Dragon Desire (Tooth & Claw Book 1)

by Emilia Hartley

  That’d been the beginning of something good. Happiness had poured out from both of them, taking the shape of hope. She might have had a vision of the future for a few precious moments, but now she knew nothing. Every step was uncertain.

  She approached the front door, fighting the urge to hunch in on herself and run away. Her knock echoed beyond the door, but after a few moments no one came to let her in. She thought maybe Devin saw her car outside and ignored her. She thought about calling him or texting him to let him know what she wanted to leave outside, but she summoned a sliver of determination.

  He couldn’t ignore her like this. She refused to be pushed aside any longer. She had not come here to beg for forgiveness. That’s not what this visit was about, so if that’s what he expected he would have to bite his tongue for now.

  Moira expected the door to be locked, but it opened at her touch. She held her breath, but nothing happened. No one yelled at her. Devin didn’t appear from the shadows. The hall ahead was empty. She stepped inside and her breath caught in her throat.

  Maybe she should have called Frankie to ask if Devin would be home. She imagined he was out, strolling through the woods as a giant beast, but there were signs of life around the house. A row of microwave ramen cups sat on the counter and the last one was still warm when she touched it.

  She prowled the house, peering through open doors, but couldn’t find Devin. She saw the rumpled sheets, same as she’d left them the morning he went through her phone. The trash was filled with containers from their take-out dinner date. But Devin didn’t appear around any corner.

  Finally, she turned to the basement door. She’d never been beyond it and the sound of Devin’s pain still hummed in her ears. That should have been her first warning, but Moira opened the door anyway. She pushed her head past the doorway and peered inside. Her eyes didn’t adjust, not at first.

  All she could make out was the first step. It wasn’t made of wood, but of stone. Curious now, she pressed forward. The steps didn’t make a sound beneath her feet. Stone did not creak or groan to give away her presence. Careful to walk on the front pads of her feet, she remained silent.

  Little by little, her vision sharpened. The room was still dark, but she began to make out shapes. Moira hissed and clutched her purse tight when she saw the massive form of Devin’s dragon. She slammed to a stop, her body, her mind, her heart. Everything halted in the face of the massive creature.

  It saw her this time. She couldn’t hide from it, not while it pinned her to the floor with its orange gaze. She’d seen those eyes before, when Devin looked at her in heated moments. They didn’t frighten her the way they could have. Slowly, her locked muscles began to ease.

  Now, she allowed herself to look around. She didn’t stand in a basement, but a cavern. The walls were stone, dark and damp. In the far corner, beyond the dragon, was an unmade bed as if Devin had been sleeping down here.

  She glanced back, over her shoulder. “Did you lock yourself down here? Why are you hiding?”

  When she turned back, the beast’s head hovered before her. Fear pierced her heart with a cold blade, but it quickly slipped away.

  “You startled me,” she said.

  The beast’s nostrils flared. It kept its bright eyes on her. She couldn’t tell if it wanted to eat her and be done with her or if it would rub its head against her like an affectionate cat.

  “I brought something for you,” she whispered. “You don’t have to read it now, but I’d appreciate it if you could get to it eventually. I think…I think you’ll like it.”

  The beast pulled back, like it was intrigued. Its eyes never left her, its fire never wavered. The cool dampness of the room turned hot. It became suffocating. Sweat dripped down her spine.

  “Could you change back?” Moira hated the way her voice trembled.

  Not out of fear, but from desperation. Hope swelled inside her again. It was inescapable. The vision of a happy future crept back to the forefront of her mind. She imagined cold nights where she could curl up beside the furnace of a beast. She wondered what it would be like to fly, thousands of feet off the ground.

  She would never have any of this, no future with Devin, if he didn’t read the article. She hated the way her hands shook and prayed he didn’t see it as fear as she reached into her purse for the rolled newspaper.

  Before she could set it down, the beast moved. It lunged with alarming speed. Moira didn’t even have time to scream. Teeth sank into her skin, piercing the muscle. Fire engulfed her arm. The beast let go and sat back.

  Moira dropped to her knees and clutched her wounded arm close to her chest. Her vision blurred until all she could see was dark. She didn’t understand what had happened. One moment, everything seemed fine. She thought the beast had forgiven her, but she’d been wrong.

  Devin had a grudge and she was going to die.

  ***

  The beast let Devin take control. He stumbled forward on unsteady human feet and fell to his knees beside Moira. She didn’t flinch when he touched her. He lifted her chin, but her eyes were unfocused. His breath rattled in his chest. He didn’t know what to do.

  The beast had acted of its own accord.

  It attacked Moira.

  Devin gathered her into his arms and brought her to the nearby bed. Already, he could feel her body spasming, a sign that his saliva had entered her blood stream. A doctor could do nothing for her now.

  The beast had sentenced her: life as a dragon, or death.

  A roar filled Devin’s throat, but he didn’t let it out. He swallowed it down because he didn’t want to frighten Moira and make the situation worse than it already was. He pressed his forehead to hers and softly promised that everything would be okay even if he didn’t know how this would turn out. Making the promise out loud gave it a kind of solidity, as if he could grasp it, hold it close, and force it into being.

  The beast had no regrets. It preened as if this was the way things were meant to be, as if Moira wasn’t unconscious and sweating on the sheets. Becoming a dragon was no easy feat. Changing from human to shifter was a challenge all on its own, but some beasts were easier to manifest. Both Frankie and Colton had been changed. Frankie now had a wolf, and Colton had a bear.

  But to create a dragon took far more determination. Devin didn’t know if Moira had that kind of spirit. Moira was his mate, but they hadn’t spent enough time together. He only knew what she presented on the surface. At least, that was what he thought.

  “You didn’t even lock the door!” Frankie grumbled from the top of the staircase. “It’s wide ope—”

  Her voice trailed off. Then Devin heard the thunder of her footsteps as she rushed down the steps. He didn’t look up, choosing instead to keep his eyes on the sweat beading across Moira’s forehead.

  “I smell blood,” Frankie said. “Why do I smell blood? Why is Moira unconscious? Devin? Tell me what happened. Right. Now.”

  His lips curled away from his teeth in a snarl. He dug his nails into the sheets as he fought back the acrid anger bubbling inside of him. This wasn’t Frankie’s fault. He shouldn’t lash out at her for this.

  There was only one person to blame.

  “I bit her,” he confessed.

  “You what?” Frankie’s feet scuffed the floor.

  He spared a glance back to see that she hadn’t backed up but surged forward. The beast in Devin gnashed its teeth in warning, but he kept the creature chained. It’d done enough damage already. Frankie would not hurt Moira. He trusted his sister-in-law.

  “Moira came into the basement while I was in my other form. I didn’t mean to…the beast, it took over and bit her arm.” He hadn’t thought to inspect her wound. He’d been too concerned about the change already consuming her body.

  Devin leaned back, taking her thin arm in his hands. She seemed so fragile, as if made of glass. One wrong move and he would shatter her into a million pieces. No amount of pleading for forgiveness would put her back together again.

>   His beast had not ripped through her arm. Instead, there were three, neat puncture holes. The creature hadn’t wanted to hurt her. It’d wanted to change her.

  Her skin was hot in his hand. He looked to her face again, but her eyes were still closed. Frankie fell into an uncomfortable silence behind him. The sound of Moira’s labored breathing echoed off the cavern walls and grated in Devin’s ears. Over and over, he was reminded of his failure.

  If he couldn’t leash his beast, then he was a liability to his pack. It seemed he couldn’t even be trusted to lock the doors since both Moira and Frankie had waltzed in.

  “If Moira doesn’t make it…” Devin’s throat closed against his will. He coughed to clear it, but the words still had to be dragged from the dark depths inside him. “If she doesn’t make it, I want Atticus to put me down once and for all.”

  “Don’t say such fatalistic bullshit,” Frankie snapped. She shuffled over to Moira’s fallen purse. “Here, I think she brought you something she wanted you to see.”

  He lifted his head, confused. Faintly, he recalled the last thing Moira had said, but he didn’t understand how Frankie knew. She pulled a rolled newspaper from Moira’s bag and pushed it into his hands before jerking her head.

  “Get up. I’ll sit with her. I’ve gone through this before.” Frankie left no room for argument.

  Still, determination rooted his feet to the ground. Frankie raised her chin and served him with her most imperial glare. Atticus gave her a high rank in the pack, but she filled the role like she’d been born for it. Technically, fate had bound her and Atticus because they belonged together. The role had been made for her.

  Devin hung his head and stood, his gaze still stuck to Moira. Guilt weighed on his shoulders and threatened to drag him to the ground, but Frankie shoved him away. She waved him away, but he didn’t know where to go. He shuffled over to the stairs where he could sit down and watch both Moira and Frankie.

  “I still love her,” he said softly.

  Frankie didn’t respond. She climbed onto the bed beside Moira and held her hand.

  He opened the newspaper Frankie had given him. His own face looked back at him from the front page. It wasn’t the professional headshot he’d sent to the paper. Someone close to him had snuck this picture at the most recent work party. While she wasn’t in the picture, Devin knew the wide grin on his face was for Moira.

  How I Fell in Love with our Most Infamous Bachelor, the title read. Devin sank into the words, as if Moira had taken his hand to walk him through her side of the story. The story recounted how he made her lunch, how he drove her home when she drank too much. There was more than that. Not only did she walk the reader through what happened, but how he reminded her that life was about more than just ambition.

  Then, to his surprise, the next column wasn’t written in Moira’s words. They were Frankie’s. She described the kind man who would play in princess forts with her daughter. She made him out to be an even-tempered saint, the kind of person Devin couldn’t imagine being. Yet, that’s who he was in her eyes.

  There were other accounts, other people from his life who had come forward to add to the article. People he thought hated him claimed to admire him. Althea went so far as to say that she knew the workplace was safe when he was around, that his presence put her at ease.

  Every person in the article described a person that Devin wasn’t sure he knew. He didn’t understand how everyone saw something different, all these visions he couldn’t find in the mirror. Down to Atticus, who found a brother in him. Atticus told the world that he was a little less alone when Devin was around.

  Tears started brimming Devin’s eyes.

  “How long has she been working on this?” he asked, recalling the phone call Frankie had taken the other night.

  One heartbeat passed. Then two, silence ringing in his ears.

  “Since you kicked her out,” Frankie said finally.

  He gripped the paper until it started to tear. A splotch of wetness burst across the paper. If he held onto it any longer, he would ruin it. Devin had to force himself to set it aside when all he wanted was to hold it close to his chest.

  “I thought she’d moved on,” he said.

  “Do you really think your mate could just walk away from you? You can be awfully daft sometimes. I love you, but you’re an idiot.” Frankie eased herself up from the bed now that she knew Devin was done reading.

  “I think this proves that I’ve been willfully blind for a very long time. I assumed…I thought it was a fact that everyone hated me. Who could love a monster like me?” Devin crossed the room, heading for Moira’s side.

  Frankie set a comforting hand on his shoulder as they passed. “You’re the only one who considers yourself a monster. Even Colton misses you. He’s bitter that the two of you could never make up after what happened.”

  Devin swallowed the lump in his throat. “He still has scars from what happened. I don’t deserve his friendship.”

  “It’s not a matter of what we deserve but making the best of what we have. Everyone makes mistakes. Some can be forgiven. That depends on the people we hurt. Colton is a bitter shithead and horrible at expressing himself, but he wants to move forward.”

  They both turned their gazes on Moira. If she survived, would she forgive him for what he’d done?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Moira knew only heat. A furnace burned inside her, becoming an inferno. It would burn away every part of her, from her mind to her soul, and she didn’t know how to stop it. She could barely think. Thoughts turned to ash as soon as she grasped them. All she wanted to do was cry out in anguish, but she couldn’t even do that.

  What happened? Why did everything hurt?

  Orange eyes. Black scales. She recalled the beast that’d watched her, not with anger or malice. The creature hadn’t wanted to hurt her. She believed that with every ounce of her burning body.

  The spark in the dragon’s eyes had been something else. She tried to recall it, but her thoughts burned away. Again, she reached out for the beast. Instead, she remembered Devin. He’d been there, after the dragon bit her. Moira had fallen to the floor, but Devin had been there to catch her.

  She could almost hear his voice again. The heat ebbed a bit. She could breathe again. So long as she held on to the memory of Devin, the pain seemed bearable.

  You’re being re-forged, a voice told her. Feminine and strong, the voice came from inside her. Let the heat change you. We have a mate to live for.

  He’d said the word once or twice before, but she hadn’t understood it. Not until now. The word reverberated through her now. It was the ties of fate, the promise of forever that she’d made while they sat on the bathroom floor.

  A beast took shape inside her. It felt too large for her body. Scales brushed against the inside of her skin and filled her with pain that made her muscles seize. Distantly, she heard someone cry out, a familiar voice. She couldn’t tell him that it was alright. This was a part of the process.

  The beast paced, trying to find its place inside her like a restless cat. She could let it out, she thought. The creature didn’t have to stay inside her, but both Moira and her dragon knew they could not live like that forever.

  They would not be able to experience the full extent of their mate’s love without a human form. Devin wouldn’t be able to bring her pleasure and wouldn’t be able to hold her at night. So, Moira held onto her human body while the dragon tried to fit itself inside her.

  It would be all too easy to let go and drift away. The fire would fade. Her pain would disappear forever. Moira could end all the confusion and suffering and everything unsure in her life if she just let go.

  Moira held onto her life with an iron grip. She had everything to live for, even if the heat of her pain tried to convince her otherwise. Moira didn’t know how to give up. It was never in her to let something go. When Devin threw her out, it’d hurt. That much was true. Yet, she didn’t turn her back on him and give in to
rage.

  She turned everything she felt into words of inspiration and truth. This fire would re-forge her just like the dragon suggested. She would become a new creature, one that would better fit her mate. They would spend the rest of their life together so long as she held on.

  When she woke from this, she would beg for him to forgive her. She would tell him that he was all she wanted from here on out. Maybe, now that she was like him, they could move forward.

  That was all she wanted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Moira still slept.

  Devin sat by her side for hours, sometimes nodding off into an interrupted sleep. Someone had dragged a chair downstairs for him. He couldn’t recall who had done it. Both Frankie and Atticus came and went, checking in on them both.

  Without windows, Devin didn’t know how many hours or days had passed. He counted the things he would say to her, instead. If Moira woke, he would tell her that he’d been in the wrong. His fear had overpowered his ability to reason when he found the video. He should have listened to her and trusted her.

  When she woke, he would tell her how sorry he was for what he’d done. He would keep his beast on a tighter leash for the rest of their lives if only she would stay. He knew she would fear his beast. How could she not? The creature had bitten her without provocation. She’d reached for a newspaper. That was it.

  His mate didn’t deserve any of the things happening to her.

  Devin had acted like the monster he thought he was. Instead of trying to hear anyone out, he kept pushing. He shoved and shoved until no one wanted to be around him. Moira wasn’t like Frankie or Atticus who seemed to stick around just to vex him. His mate had respected his anger. She’d put space between them and proclaimed her love from afar.

  And when she’d come to him to share that love, he’d attacked her.

  Hatred tightened around his heart, his anger at himself turned inward like a weapon. It squeezed and squeezed. He didn’t expect anyone to see him as anything other than a monster. The idea that he could be a friend, brother, or lover to anyone was tainted by what he’d done.