Dragon Called: A Slow Burn Sexy Paranormal Romance

by Kara Lockharte

  She balled up the remains of the dressing from earlier up in her hands and leaned into the wound and would’ve sworn she saw something inside of him shimmer like a mirror for a second before bloody cotton covered it up.

  A lot of things glistened inside people—under the right light—though. When you didn’t have the right words on hand, you reached for metaphors. She’d seen lung tissue flutter like butterfly wings and exposed fat that looked like pillow stuffing. Whatever it was, she knew one thing, that if she stopped applying pressure and keeping what little blood the man had left inside him and circulating, he would die. His death was not worth her curiosity.

  She leaned harder, putting her whole weight into him, replacing her hands with elbows, until she could get enough leverage on the bed to clamber onto it so that she could kneel over him, pressing down on him like she could push death itself away if she only tried hard enough.

  And then there was a scrabbling behind her. She could hear shouts, hissing, the shots of a gun. Movement burst into the room, something running across the ceiling that she knew she didn’t want to see, and tumult behind her.

  “Andi, get down!” Damian shouted. But she knew if she did, the man would bleed to death. “NOW!”

  Andi ducked but didn’t move. She felt the swipe of a tongue sweep across the back of her neck and the hot breath of whatever it was that’d escaped. She closed her eyes and prayed not to die.

  “Girl, stay down! Eyes closed!” the dark-skinned man commanded. It looked like one of his arms was entirely metal? But how? Andi did as she was told, and then she heard the strange charging whine sound of the monstrous gun that he wore. A burst of energy shot over her head, light flooded into her eyes—even through her closed eyelids—and an inhumane squeal started and ended abruptly as something wet and disgusting fell onto her, knocking her farther into her patient’s guts, before sliding off her back to land on the hardwood floor with a thump.

  The lurker was dead—no thanks to him—and Damian ran forward, ready to lift Andi off of Zach. Blood covered her from her hands up to her elbows, and the blue grease of the lurker slicked her now from the top down. He could read the anger and fear on her face where he could see it between her wet locks of hair and watched those attributes merge into a magnificent ferocity that drew him to it like a flame.

  “Come down off of there at once!” he commanded, reaching for her.

  She made a sound at him—a snarl—that clearly meant get away. “If I move, he’ll bleed out and die.”

  He looked to Austin for confirmation of this fact. He was ripping through the drawers of the cart he’d wheeled into the room—a lifetime ago, it seemed—opening the plastic wrapped IV bags with his teeth before hanging them and squeezing them with his own two hands so that the fluids inside them would rush into Zach more quickly.

  Andi watched Austin with wide eyes. “What the fuck are you doing? You have to call 911!”

  “No!” Austin shouted. “He can handle it.”

  “He doesn’t need fluids! He needs blood!”

  Austin flung his arms wide. “How the fuck would we explain this to anyone?”

  “Do you want your brother to die or not?”

  And then both of them looked to Damian for a decision. “Call 911,” he commanded.

  “D…we can’t trust hospitals. You know that. And…this is going to get us crushed…” Austin pleaded.

  “I’d do no less for you,” he said with a tone that broached no discussion. “Keep him alive until they get here.”

  “Fuck both of y’all,” Austin muttered, looking between him and the girl, but he reached for his phone and dialed.

  Damian turned to Jamison, who was practically dancing with excitement. “It worked! I knew it!”

  “It did,” Damian said. Just like he’d wanted it to—just like he’d paid for.

  His young techmaster inhaled to say something else, but his eyes flashed over to Andi first.

  “Whatever you want to say, say it,” Damian said, studiously not looking at Andi himself. The less he thought about her, the better; he already had far too much on his mind.

  Jamison ducked over to where the girl couldn’t see him, eclipsed by Damian’s larger presence. “We, uh, still need to test it on bigger creatures. Just to be certain.”

  Code-words for: Will this really kill me? Damian knew. His dragon growled a challenge inside him, from where he’d hidden it away.

  Damian nodded. “Indeed.”

  Austin finished his phone call and was loudly discussing what to do next with Andi, the monitor was beeping incessantly. Grimalkin was pacing from wall to wall, hissing disapproval at so much destruction in his house, and Jamison had pulled out some sort of half-divining-rod-half-game-controller-like device to wave over the lurker’s corpse.

  Damian toed it, watching a tentacle-like arm flop while grinding his teeth together. How the hell had it gotten in? What if he hadn’t been there? And the gun hadn’t worked?

  Could he have lost all of them?

  He looked over to where Andi was, appearing largely unfazed despite being covered in body fluids, talking loudly to Austin about what she thought would help next.

  Could he have lost…her?

  He kicked the lurker in earnest and watched it slide across his floor, into a door Grimalkin conveniently opened and then closed, making its corpse disappear. “We also need to solve the question of how the fuck a portal opened endangering everyone IN MY CASTLE.”

  He hadn’t meant to shout the last three words, and yet he had. Everyone else in the room snapped to silence, except for the monitor.

  See? his dragon laughed at him. You can’t even control yourself. How can you hope to ever control me?

  That’s what the gun is for, Damian snarled back.

  You wouldn’t dare, the dragon challenged.

  Try me.

  But instead of surging up to wrestle, his dragon roiled back inside him, feeling suffused with mirth. Damian inhaled and exhaled slowly as Jamison stood.

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he said and went to run his gizmo over Zach’s body on the bed. And there, despite his best efforts not to, Damian’s eyes met Andi’s.

  Whatever else was happening at that moment fell away. All the noise and commotion seemed to hush, and it was just him and her—a dragon-shifter and a gore-covered goddess.

  Are you okay? he mouthed at her, unable to imagine that she could be.

  Her eyebrows rose, betraying the utter absurdity of the question given the situation, and a sarcastic smile played at the edges of her lips.

  Fuck, no, she mouthed back at him. But I’m all right.

  He wanted to lunge in, grab her, and swoop her up, to take her someplace far away from here. But before he could even think to act, a group of uniformed men was clattering in behind a gurney.

  “What the fuck happened here?” one of them asked.

  Andi watched with increasing disbelief as Damian explained his friend’s wounds away as tiger disembowelment—and Grimalkin changed his form into one, going from a small Siamese into a three hundred pound black and orange striped beast in half a second.

  “Fuck!” one of the paramedics shouted, spotting him.

  “Run along, Stripey,” Damian told the tiger, and it did. “He’s usually very well behaved,” Damian told the paramedics. “You’ll find we have the appropriate wildlife permits.”

  The rest of everything was explained—somehow—by Austin’s training and their quick thinking. Of course, they’d intubated the man. Of course, they’d put IVs into him. Of course, an eccentric billionaire would have all the tools and equipment for keeping himself alive nearby—of course, of course, of course. But the absent Mr. Blackwood “senior,” she pieced together from overhearing their story, wasn’t here presently—also, of course. He was off doing business in Dubai. She overheard Damian give the paramedics his own name though as Damian Blackwood the Third—the elderly billionaire’s “useless” younger cousin, according to her
pre-job internet searches.

  Listening in, Andi had a strong nursing hunch that Mr. Blackwood “senior” didn’t actually exist.

  “We’ve got him, Miss,” one of the paramedics said, placing his hands over hers, preparing to take over pressure-duties.

  “Really?” she asked, then shook her head at herself. She could barely handle what had happened; there was no need to tell anyone else about things. Andi pulled her hands back like she was doing a magic trick and dismounted the bed. The rest of the paramedics buckled him in, and she thought to ask, “Where are you taking him?”

  “General,” the medic closest to her answered.

  Another of them said at her expression, “Don’t worry, it’s a trauma center. They’ve seen worse.”

  She already knew that. General was her home away from home. Her last shift seemed so long ago, and her next shift—fuck, no. She was calling in sick tonight. She’d been awake for over twenty-four hours, had had her life threatened at least twice, and had met a real-life dragon. A girl needed time to adjust.

  “Hey,” Damian said from beside her. Austin was trailing after the men. She had a feeling he’d cop a ride in the ambulance, the stranger-with-the-metal-arm was gone as was the magic-cat, and something had happened to the blue-monster-thing when she hadn’t fully been paying attention.

  “There’s not an older version of you running all this somewhere, is there,” she stated flatly.

  He shrugged, not looking caught in the least. “No. Whenever we need the ‘elder’ Blackwood to go out, we slap some magic on my friend whose life you just saved, and he pretends to be an older version of me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that way, everyone pays attention to him, and no one gives a shit about me.” His voice held a deep tone of irony as he went on. “Everyone knows I’m just the asshole. Go ask Google.”

  Andi felt her eyebrows rise. Damian was the asshole who was also a dragon who had saved her life—before threatening to erase her memories. She looked up at him and caught him staring at her again—probably afraid she’d tell someone his secret—and she suddenly felt swamped by exhaustion. “Take me home?”

  He nodded quickly. “Of course.”

  Together they walked to the front of the house and out the main door. The fountain was fixed. The van had disappeared. And now they were heading toward a garage—not the one she’d wrecked before—and Damian used his handprint to unlock it. The white door rose up, revealing the sleekest looking car she’d ever seen inside, low-slung and gold, as shiny as an icicle. She didn’t recognize the make, but she saw the logo on the side.

  “Pagani?” she asked aloud.

  Damian snorted. “It means expensive, in Italian.” He moved to hold a winged door open for her, and she looked down at herself.

  It was at this point she realized she was in shock. Because normal Andi would’ve never stood for this, being covered in human blood—and who knew what else from that monster-thing—down to her toes, definitely under her fingernails. Normal Andi would’ve been finding a vat of alcohol sanitizer to bathe in. As it was, she just asked, “And your expensive upholstery?”

  He shrugged with a small smile. “It’s seen worse.”

  She didn’t fight him on this. She just sank inside and let the buttery leather interior catch her, putting her seat belt on and curling up into a ball against the door. A pierced golden coin hung from his rearview mirror on a satin ribbon instead of fuzzy dice—because of course it did. She watched it sway back and forth as he drove and she let the hypnotic motion of it lull her into sleep.

  Chapter 11

  By the time Damian pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex, she was sound asleep. He thought about waking her, then hesitated. He told himself that she needed to sleep—she was mortal, that he was doing her a favor—but he knew the truth. He was afraid if he woke her up, it would be the end. She would want to shower, of course. She’d get out of his car, take the cash, and leave. Why wouldn’t she, after everything he’d put her through last night? And there was nothing that he could or should do to make her stay. Her leaving was the right choice.

  Unless it wasn’t.

  He looked over at her, curled up into her seat with her seat belt still on. She hadn’t been scared of him as a dragon at all. He remembered the look on her face seeing him—awestruck, but as she raised her hand, also certain. Like she knew she belonged with him.

  No. That was just the loneliness talking. He could never wish being with him on anyone. The coin Michael’d given him hung on a ribbon around his rearview mirror. It was bad enough that Austin and the rest of them had been dragged into working with him; being on his crew had cost Michael his life.

  So he would never dare to bring someone so soft and fragile into the Realm of the Unearthly, but he watched her chest rise and fall and listened to the quiet sounds of her breathing—remembering the way she’d looked at him as a man when they’d been in the pond. He would have sworn there’d been a moment or two there where she’d felt his pull and had wanted him alike.

  Which didn’t matter. One of them had to be the strong one. And just because she didn’t want to forget things didn’t mean she wanted a relationship with him. Who could—fully knowing what he was? So, any minute now, he would wake her up, shove an envelope of cash at her, and push her out of the car.

  She stirred against the leather seat and made a small noise. She would be so much more comfortable in her own bed after a shower, no doubt. All the more reason he should wake her. Yes, be an adult about this already. He steeled himself, reaching over, but before he could touch her, need wracked him as it never had before, making him stop, and he slowly closed his hand. He almost didn’t trust himself. For all the times he’d touched her already, he wanted more. At the least, he didn’t want this to be the end—like it would be if he woke her.

  And what was the rush? Austin had already texted him that Zach was critical but stable—his werewolf abilities serving him in good stead. The full moon would come tonight and heal him. So, couldn’t he just sit here and pretend she was choosing to be with him for a little bit longer?

  Why did she have to be perfect? There were a million ways she could’ve acted differently today and turned him off, but somehow, she’d navigated every one. And that last vision of her atop Zach, saving his life, so impossibly brave despite its absolute utter foolishness—he’d never seen such ferocious selflessness before.

  Whereas, everything about him and his desires was selfish—born from a place of dragonhood, where what he wanted, he got. Which was why he was watching her take the world’s most uncomfortable nap in his sports car, after the fucking worst night he’d had since Zach had gotten injured.

  Goddamn it. Just touch her. Just wake her up.

  As if his own desires made it manifest, she inhaled deeply, and her eyes blinked. She startled, looking at him, and then around at the car, as her hands reached for the door. “Oh my God…oh…wait…what…” she began, and he realized if only he’d been sly enough to somehow get her into a shower and into her bed without waking her—or doing anything lewd—she might’ve decided everything that’d happened to her was a dream, even without the fire.

  “You,” she said slowly, her eyes finding his.

  “Me,” he agreed. What did she remember? What was she thinking of him?

  You soft, scaleless fool, his dragon chided from a distance. Who cares? Take what you want.

  “You’re…a dragon.”

  “Yes.” No point in denying it now.

  “Just…like Auntie Kim…” she breathed, making no sense, before going to rub an eye with the back of one hand and realizing it was still gross from earlier. “Ewww.” Then she looked around again and squinted through the tinted windows at the sun. “What time is it?”

  He glanced at his phone. “Eleven.”

  “I’ve been asleep for three hours?”

  Had it really been three hours? Damian realized, not for the first time, that no one else was
better at torturing himself than he was. “Not long enough.”

  “And…you’ve just been watching me?”

  “Mostly day trading,” he lied, flashing her his phone.

  She stretched like a cat and looked around at herself again. “I can’t believe you didn’t wake me up.”

  “I didn’t want to touch you…” which was even more of a lie before he quickly added, “…without your permission.”

  “So, non-consensual brainwashing was okay, but a shoulder tap’s right out? Good to know.” She snorted at him before her lips curved into a smile. It was just as warm as he remembered from the night prior and before he could sensibly stop himself, he was smiling back.

  “I don’t really have a rulebook for this,” he admitted.

  “This?” she asked, her eyebrows arching.

  What he wanted to say was, You, me, sitting in a car, me wanting more, do you want more with me? But what he said instead was, “Interacting with humans.”

  She looked a little wounded at that, and he wished he hadn’t said anything at all. “Are we really all that different?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been human before.” Why wasn’t she running?

  “But, you hang out with them, I met people—”

  “Most of them are supernatural in some way.” Did she want to stay, too?

  “Unearthly?” she guessed, remembering.

  “Hmmm. Not entirely. More like offshoots of Unearthly creatures from generations ago. Been on Earth so long that they’re different now; I don’t think they could really function in the Realms anymore.”

  She eyed him warily. “I thought you didn’t want me asking questions?”

  “I haven’t told you a single thing that you could actually Google,” he said.

  She frowned, and he realized it was only her curiosity that kept her here. Of course. Grow up, Damian. He sat up straight and gave her a predatory smile. Leave little girl, get out of my car; run away before I hurt you. She read his face and stiffened but didn’t reach for the door, and he spotted the envelope sitting between their car seats. “Here,” he said, picking it up and tossing it into her lap. “I tripled your fee. Hazard pay, after last night.” Now she would be sure to go.