Axeviathon- Son of Dragons

by Tessa Dawn

  Okay, so she didn’t know the latter…

  But the question would eat away at her until she did.

  And Axe wasn’t quite ready to divulge that much.

  Still, he needed to make some inroads…now.

  “Your conversation with Jordan was rough?” he asked her, knowing it was a rhetorical question. “Anything I can do to help?” He flipped a wayward lock of unruly hair out of his eyes with a sweep of his fingers and waited.

  Amber made fleeting eye contact, bit her bottom lip, and stared down at her lap. “I told Jordan a lot…things about myself…the kind of things you saw in my memories about Tony, Zeik, and Grunge, what happened when I was still a teenager.”

  Axe nodded slowly, reached out to squeeze her hand, then just as quickly withdrew his touch. “All right.” What else could he say?

  She sighed. “And Jordan told me about that green dragon god, the shit—the stuff—he’s going to do to you. That it’s happening because of me.”

  At first, Axe chuckled at her reference to a green dragon god—Lord Ethyron would lose his cool if he heard that, but all the same, Axe’s stomach clenched. “The Emerald Dragon Lord,” he corrected, not because he gave a damn about her vernacular, but because it was never too early to instruct his female—it was Axe’s job to keep Amber safe, to initiate her into life at the Pantheon, and learning how to avoid offending one of the Seven was always a good place to start. “As for the shit he’s going to do to me,” he added, “and you can say shit—or worse—around me, Amber; I’ve lived for 225 years, and I’ve never been a gentle or proper male. Trust me, my language gets worse than that. As for anything happening because of you: You don’t need to worry about my well-being, sweet angel. That’s between me, my lair, and our lords. Not your fault. Not your responsibility. It wasn’t your doing, Amber. You’re my dragyra—your safety in that house was my responsibility, and it always will be. Given a choice between suffering or watching you suffer…” He shook his head and snorted. “No contest, sweet lady.”

  At this, Amber looked up at him and actually held his stare.

  Her eyes brightened for a fleeting moment, and Axe registered a real spark of attraction—he felt what Amber felt when she looked at him.

  She squirmed in her seat, but this time, she didn’t turn away. “Maybe,” she whispered, “but I’m sorry just the same.” She swallowed so hard, he saw the lump in her throat, and then she added quietly, “And for whatever it’s worth, I don’t think I ever thanked you; I mean, for the eyesight, fixing the blindness thing.” At this, she finally looked away and folded her hands in her lap. “Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to be here, and you had no right to take me. And that doesn’t mean that I’m…that I’m open…to anything you need from me. I’m just saying that I’m glad I’m not blind, and I recognize that you played a big part in that.”

  Understanding how difficult this was for her, he reached out to cup her jaw in his hands—he couldn’t help it. Almost by instinct—or maybe because she was just so damn beautiful and vulnerable—he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “You’re welcome, Amber girl,” he said with an inadvertent rasp. He had no hard feelings about the other statements: Of course, she wasn’t locked and loaded, ready to pull the trigger on their pairing…their mating…so to speak.

  She wrapped her hands around his wrists, and her touch was so gentle it was exquisite. Furthermore, whether she knew it or not, she peeked up at him through those long, sexy lashes, and her lips actually parted. Yeah, there were five gallons of chemistry swirling between them already. But then again, the gods would’ve made sure of that when they chose her. To Axe’s disappointment, the connection was fleeting—she tightened her fingers around his wrists, lowered his arms and his hands from her face, and pushed them forward, down and away, before refolding her hands in her lap. “You don’t know me well enough to touch me like that,” she scolded softly.

  Axe took a slow, deep breath.

  This was the perfect time to back off—or push forward—he could see advantages and disadvantages in going either way. But time…time…the clock was ticking. “Yeah, but you wanted me to touch you, and you felt something pass between us. You liked my touch, Amber girl.”

  She shivered, and then she bristled. “Don’t even think about it, Axe.”

  “Think about what?”

  “You know what.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. Be more specific.”

  Her voice grew stern. “Don’t think about anything when it comes to me—is that specific enough?”

  His faint smile grew broader. “It’s actually extremely vague—and impossible—but okay, I’ll be good. For now.”

  She sighed then, and it was wholly exasperated. “What do you want from me, Axeviathon?”

  “Axe,” he repeated once again.

  “Axeviathon,” she said, determined to be defiant.

  He placed one hand on her knee, and she stiffened—but she didn’t swipe it away. “I know there’s something…important…you want, a much larger reason why you took me. What is it, Axe?”

  He added pressure to his touch. “I’ve told you, Amber; you’re my dragyra. Going forward, we are going to have to…forge a path…find a way to eventually come together as a man and a woman—a male and a female—find our own way in the Pantheon.” He shook his head, and the gesture was adamant. “I’m not going to harm you. I’m not going to force myself on you. I’m not going to take anything you aren’t eventually willing to give, but I am going to keep coming at you with truth, with answers to your questions, with my touch, whenever I can. Let’s just say, we don’t have a lot of time to get to know each other because, yes, there’s more to the story. The gods have a stake in your existence, your presence here, too. And they aren’t known for being all that patient.”

  Amber slapped his hand off her knee, stood up abruptly, and paced to the other side of the room, where she stood in front of the fireplace mantel and stared at the ancient stones. “You mean that emerald god, the one that wants to hurt you, also wants something from me? Something like—”

  “No!” Axe barked, cutting her off mid-sentence. He spun around on the ottoman and stared at her slender back—if her spine got any stiffer, any straighter, she would be a couple of inches taller. Shit, he was screwing this up. His damn blunt, non-communicative ass was truly making a mess of the entire interaction, and he was scaring the shit out of his dragyra. “No,” he repeated, softening his tone. “It’s nothing like that, Amber. It’s complicated, but not like that. Ultimately, what has to happen between us involves the gods and the Pantheon; specifically, it involves the manner in which the Seven will welcome you into our world.” Now, wasn’t that just the understatement of the century…

  Amber spun around, and her eyes were wide as saucers. “Just what the hell does that mean?”

  Axe cringed inside.

  “Axeviathon—Axe—what does that mean: the manner in which the Seven will welcome you into our world! Who the hell are the Seven?”

  Axe concentrated hard on lowering his voice and softening his tone. “There are seven dragon lords in the Pantheon. You already met one of them the other night, Lord Saphyrius, the dragon who healed your eyesight. He will want to…see you in the temple…along with the other six. It’s a formal welcoming ceremony of sorts, and yes, it can be quite intimidating.”

  Shit…shit…and more shit!

  This was quickly deteriorating from bad to worse…

  Axe could do better.

  He had to do better.

  He needed to take a different tack.

  “But the main thing is: You won’t be alone. Just like the healing the other night, your time in the pool with Lord Saphyrius, I’ll be there to keep you safe. And just like this thing I have to do tonight with Lord Ethyron—another trip to the temple, another ceremony of sorts, payment for bringing you here—the onus will be on me. Anything unpleasant, any crosses we have to bear, I’ll be the one bearing them, not you.” He cursed beneath h
is breath—that was only half true. During the sixty seconds of consecration, when the Seven scorched the couple with orange-and-red flames, when they destroyed Amber’s mortal body, allowed her to die, then regenerated her, once again, as an immortal, three seconds of unbearable pain would break through. And that was only if Axe was perfect, implacable, capable of shielding his dragyra from the rest…

  But there was no way he could tell her all that now.

  She’d run for the hills, fight him with her last dying breath—she’d shut down completely, and he would never have a chance…

  To earn her love or her trust…

  The jig would be up before it began.

  What the hell was he supposed to do?

  “You’re not telling me everything,” she said bluntly, even as her amber eyes narrowed in suspicion. She chuckled softly, and it was a bleak, hollow sound, completely void of humor. “I spent the last ten years living with two demons and a cult worshiper—did I get that right? I think I know a half-truth when I hear one.” She held up one hand to keep Axe silent before she pressed on: “But you know what? In all honesty, I have a half-truth of my own: I asked the question, but I don’t really want the answer. I’m not ready to digest anything more. Not right now…I don’t want to know.”

  For the breadth of a second—maybe a little more, a little less—Axe felt like he almost deserved the punishment he had coming at midnight; he felt like the world’s greatest cad. “I’m sorry I’m messing this up,” he said honestly. “For whatever it’s worth, I’m doing my best. I just—”

  “What do you know about trauma bonds,” she blurted, interrupting his train of thought.

  He drew back and paused. “Come again?”

  “Trauma bonds,” she repeated, completely changing the subject—thank the gods. “Have you ever heard that term? Like the psychological chemistry behind Stockholm syndrome?”

  He blinked his sapphire eyes several times, trying to make the adjustment with her. And then he grew quiet and pensive…thinking…where was she going with this? “What do you mean?” he asked, wanting to be clear. “Are you talking about neurochemicals, brain chemistry? Cortisone, and that kind of shit? What happens in the body when it experiences trauma?”

  Amber nodded slowly, and her face turned ghostly pale. “Yeah, exactly. What do you know about chemical imbalances, like when someone has them in their body?”

  Axe furrowed his brows. They could go back and forth all day, but his dragyra wanted something specific—better to cut to the chase. “What do you need, Amber girl? What are you asking me to do?”

  She gulped, and this time, it was Amber who was clearly caught off guard by the bluntness of Axe’s words. “Well, that was direct,” she murmured, and then she wrung her hands together, rubbed her arms as if she had a chill, and shifted her weight nervously from one foot to another. She was trying to muster her courage.

  “Just say it,” Axe prompted. He still didn’t have a clue…

  “I think there’s something wrong with me,” she whispered. “And Jordan said you could fix it.”

  Amber felt like she was going to be sick.

  She couldn’t believe she had just done that…said that…blurted to Axe about the trauma bonds, asked him, more or less, if he could fix them.

  She wasn’t even sure she bought it all—the whole chemical Stockholm syndrome thing—but of one thing she was very certain: She needed to be whole to get through this ordeal. She needed a clear head to get out of the Pantheon. And whether or not she conned Axe, Jordan, or someone else—a Dragyr she hadn’t met yet—to take her back through that portal, making it happen was no longer an option! What was it Axe had said? “Ultimately, what has to happen between us involves the gods and the Pantheon; specifically, it involves the manner in which the Seven will welcome you into our world…”

  Those were the dragyri’s original words, before he had danced all around the subject.

  The manner in which the Seven will welcome you into our world…

  Oh, hell no.

  That dragon in the swimming pool had been terrifying.

  What was about to happen to Axe at midnight was unconscionable…

  Barbaric!

  That temple was eerie, frightening, and occupied by strange supernatural forces—Amber did not care to meet all seven dragons and learn, firsthand, when the time finally got here, what the heck they had in store for her.

  She just couldn’t do this, any of it.

  And that changed her entire battle plan.

  If any part of her brain was unhealthy; if her fight-or-flight reflexes were all out of whack; if her judgment was compromised in any way or she wasn’t capable of thinking clearly…if she was anything less than 100 percent…then, yeah, she wanted Axeviathon to fix it. Because Amber was going to need her wits, her brain, and all her reflexes to get out of this alive.

  “So, just to make sure I’m straight…” Axe’s deep, raspy voice pulled her back into the moment. “You want me to take a look, so to speak, at your neurochemistry…your hormones…your entire composition, and fix anything chemical that’s out of balance?”

  Amber forced herself to nod her head. “Yeah, I don’t want anything to be…off.” She paused, wondering for the first time if he could even do such a thing, and then worrying about what might happen if Axe started digging around in her brain. “That’s assuming you can even do it,” she blurted, “but you can’t read my thoughts in the process. My memories, my feelings, and my thoughts are off-limits.”

  Damn, had she just waved a red flag in front of a bull?

  As in, I’m obviously thinking something I don’t want you to know—so whatever you do, don’t look for it.

  A blatant invitation…

  How stupid.

  “I don’t have to read, measure, or test your chemical makeup, Amber,” Axe said. “I just need to know where to focus my intent. The curative power of silver fire is far superior to human medicine; it can regenerate cells at the molecular level, reinstate the original genetic codes. Just so long as I send it in the right direction, tell it what I want it to do, it has the living intelligence to do the rest.”

  Amber’s jaw dropped open, and she couldn’t reply. Silver fire? As in actual flames, that scorching element that burned stuff to ash? “Um, I—”

  “And one other thing,” Axe interjected.

  Amber felt weak in the knees: What now?

  “You want me to target your hormonal balance…your neurochemistry…that means we’ve gotta go far beyond skin deep. I can’t just bathe you in the curative flames, Amber girl; I need to make contact with your blood.”

  Her weak legs gave out, and Amber sank to floor, drawing her knees to her chest and encircling her shins with her arms. “Oh,” she faltered. Her courage was rapidly waning. “I guess it’s not that important, after all. Why don’t we just—”

  “One bite,” Axe said. “One bite. One artery. And I can make it pleasurable, not painful.” He locked his sapphire gaze with hers, and she thought she might just pass out. “As soon as your blood begins to flow, I can withdraw my fangs and bathe the wound in fire: thirty seconds or less, the bite will be healed; the chemistry will be balanced; and whatever trauma bonds may have existed…they’ll be gone. Your call, Amber girl; but yes, I can do it.”

  Amber pressed her palm to her stomach, trying to quell the rising nausea. Her neck was sweating, she felt light-headed, and she wasn’t sure, but she may have been swaying, tilting, rocking sideways and falling toward the floor. Oh, Lord, she did not want to vomit! But fire…fangs…one bite to an artery!? Just what the hell was Axeviathon?

  A dragon, a vampire, or a warlock?

  And what the hell was she even thinking…

  This was so absurd!

  Her stomach heaved, and she rolled onto her knees, tucking her chin to her chest and pressing her forehead against a wide hardwood panel. She needed some ice—or a really cold wash cloth—because she was about to puke all over Axe’s beautiful floors.r />
  And then she felt two strong arms encircle her midriff and lift her, straight up, into the air, even as her knees remained tucked to her chest. “Breathe, Amber girl.” Axe’s soothing voice.

  Just as soon, he was striding across the floor.

  Carrying Amber like she was feather-light—weightless—then laying her down on the couch.

  He reached for her legs, covered her knees with his palms, and stretched both limbs out, vertically. And then he turned her onto her side.

  Amber gasped!

  The room was spinning…

  And Axe was…crawling?

  He was lying behind her in a spooning position, one hand over her pelvis, the other, in her hair—what the fuck?

  The nausea subsided instantly, and he rasped in her ear: “I’m not sure why you asked me for this service, but you could spend days thinking it over, hours, getting more and more freaked out, or we could end this in thirty seconds and spare all the drama.” He pressed a soft kiss just beneath her ear, but it must have been meant as a distraction because the hand on her stomach rose to her neck, encircled her esophagus, and pressed her chin upward, stretching and elongating her throat.

  Axe was both exposing her jugular and pinning her in place!

  “Kind of like removing a Band-Aid,” he murmured. “By the time you know it’s happening, it’s over.” The hand in her hair curled into a fist, which meant Axe had Amber pinned by both her throat and her head! Oh, shit, he was going to bite her.