I gasped and backed away, too caught up in the moment to think straight.

“Do you really wish to unleash the beast within me?” he asked, continuing to prowl toward me, the muscles of his body moving in a beautiful ballet of power and grace. “Do you think you can handle the feral side of a dragon, kincsem?”

Cold stone touched my back, stopping me from escaping. I knew just how a mouse felt when it was dropped into a snake’s cage. I tried to answer, but all that came out was an unintelligible squeak. I was caught between intense arousal and a base need to escape, unsure of which emotion to act upon. My body and heart told me Drake would never harm me, but the primitive part of my brain was demanding I get away from the big, scary beast that wanted to eat me.

He was a hairsbreadth away from me now, the look in his eyes a mixture of passion and something I didn’t recognize, something so frightening it sent my brain into a screaming fit. “Do you really wish to face my true being?”

I was poised to run, the flight instinct in me swamping other emotions, but just as I was about to flee, Drake lifted his hand. Instead of the expected fingers, a curved blue claw touched the mark he’d branded into my flesh.

“Oh, dear god, yes!” I cried, flinging myself on him, wrapping my legs around his hips as his hands…claws…whatever they were dug into my butt and hoisted me high. I kissed him with every ounce of love I had, offering myself as a sacrifice to tame the wild dragon, my mouth welcoming the intrusion of his tongue even as he thrust hard into my body.

Our lovemaking was fast as he claimed and I surrendered. Flames licked along my skin as he pressed me into the wall, his body moving in a rhythm that sent me soaring. I bit his neck, sobbing incoherently into his shoulder, my hands mimicking his claws as I raked them along his back. There was no gentleness between us, no soft, teasing touches—this was mating, pure and simple. I had unleashed Drake’s tightly held primal emotions, triggering his need to dominate.

But I was a wyvern’s mate. I answered every hard thrust with little movements of my own, somewhat hindered by our unorthodox position, but using my hands and mouth to show him he wasn’t the only one who could go wild. As a familiar tension built inside me, I clutched his butt and urged him on faster, crying out his name when I was swept over the edge.

A fireball exploded around us as Drake’s shout of exultation changed to an animal roar of triumph. The throat I had pressed my face against changed, elongated, the hot, sweaty skin morphing for a fraction of a second into greenish yellow scales.

I collapsed against him, my heart and soul singing, my brain completely unable to cope with anything else at that moment but the depth of my feelings for the man who had so completely filled my life.

Consciousness returned with a warm, enveloping air that caressed my bare flesh. I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the bench in the sauna, and Drake splashing water on the rocks. He looked down at where I lay, a smug little smile curling the edges of his mouth.

“You’re just lucky I’m a wyvern’s mate,” I told his smile, holding out my arms for him. “If I’d still been mortal, I doubt I could have survived that. When can we do it again?”

He sank down upon me with a hot look, and even hotter kisses.

When I toddled down the stairs to the front hallway the next morning, no one was around except Jim, lying on the floor in a pool of sunlight reading a newspaper featuring bare-breasted women.

“There you are. I wondered if you were going to get up anytime before noon,” Jim said, flipping a page.

“I’ve been up for a couple of hours, Mr. Smarty Demon, trying to find a hotel with a decent-sized room we can use for a reception. Man, I have a headache. Where is everyone? Is Uncle Damian here yet? And Rene? Have you seen Drake? Did Paula go out shopping, or is she going to come with us to find a new dress?”

“For a prince of Abaddon, you sure don’t seem to know much,” Jim answered, not bothering to look up from the newspaper. “Hoo baby! Look at those hooters! You gotta love the English newspapers!”

“Answer my question, oh ye of the smart-aleck mouth.”

Jim heaved a profound sigh. “Depends on who you mean. Yes. No. Yes, but he left. No, she and the absentminded professor went for their morning walk, and finally, yes. Anything more you’d like to know? The square root of fifteen million? Why the sky is blue? How many demons can dance on the head of a pin?”

“Left?” I asked, focusing on the most important tidbit of information. “Drake left? Where did he go? We only have a couple of hours before the wedding.”

“Dunno. He just said Uncle Damian and Rene were going to be your guards this morning, and took off with Pál and István.”

Uncle Damian loomed up in the doorway, fixing me with a gimlet eye. “There you are.”

“Good morning. Do you happen to know where Drake has gone off to?”

“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Come in here. I want to talk to you.” He did an about-face back into the living room.

“Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble,” Jim said, standing up and stretching.

“Hardly that,” I said, although I had to admit my uncle’s forebidding frown was not something I took lightly.

“I’m going to see if Suzanne needs any help with breakfast,” Jim said, strolling toward the back regions of the house where the kitchen was.

“Just remember that she works for Drake and me, not you. If you try to bribe her into hiding the fact that you filched an additional breakfast, she’ll tell me!”

“Who is Suzanne?” Uncle Damian asked as I closed the door behind me.

“A green dragon who is our cook and general dogsbody, no reference to Jim intended. She’s István’s girlfriend. You probably saw her last night.”

“Ah. Short girl. Dark hair.” He nodded.

“That’s her. She’s a doll; I don’t know what we’d do without her. Is this going to take long? I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of time,” I said, glancing with fondness at a small table in the corner of the room. Drake and I had enjoyed many steamy moments by means of that particular piece of furniture. Just thinking about some of the times had my pulse pounding. “I’ve had a horrible time trying to find a room for the reception, and there’s still the shopping to be done. Are you sure Drake didn’t say where he was going?”