So she wasn’t going to die. They wouldn’t treat her cruelly, either. Not when so much rode on the experiments they planned for her.
And so much rides on me getting that money, he thought. I need it. I will reclaim my position as the true king, and then I’ll shut them down. That is, if I haven’t already become a hero to everybody by rescuing Dominique from them.
He tried to ignore the nagging doubts eating at his stomach. He could almost hear her whispering in his ear. You think I’m ever going to see you as a hero? Even if you do rescue me, which you won’t because you’re a selfish coward, I’ll know. I’ll know that you have something else up your sleeve. You told me yourself that nobody does anything unless they’re getting something from it. Face it. They don’t need me alive. I’m the first experimental rat. They’ll probe and prod and ignore my screams of terror and pain, just as you are doing right now.
Ivarsson snarled and sat up, reaching for the glass of water he kept by his bedside table. His hands were shaking so bad that he spilled it down himself, and with a snort of self-disgust, he walked to the bathroom to mop himself up.
It was none of his concern what happened to Dominique. Sure, he felt a little bad that it had to be her. She was sweet and lovely, and she had already had a hard life. A lot of it he learned when he was reading up on her after he’d gotten her.
To start with, she’d been born out of wedlock. Her parents had gotten married after she was born, and then left her with her grandparents while they went off to college. That ended when social services took Dominique away from them; apparently, her teachers had noticed bruises shaped like handprints on her. She had spent a couple years in foster care before her parents took her back—and promptly divorced.
She’d had to quit high school to work full time at the age of fifteen because her father refused to pay child support and her mother refused to work. Honestly, it seemed like a blessing to Ivarsson that they’d stopped talking to her. Dominique had filed several charges of abuse against a boyfriend in high school, even getting a restraining order until said boyfriend was killed while driving drunk. The poor girl deserved something to go right in her life…
But that wasn’t what life was. He knew that as well as anyone. He could wish all he wanted that life wasn’t cruel, but it was. He couldn’t let himself get distracted by pity when there was so much at stake. Was he supposed to just give up everything he’d fought his whole life for just for her?
He returned to his bed and closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to think about this anymore.
***
The door opened. Ivarsson turned, tensing, to find Dominique standing in the doorway. She wore a long, white flowing dress with her hair tumbling about her shoulders in large waves. He blinked, then blinked again. Where had she gotten that dress?
“Why are you here?” he demanded. How had she gotten out of her room? She drifted toward him on clouds of light, her eyes full of tears as she reached out to him. “Dominique?”
“Ivarsson,” she breathed and pressed her mouth to his.
His eyes widened in surprise as his flames roared a little higher, a pressure building in his lower regions. This has to be a dream, he thought, but he didn’t care. She felt real enough in his arms, and it had been a long time since he was last between a woman’s legs. He kissed her back, deeply, passionately, as he pressed her against the wall. Her succulent breasts pressed against his chest, making his heart beat faster as he moaned into her mouth.
Dominique’s fingers tangled in his hair, the light prickling of her fingers brushing against his scalp too vivid to be a dream. His hands ran up her thighs, lingered on her hips, as he ground against her.
He tightened as his body pressed against hers. Then, with a sudden movement, he turned and flung her onto the bed. She landed as lightly as if he had tossed her into the clouds. She propped herself to her elbows, giggling, with her eyes bright. The dress fell up over her knees, which were parted slightly, showing him a strip of glistening pink. With a snarl, he ripped off his boxers, already hard and ready.
Dominique let out a moan and lay back among the pillows, holding her arms out toward him. He was more than willing to obey her unspoken command. He fell over her, his lips crushing against hers once more. His skin felt like it was going to rip off his body it was so tight, and he delved into her neck while he searched her with his fingers. The dress bunched about her waist as he explored her, finding the little bundle of nerves quickly. When his thumb rubbed over it, she shivered and moaned. Her nails dug into his arms, her quick breath filling him with excitement.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, stroking her with one hand, while the other lifted the dress up higher, revealing silky, creamy skin.
She was beautiful. No, more than beautiful. Gorgeous. There were no words for how stunning she was as he lifted the dress over her head and threw it to one side of the bed. Her breasts were full, her nipples hard and pink. He bent over one, unable to stop himself, and sucked on it gently. Her hands moved to his hair once more, the prickling as she tugged on his scalp convincing him once more that this was no dream. He couldn’t explain why this would be happening otherwise, but he didn’t care. All he knew was that his body burned for Dominique, and he wasn’t going to waste this moment.
He was so enraptured with her that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do first. She lay there, grinning up at him. There was something in her gaze, telling him that he could do whatever he wanted to, and she would love every second of it. He moved to her other nipple, enjoying the texture of her pearled skin against his tongue. He licked up her chest, pressing in kisses every now and then until he reached her neck again. He started kissing her and grinned when her pulse beat steadily against his lips.
“I want to taste you,” he murmured in her ear, spreading her legs out a little farther.
Dominique nodded in agreement as he moved down her body once more. Her hands dug into his hair, a cry bursting from her as soon as he pressed his face into her. He found her clit with his tongue, flicking it back and forth. She writhed under his attention, already so ready it was unbelievable. Her back arched, her breasts jiggled, and he moaned at the sweet taste of her. She really was as delicious as he imagined her to be. There was a slight fruity taste to it.
“I eat a lot of pineapple,” she muttered huskily.
Ivarsson nodded and then climbed back up her. She was panting and breathless, bright-eyed, more than ready. Her legs wrapped around his hips as he positioned himself. He found himself actually holding his breath as he entered her, his every thought on how tight and warm she was. Her back arched once more as he sunk into her, her lips open in a breathless gasp.
He started to move at once, thrusting into her steadily. His eyes never left hers and he knew. He knew he could never hand her over. Forget Byrelmore, forget Indulf, forget being king. All he wanted was her. They could go far, far away. He’d protect her from the world and they’d raise a dozen fat babies who would grow into strong sons and beautiful daughters.
The pressure in him was almost too much to bear. He thrust harder, faster, his movements starting to become jerky—
He woke with a gasp, the sheets tented over his midsection, the throbbing need deep inside of him. It took him a moment to understand, but when he did, he fell back onto the bed with a groan of disappointment. It had been so real! Totally illogical, but real… Ivarsson growled as he pulled a pillow over his face to block out the light. If he’d only had five more minutes…
But whatever. With a sigh, he threw back the blankets and stood. A cold shower was in order. Then it was time to hand Dominique over. Best to banish the dream from his mind entirely…
Chapter Five
Dominique
Somehow, she had been hoping that he’d change his mind. That he wouldn’t hand her over to these people. Right up until the moment their helicopter landed in the small field just behind the farmhouse.
Dickerson had let her come out of her prison this morning. H
e’d walked her around the farm, talking about this and that and generally being charming and gentlemanly. She’d spilled more of her life to him, partly because she wanted him to see her as a person, partly because it was oddly freeing being able to speak plainly about what she had been through without hedging it to try to protect other people by coming across as more extreme than they were.
And then the helicopter had landed, and she knew. She knew that it was all for nothing. She hadn’t gotten him attached to her at all… if anything, it had backfired. She had Stolkholmed herself. Her stomach cramped, and she tried to run, but Dickerson had caught her and dragged her back into the house and put her in her room.
“They’re early,” he snapped, so concerned with his timeline and not at all concerned for her life.
“Ivan, please,” she begged.
He shut the door in her face. Dominique rattled the doorknob, rammed the door, even grabbed the chair and swung it against the door jam, trying to break it open. Nothing worked. So she retreated to the bathroom, locked the door, and then braced it with the chair. She wasn’t going to let herself be handed over without a fight! She wouldn’t…. she couldn’t….
Tears ran hot and thick down her face. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, no matter how she tried to fight it down. She threw up twice until it was nothing but foul-tasting acid coming up. Then she huddled in the shower, pressed against the wall and trying to think of some way to escape.
Dickerson came for her shortly after. The locked door was no barrier for him, and he simply picked her up from where she was huddled and dragged her out. He didn’t look into her face, only tugging her along impatiently as she tried to dig her heels in.
“Why?” her voice was choked with sobs. “Why are you doing this? What do you want? Is it about the money? You could get money other ways! Or are they going to make super dragons and you want to become one so you can kill Indulf?”
Dickerson grunted, his grip loosening ever so slightly. It was just enough for her to yank her arm free and dive into another room. There was a bed in it, presumably Dickerson’s bedroom. She slammed the door shut just as he rammed it from the other side. The door creaked but held. The doorknob was one of those old-fashioned ones that turned both sides together, and she grabbed it as it started to twist, pulling it the other direction.
“Dominique,” he complained, as though her resisting this was unreasonable.
“Please don’t give me to them.”
There was a beat of silence, and Dominique’s hopes raised. Was he going to listen to her, at last?
Dickerson grunted. “I don’t plan to kill him.”
It was her turn to be silent.
“I’m not going to kill Indulf,” he repeated. “I don’t intend to kill anybody. I just want what’s mine by right. He…” He trailed off, and Dominique held her breath. Was he going to tell her? Finally, after all these days when she hinted and asked and tried to figure out what he wanted? But when he spoke again, his voice was hard. “Never mind about that. It doesn’t matter, and it won’t help you to know.”
“I’ll tell them you’re a dragon!”
“They already know I’m a dragon.” He pressed against the door again, the doorknob turning in her hand no matter how hard she tried to resist. She found herself wishing she had made another shiv—what did his life matter when he was doing this to her? If she killed him, it would be in self-defense. “Dominique, you’re making this more difficult on yourself than it has to be. They aren’t going to kill you.”
Dominique let out a shrill bark of laughter. Right. She was supposed to believe that?
“Open the door. You know you can’t hold against me.”
“I’ll hold as long as I can,” she yelled back, bracing against the door with all her strength as it started to inch open. “You’re an evil, vile, disgusting excuse for a person! All this just for power? Money? Some sort of revenge? I wish I had let you die.”
The door burst open, sending her stumbling into the wall. She slid down, landing on her rump as she blinked in surprise and pain. Dickerson glared at her as he bent down and took her wrists, pulling her to her feet again. More useless tears began to run down her cheeks once more.
“Why?” she asked. “Please. Just tell me why.”
“I’ve already told you—”
“You kidnapped me,” she spat, kicking at his legs, though he moved too quickly for her to make an impact. “You stole me from my life, and you’re handing me over to these people who want a kidnapped woman for their experiments. They’re not looking for volunteers, they’re not offering money to the subjects, so it’s all got to be illegal. I bet they didn’t even propose to do it legally—which means whatever they’re going to do, it’s so horrible that they’d have been shut down if they even talked about this sort of experiment.”
Dickerson’s jaw tightened. Was that pity and hesitancy in his eyes?
Dominique sucked in a deep breath. “You say they’re not going to kill me, but you have no way of knowing that. You don’t know what they’re going to do to me or what sort of things they’ll change about me. And even if they don’t kill me, they’ll be doing things to me against my will. They’ll be filling me with stuff and stripping away my humanity, until they can look at me just like they would a lab rat. That’ll kill who I am, even if I physically survive, and you know it. So you owe me an explanation!”
“I…” His voice was hesitant.
Did she dare hope she was getting through to him? She fought the glimmer of hope, knowing it would hurt even worse when he handed her over if she dared start hoping now.
His shoulders sagged, and he shrugged. “I suppose… I have my goals and dreams, just like everybody else. I am trying to get what I deserve. What I was born to have. It’s not Indulf’s fault that I don’t have it, but he’s still in my way. So I’m not going to kill him, not unless it becomes necessary, but I’m not going to just give up, either. I’m not going to be left out in the cold again, Dominique. I am never going to go hungry, or naked, or worrying about if I’ll have my throat cut in the middle of the night. I refuse to live as though I’m not worthy of a true, fulfilling life.”
It didn’t tell her much, but it told her enough. Her chest hurt with the force of her sobs as she gulped in another breath. “I know what that’s like. That desperation. I told you about my parents not wanting me? Well, my grandparents didn’t want me either. They shunted me around from one relative to another because none of them wanted me. The best I hoped for from them was to be ignored. The worst was being twisted into what they thought a good girl should be.”
Dickerson’s gaze hardened. “You know that desperation. Sure you do. You were unwanted. You were told you weren’t good enough. But did any of them try to kill you?”
Dominique was silent, even her sobs subsiding at the look in Dickerson’s eyes. So hard, so angry, yet still full of pain.
“I killed my first man when I was only a thousand years old. That’s the same as ten human years. Did you ever find yourself in a life or death situation at ten, Dominique? Did you watch a man murder your mother, laughing at her screams, and then turn on you? Did you ever feel such hatred and fear that you would have killed him and his whole family, had they been there?”
Her blood ran cold. She could visualize it all very clearly, Dickerson as a young boy, sobbing over a woman’s dead body, covered in blood, with the faceless man he’d murdered lying beside them. Her stomach clenched, and if there was anything in her stomach, she would have vomited it all up again.
“You don’t know my desperation,” Dickerson continued, his voice lower now. “You had a hard life. I’m not going to say you didn’t. You were abused and treated like trash. But if we’re going to try to make this into a contest… well, I’ll win. You know I will. So don’t pretend to understand me.”
“Who…” she started but trailed off. How would he know who it was that killed his mother? She doubted he stopped to ask the killer’s name.
&nbs
p; Dickerson let out a shaky breath. His grip on her wrists, which had tightened so much they hurt and would surely bruise, loosened. He glanced down at her hands and flinched, as though he hadn’t realized he was holding her so tightly. He stared for a long moment, turning over first one hand and then the other.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
What was she supposed to say to that? That it was okay? It wasn’t. That she accepted his apology? She didn’t. She thought, perhaps, he was being genuine, but she didn’t know him. Like he had just said himself.
“You know what it’s like to be unwanted,” Ivan continued softly, shoulders slumping down even further. “But you don’t know what it’s like to be so unwanted that your own father would send someone to kill you and your mother. You don’t know what it’s like, to be so unwanted that… that he would have killed you himself if he’d been there.”
“No,” she agreed, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “You’re right. I don’t know what that’s like.”
Her heart ached for him. Even if she tried to shove these feelings aside, even if she wanted to hate him for what he was doing to her. She couldn’t. Not when the pain was so strong in his eyes. This time, it was her who took his wrists in her hands. She held his gaze, not letting him look away.
“I don’t know what it’s like to be that unwanted. But I do know what it’s like to be alone. And I know that you’ll stay alone unless you reach out.” She took a deep breath and stepped closer to him until their bodies were almost pressed together. “You can reach out. There are people who can help you. Help you let go of that anger, that hatred, and let you move on. You don’t have to forgive, but you don’t have to have this shadow hanging on you all the time, either. You have a tragic past. But it doesn’t have to be all-encompassing. It doesn’t have to devour your future.”
The Dragon Villain's Prey Page 3
