by Aliyah Burke
“Shit. That’s supposed to be confidential,” Luc said. “How the hell did you get it?”
“Ain’t much Edmond can’t find out,” Aminta chimed in.
Dracen focused on the words up there. Shit. She read about the famed Dragons. Known by a very few in the upper levels of the government. No set branch that they answered to. Off-grid and operating in the black, from assassinations to rescues, they did it all. Accomplishments and achievements. There was one picture of six men, and instantly her gaze landed on Luc. He wore unmarked fatigues and had green and black paint smears on his face. Against one shoulder rested a rifle.
“You used the FN SCAR?”
“You know your guns.”
She flashed him a smile, however brief. “I like my weapons. You must have a shit ton of ribbons for everything your group did.”
“It’s not all pretty and roses there, Dray.”
“I know. I see that. It makes you perfect though, for me.”
He turned her face to his and brushed a kiss over her lips. “Don’t ever forget it.”
The tenderness and possessiveness in his tone melted her just a tiny bit more. This man was one she’d fallen in love with over their time together and she didn’t want to lose that. Or him.
The others fell silent and she comprehended that it was because she’d never been one for displays like this.
“What does it mean, then, if he knows part of it?” She shifted in the seat, her wounds aching. “I mean, all of them have words but if nothing makes any sense, we’re stuck back at square one, right?”
“Shouldn’t the pieces know what to do?” Roz asked. “I mean, look at them in there, glowing and sparkling. Why are we assuming that we have to figure it out? Perhaps since they’re all together, that is all that’s needed. Where did it say that they had to be joined as one? The prophecy states we find, defend and bind the pieces. But bind has different connotations.”
“So you think they are doing what needs to be done now, just sitting there?” Billy posed his question.
Roz shrugged. “Beats me, just not sure why it can’t be an option.”
“I think it can be,” Tiarnán spoke up. “But we need to cover all possibilities. They know everything is together now. So we can be assured that They will be coming.”
So much ran through her mind. They had so many things to attend to and prepare for because each ticking second brought them nearer to the final battle. Dracen cleared her throat and the room fell silent. All eyes turned to her.
“So,” she began, hoping Lian hadn’t been wrong about their reactions. “According to Lian—and it’s something I’ve known for a while know—I carry demon blood within me.”
No one spoke, then everyone did at once.
“What the fuck?” Billy and Cale, always alike with their thoughts.
“I don’t believe it.” Roz.
“No fucking way.” Aminta.
“That’s why you ran.” Tiarnán.
She didn’t say anything, merely waited for it to sink in to them. Another round of silence fell.
“Shit. You’re serious aren’t you,” Billy said, his tone a mixture of horror and shock.
Shame burned her from the inside out. “Unfortunately.”
Cale scowled. “Like Haley?”
Now was the time for truth. “Yes. I don’t know if it’s the same creature, but yes. Similar.”
Cale swore a low, vicious streak and stepped toward her, his sign rising above his shoulders, his agitation clear. Dracen didn’t even move to defend herself. She knew what Taylor had gone through.
“You’re the same as that bitch?” Fury spewed from his mouth.
She didn’t speak. He jumped toward her and two things happened at once. The others called for him to stop and Luc planted himself between them.
“Guardian or not,” he growled in warning. “You threaten her again and you and I will dance.”
She gazed in shock at the man crouched on the table before her. He radiated warrior. But she would swear there was a dragon behind him, rising from his shoulders. Much like her sign did. Its tail flicked with agitation and the claws on its wings moved as if clacking them upon a surface. Gray wisps of mist lingered around his hands.
This is new.
Everything he’d told her was forefront in her thoughts and she bit her lip at her confusion and worry as to what may be happening to him.
Is he becoming something close to me?
Luc waited for Cale to make a move. Rage flew freely through him. Possessiveness unlike anything he’d ever experienced slammed into him with the same force as if he stood before a ball machine at a hitting park. Powerful. Intense. Painful.
The air in the room was impossibly thick with male testosterone and all-around tension.
“Enough.” Roz’s tone cracked like a whip.
He wasn’t moving until surfer boy backed off.
“Christ, Cale,” Roz continued. “Do you really think she’s like Haley? Lian trusts her.” She walked around the table. “I trust her.”
“I don’t.” His words fell from his lips and Luc could feel the pain those words caused Dracen, even though she didn’t respond.
“Stay away from my mate,” Cale snarled. He retreated to the wall as if he wanted more distance between them.”
“Perhaps you’d like to come down off the table now, Luc?” Dracen suggested.
He jumped to the floor and glanced at his woman. Mate. There was no arguing the voice in his mind. He cupped her cheek, thumb skimming along her full lower lip. Her lips were a source of joy for him. He loved kissing them, touching them.
Dracen Lloyd made him ridiculously possessive and tactile.
“What was that?” Tiarnán asked.
He faced the man who bore the sign of the tiger. “What?”
Aminta sat forward and placed her hands on the table. “You were surrounded by a silver mist. Like we are when we’re communicating with one another. Or—”
“During battle,” Billy added.
He looked to Dracen for confirmation. At her nod, he shrugged. “Some things have been going on since I met Dracen.”
“I would say so,” Roz commented dryly.
“So you’re both a threat to our mates.” Cale’s words were ice-cold.
The hostility, which had lessened slightly, ratcheted back up.
“Fuck you, Cale,” Roz snapped instantly.
Billy moved to stand beside Cale and Aminta left her seat to be beside Roz at Dracen’s side. Tiarnán didn’t move, just continued to watch it all unfold.
Luc glanced between the two sides. The 3D images in the middle of the table vanished.
“Look at yourselves,” Edmond bit off. “Playing right into Their hands.” Disgust laced his tone.
“Why should we trust a demon?” Cale demanded, fists clenched.
“You callous fucker,” Roz yelled. “Inaki is a full demon. Do you not trust him?”
Dracen stood, drawing all attention. “Cale’s entitled to his feelings. If that’s all, Edmond, I want to lie down.” She left without another word.
Luc hated the tonelessness her words carried.
“She shut us back out.” A blade whizzed by Luc to sail past Cale, who barely moved out of the way, and sank into the wall by his ear. “I’ll never forgive you for this, Cale. Never.” Roz left.
“She never spoke one ill word about any of you. Some family.” Luc went to the door, Aminta at his heels. It closed on Cale saying something else.
“Don’t let him get to you.”
“He means shit to me,” Luc replied honestly.
“I know. I love you, Luc. Just wanted you to know that.”
He arched an eyebrow at Aminta and she smiled back.
“Don’t look so surprised. You make my Dracen happy. She’s not been for so long. And I love you for it. But if you take her from me, you’ll need all your skills to hide from me.”
“Noted.”
They split at the stairs, when
she went into the waiting arms of Altair. Luc took the stairs three at a time to his new room. He pushed in and closed the door behind him.
No sign of her, but he heard the shower running. He strode through to the bathroom and stopped at the sight of her naked body in the glass enclosure, surrounded by steam. His cock went rock-hard and he groaned even as he yanked his shirt over his head. He kicked off his boots only to freeze when his foot hit a blood-red bandage.
Removing the rest of his clothes, he drew open the shower door. The dragon on her back appeared as if he’d been enjoying the water streaming over him as well.
“Dray?”
“Why did you tell me that you loved me out there?”
The warm spray pounded his skin as he stepped up behind her. There’s almost no place on her that’s not sporting an injury. He cupped her shoulders and took another peek at her back. The tattoo had worked its magic, hiding the scars and appearing both silver and red now.
“Because it was the truth.” He’d not even thought it might be too soon. “I love you. Don’t ask me when I fell.” He kissed his way along her wet skin. “But I did and I am.” He turned her to face him. The injury on her chest hurt him to look at it, for it reminded him how close he’d come to losing her. “You said you loved me as well.”
Water streamed over them both from the multiple showerheads. He cupped her face in his hands, ignoring the wet strands that were plastered to her features.
“Something is changing between us, Dray. I feel it deep inside. I don’t know what it is, I know I love you and I will kill to protect you. Or die. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. I want to be with you every waking moment and hold you at night. Hell, even anytime. I love touching you, the way you curl into me shows how you trust me. That’s the most humbling thing in the world to me.”
She closed her eyes and he stared at her silver lashes. They were no longer merely tipped but fully silver. When she opened her eyes and looked at him, he saw her right one had definite stripes in it.
“I do love you.”
Those four words tumbled through him. His skin burned and he dipped his head to capture her lips. Gently, he kissed her, trying not to aggravate her healing injuries. She moaned and leaned into him.
He backed off and shook his head. “No. Not right now.” He tucked some hair behind her ear. “We’ll get through this but I have some questions for you.”
“I was just about finished.”
She touched the panel and the water ceased. He opened the door and grabbed a towel that he wrapped around his waist, then he took a second one and put it around Dracen.
“Let me dry you off,” he said.
Her exhaustion was showing and he worked quickly, still being careful. Once she was dry and in her clothes she’d brought in, as well as new bandages, he swiftly dried himself off and tugged on a pair of workout pants.
They climbed into bed and he gathered her close. “I’m noticing some changes in you.”
“Like?”
“Your lashes are silver. Your right eye isn’t the same as your left but has stripes in it.”
“Like yours.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Well, on you it’s your left eye, but I’ve noticed you have gray slashes through the green.” She shifted against him. “I’ve also seen your lashes tipped with silver.”
“What do you think this means?”
“I don’t have any clue. I think we need to talk with Lian.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Her voice almost unintelligible.
“I’m sorry about Cale, babe.”
“It was bound to happen at some point. He has the right to be mad.”
One minute she was awake the next sound asleep. Luc knew it was the herbs she was taking to further assist her healing. The shower had expended the remainder of what she had in the energy department.
* * * *
He was alone in the bed when he woke and the room was empty. Dracen was gone. He closed his eyes and saw flashes of children eating breakfast. Pushing up from the comfortable bed, he got ready for his day and trotted downstairs. Altair was walking through the foyer with Dex. Both men stopped and smiled at him.
“We’re about to go work out, interested in joining us?” Dex put the offer there.
“Fuck yeah, I could use a workout.”
“Come on,” Altair added.
He fell into step with them and they walked through to the gym. He stripped off his shirt and went to the bench press.
A whistle filled the room and he stopped to look back at the two in there. “Yes?” he asked, one eyebrow lifted.
“One hell of a tattoo on your back, man. Who did the artwork?” Dex asked.
“Tattoo?”
“The red and silver dragon.”
Fuck me.
Chapter Fourteen
“Got a minute?”
Dracen turned at Tiarnán’s question to find him lounging against the wall of the training room. She dropped the chain she held and nodded. “Sure.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“About what?” She called up a sword and tried not to wince when pain struck her palms. “Damn it,” she cursed.
“The demon blood.”
“And say what, Tiarnán? How do you broach that subject?”
He kicked a chair. “Same way as we do everything else. Blunt honesty. Christ, Dracen. You’re the closest one to me here and you’ve been shutting me out for almost a year. This vanishing act you pulled, I woke up thinking you’d been stabbed in the chest. I saw it in my head. When are you going to remember you’re not alone?”
“Coming from the lone warrior himself? Really? You, who is as much of a loner as I am?”
“Are we or are we not siblings?”
The accusation stung. “We are.”
He strode over the floor in her direction, a katana in his own hand. “So what was the problem?”
She stared at his face, hard angles lined with anger. While she knew what was imminent, the speed of his strike still shocked her. For a brief moment, she’d wondered if he would give her a break because she was healing. Apparently not.
Dracen rolled at the last second, bringing up a blade to block his downward attack. The familiar reverberation up her arm was soothing in an odd way. The pain was pushed back and she continued on to her feet, calling forth another weapon. So did Tiarnán.
She cracked her neck and watched his eyes, not the sword or whip he held. In her right hand, she had her typical tanto.
“I didn’t want to share it. You’re not telling me that you’re having problems with your mate.”
He bared his teeth in a silent snarl. “What did she tell you?” He struck with the whip and she dodged it all the while, moving in closer to where it wouldn’t be able to be used.
“That’s between us.”
“Dracen?” The word was a warning.
“Did you tell her there was nothing between us, nor had there ever been?”
“Yes,” he snapped, forgoing the whip and attacking with two swords.
God, his hits rattled her teeth. She kicked at him and flipped back out of range. “Then what’s the problem?” She winced at the tear of one scab.
“She’s still unsure about where she sits with me, and how the fuck did this get to be about me as opposed to about you?”
“Because I know how to steer a conversation.”
“Then,” he said, “I suggest I stop it and keep you too busy to converse.”
Words stopped for a while until they both halted the battle, sweat covered and bleeding from minor cuts. A bit more in her position, for some of her scabs had broken open.
“Now we talk,” he said as he bandaged up her injuries.
“I’ve known for a while. I could feel them. When I figured it out, I was trying to combat this darkness growing inside me. You know I can go into people’s thoughts, but I take it all with me. The good and the bad. I didn’t know how to
handle the bad and I was scared I would do something to someone here. Plus with the blood issue, I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t be able to track me.”
“So you ran,” he accused, pushing on the last bit of gauze with more force than necessary.
“I left.”
“You fucking ran. There, you’re done.” He stepped back and crossed his arms.
Dracen looked at him. Really looked at him. Cowboy boots, jeans and white T-shirt that didn’t do anything to hide the muscles he had. Not to mention being sweaty only made them more defined. His hair had grown longer, and yet, there was a difference. The hard edge around his eyes had disappeared.
“She’s good for you, you know.”
He blinked, as if unsure by her change in topic. “Calida?”
“Yes, you almost look happy.”
“She is everything.”
“I can see that.”
Alarms blared and they both instantly ran for the door. “Where?” she called, unable to hear the internal communication.
“East perimeter.”
They ran into Cale, Taylor and Mal in the front.
“Stay here and help protect the kids, Dracen,” Tiarnán ordered.
She looked from Cale to Taylor and shook her head. “No, I’m going out there. Better that than I stay here and someone else is worried I may do something harmful.” Without waiting for a response, she dashed off, her sign shifting and prepping for battle.
New Order goons awaited them and she immediately jumped into the fray. Aminta and Tiarnán joined her.
“The others are checking the rest of the perimeter,” Aminta called to her.
“Be so much easier if you’d let us back in,” Tiarnán shouted.
She dropped her shields and nearly fell from her feet, the feeling of being so connected with her brethren was such a powerful thing.
“Better?”
“Yes,” Tiarnán said.
“Much,” Aminta agreed.
“Welcome back again,” Roz chimed in.
Billy and Cale’s voices were suspiciously absent, however, she didn’t focus on that, only the fight before her.
As they walked back to the house, Aminta glanced at her. “You’ve always been one hell of a fighter, Dracen but this…goddamn, it’s spectacular. I know our signs assist but yours takes it to another level. It’s out there, an extension of you but wielding its own damage.”
