Dreamwater by Chrystalla Thoma Read Free Book Online Page A

constricted, her eyes stung. The bond inside her ticked like clockwork, the spring coiling tighter with every breath.
    “Shift!” she commanded him, even as she knew she shouldn’t be doing this, she should shut this bond down.
    But she couldn’t.
    The shifters swarmed the palace, jumping on the festooned balconies, through the narrow windows. Riffa’s link in her mind pulsed with pain, bringing Mara to her knees.
    The white wolf’s fur rippled, waves of muscle and bone rose and fell, and the tide of animal skin receded to leave a naked man sprawled on the concrete — pale, his short hair white, the blood a shocking splash of crimson against his skin.
    Albino .
    The face was handsome, the jaw strong, the straight brows framed a direct, ice-blue gaze that bore into her mind. Heat rushed through her, and she knew the bond was directing her, but she didn’t care anymore.
    “What’s your name?” she asked, the bond stretching between them, then contracting, pulling them together, until her hand touched his shoulder, his hot skin. Her breath hissed.
    “Azer.” His voice was deep and smooth, a warm current.
    “Azer, you’re mine.”
     
     
    ***
     
     
    Mara pulled Azer out into the cobbled street, his hand in hers burning hot. Maybe Riffa was dead — or maybe Riffa was alive and stronger than ever and would call Mara back to punish her for leaving.
    But for now there was only Azer.
    They needed a safe place to consummate the bond, skin on skin.
    As they walked, his flesh knitted, and his white skin flowed over the wounds, leaving no scars. Trying not to stare, she led him in the narrow streets of the city centre. A mortal leading a naked person by the hand was by now so normal nobody would even look twice. Anyone seeing them would know he was a shifter and she his keeper.
    Tenderness, lust and anger raged through her. “Why me, Azer? Don’t you know what I am?”
    “I do, I know. But the bond pulled me.”
    Gods of the underworld, she loved his voice. It trickled down her skin, inside her veins, made her warm in places she didn’t know were cold. “What do you mean?”
    “The bond was there before I met you. It called me to you.”
    “Nonsense.” But she wasn’t sure. Even incomplete, the bond had been stronger than her tie to the world of shadows, so strong she had broken free from the dead and rescued him. As if the bond had been growing inside her for a long time, not just a few days, the threads weaving, knotting, filling her. “How can that be?”
    “Anything is possible.” His hand tightened around hers. “Maybe you are more human than you thought.”
    Was that the answer? She entered the courtyard of an inn, got a room, and found it to be acceptable. The bed creaked when she sat down. “Riffa will shred my soul for this.”
    “Riffa isn’t above everyone.” He sat, placed an arm around her waist, and drew her close.
    For a lone wolf, he seemed quite fearless. “Who are you?”
    His lips branded her. She sought his mouth, kissed him. He tasted of blood. His hands reached under her blouse, pulled the knives out of her belt, the scimitar from its sheath across her back, laid them on the floor. He winked and tore her blouse off, leaving her in her leather straps. He cupped her like water, drank her like firebrand.
    The bond pulsed in her whole body, a need beyond physical. She needed to meld with him.
    When he tugged at her clothes, she slipped them off like old insect skin. Things were slipping out of her control. She had never had a man. But she needed him, would die if she didn’t have him.
    He pressed his pale body against hers. His ice-blue eyes found hers as he filled her up, making her sigh.
    The bond tightened like her body, tingled and throbbed, spilling from her mind to her chest to her belly. The mind link to Riffa began to ache like an old scar. The pleasure built inside her, feeding the bond. She trailed her hands on his naked chest, so white and strong.
    He growled. She looked up