Her Photographer Phoenix_A Paranormal Romance Read online

  “Shhhhh, shhhh, it’s okay,” soothed Benton. He pressed a quick, nearly frantic, kiss against her temple. “You’re okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “C’mon man, let’s get out of here,” said Emilio. “Marissa said that they’re going to be back soon.”

  Working together, two of them lowered Everett, Ellis, and Donovan one by one down the length of the ladder to the third man, who caught the unconscious dragons and lowered them to the ground. Then the remaining two men scrambled down after them.

  Emilio slung Donovan across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and Marc did the same with Everett. Benton chose to carry Ellis in his arms. He could move her to his back when they were a safe distance from the shack and its poachers.

  They were headed for the tree line with their burdens when about fifteen or so men stepped out of the forest. One of them had an arm around Marissa, her arm wrenched up behind her back and her face twisted with pain.

  At the sight of her, Marc nearly dropped Everett.

  “You’re interfering where you’re not wanted,” said one of the men. “You put our dragons down, and we’ll let your girl go.”

  Against his chest, Ellis twitched, and Benton tightened his arms around her.

  “What’d he say?” demanded Marc.

  Benton belatedly translated for him, saying at the end, “We can’t give him the dragons.”

  “No, of course not,” said Emilio impatiently. “But we can’t let them keep Marissa either.”

  “I didn’t mean –” began Benton, only to be interrupted.

  “Hurry up!” barked the poacher, and the one holding onto Marissa made her cry out.

  Marc lurched a step forward, snarling, and Emilio quickly shouldered his way in front of the other man, blocking him.

  “Marc –” began Emilio, and then cried out – they all cried out – as a lash of lightning struck a nearby tree. It shattered, the sound of it nearly lost in a crash of thunder. Bits of smoldering wood were flung in every direction, startling more cries out of nearly everyone.

  Benton might have cried out too, but at that same moment, a weight slammed into his chest. It felt rather like someone had kicked off of him, as a swimmer might kick off of the wall of a pool, and Benton grunted. Under the kick, he staggered, all the breath leaving his lungs in a whoosh. Cold water washed over him, and Ellis flew from his arms.

  Except she was only Ellis for a split second, then it was a terrifyingly enormous storm dragon flying through the air, her grey scales gleaming blue-white in the afternoon light. She roared, shaking the trees, the earth, and Benton’s very bones out from under him.

  With a piercing cry, Benton launched himself into the air, his human form and its human clothes burning away in an instant. He soared higher, circling the two groups as, with another flash of lightning and crack of thunder, clear skies opened up to drop a deluge of rain on everyone’s heads.

  Under the sudden rainstorm, Benton’s fiery plumage hissed and smoked, covering the ground below him in roiling clouds of smoky grey fog.

  Two things happened nearly simultaneously.

  The first, and most important to Benton, was that Ellis almost immediately fell out of the sky and flopped over onto the majority of the poachers, pinning them in place with the sheer weight of her enormous body.

  The second was that Benton struck, parting tender human flesh and cloth alike with his viciously sharp claws. Flesh sizzled, bubbled, and burned, and the man holding onto Marissa screamed and staggered forward, letting the girl go.

  Marc was already there, Everett apparently stashed somewhere safe, to knock the poacher down and yank Marissa out of harm’s way.

  The fight between the remaining poachers – those that Ellis hadn’t effectively sat on – and the two military men was brief and brutal, helped along in places by Benton’s thick fog and his sharp claws.

  Afterwards, Emilio and Marc tore their shirts into strips and used the strips to tie up the poachers that they had defeated.

  The rest of the poachers remained securely pinned under Ellis’ shimmering lengths.

  Landing next to Ellis’ head, Benton made an enquiring noise.

  For answer, Ellis wuffled a breath between her enormous teeth.

  “Ellis had our group’s sat-phone on her when she went into Luel,” said Emilio from somewhere behind Benton. “I’m going to go look for it, okay?”

  For answer, Benton clacked his beak at the werewolf.

  Emilio left and, crooning to Ellis consolingly, Benton began to groom the ruff of blue hair that circled her enormous head. He had time for this, at least.

  Chapter 13 – Ellis

  Ellis honestly didn’t know how much time had passed since she had changed. It felt like a long time, but everything felt like a long time when she was sick.

  And Ellis was very, very sick. Whatever they had tipped those darts with, it wasn’t good for dragons. If she hadn’t been in her storm dragon form, Ellis probably would have vomited all over herself – or Benton. Sweet Benton, who was crooning to her and grooming her hair with his long, sharp beak. And he was so careful with his flames!

  If she had felt better, Ellis might have teased him about that or at least crooned back to him, but Ellis felt too miserably ill to do anything but lay where she was and wait for help to come and arrest the men pinned beneath her lengths.

  When the new group of humans thundered into the area, Ellis slitted her eyes open. Peering beneath her lashes, she studied the new people in their uniforms. They were soaking wet and wearing boots against the mud. And they looked utterly aghast to find a storm dragon lying across at least a dozen men with a phoenix carefully grooming her hair.

  Marc and Emilio went to talk to them and, satisfied, Ellis closed her eyes again. If anything went really wrong, she could always roll over on top of them.

  Ellis may have drowsed for awhile after that, because it felt like later when she opened her eyes to discover that the new group of humans had brought with them ropes, medical supplies, and fresh clothes. Ellis thought that might have been Emilio or Marissa or Marc’s fault, but she wasn’t sure of that. As she watched, they took custody of the others’ captured poachers. Hers were still under her, of course.

  When the officials from one of the other islands tried to approach her, Benton clacked his beak at them warningly, and they withdrew.

  Marc appeared next. With him, he brought a pair of pants, a folded blanket, and an umbrella, the last of which he held over his head against the steady rain. Ellis was sorry about that. The rain felt lovely against her scales.

  “Hey buddy,” said Marc carefully. “I’ve got a change of clothes for you, if you feel like changing back now.”

  Benton whistled and, after carefully moving away from Ellis and Marc, changed back into his human shape in a whirling ball of blue and red and white flames.

  When the flames subsided, Benton moved to join Marc under his umbrella, the mud squelching around his feet. Muttering a quick thanks to Marc, Benton pulled on the pants.

  “Do you think that you can get her to change back too?” asked Marc with a nod towards Ellis.

  “I can ask,” said Benton.

  He moved to stand in front of Ellis. Carefully, Benton reached up to lightly rest his hand against one of Ellis’ cheeks.

  “Hey, honey,” said Benton, using the exact same soothing tones on her that Marc had used on him. “Won’t you change back now?”

  Ellis huffed at him, her cool breath ruffling his hair.

  “C’mon, Ellis,” wheedled Benton. “There are authorities from the mainland here to arrest those men that you’re sitting on. And I want to hold you in my arms again. I need to make sure that you’re alright.”

  Ellis did want to be small enough to rest her head against Benton’s chest and be held close by him and maybe even be kissed. But everything felt so far away just now. The end of her nose felt miles away, and she could see that it was still attached to her face. She couldn’t imagine havi
ng enough focus to reshape her whole body. It had been hard enough to simply let go of her human shape and follow her nature.

  Ellis still wasn’t certain how she had ended up lying on her belly in the mud or how she had gotten to wherever they were. A storm dragon belonged in the clouds, preferably storm clouds, not squelching around on the ground like everybody else.

  “Please Ellis,” said Benton, a peculiar wobble in his voice that tore at Ellis’ heart.

  For Benton’s sake, she tried.

  There were a few false starts, and she was panting from the effort of it, but eventually Ellis was human-shaped again.

  She promptly collapsed against Benton’s chest.

  The blanket was swept around her, and Benton lifted her up off of her feet. He was damp, and he smelled sharp like beginning of a fire, almost like lightening even, and his chest was just perfect for resting her head against.

  If anything happened after that, Ellis slept through it.

  Chapter 14 – Benton

  It took hours to get everyone the medical attention that they deserved and everything sorted with the authorities from the main island. All during that time, Benton kept a firm grip on Ellis – not that anyone tried to take her from him. Mostly, they shot harried looks towards him and Ellis or Everett and Donovan when they thought that no one would notice.

  Storm dragons were a big deal in the Belundan Islands.

  It was said that when the city Keris was lost beneath the waves, and later became a lake, it was a storm dragon’s doing. The details surrounding the story varied: sometimes the dragon was merely finishing what a volcano had started, other times it was to drown a lover that had spurned him; occasionally, the storm dragon drowned the shining city and all its inhabitants to save the world from what lay sleeping beneath the city of Keris, the thing that the city’s inhabitants had been working to wake.

  But regardless of what came before, the end of the story remained the same: a storm dragon had destroyed the shining, now lost, city of Keris.

  Benton didn’t know if there was any truth to the stories, and he frankly didn’t care – Ellis was his soul mate, not some destroyer of cities from the dawn of antiquity, and she would never do anything like that anyway – but the authorities from the mainland all seemed to believe the legends sincerely enough to give Ellis a wide berth even though she was too busy being unconscious to take any notice of them, much less drown whatever town they hailed from.

  For himself, Benton was more sincerely interested in what had happened to the four men that they had left unconscious in the shack. Apparently, when Emilio and Marc had gone to tie them up, the violet-eyed poacher and his friends had been gone.

  That probably wasn’t a good thing, but at the moment, Benton couldn’t bring himself to worry about it too much.

  The person who had examined Ellis had said that she would be fine. Apparently, the darts that the three dragons had been shot with had been tipped with a native sedative designed specifically to incapacitate dragons. Although Ellis was smaller than either Everett or Donovan as a human, she was far larger than either of them as a dragon. And the sedative, although capable of incapacitating dragons in general, had apparently been formulated to incapacitate fire dragons specifically. Between those two factors – Ellis’ size as a dragon, and her specific nature as a storm dragon – she was set to recover before Everett or Donovan did.

  In the present, though, all three dragons were deeply asleep.

  When everything was said and done, the captured members of the poaching group were taken out to the authorities’ boat, and Benton and the others were driven back to their camp in the poacher’s truck by one of Keris Island’s three policemen.

  Benton held Ellis the entire way there.

  In the camp, they found two other tiny blue trucks, as well as Kris, Talman, and everyone who had stayed behind. As Benton’s group hopped out of the truck, passing the sleeping dragons between them, the other group rushed over to meet them.

  Working together, they got the three dragons into their respective beds.

  Most of the others went to talk in the mess tent, but Benton stayed with Ellis. He might never let her out of his sight ever again.

  And he was definitely going to be there when she woke up.

  Chapter 15 – Ellis

  Ellis woke slowly and with a raging hangover.

  Rolling out from under Benton’s arm, Ellis staggered to the nearest canteen. Greedily, she gulped down the lukewarm water that she found in it.

  “Ellis!”

  Benton was sitting up in bed, his flame-red hair charmingly mussed and his blue eyes very wide.

  “Do you remember where we put the aspirin?”

  “You’re awake! You nearly died!”

  Ellis winced, the sound of his raised voice hurting like an ice pick through her skull.

  “Not so loud,” she whimpered, cringing. Pointing at her poor head, Ellis begged, “Aspirin?”

  Benton scrambled out of bed. He not only dug out the bottle of aspirin, he also brought her a glass of cool water from the carafe that they kept near the bed.

  There was a reason that Ellis loved this man.

  She drank two more glasses of water before she realized that Benton was in his underwear… and she was naked. She never slept naked. And Ellis didn’t remember undressing. In fact, the last thing that she remembered was –

  “Benton, why am I naked?”

  “Because you shredded your clothes,” he said, briefly grinning at her. “It was pretty amazing. Come back to bed, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Reassured, Ellis let Benton lead her back to the bed that they shared. Back in bed, she curled up against Benton’s side, her head resting on his chest. Benton had both of his arms around her, his cheek against her hair and his arm a reassuring weight across her waist.

  “So what happened?” asked Ellis when she was comfortable. “The last thing that I remember, I’d been pincushioned.”

  Remembering that moment – how it had felt to look down and see a half dozen darts poking out of her skin and knowing that she was doomed – Ellis shuddered, and benton’s arms briefly tightened around her.

  Her head against his chest, Ellis listened attentively as Benton told her about what he had gone through to rescue her. It was pretty amazing stuff. And as she listened, the tightness at the back of her head gradually faded. Ellis was just to ask about his twitching pinkie, when something else that he said caught her attention.

  “Wait,” ordered Ellis. Pushing herself up, Ellis looked into Benton’s face as she said, “I… changed shape? In front on you?”

  “Yes,” said Benton. He smiled up at her, his eyes warm. Gently, he tucked a lock of Ellis’ brown hair behind her ear. “You changed shape practically on top of me. You are a beautiful storm dragon.”

  Ellis felt her face go hot.

  Benton chortled.

  “And my being a storm dragon… doesn’t bother you?”

  “Of course not,” said Benton. “I’m delighted!”

  Ellis relaxed.

  “But then, I am a phoenix, after all.”

  “You are?” exclaimed Ellis, perking up again. Excitement and delight warred within her. “Can I see –?”

  She yelped and then laughed, her head spinning, when Benton tackled her onto her back. Benton moved over to her, his blue eyes darkening in a familiar way, one that made Ellis shiver with anticipation.

  “Yes,” Benton growled, his voice dropping to a sexy rumble. “I am a phoenix, you are my soul mate, and I am way better and much more impressive than any firebird.”

  Ellis grinned. “Have you been jealous?”

  “Dreadfully,” he admitted, before leaning down to catch her mouth with his. Benton kissed her fiercely, his teeth clicking against hers as he ravaged her mouth.

  Ellis’ passion, always so near the surface when Benton was near, leaped in her chest and she responded immediately. Wrapping her arms around him, Ellis kissed Benton just as fiercely
as he kissed her.

  They parted, each of them gasping for breath.

  Benton was still gasping as he roughly dropped kisses along Ellis’ cheek, over her chin, and along her jaw. He kissed his way down Ellis’ throat and then her breastbone, each press of his lips an invisible brand against her heart.

  She loved him so much!

  Benton kissed Ellis’ breasts. He pinched and plucked and teased her nipples, grinning down at Ellis as she gasped and squirmed beneath him.

  Another quick kiss to her mouth, one that Ellis arched up to meet and then to chase, and then Benton moved on. He kissed along the curve of Ellis’ belly, and mouth along the jut of her hip. Benton licked along the crease between her sex and inner thigh, and Ellis squirmed, anticipation tightening her belly as he – kissed her inner thigh again?

  “Tease,” accused Ellis, impatient, and Benton laughed, his breath a warm puff of air against her sensitive skin.

  Clambering up the length of her again, Benton settled between her legs, his body warm and heavy, the weight of him bearing her down into the mattress. Slowly, so maddeningly slowly, Benton pushed his length into her, the size of his endowment stretching her deliciously around itself.

  Benton’s full length inside of her was nearly too long, too deep, too much already, and sighing with pleasure, Ellis wrapped her arms around his shoulders then tangled her legs with his. They kissed, their lips clinging, as they began to move together.

  Where before, sex had been a playful sprint toward their shared pleasure, now they took their time, approaching it as if it was a marathon and they had all the time in the world to run it.

  Against each other they shivered and strained, their movements small and slow and achingly gentle. Benton was gasping into her mouth – or she was gasping into his – when Ellis’ pleasure found her.

  It rolled through her in gentle waves, blotting out her vision and leaving her only with sensation: the weight of Benton’s body over her, the feel of his length thrusting inside of her, the sound of his breath hitching as he lost his rhythm and followed her into orgasm. His breath was hot against Ellis’ shoulder as he shuddered and strained against her, flooding her belly with his hot seed as he came inside of her.