Dragon Reunion (Dragon Hearts 8)

by Carole Mortimer

  Passionate, heated, but still just a kiss.

  And yet it wasn’t.

  It was so much more than that.

  Carys had no doubts that the physical desire was mutual, but it was also something that went much, much deeper.

  She and Maddox were relative strangers, and yet Carys knew with certainty he was also the man she had been waiting the whole of her twenty-two years for. He was so much more than Mr. Right. She knew instinctively Maddox was everything. All she could ever want or need for the rest of her life.

  She cried out as Maddox ended the kiss, only to mewl her pleasure as his lips traveled the length of her throat. Her neck arched as his tongue licked and tasted the hollows at its base before his teeth bit and pulled gently on her earlobe.

  “More,” she groaned, her fingers digging into his muscular shoulders as she strained to be closer to him. “Maddox, I need more.”

  “I’ll give it to you,” he assured emotionally. “I’ll give you everything, Carys. All and everything you could ever need or want.”

  “What I want and need now is for you to make love to me,” she begged.

  “Yes.” His lips sucked and his teeth bit the flesh of her throat. “God, yes.”

  “I need you now, Maddox.” Carys had never behaved in this wanton way before, and she had no idea why she was doing so now. Only that she needed Maddox inside her, claiming her as his, as much as she needed her next breath. Maybe more so.

  “And you’ll have me. We’ll have each other,” he promised. “We can go back to the inn and—”

  “Release her!”

  It took several seconds for the power of Grigor’s voice to intrude enough into Carys’s arousal for her to actually hear him. But once she did, it was as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown over her, or possibly the icy cold snow from outside.

  What was she doing?

  She didn’t really know Maddox, and yet she was draped all over him and begging him to make love to her.

  All, she realized after an embarrassed glance behind her, seen and heard by Grigor Pendragon.

  Chapter Six

  “I honestly don’t know what happened,” Carys was sobbing in Holly Pendragon’s arms as if her heart was breaking.

  Maddox.

  She was crying because she needed Maddox.

  Instead she was in the sitting room with all the Pendragon wives.

  She vaguely remembered Grigor striding across the hallway. The way he had pulled Maddox away from her, only for Maddox to shout out in protest as he fought to free himself so that he could return to Carys. Then the rest of the Pendragon brothers had arrived, forcibly dragging Maddox off to the back of the castle where the offices were situated. Carys had been too dazed by the whole incident to protest when the Pendragon women had pulled her gently but firmly into the sitting room.

  Reaction seemed to have set in once she and Maddox were apart, and Carys was hit by the full force of what had taken place in the entrance hall.

  It seemed surreal. Unreal. And yet the part of her still crying out for Maddox told her it had really happened.

  Why had it?

  Admittedly, Maddox was without doubt the most attractive and intriguing man she had ever met. Outwardly cold and arrogant, but underneath that, he was heat personified. But he was also way out of her league: older, obviously rich, and, more importantly, he lived in America. Carys could never see herself living away from her beautiful Welsh mountains.

  Well, she wasn’t going to, was she? Whatever had happened between them, no matter how fierce or sudden their desire for each other, it was only transitory. The most Carys could hope for was dinner tonight, maybe a few days of Maddox’s time, before he flew back to the States.

  She pulled away from Holly. “I am so sorry,” she choked. “One minute, I was escorting Maddox—Mr. Wilder—to the door.” A blush heated her cheeks. “Then I got a splinter in my finger when I tried to open the door, which was when he—he—” She couldn’t quite bring herself to explain about Maddox sucking on her finger, not without also describing how erotic it had felt.

  “What did he do?” Holly prompted sharply.

  She swallowed, her gaze dropping. “He pulled out the splinter and then—then he sucked my finger to take away the sting.”

  “Did he ingest any of your blood?” Holly pressed.

  “My finger was bleeding, so yes, I suppose he must have done.” She looked up through tear-wet lashes. “The next thing I knew, I was begging him—begging him,” she repeated with anguish, “to make love to me, and he seemed just as into it— What?” she prompted sharply when the women exchanged pained looks.

  Gayle shook her head. “We need our husbands to finish talking to Maddox before we can say anything else.”

  Carys narrowed her eyes. “But you know what’s going on?”

  “Not with a hundred percent certainty,” Tegan soothed, she and Billie having come downstairs to join them once the shouting started in the entrance hall.

  “But we will.” Holly patted her hand in reassurance.

  Carys could barely contain her frustration with this delay. “Once the Mr. Pendragons have finished talking to Maddox?”

  “Yes,” the blonde-haired Billie answered.

  Which did nothing whatsoever to help Carys understand what had possessed her to throw herself at Maddox in that totally wanton way.

  To still want to throw herself at him as she pleaded and begged him to ease this fiery ache consuming her.

  * * *

  “Take your fucking hands off me!” Maddox fought against the many hands holding him back from returning to Carys.

  He needed to be where she was.

  He fucking needed her. To touch her. To hold her. To taste her. To take and claim her. He needed those things with a hitherto unknown urgency.

  “Calm.”

  Maddox blinked. It wasn’t exactly a voice he was hearing, more an emotion washing over him. But it was as powerful and clear as any words could have been, and Maddox was pretty sure the feeling was emanating from Grigor Pendragon.

  Maddox stilled even as he drew himself up to his full height of six feet and seven inches. He’d been hearing “the voice” in his head for years, but he had never mentally heard or felt anyone else before today.

  “You need to do something about those fucking front doors.” He glared his displeasure at Grigor. “Carys got a splinter in her finger just from trying to open one of them.”

  “Goddess, his eyes are glowing now,” Garrett muttered.

  What the fuck!

  Dylan nodded. “I really need to do some bloodwork.”

  “Right now, we need an explanation of how all of us are able to pick up on his emotions,” Bryn muttered.

  Maddox snorted. “I doubt it’s too difficult for anyone to know that right now, I’m completely pissed off and likely to do someone an injury if you don’t all take your fucking hands off me!” He glared at them individually. “And what do you mean, my eyes are glowing?” he challenged Garrett. “Eyes don’t glow.”

  Garrett shrugged. “Right now, yours are.”

  “Whatever.” He gave an impatient shake of his head. “Let me go, or I’m going to really start throwing my weight around, and then someone might get hurt.”

  “Has that happened in the past?” Grigor prompted.

  Maddox’s jaw tightened at the memory of the times when he had ended up physically fighting his way out of one situation or another. Until he learned to control it.

  Until the voice started talking to me.

  Yeah, okay, so the voice was what calmed him down from the raging bouts of temper that for years he’d had no control over. Occasions when he would very often emerge from that blinding rage to find that he had knocked out a dozen men or more while he was not only still standing but completely uninjured.

  “I used to,” he admitted unhelpfully.

  “But not anymore?” Grigor pushed.

  Maddox drew in several deep and controlling breaths b
efore speaking again. For some reason, the arrogant Grigor seemed to have the ability to push his buttons far more than the other brothers. “I learned to control the need,” he confirmed.

  “Does that mean you aren’t going to attempt to kill anyone if we set you free?” Grigor drawled.

  “If I attempted it, I’d succeed,” he assured the other man evenly.

  Grigor quirked one dark brow. “Is that a no?”

  “That’s a no,” Maddox confirmed before the restraining hands were removed from his arms and shoulders following a nod from Grigor to the other Pendragon brothers. “Thank you.” He flexed his shoulders. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to confirm my dinner date with Carys for this evening and then get the hell out of here.”

  Dylan grimaced. “We can’t allow you to do that, I’m afraid.”

  His eyes widened. “You can’t allow it?”

  Garrett gave a snort of laughter. “Goddess, he sounded so much like Grigor just then!”

  Maddox had no desire to sound or be anything like that arrogant bastard. “I don’t think so.” His gaze raked critically over the dark-eyed man. “It believe it takes a certain type of asshole to be that arrogant.”

  To his surprise, the tension left Grigor’s face and softened into a smile. “I’m actually starting to like you.”

  Maddox scowled. “Unfortunately, the sentiment isn’t reciprocated!”

  “I’ll grow on you,” Grigor drawled. “Gayle assures me I’m an acquired taste. She also tells me I’m that irritating person, a parent or a teacher you had at school or uni who won’t allow you to be less than your best.”

  Maddox shook his head. “I didn’t have a parent or any teachers like that. And even if I had,” he continued as Grigor would have spoken again, “I’m not going to be around long enough for you to grow on me.”

  “Oh, I somehow think you are.”

  Maddox turned to find himself looking at a man with the deepest green eyes he had ever seen. A man Maddox could only assume was the missing brother, Nathaniel Pendragon, returned from Christmas shopping with his family.

  A tall and powerfully built man who seemed vaguely familiar to Maddox…

  Which was ridiculous. He had never seen this man before. The feeling of familiarity could only be because of the man’s similarity to all the other Pendragon brothers.

  And the image Maddox saw in the mirror every morning…

  The dark hair was the same. The strong facial features. The height and build.

  Yes, physically, Maddox accepted he resembled the Pendragon brothers. But some tenuous past family connection didn’t mean Nathaniel Pendragon could walk in here and think he could make Maddox’s decisions for him. Maddox didn’t allow anyone to tell him what to do, ever.

  He squared his shoulders. “I’m sure that as a family, you wield a lot of power in this part of Wales, but believe me when I tell you, I wield a lot of power everywhere.” His billions of dollars ensured that.

  “Goddess, I never thought I would see eyes that color again,” the man Maddox believed to be Nathaniel said huskily. “Related, you think?” he prompted his brothers.

  Grigor nodded. “Not sure how, but yes, we believe he has to be.”

  “I could tell you that with certainty,” Dylan snapped. “If Mr. Wilder would just allow me to do some blood tests—”

  “I said no!” Something primal roared to life inside Maddox. “I don’t give a shit whether we somehow have some sort of obscure family connection relating back to our great-great-whatever-twice-removed uncle. I don’t need, nor have I ever needed, a family connection to anyone.”

  “Whether you need it or not is irrelevant if it exists, Mr. Wilder,” Nathaniel remarked mildly as he stepped farther into the room and closed the door behind him. “And I was thinking of a family connection going back seventy-five or so generations, not two or three.”

  “That would make it approximately fifteen hundred years ago?” He glanced at the other Pendragon brothers, their expression ranging from curious to questioning. None of them looked as incredulous at Nathaniel’s statement as he no doubt did. “How the hell can you pinpoint a possible joint ancestry down so accurately?”

  “A lucky guess?” Bryn drawled.

  He gave a firm shake of his head. “I’m not buying it.”

  Grigor shrugged. “I think we need to show you rather than tell you.”

  “I agree.” Nathaniel nodded. “But I think all the brothers need to be present if we intend doing that.”

  “I’ve already sent word for them to get back as quickly as possible.” Grigor frowned. “In the meantime, it really would be helpful if Maddox—”

  “One more fucking word about me giving Dylan some of my blood to analyze and I will lose it,” Maddox warned fiercely. “Even if that ancient connection exists between us, it’s totally irrelevant in the present day.” He had survived without a family for this long. He certainly didn’t need to find out these arrogant brothers were distantly related to him. “Right now, the only person I want to see and be with is Carys,” he added huskily.

  Nathaniel frowned darkly. “Our Carys?”

  “My Carys,” Maddox corrected forcefully.

  Nathaniel looked at his brothers. “Mrs. Evans’s daughter Carys?”

  Garrett grimaced. “They…connected,” he confirmed.

  Nathaniel glowered. “Goddess, I was only out for a few hours.”

  Bryn shrugged. “And during that time, Maddox came to call, and he and Carys met.”

  Maddox glared at the brothers. “And now that we have, I advise that none of you attempt to stop me from being with her.”

  Grigor sighed. “And so it begins…”

  Chapter Seven

  Carys had no idea how not only her dinner with Maddox had been hijacked by the Pendragon family, but the rest of the evening and the night too.

  With the result the two of them had eaten dinner with the family at the castle rather than going out alone as they had planned.

  Even more surprising—Carys shook her head as she gazed out of the bedroom window at the gently falling snow—she and Maddox were both spending the night at the castle. “To ensure Carys’s safety due to the bad weather,” she had heard Bryn tell her parents when he telephoned them before dinner. As this had often happened to her mother in the past during the winter months, Carys knew her parents wouldn’t question the arrangement. Maddox’s pilot seemed to accept the same explanation when the American phoned him at the inn.

  Dinner had been stilted, Maddox glowering at everyone but Carys. He looked at her the way a hungry wolf would look at a tasty morsel waiting to be devoured.

  An occurrence that Carys totally reciprocated.

  Mainly because that thrumming, bubbling, churning desire for Maddox still seemed to be coursing hotly through her veins. Making it impossible for Carys to lie down on the bed once she was in one of the guest rooms, let alone fall asleep. She was too restless for that, even the thin silk nightgown Chloe had loaned her seeming too abrasive on her highly sensitive flesh.

  She instinctively knew that Maddox, and only Maddox, could assuage the heat that consumed her.

  She was the housekeeper here, if only temporarily. How hard could it be to guess which guest bedroom the family had put Maddox in? Although, if he was feeling anything like Carys, and she believed he probably was, then Maddox was going to be just as incapable of sleeping tonight too.

  Carys gave a start as, having quietly opened her bedroom door, she found Garrett standing outside in the hallway.

  He smiled. “I drew the short straw.”

  “What?”

  “We want you to remain in your bedroom for tonight,” Garrett explained.

  “I want to be with Maddox.” Her fingers were gripping the door so tightly, her knuckles were showing white.

  Garrett nodded. “I understand. But for the moment, the two of you are better off apart.”

  “No—”

  “Yes,” he insisted. “Trust me, Carys
. I’m not saying no.” His voice gentled as she gave a whimper that sounded like pain. “I’m just saying wait until tomorrow. Can you do that for me?”

  Everything seemed to have become decidedly strange since Maddox rang the doorbell of Pendragon Castle earlier today. Oh, Carys spoke to all the Pendragon family when necessary, and they were all very kind to her, but right now, Garrett seemed to be both comforting and commanding her at the same time. She also seemed to have zero feelings of awkwardness about wearing only a revealing white silk nightgown in front of him.

  “I can try.” Her voice lacked conviction.

  Garrett’s eyes darkened. “Are you in a lot of discomfort? Because if you are, Dylan has perfected a couple of injections that will help—”

  “Get the hell away from her!”

  Carys’s heart leapt at the sound of Maddox’s voice resonating down the hallway. She quickly turned to face him, the blood pounding loudly in her ears.

  Maddox’s temper was mollified somewhat by the way Carys’s eyes lit up at the sight of him. But her obvious pleasure in seeing him again didn’t succeed in nullifying the fact that Garrett was standing much too close to Carys and she was wearing only a thin nightgown.

  “I told you to get away from her,” he bit out forcefully when he reached Carys’s side and was able to put her behind him as he faced off against Garrett Pendragon.

  “I’m here to protect Carys, not harm her,” the other man attempted to soothe.

  Attempted, because Maddox doubted there was anyone or anything that could assuage the need he felt to be with Carys right now. To claim her.

  She was the only reason he had agreed to spend the night here, and he had spent the past three hours fighting his need for her, two hours eating dinner with the Pendragon family, and then another hour pacing the bedroom they had insisted he spend the night in. Despite all that pacing, Maddox knew nothing was going to keep him from being with Carys tonight.

  Finding her standing in the hallway, scantily dressed and talking to Garrett, was not conducive to Maddox controlling his temper. It was currently burning so fiercely, he sensed he was almost out of control.