by Eden Ashe
He stepped back, letting the other dragon go. “I’m listening.”
“In the kitchen.” Luca winced as he gave Daniel the order. “She doesn’t need to hear any of this if she wakes up.”
Daniel’s jaw worked for a long moment. As much as he wanted to slam his fist into Luca’s face for daring to tell him what his mate needed, the other dragon was right. But his urge to make sure Shelby was taken care of outweighed everything, even his need for answers. “Give me a few.”
Luca only nodded once.
Daniel watched him turn away. “Luca.”
“Yes?”
“Call Seren. She’s not bleeding, and I don’t think she hit her head hard. I think it was mostly fear, but there’s a bump.”
“I’m on it.”
Daniel didn’t move until Luca was in the kitchen. He knew Luca wouldn’t call Seren. Thanks to the mark, he’d know if Shelby was seriously hurt, and Luca would have seen it on his face. Then he let out a low, violent growl. It shook the floor and rattled the windows, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to let his dragon loose and roar the city to its knees.
His mate was hurt again.
Because of him.
Sinking to his knees beside the bed, he took in every inch of her. Her pale gold hair was a riot of soft waves against his pillow, a burst of sunshine against the ugly gray of his sheets.
Warmth to melt the ice that had formed around his heart and soul.
Damn it. Everything about her was perfect. Even now with his heart at war with his brain, he knew why the world was obsessed with her. She represented something good and beautiful in a world growing ever darker. It was in the way her green eyes sparkled on the screen, the way her smile seemed to radiate from her very core that enveloped everyone and charmed them all.
He forced his emotions off as he got to his feet. He was acting like a goddamn fledgling. It wasn’t solving anything. He wasn’t a lovesick idiot. Not since her hired gun tried to dispose of him.
After a quick check to make sure her breathing was even, he stalked down to the kitchen. One corner of his lip lifted in a snarl. “This better be good.”
Luca finished typing something on the computer before he jerked his head toward a stool. “You might want to sit. You’re not going to like any of this.”
Daniel remained standing. He crossed his arms over his chest, impatient. “I’m waiting.”
Luca rolled his eyes, but he turned the laptop around to face Daniel. After a moment’s hesitation, he hit play.
At first, Daniel wasn’t sure what he was watching, but as the scene played out, pieces to the puzzle started to fill in.
The footage started with the media arriving at Shelby’s house only minutes after Daniel’s stabbing. There was confusion, even sympathy for Shelby in the reports. By the next day, the sympathy had given way to curiosity along with reports of Shelby questioned, then held in response to Daniel’s stabbing and subsequent disappearance. The brutal death of the unknown assailant in her bedroom didn’t help her case, either.
The police department finally decided to charge her with accessory to murder. The media sensation it caused took its obvious toll on her. She lost weight by the day, the vibrancy in her eyes fading. Within the first three months after his disappearance, it was clear everyone thought she was guilty. Even those who didn’t have an opinion were quick to point out her place in the American film industry was rapidly becoming non-existent. Her brilliant star was tarnished.
Through it all, she kept her head up. She handled everything, the media circus, the trial, the acquittal, all of it with a quiet dignity and strength that floored him. To anyone who didn’t know her, which was all of the viewing public, she appeared ice cold. Unfeeling.
Daniel cursed quietly. He knew her. He knew that stubborn tilt of her chin. It was her defense mechanism when she was hurt or angry.
If she had set him up, then whomever she’d trusted set her up as well. If she hadn’t set him up, he was officially the biggest bastard in the world.
* * * *
Shelby woke with a headache of epic proportions, along with the nagging feeling something had happened…
Something had scared the living hell out of her.
Too groggy to put the pieces together, she sat up slowly, surprised to find herself sprawled in the middle of Daniel’s massive bed. Which could explain her reluctance to get up to find out what was going on. The man simply smelled like heaven, the scent enveloping her with comforter and pillows.
Geez, she was a sap. If he’d let her, she’d fling herself into his arms and demand he make the bad things go away.
Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, her whole body went still as she saw Daniel sprawled in what had to be the most uncomfortable chair a man of his mountainous size could find. His long, muscular legs were stretched out in front of him, booted feet crossed at the ankle with one elbow braced against the dresser next to him, his head resting precariously on his fist. His huge, yummy chest was completely bare. Even with the distance between them, the heat radiating off him called to her.
She shook off the warmth that wanted to settle over her. He’d fallen asleep watching her. Something was wrong. His gorgeous face was ragged, somehow still exhausted even in his sleep, every muscle coiled tight.
Coiled.
Something about the word triggered her memory. Suddenly, instead of Daniel, she saw the massive dragon that had faced her last night. His eyes flew open as the scream rose in her throat. Before she could scramble away from him, he was in front of her, his large hands fisting in her hair until she looked at him.
“Shelby. I need you to breathe.”
“Dragon,” she gasped between breaths that came too quickly for her to get a handle on them. “You’re–a–dragon!”
His pupils lengthened. In their reflection was the beautiful, terrifying, mythical beast, black as sin with just a hint of hellfire in its scales, impossibly large wings, and a head as big as a horse. A trio of small horns stood out on the back of his head, smoke snorting from his nose.
Swallowing hard, the ramifications of the word mate hit her like a ton of bricks. She jackknifed forward as the world began to spin and dropped her head between her knees.
“Shelby, goddamn it, breathe!”
She ignored his bellow as she kept sucking in huge gulps of air. They weren’t helping. She couldn’t catch her breath.
“I’m–I’m trying.” She lifted her head long enough to peek up at him, only to groan as the image of the dragon flooded her mind’s eye. She dropped her head between her knees again before she passed out again. “Oh God. This is not happening. I am not living in a fairytale.”
“Shelby.”
“Go away. You’re making me hallucinate.”
He cleared his throat, but she was sure she heard a note of amusement in his tone. “I’m a dragon.”
“No,” she mumbled, her head still between her knees, “I’m sure you’re not. I don’t know how to explain the…the dragon on the roof, but I had to be imagining it. Dragons do not exist.”
“We’ve existed since the dawning of time.”
Sure she was going to regret it, she lifted her head, half certain there would be a gargoyle or elf or something equally ridiculous standing where he’d just been. Why not? She was delusional. “There are more of you?”
Something haunted flashed over his face before he jerked his head in a quick nod. “Not as many as there once was, but yes. There are more of us.”
A little afraid his madness was catching, she sat up straighter, her eyes narrowed on his face, watching his every move. “Dragons burn cities and eat babies and live in caves where they hoard treasure they’ve stolen from the cities they’ve burned and the people they’ve killed.”
Daniel’s face was impassive. “It’s difficult for us to live in cities. We’re solitary beasts by nature. If we get angry enough, we could burn an entire city, along with the surrounding area, to the ground.” The faint edge of temper f
lashed in his eyes. “We don’t eat babies. Or human flesh.”
She managed a small smile at his deadpan statement. “That’s good. The, um, treasure thing?”
His voice was sharp as a blade. “We protect what is ours.”
Nodding slowly, she pulled her feet up onto the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. “What did Luca mean earlier about us being mates?”
She searched his eyes, shaking her head when he started to shut off. “No way, Ashborne. Your friend said we were mates, and that dragons mate for life. How did this happen?”
“Sex.” When Shelby just blinked at him, a frustrated sound rumbled in his chest. He surged to his feet, dragging his hand through his hair. “Ryuu, we had sex three times. Sex is big for my kind since we mate for life. The third time bound us together.”
“No,” she corrected him, “it was only twice.”
“Trust me, princess, it was three times.”
Shelby knew she’d been traumatized that night, but she also knew she’d have remembered having sex with him three times. Because he didn’t look stable enough for her to argue the point at the moment, she let it go. The palm of her hand absently rubbed over the mysterious mark over her heart. “Daniel, is it like a werewolf bite or something? You’re not born a dragon?”
“No. We can’t transfer our ability to shift to anyone or anything else. We–I–was born a dragon.”
Temper started to pound at her temples. “So was this information about sex and mating something you only recently found out?”
His face went blank. “No. Well…actually, kind of. I didn’t realize oral sex counted.”
Her temper went from annoyance to a full-on, ready-to-kill something now rage as she realized where he’d gotten the third time from. She scrambled to her feet on the bed, slamming both her fists into his chest. “Tell me there’s a way out of this, Daniel, and you have not mated us together for life on a technicality!”
He didn’t even flinch as her fists bounced uselessly off his muscles, but he caught her hands before she succeeded in hurting herself. “If there’s a way out of this, I will find it.”
“What do you mean, if!” she half-yelled, half-gritted out, sure her head was going to explode with the need to scream. “You mean there may not be? Daniel, have you forgotten you hate me? Do you expect me to spend every day of the rest of my life with someone who can’t stand to be in the same room with me? Oh no. It’s so not going to happen. You’re going to figure this out. You will find a way to fix it. I don’t care what it is, but you will fix this!”
She didn’t wait for him to respond. She was going to be sick, and she needed to get away from him before it happened. She spun around, tangling her feet in the comforter, barely managing to stop from falling headfirst onto his gleaming hardwood floor.
With her back as straight as she could make it, and using every ounce of dignity she had to keep her face neutral, she climbed off the bed. She marched into the bathroom, closing the door as calmly as if she was home alone and nothing was bothering her.
Then promptly burst into tears. Huge, gasping sobs that wracked her whole body and felt like they were torn right from her soul.
“Shelby.”
She ignored him as she mopped at the tears falling down her face. She wasn’t sure if they’d ever stop. Maybe they wouldn’t. Lord knew there was enough pain built up inside of her to make it a definite possibility.
His heavy fist banged against the door. “Shelby!”
She turned her head slightly from where she’d crumpled against the wall, darkening her face in case he had the magical ability to see through the door. At this point, she put nothing past him. “Go away, Daniel.”
“No.”
It shouldn’t have surprised her. Really, she should have known nothing stopped him from doing exactly as he liked, when he felt like doing it. The proof was in the mark over her heart. So why she was shocked when he simply opened the bathroom door and leaned against the frame, she didn’t know.
She surged to her feet, vibrating with all the fury that coursed through her. “You–you–you bastard!” she yelled, her tears forgotten for the moment. “How could you?”
“Just so I know, princess, which part is pissing you off more? Being mated without your permission, or being mated to me?”
Shelby stared at him for a full moment, before she snorted and shoved her way past him toward the kitchen. “No way, Daniel,” she snapped, using the back of her hand to wipe at the tears in free-fall. When she got to the island, she grabbed the nearest item, needing to do something with her hands. “You do not get to use your vulnerability against me with this.”
His grey gaze flickered from hers to the butcher knife she currently pointed at him, then back to her eyes. “Put the knife down, princess.”
“Stop. Calling. Me. That.” Her shoulders slumped, as she dropped the knife back onto the island. “Damn you, Daniel.”
“Look,” he ground out, his hands fisting at his sides. “I said I’d find a way to take care of it.”
She used the back of her hand to dry her tears as she drew in a shuddering breath. Crying would get her nowhere.
“Okay.” She tilted her head all the way back so she could see his gorgeous face. Funny, but as sappy as it sounded, eleven months ago she would have willingly bound herself to him after just one night together. Now that she knew they were stuck together, all she could think about was how long she’d spent trying to get over him. She’d never fully succeeded, but trying had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. No way was she strong enough to go through it again. She just…couldn’t. He was not going to succeed in making her fall in love with him again. She mopped at her tears. “We need to think about this logically. Is mating a dragon’s version of marriage?”
“No.” He leaned against the back of the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. “We take the mate-for-life thing more seriously than any human could possibly understand. When we mate, that person is the only one who exists in the world for us from then on.”
Shelby, who’d been trying very hard not to stare at his bare chest and the spot right above the hipbones where the muscles jutted out, snapped herself out of her daze. She wrinkled her nose. “Wait. We’ve been mated for eleven months.” As the thoughts formed in her head, nausea welled up so quickly she had to wrap her good arm around her stomach in an effort to hold it in. “You’ve had to have been with other women since.”
His face closed off. “Ryuu. We’re not talking about this.”
Oh yeah, she was going to be sick. Images of him with some nameless, busty woman wrapped around him in the bed she’d just been sleeping in…
Shelby pressed her palms to her eyes in an effort to block out the mental pictures. It was so ridiculous to be hurt. Just because she hadn’t been able to look at another man without comparing him to Daniel and finding a thousand reasons why he wouldn’t stack up, didn’t mean Daniel had done the same thing. Of course he hadn’t. He was male. Finding the nearest willing body to sleep with was like breathing for them, wasn’t it? “It doesn’t matter.” If her voice sounded strained to her own ears, she ignored it. “It’s not like I knew we were mated or anything.” She glanced around, needing to think about, or do, something else. Anything. “Do you have a phone? I need to start making phone calls. I can’t imagine how worried–”
“I haven’t slept with anyone else.”
“–everyone is. It’s got to be all over the media…” Her words trailed off as her body went completely still, almost afraid she’d heard him wrong. “What?”
“I haven’t slept with anyone else.” He dragged a hand over his face and straightened, his grey eyes storming as he closed the distance between them. “I haven’t wanted anyone else. I couldn’t get you out of my fucking head.”
Her breath caught. She hadn’t meant for it to, but being near him was undoing her. She moved in closer. God, she’d missed this. It was insane how much she’d gotten used to his feel, his scent, his pre
sence, after only one day and night together. Her face crumpled, and without giving him any warning, she leapt up, wrapping her arms around him to bury her face in his neck. “Damn you, Daniel. I was so worried about you.”
He went still, his body rigid for the space of a single heartbeat before he hauled her in closer with a ragged sound. “Your shoulder,” he managed to rasp out, even as he wrapped himself around her.
“Shut up.” It was mostly healed. Even if it did hurt, she wouldn’t have cared. “I’ll live. Just…just don’t let me go yet, alright?”
His hands tangled in her soft waves, and she heard him breathe in, as if he needed her scent as much as she needed his. They’d solved nothing, but she needed this. Right now, she just needed this.
Luca cleared his throat from where he lay on the couch directly behind Daniel. “How sweet. Just do me a favor. If you’re going to do the nasty, don’t forget the invisibility spell. Daniel’s naked ass is not something I ever need to see. I have enough trouble holding onto my sanity most days as it is.”
9
The sudden realization of what she was doing snapped Shelby back to reality. Shoving her fists up between them, she wiggled until he let her down. As soon as her feet were firmly back on the ground, she forced herself to move away from the man who had broken her heart. “Daniel, I–” She blew out a breath, reminding herself nothing had changed. He still hated her, and she still had no answers. Crossing her arms over her chest, she gave him the same arched-brow look he was giving her. “I need a phone and a computer. I have to start letting people know I’m alive.”
Daniel mimicked her stance. She frowned when he made it a thousand times more intimidating and effective than she did. “You’re not talking to anyone yet. Not until we find out who shot you.”
She tapped her foot once. “Have we ruled out you?” she snapped. “You haven’t exactly done a good job at even pretending you don’t hate me.”
He ignored her. “If I wanted you dead, princess, you would be. I don’t try to do anything.”
