Secret Shifters 0f Spokane Complete Series Bks 1-4

by Selena Scott

  He dragged his eyes up to her parted lips. He licked his own, felt

  himself pulling her a little closer. But when he looked up at her brilliant blue eyes, he saw fear in them. Mortal fear.

  He sighed. “What if I promised I would never hurt you.”

  She glared up at him, anger joining the fear in her eyes. “Stop lying

  to me.”

  “I’m not lying. I’m promising.”

  She stopped tugging and looked up at him, thoroughly confused.

  He thought of how important she was to the King. How much the royal line completely and utterly depended on her.

  “What if I swore that I would never let harm come to you. That I’d die for you if it came to it.”

  He felt the air change between them and knew that the rawest of the

  fear was leaving her. It was replaced with racing thoughts, a desperation to understand what the hell was going on.

  He continued on. “If you can accept that promise then I can start

  explaining where you are why you’re here.”

  “And you’ll let go of me?” she asked, her eyes big and gentle and, God, was she weepy? Shit. He really didn’t’t want to see her cry.

  “I’ll let go of you,” he agreed.

  “Ok. Then in that case, I believe you won’t hurt me. I accept your promise.”

  He held on to her for another second. Just the briefest of moments. He didn’t want to let go of her. He wanted to touch her more. He wanted to see if the skin on her neck was as soft as the skin on her wrists. He wanted to lift her up again the way he’d carried her from the portal. With her pressed so firmly into him. Her beautiful face against his chest. He wanted to have a reason to keep on holding her. But he didn’t have a reason. She wasn’t his to touch or hold. She was the King Dalyer’s. From the moment the Oracle had tracked her down in the human realm, she had become King Dalyer’s most important possession.

  Amos’s stomach curdled slightly at the thought. He settled for swiping his thumb across one of her wrists, just once. Committing the feeling to memory.

  The second he loosened his grip she yanked herself away from him. Growling, he chased after her, tiring of the game.

  “What the fuck, little hatchling.” He growled deep in his chest and snared her wrists again. “Quit doing that.”

  She yanked at him. “Well, promising not to hurt me pretty much makes it a no brainer for me to keep trying to escape.” Her eyes sparked with an internal fire and he realized that she had never been close to crying before. She’d been playing him. And he’d let himself be played.

  This was ridiculous. He was one of the fiercest warriors in the entire dragon realm. The freaking KING trusted him above all other people. And here he was unable to get this tiny little human from one room to the next. Fed up, he bent down and tossed her over his shoulder. He strode across the great hallway and toward the King’s chambers. Amos was careful to hold her in such a way that she couldn’t bite him again.

  “Hey!” she screeched. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me!”

  “Am I hurting you?”

  Her staunch, irritated silence told him that he wasn’t.

  “I didn’t promise not to restrain you. And actually I’m keeping my promise by not letting you escape from the fortress. It’s not safe out there for you, hatchling.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Fortress?” She immediately stiffened in his arms. Looking around at the windowless hallway, the dingy gray stone walls, the lanterns burning every few feet, her eyes grew wide. “What the hell is this place? Oh my God. This is one of those BDSM dungeons isn’t it.”

  Apparently deciding that she was done fighting him, he flipped her off his shoulder so he could carry her in front of him again. He looked down at her as he walked.

  “What’s BSDM?” he asked.

  Lucy instantly felt her cheeks set on fire. She had never been in a weirder situation. “It’s like, um, you know. When people tie each other up and like, have pain sex?”

  “Pain sex?” His brow furrowed.

  She was suddenly very aware of her breasts that were sort of crushing into his chest. For some reason, she couldn’t seem to look him in the face. “You know, like the whole pleasure/pain thing.”

  “Pleasure/pain,” he repeated, completely deadpan.

  “Yeah, like, hurts so good? That kinda thing?”

  “This is the kind of sex you have?” His voice had grown very deep. Lucy could feel it vibrate out from his chest and through her. She was suddenly very hot.

  “No, no. I mean not really. Not formally. But, like, who hasn’t been spanked every now and then.”

  He grunted a little and she darted her eyes up to his face. He stared down at her, his eyes dark and hooded. And really, really brown. Like crazy, amber-ish, gorgeous brown.

  “Spanked,” he repeated.

  Lucy scrubbed her hands through the air. “You know what, this is so

  not the point. Would you just tell me where the hell I am?”

  “We’re here now. So, I guess the King will tell you.”

  “King?!” Lucy had heard enough. Twenty minutes ago she’d been on her way to an art show in Queens. And since then she’d been accosted on the street, dragged into a dirty, abandoned subway tunnel, tossed into some sort of black hole, manhandled, chased around, and manhandled some more.

  “Sure, why not.” She threw her hands in the air. “Of course there’s a King.”

  Muscle man set her down in front of two incredibly ornate stone doors. Giant creatures were carved in great, curling patterns. Gems sparkled in their eyes.

  “You’ll be reverent with the King, hatchling.” he said to her, one hand still on her shoulder. “He won’t be happy otherwise.”

  She looked up at him, a retort on her tongue, but it died when she saw his genuine expression. He was worried about her.

  She shrugged. “Fine. As long as I get some answers.”

  “You’ll get answers.” He went to push open the door but paused and turned back to her. “Just, maybe don’t mention pain sex to him.”

  “Oh my God.” Lucy face palmed. “I am not usually out here just talking about BDSM. I’m flustered, ok!”

  “Ok,” he said, his voice low and his eyes dark. In a move that completely surprised her, he reached out like he was gonna touch her face, but dropped his hand. “Just remember my promise to you.”

  This whole situation was thoroughly fucked up and the first chance she got, Lucy knew she was getting the hell out of here. But for some reason, she believed him. She believed he was going to protect her. No matter what.

  “Let's meet the King.”

  This King Dalyer certainly had a very specific… style. Lucy thought as she looked around the huge chamber. Again, no windows, but plenty of gold filigree, embedded gems, and an absolutely ridiculous amount of velvet. Seriously, how many skeins of velvet had to die to outfit all the drapes in this joint.

  The King sat straight in a comically large throne. It was ten times taller and wider than it had to be. The King sat in the middle of it, making him look like he’d been shrunk down. So weird. Actually, now that she thought about it, everything was gigantic. Even the lanterns on the wall were the size of refrigerators.

  The King had yet to speak. So far he’d just stared at her with disturbingly dark eyes. Like a snake’s.

  Lucy refused to fidget under his gaze, but it had been a fairly stressful evening and no one had offered to show her to the bathroom. Just as she was about to ask for one, the King spoke.

  “You're healthy?” he asked.

  Kind of flummoxed, Lucy turned to Muscle Man for clarification. He tossed his head toward the King like, answer.

  She turned back. “Yeah. I am.”

  She wondered if maybe she should have lied. Told him she had some sort of disgusting disease so that he'd let her go.

  “But you have Ellington’s syndrome.”

  Lucy gaped at him. How the hell did he know that?
It wasn’t a deadly disease or anything, just a chromosomal disorder that changed the way she processed proteins. Most people went their whole lives without even knowing they had it. “You accessed my medical records?”

  He didn't answer her question. Instead asked another one. “And your mother had asthma, yes? A very particular form?”

  Lucy out and out refused to answer this question. She was not about to discuss her mother with this creepy ass man in a weirdly big chair. But Muscles nudged her. She needed to answer.

  She nodded curtly.

  A smile curled into King Dalyer’s face and Lucy fought not to shiver against it. It made him even creepier.

  “Why, you're a miracle.” The King’s voice had a quiet, fascinated edge to it. “Almost as if you were designed just for me.”

  Lucy’s blood froze. Tonight she'd been frustrated, angry, startled, nervous, confused, and very scared. But this was the first time she was truly frightened. She felt sick imagining what he meant by that. She shuffled her feet just slightly and immediately felt the warmth of Muscles beside her. Apparently her body had decided it was time to move a little closer to him.

  “You see, my family has had a little problem over the last few generations.” The King still hadn’t moved an inch in the chair and his unnatural stillness disturbed her. “Most of our children die.”

  At that, he lifted one hand and examined one of the many rings on his fingers. “Even those who make it to adulthood are… weaker than the ancestors. Soon we won't even be able to defend the throne. Especially from this pesky little rebel alliance that keeps rearing its head.”

  “Defend the throne with just physical strength?” Lucy asked, unable to keep from cutting in. “Isn't that a little medieval? Couldn't you try, I don’t know, negotiations?”

  The King stared at Lucy incredulously, letting out a low chuckle. Even Muscles gave a little chuff of surprise from next to her.

  “Child, that is not our way. We are creatures of battle.”

  Lucy shrugged, kind of odd phrasing, but whatever. “Alright. So what do I have to do with any of this?” She was one second away from stomping her foot.

  “You,” the King said as he finally broke his stick-straight posture and leaned forward, studying her. “Are a delightful little cocktail of DNA. And any child of mine, borne by you, would be the most powerful being in the land.”

  Lucy’s jaw dropped. What. The. Royal. Fuck.

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