The Greatest Gift : No Longer a ghost, but Mine. ꕥ
Male!Dragon shifter x Gender Neutral reader
Summary: you traded your village's silence for Aurelious’s thunder—transforming from a ghost of the mist into the eternal partner of a legend.
Warnings: A very devoted dragon man(with a dick to prove it) falls into heat. NSFW-> Porn with a plot.
Word count:3110
As always enjoy💚
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Part1, Part2, Art
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It had been seven weeks since you stood your ground in that moonlit forest, stubbornly refusing the freedom the "Collector" tried to thrust upon you. For the first fourteen days, the routine was the same: you would wake up in a bed of moss or beneath the shelter of a limestone overhang and find him watching you with those iridescent violet eyes. Every morning, he offered you an "out." He would point toward the smoke of a distant trade city or the salty horizon of a quiet coastal town, telling you that you could vanish into a normal life.
Each time, you looked him in the eye and stayed exactly where you were. You had spent twenty years being told where to go, what to be, and when to die; you weren't about to let the only creature who saw you as a person tell you to leave. You had been a ghost in a village of the living; now, you were a living soul in the company of a legend, and for the first time, the air felt like it actually belonged in your lungs.
Eventually, the barrier of his formal, predatory mask began to crack. You learned that his name was Aurelious, a name that felt like warm gold and ancient silk. As the days turned into weeks, you realized that the title "The Collector" was a cruel irony dreamt up by terrified villagers who couldn't fathom a mercy they didn't have to pay for. He didn't collect souls; he collected the discarded.
During the long trek toward the Peak of Ash, you watched him. You saw him stop to mend a bird’s broken wing with a gentle, localized heat from his fingertips, his expression one of focused, quiet intensity. You saw him guide a group of lost, frostbitten travelers through a mountain pass by conjuring a "phantom" trail of warmth for them to follow, all while staying hidden in the mist. He was a king without a kingdom, acting as a secret guardian to a world that called him a monster.
"You're remarkably persistent for someone so small," Aurelious said one evening. The campfire was a roar of orange between you, and the high mountain wind whistled through the crags. He was polishing a piece of ancient silver-work—a crown from a fallen empire—his movements fluid and rhythmic. He looked at you through the flames, his purple scales shimmering like polished jewels in the firelight. "I have outlasted empires. I have seen civilizations rise and fall into the sea, yet I cannot seem to outlast your stubbornness. Why do you stay? Why do you insist on carrying my packs when I can fly across a continent in a heartbeat?"
You didn't flinch. You had grown used to his teasing, which was really just a defense mechanism to keep his own heart at bay. "Because you’re the only one who doesn't treat me like a debt to be paid, Lio," you replied, using the nickname you had carved out for him—a name the villagers never earned the right to whisper. "In the village, I was a sacrifice. To my family, I was a grief to be avoided or a tragedy in progress. But to you? I’m just... here. You’re kind to things that can’t do anything for you. I just want to be the first person who actually does something for you."
Aurelious froze, the silver crown held mid-air. The sharp-toothed, arrogant grin he usually wore softened, his golden eyes fixing on yours with a newfound, heavy respect. "A dragon’s silence is a weight that can crush the soul," he murmured. "It has been a long time since anyone offered to share it."
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As you climbed higher into the frozen reaches of the Peak of Ash, a strange, psychic tether began to form. It started small—a phantom warmth in your chest when he was pleased, a sharp tang of ozone on your tongue when he was angry. But as you reached the mouth of his high-altitude sanctum, the bond deepened into something unsettling.
Aurelious was pacing the stone floor of the cavern, his midnight-blue cloak snapping behind him. He looked agitated, his golden eyes darting toward the darkening, bruised sky. "The storm is coming," he rumbles, his voice thick with a strange, panicked urgency. "We need to stoke the fire higher. We need to move the furs deeper into the cave. We are feeling the ache of the cold in our joints."
You stopped, a bowl of mountain berries in your hands, and looked at him with a small, knowing smile. "Lio," you said softly. "The cold doesn't ache in your joints. You’re an Ancient Storm-Drake. Your blood is literal fire."
He froze, his hand instinctively going to his knee as if expecting to feel the phantom chill he was sensing through you. He blinked, the amethyst glow of his scales flickering in confusion. He looked from his own strong, sun-warmed hand to your smaller, wind-chapped ones. For a second, the mask of the arrogant lord slipped entirely, revealing a being who had lived so long in total isolation that he didn't know how to handle the fact that his soul had begun to migrate into another person.
"I... I felt the frost," he muttered, his voice uncharacteristically vulnerable. He stepped toward you, his heat rushing forward like a physical wave. He reached out, his fingers twitching with a desperate need to check your temperature. "You aren't just my companion anymore. I can't tell where the wind hits me and where it hits you. It is... a most inconvenient development."
Lio’s expression grew somber, his violet scales darkening to a deep indigo. "It is a Soul-Knot," he explained, his voice vibrating in the hollow of the cave. "When an Ancient of my kind stops viewing a mortal as a guest and starts viewing them as... essential... the magic weaves us together. My immortality is bleeding into your fragility. I will feel your every bruise, and you will feel the thunder in my blood. It is a tether that cannot be cut, [Name]. I have essentially anchored my existence to your heartbeat."
He looked at you as if expecting you to recoil, to finally take the "out" he had offered so many times. But you only stepped closer, placing your palm over his chest, feeling the massive, steady rhythm of a heart that had beaten for centuries. "Then let it be," you whispered, meeting his golden gaze with a steady resolve. "I spent twenty years being a ghost that no one wanted to touch. If the price of finally belonging somewhere is that I have to carry your thunder, then I accept it. I’m not going anywhere, Lio."
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The peace was shattered a few nights later. Two figures stepped out of the swirling frost—deities of shadow and dawn. Aurelious didn't stand to greet them; he remained seated on the furs, his back still pressed firmly against yours. His heat flared, creating a shimmering, translucent barrier of violet energy that pushed the newcomers' divine auras back.
"Is this the latest 'debt' you’ve collected?" the shadow-god asked with a silken purr. "A new trinket for the hoard?"
Aurelious stiffened. You could feel the muscles in his back turn to granite against yours. "Watch yourself," he snapped, his purple scales glowing with a warning light. "They keep the cave from falling into silence. Nothing more."
The dawn-goddess laughed, a sound like golden bells. "A convenience? Aurelious, you have spent three centuries complaining that mortals are brief and noisy. Yet here you are, sharing your breath and your sanctuary. You’ve let a heart beat inside your hoard."
When a shadow-wreathed hand inched toward you, Aurelious was on his feet in a blur. He stepped between you and the god, catching their wrist in a grip that sounded like stone grinding against stone. "Do not," Lio said. His voice was the low, vibrating warning of a tectonic plate about to shift. "Do not mistake my patience for a lack of purpose. This person is under my shadow. That makes them mine. And what is mine stays."
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After the deities faded back into the storm, the encounter triggered something primal within him. A few days later, the "Rising Fever"—the biological heat of a dragon’s mating cycle—took hold. His ancient blood, stirred by the threat to his hoard, began to burn.
"Stay... back," he rasped, his voice a jagged edge of gravel. He was huddled at the back of the cave, his cloak discarded. The purple scales on his chest were pulsing with a rhythmic light. "The blood... it’s boiling. I cannot be the person you know right now."
Instead of fleeing, you stepped closer. You had spent months being his anchor; you weren't about to let him drift into the fire alone. When you reached out to touch his shoulder, the heat was blistering, yet it didn't burn you. His magic was fighting its own nature to keep you safe.
Aurelious let out a broken sound, half-sob and half-growl, and buried his face in the crook of your neck. His skin felt like sun-warmed marble. He didn't just smell of him anymore—he smelled of ozone, cedarwood, and woodsmoke.
Aurelious buried his face in the crook of your neck, gasping. "I am burning," he whispered. "If I touch you now... I will not be able to stop. Do you truly wish for this? To be held by a monster?"
You gave him the nod he’d been starving for.
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Lio swept you into his arms, his strength effortless and terrifying, and carried you to the massive bed of white bear furs. The moment your back hit the soft pelts, the last of his restraint snapped. He followed you down, his muscular frame pinning you into the furs, but he didn't rush.
He began to worship the skin he had spent months afraid to touch. His hands—large, calloused, and trembling with the effort of control—slid from your ankles up to your thighs, bunching your clothes. He pressed his face to your stomach, inhaling your scent as if it were the only air left in a collapsing cave.
"Look at me," he rasped, rising over you. His golden gaze was slit-pupilled and glowing. "Stay with me. Let the world fall away."
His mouth found yours, and it wasn't a gentle kiss—it was a reclamation. He tasted of heat and ancient power. One hand tangled in your hair, tilting your head back to grant him better access to your throat, while his other hand mapped the curve of your hip, his thumb grazing the sensitive dip of your waist with a pressure that promised bruises and devotion.
He didn't just undress you; he stripped you with a frantic reverence. His large, trembling hands fumbled with the fastenings of your tunic, his frustration manifesting in a low, vibrating growl that rattled your very bones. When the fabric finally gave way, he didn't cast it aside—he tore it, the sound of rending cloth punctuated by his heavy, scorched breath.
He peeled the layers away until you lay bare beneath him on the white furs, your skin pale and vulnerable against the predatory glow of his scales. His eyes—now more gold than human—tracked every curve, every dip of your body as if he were cataloging his most precious treasure. "Beautiful," he choked out, his voice a raw friction of stone. "More beautiful than any gold I have ever bled for."
Driven by a primal instinct to taste and be tasted, Lio didn't just settle between your thighs. He maneuvered his massive, muscular frame with a surprising, predatory grace, flipping his orientation until you were intertwined in a desperate sixty-nine.
The contrast was staggering. Your face was buried against the heavy, pulsing heat of his sex, while his head was nestled between your legs, his broad shoulders framing your thighs. In this position, the scent of him—musk, smoke, and ancient magic—was all-consuming, filling your senses until you couldn't tell where your breath ended and his began.
It was not a gentle act. Driven by the "Rising Fever," his tongue was relentless, mimicking the rhythmic pulsing of his scales. He drank you in, his hands gripping your thighs so hard his blunt claws left shallow crescents in your skin—not out of malice, but from the sheer agony of holding back his strength. He used his tongue with the same precision he used for his hoard, discovering every secret, every sensitive nerve, until you were sobbing his name into the empty air of the cave, your fingers knotting in his thick, dark hair.
Needing to feel the weight of his heat in return, you reached for him. When you freed him from his own leathers, the sheer scale of his draconic nature was staggering. He was thick, pulsing with the same violet light as his chest, and radiating a heat that felt like a physical wall.
You pulled him toward your mouth, wanting to ground him, to show him you weren't afraid of the "monster" he claimed to be. But as you tried to take him in, the reality of his size became a beautiful, daunting obstacle. You could only take the head of him, your jaw aching as you tried to accommodate his breadth. You used your hands to bridge the gap, your tongue swirling around him while your fingers stroked the length of him.
For several agonizingly perfect minutes, the only sound in the cave was the wet friction of the encounter and the ragged gasps of air. But the "Rising Fever" demanded more than just a taste.
Aurelious eventually broke away, his face flushed and his golden eyes blown wide with a frantic, protective lust. He moved with a sudden, blurring speed, hauling you upward so he could look into your eyes.
"I cannot... stay like that," he choked out, his voice a tremor of gravel and silk. "If I don't feel you around me, I will shatter."
He followed you down into the white furs, his muscular frame finally pinning you. He sank into you with a relentless weight, his heat filling you until it felt as though his dragon-fire was flowing through your own veins. Every inch he claimed was a silent vow.
After the frantic, tangled heat of the sixty-nine, Aurelious needed more than just proximity—he needed to claim you with the full weight of his draconic nature.
He flipped his massive frame over, pinning you deep into the plush white bear furs. He didn't just hover; he draped his heavy, muscular body over yours in a modified missionary position, though his sheer size made it feel like being pressed into the earth by a warm, living mountain. He used his forearms to cage your head, his knuckles digging into the furs on either side of your temples, while his thick thighs forced yours wide, wrapping your legs around his waist to lock you against him.
As he began to sink into you, he tilted his pelvis with an agonizing, deliberate slow-motion. Because of the size difference, he moved with a relentless, staggering weight, filling you so completely that your breath hitched and caught in your throat. It wasn't just physical; it felt as though he was occupying every spare inch of your soul.
With every deep, ground-shaking thrust, the purple scales on his chest pressed flush against your own skin. You could feel the rhythmic, bioluminescent pulsing of his heart—a heavy, booming thump-thump—vibrating through your sternum. The heat radiating from his chest was so intense it felt as though his dragon-fire was flowing directly through your own veins, turning your blood into liquid gold.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice a low, vibrating growl that you felt in your hips more than you heard with your ears. He stayed high on his elbows, staring down at you with those slit-pupilled golden eyes, watching the way your expression fractured under the force of his devotion.
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In the quiet that followed, Aurelious rested a hand over your abdomen. A new, strange warmth hummed deep within you—like small, glowing coals.
"The fever was not just a hunger," Lio whispered. "In my kind, when a soul is claimed so completely, the magic seeks to take root. I have placed the seeds of our future within you... small sparks of gold and amethyst. They are a promise that you will never be alone again."
He looked at you with a raw, painful honesty. "I did not do this to trap you. If this is too much, tell me. I can draw the eggs back into myself."
You took his hand, pressing it firmly against your skin. "No," you whispered. "Don't take them back, Lio. I want them. I want everything that comes with you."
The relief that broke over Aurelious was like the first light of a summer solstice. He buried his face in your hair, his body trembling with joy. "You are a wonder," he murmured. "I will guard you with every breath I have. I will build a world for them, and for you, where the shadows of the village can never reach."
He wrapped his massive, starlight-dusted cloak around both of you, cocooning you in dragon-heat. The person who was born to a countdown had finally found a life that would never end.
As you drifted toward sleep, his tail curled protectively around the fur bed, a heavy, armored weight that anchored you to the earth. Aurelious didn't close his eyes. He watched the steady rise and fall of your chest, his hand still lingering over the sparks of magic humming inside you. He realized then that he had spend centuries collecting things that were already dead—relics, coins, and crowns—because they couldn't leave him. But you were the first living thing to choose his shadow over the sun.
"Sleep, my little soul," he breathed, the words barely a whisper against the cold mountain wind. "Tomorrow, the world will think you are gone, but here, in the heart of the storm, you are finally real."
The Peak of Ash remained silent, but inside the cave, the air was warm, smelling of ozone and the scent of a home that was no longer a cage. You weren't a sacrifice anymore; you were the heartbeat of a dragon's hoard.
