down and moved closer to him. His warmth seeped through the thin, soft linen of his shirt as she slid her palms down over thick pectorals letting herself explore the shapes of him through the fabric. He stood as though hypnotized by her touch, his lips slightly parted and eyes steadily watching her face. The slow, even rhythm of his breath increased when Rowan unbuttoned his shirt and slipped both hands inside to rake fingernails gently through the coarse blond hair. She held his gaze, watched his lids lower in response to her touch. He bared his teeth slightly and hissed when she pinched one nipple.

“Is it like that, then?” he asked, opening his eyes to look at her more intently.

“Like what?” she asked, digging her nails a little deeper into the curve of thick muscle over his hip. She’d intended to provoke some kind of reaction, to get him to come out of his shell, and it seemed to be working.

He grabbed her wrist suddenly, just as she began toying with the button of his trousers. His erection was plain as day inside the loose-fitting pants that hung low on his waist. He wasn’t wearing briefs and his cock hung low and thick along one thigh. Rowan suddenly ached in some deep place she’d only recently understood. In a way, it was an ache to be fucked, but more than that was the hungry need to absorb that rising swell of energy that had begun to swirl with greater intensity around him since she’d pinched his nipple.

“Believe it or not, I didn’t just bring you here to fuck you, but I’m happy to oblige if that’s why you’re here.”

“Why did you bring me here?” Rowan asked, struggling to restrain her frustration. She didn’t want to interact with people any more than absolutely necessary.

“Because you’re a beautiful, intelligent woman, and I imagine I would enjoy a lot more than just your body.”

His expression was so sincere and direct. Precisely the kind of directness she’d appreciated about Rafe when she’d first met him. The rush of memory only made her angry, however. She raised her free hand and deftly unfastened his pants, smirking at him defiantly. Before she could go further he cursed and gripped her other wrist, tugging her abruptly closer so that his mouth pressed against her ear.

“Is that all you want?” His breath blew hot across her skin, the tickle making her shiver.

Rowan shook her head, pulling back to sneer at him. “I want too much. I want things you can’t even fucking fathom. But there’s only one thing you can actually give me so don’t even fucking bother trying with the rest, alright?”

He looked briefly confused and maybe even a little hurt. She very nearly regretted being so mean. In a past life she would have likely enjoyed his company as much as he seemed to believe he would enjoy hers. But she didn’t have the patience for that kind of intimacy now.

His hands clutched her wrists bruisingly tight, his eyes blazing with anger that reflected her own inner turmoil perfectly. It didn’t even surprise her when he shoved her down to her knees and released her hands.

“You got it, babe. If this is what you want, have at it.” He tugged his cock free and stroked it once in front of her.

Rowan didn’t wait. She gripped the base of his cock, took him into her mouth, and sucked once, long and hard along his shaft. Salty, smooth skin and musk inundated her senses. He tasted and smelled like sex, and for a brief moment she was taken back to the trysts she’d had before Rafe. The enjoyable yet mostly empty couplings. Pleasure was all she’d been after then, lacking the true understanding of precisely why she needed those encounters.

His energy shifted violently, becoming a hurricane of magic brought on by the lust she’d incited with her mouth on him. That power would feel so, so good once it was hers. She could bring him off fast like this, too. Then maybe again after she was finished.

“Holy fucking Christ!” he said, threading his fingers into her hair. His legs nearly buckled when she began bobbing her head, taking him deep enough that she could feel his tip at the back of her throat. She was relentless, sucking and teasing with her tongue. It was tempting to shift, but she restrained herself. He was already far beyond the point that she needed to get creative with her mouth. He came with a buck of his hips and a harsh, incoherent yell. Hot semen pulsed onto her tongue, almost as sweet as the magic that flowed into her.

He collapsed to his knees when she finally released him and laughed a little shakily. “Well, I did always say embrace your strengths. But I have a feeling you’re an expert at a lot more than just the perfect blow job.”

Rowan smiled back, buzzed and happy from the fresh infusion of magic. It left her content enough to accept his hand when he offered to help her up. It even seemed to make perfect sense when he led her inside and kissed her a few moments later, his lips tender and soft as though in apology for the crude way he’d behaved. He made love to her with deliberate care, as though he hoped to prove to her that he was skilled enough to be worthy, looking at her every so often to gauge her reactions to the things he did.

She came close to believing she’d been wrong about running away again. Lying in his arms in the dark later, she thought that perhaps this lovely human man could help her purge the memories of Rafe. Perhaps he could love her the way she craved.

Except the very words her subconscious mind had chosen told her otherwise. Human. That’s what he was. That’s what she wasn’t. And the itch grew more intense again—the clawing need to not be earthbound, to feel the wind carrying her higher, to get even farther away from the hurt she’d left behind.

She left him sleeping soundly, his deep, slow breaths evidence of his exhaustion. She’d had her fill of him and it was time to move on.

Rowan left her clothes in a heap on the floor, not even certain whether the conjured garments would remain behind once she’d gone. Dawn was just breaking over the horizon when she leapt off the edge of his deck, taking flight over the twilit jungle and heading in the direction of the volcano, following a path of magic that grew clearer the longer she flew.