Sleeping Dragons Book 1: Animus Read online

  “It’ll help me.” She unzipped her shorts and shoved her hand down the front. Her pussy was slick and wet, her clit a hard, thick bundle, swollen and throbbing. Her fingertips swept over it, sending a rush of tingles up through her body. She continued down, sinking into the slick heat between her pussy lips, gathering wetness, then back up to rub with two fingers over her clit in delicious slow circles. She squeezed one breast in her free hand, rubbing her nipple with her thumb while she watched him. His eyes stayed fixed on the movement of her hand underneath her shorts. After a second he swallowed and cleared his throat then met her eyes.

  “It won’t help.”

  “It will when I come, and you’ll wish you did it to me.”

  “That’s just it. You can’t. Now that the magic is in you, your nirvana belongs to them.” He glanced to the tightly closed door beside them.

  “We’ll see about that.” The rush was already beginning, her muscles clenching and her body tingling all over, but it dissipated as quickly as it had begun. She rubbed her clit harder, chasing the sensation she was so ready for—she just needed a little bit more to get there. Her jaw clenched in the effort to find it. She sped up her motions and tweaked her nipple harder, grabbed her other breast and teased, but nothing. She was there! Why couldn’t she come? It had never been hard for her to have an orgasm. If she wanted it all she had to do was this… exactly what she was doing. Usually it was easier and better if someone happened to be fucking her at the same time, though that had never been a requirement.

  “Why aren’t you touching yourself?” she asked, breathless and pausing to let her tired muscles rest for a moment.

  “I can’t.” He slumped back against the wall behind him and looked down between his thighs at his cock like it was some foreign beast he couldn’t quite comprehend.

  “What do you mean? You can’t touch me and you can’t touch yourself either? How do you bathe?”

  He laughed. “Well, I can...technically, but I learned years ago that it did no good. I can’t bring myself off. And you won’t be able to… ah… come… while you’re here.”

  “Let me guess… dragon magic.” She settled back against the wall, too exhausted to keep trying even though her pussy screamed for release.

  He smiled ruefully. “Yes.”

  “So you’ve never had an orgasm? That’s tragic.”

  “I have, but only in my sleep. They send me dreams sometimes. It’s how I knew you and your team were the ones I was meant to bring. I dreamed of all of you the week before I met you. Especially of you. Probably because you are the leader.”

  She stared up at the illuminated carving on the door. The polished red and purple colors beckoned to her and she reached out, tracing her finger over the upraised surface of the carved design. The smooth stone was only slightly cooler under her heated touch and the colors mesmerized her. Jade came in an array of colors, Eben had said, and was also one of the toughest minerals, nearly impervious to breakage, which the pristine quality of these carvings attested to. It had to have taken years to carve it all, and the entire place was decorated entirely in carved jade.

  This door included a bas relief image depicting two dragons coiled around what looked like two human figures. It was like looking at a page of the Kama Sutra the way the angles were just a little off, but it was clear enough for her to understand what the image was meant to convey. Two humans, a man and a woman, engaged in passionate coitus with two dragons. Though she had to blink a few times to register the shapes of the dragons. Sometimes they looked like scaled, long-tailed beasts, but if she shifted her eyes the right way, they looked almost human.

  “What the hell did you put in our food, anyway?”

  “Some spices I cultivated myself known to awaken the senses. Other than that, nothing but the water here. It’s been steeping in their magic for hundreds of years. Their need to awaken is very present. This is the time.”

  He seemed so earnest, but his need wasn’t enough to sell her. She stood up and straightened her shirt.

  “I think you’re playing us somehow. I have no idea how, but I’ll figure it out. Put your fucking pants on.” Before I go nuts.

  As she was walking back toward the doorway to the main chamber she heard behind her, “Erika. You can’t leave this place until you’ve completed the ritual. I didn’t trap you into this.”

  “Oh? Then why does it feel like I have no other options?” she shot back over her shoulder.

  “I’m more than just a guide, so I know it was always your quest to be here. This is where you belong—where we both belong. You know it’s true, deep inside. Just translate some of the text and it’ll be clear, I promise.”

  She paused for a single step and clenched her fists. If he was playing them all for his own ends, she’d figure it out, but he wasn’t lying about her quest. Still, Kris’s words were too much fantasy for her to reconcile. She’d found it. That was enough. All she needed to do now was catalog the artifacts and transport the pieces suitable for study and display. Then write her dissertation on the entire expedition. After it was published she would reap the rewards and bask in the professional limelight. End of story.

  Except deep inside she knew there was so much more to the story than that. Her father had never been after glory, but his research had led her here after all. Maybe there was more for her to find besides artifacts. Maybe Kris was the key to uncovering the deeper secrets of this temple. Before she’d walked through those doors at the surface she would have argued that only science could convince her of the truth. Now, she wasn’t so sure. With each step further away from the doorway she’d just left behind, the weaker her hold was on her own convictions until what she wanted had shifted entirely.

  She raised her hand up to fondle the small jade figurine at her throat. It was a childhood dream come true. More than that, it was her life’s work realized in spectacular fashion. Her entire body buzzed with the understanding that this was what she really wanted. To awaken the dragons.

  And Erika was used to getting what she wanted.

  Chapter Four

  Camille’s breath finally steadied and she rested her head back against the solid stone behind her. A narrow band of light seeped in from the crack in the doorway leading to the main chamber, illuminating her boot-clad feet where they rested on the stone.

  She could still hear Erika’s low voice asking questions and Kris’s even replies. When she’d followed Erika to the pool, she’d been sure she would catch the two of them screwing, but what she ended up witnessing was so much more interesting. She couldn’t quite process it all. She’d stayed far behind and snuck through the open doorway to the rear corridor behind the dais without them noticing, then stayed in the shadows, listening to them talk. If she tilted her head forward a tiny bit she could see them, and ended up rubbernecking while Kris stripped and challenged Erika to touch him.

  Her mind reeled at all the implications, and she was even more eager to get to translating but just needed a breather after watching the two of them together. They hadn’t even come close to having sex, but she’d never seen such a tense, sexual exchange. And when Kris had divulged the secret of the temple, she had to test it herself. She pictured Eben’s broad hand stroking the dragon’s penis and moaned softly while she stroked herself. But the idea that they could all come alive was what thrilled her the most. There had to be hundreds of dragons in here. Most of them were frozen in their native form, but if what Kris said was true, they could all appear like humans.

  Her clit throbbed beneath her touch and the familiar surge of sensation made her speed up to reach that crest. Kris was lying, she thought when she got close to the edge. But just before she climaxed, her pleasure hit a wall. Tension pooled deep in her belly, seeking a release but nothing was imminent. She groaned out loud and pulled her hand out of her shorts, smacking it against the stone floor beside her. He was right. As much as she wanted it and
as close as she was, there was no way she could make herself come. How, though? Their nirvana belonged to the dragons. What the hell did that mean?

  When Camille heard Erika’s emphatic arguments coming toward her, she scurried out the door and back to the throne. At least she knew enough now to know what to look for.

  With her pen light and notebook, she crouched down and began translating the characters that were etched into the base of the dais. After a few hours and a set of very sore knees, the truth began to emerge. She made the notes and kept going, forcing herself to exhaustion to avoid the very present issue of how horny she was. Keeping her hands busy was the best means of avoiding what she really wanted to do, and if Kris was being honest it wouldn’t help anyway.

  Camille had always admired Erika’s easy attitude about sex and wished she could be that free about it. To not care in the least what people thought to the point it made men’s tongues fall out of their mouths when she walked by. That’s how all the men in their group seemed to behave around Erika anyway. Even Corey, the dark and broody, seemed to see Erika for something more than just ‘the boss.’ Camille had seen him assess their leader. Maybe not in an overtly sexual way, but the two had talked and Camille had watched Corey’s expressions. She knew he respected Erika and found her attractive. Like maybe he wouldn’t have joined them at all if he didn’t.

  She forced herself to think in the native language while she translated. It was a common ancient dialect, so the act was mindless for her. The pencil was an extension of her brain, transcribing the words as she read them. While she transcribed she could happily daydream about other things. Like imagining Eben doing dirty things to her. His hand stroking that dragon’s cock had aroused her incredibly, making her eager for the end of supper when she could have some alone time to pleasure herself while thinking of him. Then all this happened, and now she was rubbing her nose on the surface of what was apparently a platform that held the throne of an enigmatic leader of an elusive race. The more she learned the more she had to keep translating.

  The ritual was the most interesting thing. In particular, the one facet of it that drove her out of her mind with desire. They needed a virgin, and as far as she knew, she was the only one besides Kris. No, she was sure of it. She knew Eben and Erika weren’t virgins… they’d been fucking like bunnies the entire trek. Hallie wasn’t, Camille knew because Hallie had shared a pregnancy scare story with them one night. Dimitri was the only guy who might’ve been, and he’d destroyed that illusion after confessing to having shared a girlfriend once with his twin brother. And Corey… well, you didn’t get to be as worldly and experienced as Corey without having sex.

  That left her and Kris, and Kris had clearly been destined for a different role in the ritual. And she knew from her personal lack of experience that she was an appropriate subject.

  She read and re-read the ritual until it started to sound like a legal document. Most of the ritual components were obvious. They required witnesses, but the virgin component was different. All it said was “…and a virgin’s blood to anchor the dragons to the earth.” It was very specific to differentiate the ‘virgin’ from the ‘catalyst,’ which she understood was the role Kris was meant to fill. He might be a virgin, but he had no free will if his own words were any indication. The virgin had to have free will and choose her own mate at a random point during the ritual.

  Odd, the gender was very obvious in the language, too. The virgin was intended to be a female. The very visual presence of erect dragon appendages throughout the stronghold made that detail a little less mysterious. It gave her a lot of options, she supposed. She eyed the statue beside the throne that Eben had been fondling earlier and stood up abruptly. She walked over to it and crouched down again beside the figure. The dragon sat in a position similar to her own, but with an erect spine, all its weight apparently resting on its hefty tail. Its thighs jutted out parallel to the floor and its wings curled up like twin sails behind it.

  She reached out a tentative hand, then paused, looking up into the dragon’s eyes. They might be alive. If they were, she couldn’t just grab him, could she?

  “I’m just going to touch you now,” she whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”

  She stretched her hand and gripped the solid column of the dragon’s phallus. Her palm hit warm stone and it took her a second to register the incongruity of the sensation. It was stone, it should feel cold, but it didn’t.

  “Oh, you’re warm. I wonder what that means.”

  It meant more research. She released him and turned back to the text beneath her feet. Why were they so warm? And why did she have an uncontrollable urge to climb on and fuck one of them?

  She rubbed her eyes and wished for coffee, but didn’t want to wake the others to make it. She’d just have to power through. The golden shapes of the characters filled her vision when she knelt down again with her notebook and continued transcribing, looking for some enlightenment about the statues and what she’d learned in the corridor. And trying her damnedest not to think about Eben.

  Chapter Five

  Eben rolled over in his sleeping bag and stared into the darkness that filled the cavernous reaches above him. His balls ached and his dick was as hard as it had been when the door on the surface opened, giving them admittance into the depths of this place. He’d tried sleeping, but his mind kept wandering to images of Camille’s full, round ass. He rolled over and began stroking himself surreptitiously beneath his covers, trying his best to stay quiet. He fisted his cock and nearly groaned out loud in pleasure after the first stroke. He imagined her blond braid resting along the arch of her spine while she bent on all fours before him, displaying her perfect ass for him. This shouldn’t take long. He’d jerk off, then sleep—his standard procedure during his college days—then maybe dream of Camille talking sweet to him.

  Except it didn’t happen. The ache in his balls just intensified, and he still couldn’t come. He hovered on the edge, but no amount of stroking could bring him past it. Something was very wrong with this scenario. He’d never had trouble jerking off. It had gotten even easier since he’d been screwing Erika. She was so dirty she’d given him a wealth of material to masturbate to. But his fucking dick was apparently on strike tonight, which made no sense. He couldn’t sleep like this. Cold showers were out of the question.

  Now all he wanted to do was shove his hot cock into something and the urge drove him mad. Frustrated with his inability to orgasm, he threw off his sleeping bag and decided to go exploring to distract himself. There were doorways that they hadn’t opened yet. Lots of them. There were the ones behind the throne that he knew Erika was laser focused on. But there were others, too, all locked. Maybe he could find a way to open some of those locked doors and earn a few points with Erika.

  Camille’s pretty ass waited out there somewhere for him to open, too. He shouldn’t go looking for her, but her bedroll was empty so he did anyway. He was worried, he told himself. I wanted to make sure you were okay, he heard himself rehearsing in his head. Not I really want to go down on you. That was an understatement. He wanted to shove his tongue into every single orifice she possessed. Camille had featured in his fantasies since he’d first met her when Erika assembled their team. But, over the course of the weeks they’d traveled together, he’d become more and more enamored of her—a detail he could never properly articulate to Erika without sounding like a complete pussy. In spite of a generally healthy level of self-confidence around women, he’d been hesitant to approach Camille. Each time he tried, she looked at him like she had earlier that day—like he might just be crazy. He supposed the thing with the dragon cock might have been too much, but damn, she was so beautiful when she blushed like that.

  So he kept going back to Erika. Erika wasn’t just his oldest friend, she was also the perfect casual fuck buddy. He wondered if Camille would like having her asshole licked the way Erika did. Fuck, he’d love to do that to her. Even tho
ugh the mere image of making love to her could satisfy him most nights, for some reason tonight he couldn’t stop imagining her in the naughtiest positions. Not just bent over displaying her perfect ass to him, but sometimes doing that with her thighs spread on either side of his face with her pussy poised above his tongue and her sweet mouth wrapped around his cock, or riding him face-to-face with her full breasts rubbing against his chest. The vivid image of his dick buried hilt-deep in her ass flashed through his head, making his balls ache almost painfully. Maybe he should just find Erika instead. She might at least be good for a blow job if he promised to return the favor.

  He got as far as the stone dais and stopped, momentarily dazed by the image before him. Camille lay in the center just before the huge green jade throne, sound asleep. She was on her side, her cheek resting on one arm, and her pretty braid draped over her shoulder. Her top had ridden up, and she clenched one breast in her sleep. Her other breast was bare, the fabric of her tank top shoved up above the pink tip of her hard nipple that just begged to be sucked. Christ, he’d do it if he could without feeling like a complete perv. She was too good for him, so pure and naïve and virginal, but with an ass that could halt time. What he wouldn’t give to be able just once to bury his face between those round cheeks and go to town until she screamed his name.

  Just a touch, he thought. One touch—she’d never know. His mouth watered and his cock throbbed when he quietly crouched beside her and reached out. The hard pink flesh of her exposed nipple beckoned, the aureole a perfect pebbled circle of vermilion, about the size of a quarter, perched atop the creamy mound of her full breast.

  “Eben, I need you.”

  He jerked his hand back like he’d come too close to a flame and shoved it in his pocket. He stood and turned abruptly in response to the voice behind him.

  “Fuck, Erika. You scared the shit out of me.” He tried not to look like a guilty fool when he turned to face her. Erika glanced at Camille’s half-naked sleeping body and eyed him with apparent suspicion.