by Donna Grant
He had already lost his ability to shift. If he lost her …
But he wanted her to trust him. If she knew that he could protect her, then she might very well tell him everything. As much as he wanted to think this was all about him, it wasn’t. What was happening involved not just the Dragon Kings, but the mates there, as well as everyone who worked for Dreagan.
As hard as it was to think about, Rhys was going to have to take the chance and tell Lily while hoping that she trusted him enough to respond in kind.
Instead of turning off the main road and driving to Dreagan where Con, Kiril, and the others would be waiting, Rhys decided to go somewhere else to talk to her. He briefly considered her flat, but no doubt Dennis would be there.
Thinking about the bastard had Rhys sending a mental shout to Ryder.
Thankfully, Ryder answered immediately. “I hope you get here soon. Con is chomping at the bit to talk to Lily.”
“I’m sure he is.” And it was the main reason Rhys decided against Dreagan. “I need you to look into Lily’s past and see if anyone with the name Dennis shows up. Look in the last four years.”
“Give me a sec.”
Rhys slowed the Jaguar and took a left turn down a narrow road. He stopped the car to allow another vehicle coming from the opposite direction over the one-lane bridge before he drove across and then continued along the curving road.
“I found something,” Ryder finally said. “A Dennis Adams.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
“Aye. I’ll send it to your mobile now. What’s going on, Rhys? Why are you looking for this guy?”
“Because I believe he’s the asshole who’s going to try and come onto Dreagan. Send that picture to every King and mate.”
“Consider it done. How did you know about him? Did Lily admit to conspiring? I was hoping she wasna guilty.”
Rhys clenched his jaw tightly. “Dennis is her ex-lover, and he physically abused her. I’m sure if you look, you’ll find the first incident on record with a broken wrist.”
“Aye, I see it, but there’s nothing after that.”
Of course there wasn’t. Dennis had made sure to hurt her only enough to keep her frightened. There was no trail of injuries for anyone to follow.
“You doona think she’s part of it, do you?” Ryder asked.
Rhys found the stream he was looking for and pulled slowly off the road to the clump of trees that hid his car. “I know she’s no’ willingly participating.”
“Is there anything else I can look for to prove that?”
Rhys dropped his head back against the headrest. “Look into her family. Dennis is likely to use them somehow.”
“I’ll find out what I can.”
“Thanks.”
“As if I’d let a fellow King lose his mate.”
Rhys frowned. “How did you know?”
“I didna until you just admitted it. Anything else you need?”
“Aye. Have someone go to the village. I want Lily watched after I drop her off, and I can no’ stay.”
“On it now. Talk to you soon.”
Rhys severed the link and shut off the car. He sat staring out the windshield to the wide stream that flowed before him. There were two trees on opposite sides of the water that bent toward each other, as if seeking to touch.
“We stopped,” Lily said as she opened her eyes. She covered her mouth as she yawned and looked around. “Where are we?”
“We’re about thirty minutes from the distillery. The rain will be here soon. Come see this.” Rhys got out of the car and walked to the water. For long moments, he waited to hear the sound of the door opening. When it finally did, he was able to release the breath he had been holding.
Lily came to stand beside him at the shoreline. “It’s beautiful. Another place I had no idea was here.”
“The glen hides it.” He didn’t bother to tell her they were on Dreagan land.
A flash of lightning lit up the sky, foretelling the approaching storm. Lily turned to look at him, her gaze direct and candid. “You have something on your mind.”
“Am I that easy to read?” he asked with a small grin.
She crossed her arms and shivered as a gust of wind blew around them. “I can see the line of worry around your eyes. I find it’s just better to come out and say whatever it is you need to.”
Rhys didn’t bother to hide his scowl. “Just what do you think I have to say?”
“That you don’t want to see me again. I assumed as much would happen after we left Edinburgh.”
“You must have a verra low of opinion of me.”
Her smile was sad, the dejection visible. “I’d like to think I’m a realist. Last night was … it was everything I ever dreamed of, a fantasy come to life.”
“So you doona want any more of me, aye?” Rhys tried to keep his tone light, but he was hurting too much to succeed.
Lily’s black eyes stared at him a moment, as if she were trying to decipher his words. “What?”
“Did it never occur to you, Lily Ross, that I’m no’ nearly finished with you? That you might be my fantasy come to life?”
“I…” She swallowed and shook her head. “No, that never occurred to me.” Her gaze dropped to the ground for a moment. When her eyes lifted back to him, there was a glimmer of exhilaration that she appeared frightened to show. “Is that what you want? To see more of me, that is?”
Rhys pulled her into his arms and gazed into her dark eyes. The feel of her against him had desire clawing at him, urging him to take her right there against the tree. “I most certainly want to see more of you. I’m no’ sure I’ll ever be ready to have you out of my life.”
Her lips parted and a glow of delight infused her. Rhys bit back a moan when she rested her hands on his chest. There was still a smile upon her lips, but it was sensual and full of promise.
“Why me?” she whispered.
“There are too many reasons to list.”
She tilted her head back and laughed, the long strands of her inky hair lifting in the breeze. Rhys was mesmerized. Lily had no idea of her appeal, of the tantalizing way she seduced him every second of every day. Of how she made him eager to face each day as long as she was with him.
Suddenly her smile dropped as she tried to pull out of his arms. Rhys held her, refusing to release his hold on her.
“This can’t work,” Lily said, looking at his chest.
Rhys inhaled deeply. He’d known this was coming, but it didn’t make it ache any less. “Why?”
“Too many reasons to list.” She threw his words back at him.
“Try me.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, her anguish visible.
Rhys tilted her face up to his. “Is it because of Dennis?” When her face went blank, he continued. “I know, Lily.”
“Of course you know. I told you about him.”
“Nay, lass. I know.”
She shook her head, her chest rapidly rising and falling as she began to grow agitated. “So this was all a ruse? You were trying to get me to fall for you so I would tell you everything?” she demanded angrily.
Rhys easily held her and wished there was a simpler way to handle such a situation. “Lily, listen to me,” he said and gave her a little shake. “This wasna a ruse. I spent the time with you in Edinburgh because I could no longer deny the fact that I craved you as I do the air in my lungs.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
“The enemies I spoke of in the city happen to be a mutual one—Dennis’s boss. He wants to bring Dreagan down, to expose us.”
“Expose you how?” she asked skeptically.
Rhys’s heart knocked against his ribs. For the first time in his very long life, he feared, truly feared. “We’re no’ human. We’re Dragon Kings, rulers of the dragons that used to inhabit this realm. We’re immortal, shifting between human and dragon form.”
He waited with bated breath for her to speak, to show some kind of emoti
on that she’d heard him. Minutes ticked by as she simply looked at him.
Then she said, “Oh.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was a dream. A very bad dream. Lily wanted desperately to wake up. There was no way that Rhys would’ve made love to her so sweetly, showed her his tattoo, and then declared that he wanted to date her. There was no way fate would hand her a man like Rhys—handsome, intelligent, gentle, and strong.
The only explanation for his announcement that he was a dragon was that he was either daft as a loon, or it was a dream. She knew Rhys wasn’t a nutter, so it had to be a dream.
“Oh?” he repeated, with a deeply furrowed brow. “That’s all you have to say?”
Lily shrugged, pinching herself, but still she didn’t wake. “What else am I to say?”
“You doona believe me.”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement. The hurt in his blue eyes was like a knife sinking into her heart. “What you’re saying isn’t possible.”
“Expand your mind, Lily. Quit thinking that in this vast universe humans are the only beings around.”
“I have no doubt there are other things out there. In space. Not here.”
Rhys closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. “This willna work if you doona believe.”
“Then prove it. Show me what you look like as a dragon.”
His eyes snapped open, their intensity making her want to cower. “I can no’,” he said tightly and dropped his hands from her.
Lily missed his touch instantly. It was like she went through withdrawal after being so near to him. His pain, however, was visible. Whether she believed him or not, he believed it. “Why? Why can’t you show me?”
Rhys paced away from her. He was silent for several moments until he stopped before her, his face set in hard lines. “Listen verra carefully. What I’m about to tell you isna told to humans unless they’re a mate.”
“A mate?”
He waved away her words. “Aye. The females who marry one of us. I’ll get to that in a moment. Whatever I tell you here can never be spoken to others.”
“All right.” Lily was intrigued, curious.
“The dragons were the first to rule this realm. We’ve been here since the beginning of time.” He glanced at the sky, a serene smile on his face as he delved into his memories. “Imagine looking up and seeing dozens of dragons in the sky.” He looked back at her, sadness filling his aqua ringed dark blue eyes. “We dragons were numerous with the smallest the size of an eagle and the largest bigger than you can fathom. Each species of dragon was designated a color, and within each color was a king. The strongest dragons, the ones with the most magic of that color were chosen as kings.”
Lily was enraptured by his tale and the way the emotions drifted across his face as he spoke. There was joy and delight, but it was tinged with sorrow and gloom.
“I was King of the Yellows,” Rhys continued. “The Yellows were daredevils, willing to fly higher than others, and laugh in danger’s face. The dragon world was structured so that no one dragon faction could rule the others. Which is why there is a King of Kings.”
In her mind, Rhys’s words were coming to life, creating a place that seemed fantastical and beautiful, vivid and magnificent.
“Out of all the Kings, only the most powerful could be King of Kings. Most times there’s a fight to the death to rule. Other times, the only one who could challenge decides not to.”
“Doesn’t everyone want to be King of Kings?” she asked.
Rhys shook his head. “I considered it for a time, but I doona have the patience to keep everyone else in line.”
“So the King of Kings rules the Kings?”
“He likes to think so,” Rhys said with a flattening of lips. “But, aye, in a way, he does. His decisions are for the dragons as a whole instead of mine which are thinking of only the Yellows.”
“What happened to change everything?” she asked.
Rhys looked away to the water. “Humans. No longer were we the only beings on this realm. Suddenly we had to share this planet. In response, every King was given the ability to shift to human form so we could communicate with the mortals. We were given the duty to protect no’ just this realm, but the dragons and humans living here.”
Lily had a feeling the tale was about to take a bad turn.
“For a time”—he turned back to her—“everything was fine. Some Kings took mortal females as their lovers, and some even as their mates. Things couldn’t have been better. Until a female decided to betray a King.”
Lily licked her lips and ignored the raindrops she felt. “Were you the King?”
“Nay. His name is Ulrik. He was the only one who could’ve challenged Con to be King of Kings, but he chose no’ to. He was happy with his duties and about to ask his female to become his mate.”
“Why would she betray Ulrik? Did he mistreat her?”
Rhys shook his head of dark brown hair, a lock falling into his eyes. He shoved it back by running his hand through his hair. “Ulrik never mistreated anyone.”
“Then she had no reason to betray him.” Lily couldn’t believe that she was talking as if she now accepted Rhys’s tale, but in fact, it was hard not to.
Rhys looked at his hands. “None of us know why she betrayed him, even all these millennia later.”
“You didn’t ask? I’d have wanted to know.”
“The female was going to start a war between us and the humans, and Con wanted to stop it. As soon as we discovered what the female was about, Con sent Ulrik on a mission, and every Dragon King descended upon her, sinking our swords into her.”
Lily was astounded at such an action. “You killed her?”
“In the hopes that whatever war she wanted to start would never come to fruition.”
“And?”
“And it all went to hell.” Rhys kicked at a river rock. “Ulrik returned and discovered what we’d done. He was … irate. His anger was ferocious, his rage vicious. He was enraged that he didna have a chance to talk to his woman, and that we’d killed her. That savageness found an outlet with the humans. Ulrik felt so betrayed by both his lover and the other Dragon Kings that he sought revenge on the very species who wanted the war—the humans.”
“How could humans even think to fight against dragons?”
Rhys grunted. “Better than you think. They found the small dragons and slaughtered them. Hundreds upon hundreds of dragons were butchered. And with every dragon that was killed, Ulrik and his Silvers decimated human villages.”
“My God.” Lily might never have been in a war, but she saw enough news to be able to comprehend the sheer destruction that could be wrought by humans, and it wasn’t that far-fetched to think about what a dragon could do.
“No matter how many times Con pleaded with Ulrik to stop, Ulrik refused to listen. The humans then began attacking larger dragons. Kellan is King of the Bronzes who were the Bringers of Justice. Kellan stationed them around a large village to protect the humans in case Ulrik attacked. Those same humans the Bronzes were there to guard killed them.”
Lily clutched her stomach and squeezed her eyes closed. This story was too gruesome not to be real. The more she listened to Rhys, the more she began to believe him. How could she not when she looked into his eyes and saw not an ounce of deceit or falsehood?
“The Bronzes were some of the largest dragons, and yet they didna fight the humans. All because Kellan asked his dragons to protect them.”
“Stop,” Lily said feeling her eyes fill with tears.
Rhys wrapped an arm around her and brought her against him. “At that point we knew if something wasna done to put a halt to the war that the peace and happiness that coexisted would be gone. The humans refused to talk of ending the war. They wanted every dragon killed because they feared us and our magic, as well as our power. It was Con who came to the decision that we had to send our dragons away.”
Lily buried her head in Rhys’s chest. She didn’t need to loo
k at him to know how difficult that statement was for him. She heard it in the catch in his voice, the way his words stumbled over themselves.
“We opened a dragon bridge, which is a portal to another realm and watched our beloved dragons leave. The Dragon Kings remained behind, because we were the only ones who could stop Ulrik. Despite our sending the dragons away, four of the largest Silvers remained with Ulrik. And they were wreaking havoc.”
Lily turned her head so that she could see the stream and hear the trickle of water. “What did you do?”
“We combined our magic to bind Ulrik’s. We banished him from Dreagan, forced him to wander the realm for eternity in human form, never able to shift into a dragon or fly again. We trapped his four Silvers and spelled them to sleep. The humans still were no’ satisfied. We had no choice but to put a magical border up around Dreagan and hide there for centuries until the Dragon Kings were forgotten, a tale told to frighten children. We stay in human form, blending in with you now, and only taking to the skies at night over Dreagan.”
Lily stepped out of Rhys’s arms. “Say I believe your tale, because it’s hard not to. I want to see you in dragon form.”
“I wish I could show you. Through the millennia, we kept watch over Ulrik. He was harmless, just living life as a human. It seems that somehow his magic returned, or at least some of it.”
“And?” she urged when he paused.
“Ulrik wants revenge on us. He wants to make every Dragon King pay for what we did to him, and part of that is exposing us to humans. He’s allied with MI5, who fear us. He’s also joined forces with the Dark Fae.”
Lily drew in a shaky breath. “When you say Dark, does that also mean there’s Light Fae?”
“Aye. We are amiable with the Light Fae, especially one named Rhi. I trust her completely. The Dark Fae, however, are as evil as they come. You can recognize them by their red eyes and black and silver hair.”
“And all this time I thought the only thing I needed to worry about was being invaded by aliens who wanted to drain our planet of water.” Lily put a hand to her forehead and filled her lungs with air before slowly releasing it. “Light equals good, Dark is bad. Got it.”
