by Anna Lowe
That would be Connor, she nearly yelled. But she kept the thought to herself, because she had to get close to Draig to execute her plan.
She grinned wildly at her own thought. Execute. Now that, she liked.
The dragons flipped around, locked in mortal combat, and Connor’s eyes flashed. Still glowing, but growing dimmer. He looked about as convinced of himself as she felt about her own chance of pulling off this crazy stunt.
Jenna, he murmured, sounding frighteningly apologetic.
She shook her head, steeling herself to be tough enough for both of them. Are you saying you’re ready to give up?
Connor’s eyes glittered with recognition. Hell no, he said through clenched teeth.
Good, she grunted, yanking the knife from its scabbard.
Was that pride in his eyes? Love? Jenna swore she’d find out someday. But at that moment, Draig rolled, dragging Connor around, breaking their eye contact. Fury rose within her, and she pushed the pearl deep into the scabbard at her calf to free both hands. Then she dove under the grappling dragons, more determined than ever.
This fool thinks he deserves you, Draig gloated. But I shall protect you. I shall give you the future you deserve.
Jenna pushed the horror of that suggestion aside and concentrated on the fight. The dragons rolled into exactly the angle she needed to slip in between them, so—
Now, Connor! she barked. One more time.
His green eyes glassed over with pain. A bubbly grunt sounded as he heaved Draig around with the last of his strength, lifting and twisting at the same time. Their bodies parted, and—
Jenna darted between their wings with the knife clutched in one hand. Thanks to all her practice with Connor, the knife felt comfortable in her grip, and the handle warmed. Was the spell stirring, ready to work even if the enemy wasn’t a vampire?
Connor’s words echoed in her mind.
Get a dragon right between the plates here…
He’d showed her here, and she forced herself to shimmy up Draig’s chest to find the same spot, keeping the knife at her side.
Draig laughed — the kind of deep rumble that vibrated through the ocean and made entire schools of fish flee for their lives. Jenna wanted to join them. Venturing this close made it all too easy to picture the horrors Draig had in store for her if he won.
Isn’t she lovely, he cooed, as if she’d had a change of heart and had sidled up to fondle him or something. My pet already recognizes her master.
Master? She snorted. Then she focused entirely on concealing the knife and finding that vulnerable spot.
Draig’s chest was covered with wide, interlocking plates. The top plates were divided into two sections, corresponding to the pectoral muscles, she supposed. And between there, exactly as Connor had said, was a notch. But water swirled all around her, and the pressure changed, telling her she was about to be crushed.
Jenna! Connor yelled, straining hard.
Don’t get hurt, my pretty pet, Draig murmured, starting to twist to one side.
Jenna flicked the knife around exactly as Connor had taught her. Index finger, flip, grab.
Not your goddamn pet, she barked, stabbing the knife deep.
She’d imagined the blade sliding smoothly in, but it entered in jerks, and it took all her might to drive it in. Every time she thought she couldn’t drive it an inch deeper, the pearl at her calf heated, and she was able to give it one more shove until the weapon was lodged in to the hilt.
That’s what you get for trying to separate a mermaid from her mate, she spat into his mind.
Draig’s eyes went wide, and his whole body shuddered. His wings flailed as blood poured from his chest in strangely mesmerizing swirls. Jenna hung on with everything she had, determined to keep the blade in place.
But… But… Draig protested, still not getting it. Then his eyes narrowed, and he growled. Bitch!
Jenna gave herself an inner nod. Yeah, when she had to be.
Fine, then. Die with your no-good lover, Draig spat.
His tail whacked around, and pain flared through her legs. A claw big enough to skewer her raked the water beside her ear. Jenna squeezed aside, barely avoiding it. The only thing keeping her alive was how close she was sandwiched against Draig, much as that disgusted her. The next slicing blow, though, would be harder to avoid. That and the crushing power of two dragon bodies about to smack together again. The water pressure rose, making her ears pop, and she screamed.
Connor!
But not even Connor could prevent the inevitable as momentum brought the two dragons together in the massive collision she could sense coming. Their wings were all tangled, and the pendulum of forces was about to swing the other way. Tears streamed from Jenna’s cheeks, because this was the end. To kill Draig, she had to keep the knife in place. That meant holding on, no matter what came.
Release me, Draig yelled, thrashing about. But nothing was going to loosen Jenna’s hold on that knife. Nothing.
Connor, she murmured, wishing they could have had a happier end. More time. More words. More everything.
The water whirled around her, thrust aside by the truck-sized bodies about to collide. Jenna pushed words like thank you and I love you into Connor’s mind. If she was going to die, she’d make it clear what he meant to her first.
Then, boom! What felt like a brick wall smashed into her back, propelling her into the left side of Draig’s chest, just beside the protruding knife handle. The slam drove the weapon even deeper, and Draig groaned. Which was good, but Jenna was being crushed. The force squeezed her lungs, hammered her ribs, and cut off her yelp.
She briefly wondered if there was a heaven. Would she meet her mother there? Would she ever see her loved ones again?
Her father. Her sisters. Her niece. Connor…
Then she didn’t think at all, because a roar filled her ears, and her whole body lit up in pain. Then a switch flipped in her, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jenna!
Connor roared with more than just his voice. His whole body screamed, No, no, no!
Jenna wasn’t supposed to come back to help him. He was the one trying to save her, not the other way around.
But his body was slamming into Draig’s, and Jenna was in between. And no amount of flailing his wings, churning his tail, or clawing at the water would prevent the inevitable. He’d wrestled Draig to one side as Jenna had ordered, but now, their interlocked bodies were swinging back into place. And once that much tonnage got moving, it didn’t stop, not even underwater where everything moved slowly, giving him all too much time to imagine the result.
On paper, it all came down to a nice, neat formula Newton had come up with. The one about equal and opposite reactions. In real life, every nerve in his body screamed, because Jenna was going to die.
Fuck Newton, his dragon roared. She can’t die!
Yes, she can. Draig rasped with one last, vengeful breath that said, If I go, she goes too.
No, Connor bellowed, desperate for some way to prevent a crushing blow.
Water rushed over his wings, twisting them painfully. Instinct had made him tuck them in close to protect the thin spans, but then a new realization hit him. Any amount of resistance he created would help soften the blow. So with one abrupt, bone-tearing jolt, he flipped his left wing open. The rushing water twisted his wing backward, and bolts of pain tore through his body as bones snapped and ligaments ripped. He howled in pain but forced his long neck aside, further redirecting the motion of their bodies.
And, slam! The air was knocked out of him as he collided with Draig.
Jenna! he cried, straining every muscle to pull back as far as he could. He’d managed to twist enough to avoid a chest-to-chest collision that would have instantly crushed the life out of Jenna, but was that enough?
With his good wing, he shifted backward to clear some space. His left wing dangled, a twisted wreck.
No… Draig protested one last time. The g
low in his eyes intensified then dimmed and finally extinguished. His limbs and tail went limp. Jenna floated between them, motionless. Her hair fanned like a mermaid’s, hiding her face.
Jenna?
Connor swam forward and scooped her closer with his good wing. Tucking her carefully against his chest, he kicked for the surface. The sun glowed brighter with every foot of his ascent, but a terrible sense of doom pressed on his heart.
No…no… His dragon fretted every inch of the way, terrified that Jenna was dead.
His lungs burned. His eyes stung. The pain in his wing was agony. But he thrust all that aside, focusing on Jenna.
Please… Please…
He burst through the surface and into clear air that seared his lungs. Something in his chest gurgled — all the water he’d gulped, no doubt. He slapped at the water, racked by an uncontrollable coughing fit that made his ribs ache. Throughout it all, he forced his right wing up, keeping Jenna on the surface.
Jenna, he called, hunching over her.
Her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful. Terrifyingly peaceful.
She was laid out on his right wing the way a person might lie on a floating beach mat. Slowly, carefully, he combed a strand of hair away from her face with the point of one claw. If Jenna woke, she’d probably scream at the sight. He wouldn’t mind scaring her to death if it meant she’d survived the worst. But had she?
He churned the water with his tail, keeping her above the waves.
Jenna… Jenna… He tried calling to her. Not just in rumbly dragon-talk but in carefully forced sounds more familiar to human ears.
“Jenna?” he whispered, holding his breath.
She didn’t stir, and his mind went to Plan B — holding her tight against his chest and letting himself sink to the bottom of the sea. Drowning himself shouldn’t be too hard with a busted wing and a shattered heart. But just as he was about to exhale and sink, Jenna’s hand flexed into a fist.
He stared.
Her lips twitched, and a second later, she rolled sideways and convulsed. Then she broke into a coughing fit, wincing and moaning at the same. And even though her pain was obvious, his heart leaped. She was alive!
“Connor?” she whispered, blinking in the light.
“I’m right here,” he managed, keeping her propped up. “I’m right here.”
* * *
He stayed right there for the next four days, refusing to budge from Jenna’s side. Not long after Jenna had come to, a roar had sounded over his head, making him fear the worst. That Draig’s lackeys were rushing in to finish the job, perhaps, or that the sea dragon had a furious widow out for revenge.
And it had been a furious widow, as it turned out. But not anyone related to Draig.
Cynthia? he’d called, squinting at the gold-toned dragon that swooped overhead.
Cynthia was just about the last person he wanted to fish his battered ass out of the sea. He couldn’t afford to show weakness, especially not to her.
Mr. Hoving, she had tsked, circling overhead. May I assist?
Her body was gold, the rarest dragon color, with a crown of solid black, like her hair. Definitely some kind of dragon royalty, one blurry part of his mind noted.
A lot of the aftermath of the fight with Draig was fuzzy in Connor’s mind but not that part. He’d flopped back in the water and exhaled hard, considering briefly. A true alpha would never accept help from the very person pitted against him in a struggle for clan dominance but, hell. What did pride matter as long as Jenna was safe?
So he’d croaked a Yes, please, and Cynthia had helped him get Jenna back to shore. Tim had rushed them both to the hospital. Dell made sure Connor didn’t kill any of the medical staff who tried to pry him from Jenna’s side, and Chase had guarded the door of her room in case any of Draig’s men turned up. They didn’t, thanks to Kai, who’d made a beeline for Draig’s yacht as soon as he heard the news. Apparently, there hadn’t been much resistance from the staff once their boss was dead, and within hours, Kai had escorted the yacht out of Hawaiian waters, eliminating another potential threat.
Jody was a teary mess when she got to the hospital, but Jenna was a trooper, insisting she was all right.
“Just a little bruised,” she kept saying, even though her lips were drawn into a thin line.
According to the doctors, Jenna was badly bruised inside and out, but she’d escaped more serious harm.
“Now you know never to try to snorkel close to whales during breeding season,” a stern nurse had said, shaking a finger at Jenna.
Connor had nearly snorted before ushering the woman out. Whales. Breeding season. Right. Cynthia had concocted that cover story, but he had to admit it worked. Other than a couple of mentions in the back pages of local newspapers, the media interest they had feared never materialized.
“Definitely learned my lesson,” Jenna had said with a wink. Then she’d patted the space on the bed next to her and grinned weakly. “Now I need the kind of nursing that counts.”
Connor’s arm was in a sling at that point, but he managed to maneuver into the tiny space beside Jenna and cuddle close. Before long, his eyes were drooping and his mind blissfully blank. He had a million things to worry about — starting with Kai’s reaction to all the rules he had broken. A hell of a lot of rules, all the way from Don’t mess with Jody’s sister to Don’t draw attention to Koa Point and down to Keep a close eye on Draig. But Connor didn’t care any more. All that mattered was that Jenna was safe.
He watched over her like a hawk, night and day. Worrying every time she drifted off to sleep, celebrating every time she woke up. Grinning as she yawned, because it was just like the first time he’d met her back on the plane. Her nose would wiggle a little, and she would blink like a sleepy kitten. Then she stretched and smiled right at him.
Mate, his dragon hummed again and again.
Jenna’s biggest worry was that she’d lost the knife but, damn. Who cared about that? Certainly not Jody, who’d given it to her.
“God, Jenna. You’re alive. Who cares about a knife?”
Not Connor. But Jenna seemed awfully attached to the scabbard, for reasons he couldn’t understand. She’d made him hold on to it for her, insisting he keep it safe.
“I’ll explain later,” she’d whispered before falling asleep with an enigmatic smile.
The doctors had kept her in the hospital for three nights, but the second they cleared her…
“Wait a minute,” Jody had said when Jenna pointed to be dropped off at Connor’s place after the drive home.
“The doctors said I could go home, and that’s where I’m going,” Jenna had declared.
Connor had just about floated on cloud nine at that point, and the second he got Jenna tucked into his bed, he fell in beside her and carefully held her close. From then on, it was Jenna reassuring him.
“I’m right here,” she whispered over and over through the next few days.
Sometimes, her words were sleepy. Other times, they came out in a joyous giggle. And on the fourth day, as the sun set, illuminating the entire open ledge of his dwelling with a brilliant red light, her voice took on a sultry tone.
“I’m right here, dragon,” she murmured, kissing his ear. “Right here and a little hungry, if you know what I mean.”
Hell yeah, he knew what she meant. His dragon had been going crazy with the need to permanently mark her as his, but he’d been fighting off the instinct. He was out of his sling by then, only feeling a little sore. But shifter healing didn’t work for Jenna, so he’d been careful to keep his touches limited to the nursing-back-to-health kind. But when she ran her hand up his chest then down his abs, lower and lower, he growled in need.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” he managed to ask, halting the progress of her touch before he exploded with need.
She grinned and wound her leg around his. “How sure do I seem?”
Oh, she seemed sure, all right. But she was talking about sex while he was thinking ab
out mating, and they hadn’t talked that over yet.
“I mean being sure about me,” he said, straining not to give in to the urge to mate. “I’m not sure I can do this without…without…”
His cheeks heated as he searched for a nice way to say without plunging my dragon fangs into your neck and following that up with a burst of fire that will permanently bond you to me.
“Without biting me?” she whispered, looking him right in the eye.
For the thousandth time in the past week, he thanked destiny for sending him a woman who didn’t shy away from…well, anything.
He nodded. “Mating is forever, Jenna. You need to be sure.”
She cupped his face in both hands and circled her thumbs over both cheeks — a motion that made his inner dragon hum. “Let’s see. I love you. You love me. You saved me from the worst possible fate—”
He cut her off, kissing her knuckles. “You saved me.”
She’d saved him in more ways than one, really, but he hadn’t found a way to put that into words yet. Someday, he swore he would.
She shrugged — just shrugged, like it was perfectly normal for nice girls who worked in their dad’s surf shops to slay sea dragons in their spare time — and shook her head.
“What other proof do I need? I’d do anything for you, and I know you’ll do anything for me. Of course, we can wait for a couple of years, but what would that change?”
His brow pinched, because he was pretty sure he couldn’t wait a week, let alone a couple of years.
“Some people need time to be sure,” she went on. “But I don’t. Believe me, I don’t. I just know.” She smiled a little secretly and looked out at the first of the stars like someone out there was winking at her. Then her eyes wandered back to his and warmed. “Do you need more time to be sure?”
He shook his head vehemently. “Of course I’m sure.”
She grinned and settled back on the mattress, inviting him in. “Then what are you waiting for, my mate?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jenna wrapped her arms around Connor’s neck and drew him in for a kiss. If he asked her one more time if she was sure, she’d scream. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life. Didn’t he know that?
