by Eden Ashe
After she hugged the last one, Dallas, she stepped back, and stood on the bed. Her arms crossed over her chest as she took in a bracing breath. “Alright. What’s going on?”
When none of them answered at first, Shelby worried they were going to close up on her.
Then Dallas cleared his throat. “He’s talking madness,” he said bluntly. “He wants us to convince you you’re better off without him so you leave here for good.”
Shelby’s legs wobbled.
“Nice, asshole,” Bain shot out, snarling at Dallas. “Way to ease her into it.”
Dallas rounded on him, his hands clenching into fists the approximate size of war hammers. “We don’t have time to coddle her. He’s our fucking king. Who the fucking hell knows what’s going on in his head. We can’t afford him going off the deep end now.”
“Hey.” Shelby cleared her throat when it came out in a choked rasp, and tried again. “It’s okay, Bain. Dallas is right. Sugar coating this isn’t going to help Daniel.” She reached out, laying her hand on Bain’s shoulder, then turned her attention back to Dallas. “Why does he want me gone?”
“I don’t know. He seems to think you’re better off without him.”
“But that’s madness,” Broderick put in. “He doesn’t have a chance without you.”
Shelby shook her head, trying to get the confusion muddling her brain to settle into some kind of familiar pattern so she could understand what they were saying. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s been without me for almost a year.”
Luca cleared his throat, his voice quiet. “He was closer than you realized. Close enough to keep the full effects of breaking a bond at bay, but not close enough he wasn’t starting to fade out.”
Shelby’s chest hurt. “What do you mean, fade out?”
“As long as he knew where you were and could see you on a regular basis to assure himself you were alive, his body was tricked to believe it was still mated. By not reaffirming the bond, though, his body was giving up the will to live. He was angrier than even what’s normal for him, while taking stupid chances that could have gotten him killed.”
“But…” She lifted her fist to rub at the tightening ache in her chest. This was wrong. “He said he’d find a way to break the bond because he mated us without my permission.”
All three dragons turned toward Broderick, who cursed quietly. “If there’s a way to do it without killing you both, I’ve never heard of it.”
“I don’t think he cares if it kills him,” Dallas said, his gruff voice unusually quiet. “I think he’s hoping for it.”
“No.” Shelby pressed both palms to her eyes. “No, he is not allowed to do this.” She dropped her hands, pointing at all four dragons. “Do you understand? You will help me find a way to snap him out of this.”
She dragged in a steadying breath, because panicking or worrying wasn’t going to solve anything. “Alright, look. I’ve known him for all of three whole days. For Pete’s sake, I only found out yesterday he’s a dragon. That’s pretty much the definition of working blind, so I need help here. What do I do? How do I convince him he’s not to blame for any of this, and that he’s not allowed to hurt himself or break our mating?” When they just stared at her blankly, the blood drained out of her face. “Seriously? None of you have anything?” They shook their heads. Overwhelmed, but refusing to let terror cloud her judgment, Shelby sank down onto the bed. This was so not good. It wasn’t acceptable. The man was about to learn just how goddamn stubborn she could be.
16
It didn’t seem to surprise anyone that Daniel was nowhere to be found. Nobody but Shelby was even worried about him. They worried about his sanity, yes, but not so much about his wellbeing, or ability to physically take care of himself. It was driving her nuts.
“Really?” She asked, rounding on Dallas in sheer frustration. Two hours ago, they’d cornered her about their concern for him, and now they were scattered around the living area of the cave, deep in whatever responsibilities they had. She’d already squared off with the other three idiots only to get the same bland response each time. “You’re reasonable, Dallas. Two hours ago you were worried sick about him. Now that I’m concerned, not one of you will do anything about it.”
“First off,” he started, his face completely neutral, “we are dragons. We do not do worried sick. Second, we are dragons. If Daniel cannot handle a night watch by himself, then he should have said so. One of us would have gone with him to hold his hand.”
Shelby was not amused. Before she could say a word, though, Dallas held up a hand. “And third, we are dragons. We are not friends, so do not pull that card.”
Her temper spiked, along with the urge to kick the stubborn beast. Instead, she took a step toward him, drilling him in the chest with her finger. “What if it was you out there?” she demanded. “What if something was wrong, but none of the other dragons came?”
“Then it would be my own damn fault for not calling for help.”
An arm snagged her around her waist before she could do Dallas bodily damage. Or attempt to, anyway. She was sure she’d hurt herself way worse than she’d ever be able to hurt him.
Luca spun her around and set her on her feet, his face furious. “What the hell are you doing?”
Tears stung her eyes. “I’m trying to get one of you to go after Daniel.”
“Daniel’s fine, Shelby. We would know if something was wrong with him, especially you.”
She gave him a look suggesting he was out of his ever-loving mind. They all were. She was sure of it. “Really, Luca? How?”
He crouched in front of her, but Shelby was not going to bend. She was afraid, and they were going to have to deal with it.
“How many times in the last year has the mark over your chest started to hurt for no apparent reason?”
“A lot.” Her nose wrinkled. “It would also glow occasionally, or pulse. Sometimes it was an intense pressure that felt like it was going to explode.”
Luca nodded once. “What do you feel right now?”
“Pissed off and irritated.” She scowled at him, until it finally dawned on her what he was saying. “You’re saying I wasn’t imagining it, or just going insane? That I have a connection to him through the mark?”
“Exactly. So what are you feeling?”
She took in a deep breath, closing her eyes as she concentrated on her emotions. She was worried about Daniel and irritated at the other dragons, but the mark over her heart was pulsing.
Her fingers brushed over her link to Daniel lightly. She’d gotten so used to pretending she imagined the pulsing over the last eleven months that she barely noticed it anymore. She blew out a long breath. “He’s fine,” she murmured. “I think…he’s pissed off?”
“Sounds about right. It’s his usual frame of mind.”
Her teeth worried at her bottom lip as she sank down onto the couch. “So I would know if something was wrong with him?”
“Yeah. He feels what you’re feeling, too. My guess is your fear is feeding his temper at the moment, so, as he’s doing a perimeter check, he’s systematically plotting our deaths for upsetting you.”
Shelby shook her head slowly as she pulled her knees to her chest. “That doesn’t seem fair, Luca. He has enough going on without my emotions triggering his temper. What if I get upset about something that distracts him and he gets hurt?” Her eyes went wide. It felt like someone had grabbed her heart and was squeezing it. “I can’t be responsible for hurting him.”
Before Luca could answer, a low, violent roar trembled through the cave, echoing in the mountains around them. “Daniel!” Shelby was on her feet and running to the boulder before Luca could pull her to a stop.
“He’s warning whoever upset you to fix it before he has to come kill us all.”
Her mouth dropped open as she swung around to face him. “That…that was Daniel?”
“Yes.” Luca shot her a desperate look. “So do me a favor and listen to what I’m saying,
alright? Have you ever made a mistake because the mark over your heart distracted you?”
She shook her head slowly as she moved to the couch and collapsed onto it. “No. If anything, I was more careful.”
“What about when it was hurting you?”
She shook her head again. “No,” she repeated. “I felt desperate, but it was more like a phantom pain. It’s hard to describe.”
“You don’t have to.” He crouched in front of her, his arms braced against his knees. “It’s your connection to your mate. It’s what keeps Daniel grounded. We’re more likely to do the right thing when we can feel our mate’s emotions.”
Tears blurred her eyes. “Can he shut me out?”
Luca’s jaw ticked. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “If anyone can do it, Daniel would find a way if he thought it was best for you.”
Her hands fisted together in her lap as she felt her expression go calm. It was where she always went when her thoughts were a turmoil. “Luca, I think I messed up yesterday, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Alright,” he murmured immediately, his dark blue gaze searching her face. “What did you do that was so bad?”
“I made love to him.” At his blank, bland stare, she ducked her head, blushing. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t know what to do, so you’re just going to have to listen and help me, alright? He tends to be, ah, frantic almost, but I kept it slow. It was, well, it was more me making love to him than it was sex. I wanted to show him how much I care about him, and how I feel about him. I thought he needed to know, because he’s such a good man. But when we were done, he…” She blew out a breath, trying not to be embarrassed. “He’d completely disconnected from me.”
Luca shifted on his feet, before he let out a harsh cough. “I don’t suppose you tried talking to him about this.”
Shelby shot him an annoyed look. “Seriously? Have you tried getting something out of that man when he doesn’t want to discuss it?”
“He wants you to find someone better than him.”
“He’s insane.” Shelby let out an unsteady breath that did nothing to stop the sarcasm that dripped from her next words. “Have you met him? I barely know him, and I know what he’d have done if he’d known how messed up the last year had become for me. He would have broken heads and scared the crap out of everyone until they’d fixed their mistakes and apologized to me.”
“Do you think he hasn’t kept a close eye on you in the last eleven months?”
She went still at his blank tone and the implication behind it. Her temper ratcheted up to mutinous as she got to her feet. “No. No way are any of you convincing me Daniel is not worth having. Not worth saving.” She scowled at them, because she knew now Daniel would sense it if she started bawling like she wanted to. Her heart was breaking, but she did not want him to know what his friends thought of him. She balled her fists and considered hitting each one of them. “You can all go to hell.”
Luca caught her around the waist again before she could stomp out of the cave. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he asked in a low roar.
She rounded on him the second he set her down. “Stop doing that,” she yelled. Seething, she blocked the urge to kick him.
“Shelby.” His voice was calm, which only infuriated her further. “Listen to what we’re saying, alright? None of us agree with him that your situation is his fault, but we know how we’d feel in his position. That’s all.”
Her face crumpled. “So you are his friends?” She held up her hand, as if to block off four denials. “Never mind. You’re dragons.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, because she still didn’t get what one had to do with the other. Besides, the important part was they didn’t believe Daniel was responsible. She studied them one at a time. “Now how do I convince him he’s not to blame?”
“You don’t.” Shelby winced at Broderick’s words. “He’ll either get there on his own, or he won’t.”
She glared at him, and since he wasn’t being helpful, decided she’d focus her next statement at Luca. “He’s not allowed to die, do you understand me? He is going to live, and he is going to have to accept that I want him.” She pointed at all of them, one at a time. “You are going to convince him that I will make him deliriously happy for the rest of time.”
Broderick raised a brow. She snorted, wondering absently if it was a dragon trait. She’d never seen so many people with that particular quirk.
“Any idea of how we do that?” he asked on a drawl. “He’s a stubborn one, our Ashborne.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Bain chimed in cheerfully. “He’d rather eat his own heart out than admit he was wrong about something.”
Shelby considered kicking the two of them. “You’re not helping.”
“But they’re right,” Luca said quietly. “I’m not sure Daniel is ever going to get to a point where he doesn’t feel responsible for this. The best you’re going to get is acceptance, and hope that he comes to his senses and realizes you need him in the same way he needs you. The problem is, he doesn’t trust anyone, least of all his own instincts when emotions are involved.”
Shelby let out a slow, shaky breath. “Leanora.”
Luca’s gaze snapped to hers. “He told you about her?”
She nodded, while some protective instinct told her to tread lightly with this. She didn’t know how they’d react to learning Daniel had almost choked her. She did not intend to find out, either. “Yes. He had a nightmare about her yesterday morning, then Dallas told me about how he’d changed when he got free. She really had him chained in a dungeon for not sleeping with her?”
“Among other things,” Luca said. “She was a human queen who wanted immortality. If she had somehow forced Daniel to mate to her, her reign would never have to end.”
None of them said anything for a long time. Shelby had the uncomfortable feeling they were somehow communicating without her being able to hear. When she stomped her foot impatiently, Luca cleared his throat.
“It wasn’t pretty,” he murmured quietly. “He was nearly…feral by the time we found him. It almost drained the healer of all energy trying to save his wing. He probably wouldn’t have lost his arm, but he damn near wasn’t able to fly again.” Luca shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “He’d rather die than lose the ability to fly. Any of us would. But the wing was the easy part compared to the mess his brain had become.”
Her breath froze in her throat at the emotion that flickered over Luca’s face. “He was in love with her,” she murmured, her voice devoid of emotion.
“No. But she tried to brainwash him into it.”
“Shit.” Dallas went rigid, and then pointed at Shelby. “She’s human. If he can keep her human, he may be able to break the mating. ”
“But I’m not anymore.” When four pairs of eyes swung to him, she shrugged. “Right? I was shot yesterday. I was almost dead, but I’m already healed. That’s not normal for humans.”
Broderick narrowed his gaze on her. “How do you feel about giving blood?”
She tucked her arms behind her. “I like my blood where it’s at, thankyouverymuch.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “But just out of curiosity…why?”
Broderick gave her a look that was as sheepish as it was slightly manic. “I was bored once, and isolated the dragon-shifter gene. If Daniel isn’t going to change his mind, the least I can do is try to find a way to stop him from killing you both.”
She bit her bottom lip. “I’d rather find a way to convince him to stop being such a stubborn, bone-headed pain in my…butt.” Because she was slightly afraid Broderick would decide to come after her with a needle just to test his theory, she shuffled back on the couch, and shifted her gaze to Luca. “I don’t like needles. I will hurt him if he gets near me with one.”
“Wait. We’re missing something.” Dallas went rigid, his gaze snapping to Shelby’s face. “You said the paparazzi recently found your father, right?”
&nb
sp; She frowned as she tried to catch up with the change of topic. “So?”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“I don’t know.” Her stomach roiled, threatening to revolt. She freed an arm to wrap around her middle, to keep her insides, inside. “A year or so…” Her voice trailed off when the dragon-men went into motion, as if they’d all come to the same conclusion at once.
“Ago,” she whispered to the vacant room.
17
They were trying to test the edges of his sanity, Daniel knew it. While he’d told them to do what was necessary to convince Shelby she was better off without him, he was no longer sure he’d thought that plan through.
Her emotions were fucking killing him.
Ryuu, he was an idiot. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. She was supposed to be grateful to get rid of him, not sending them on a goddamn rollercoaster of emotions as she fought against what had to be common fucking sense.
Couldn’t she see he was trying to do what was best–what was right for her?
He snorted. Of course she couldn’t. She was Shelby. She never did what he expected.
Crouching down on the mountain peak across from the cave, he braced his forearms against his legs, staring through the space separating them. If he tried hard enough, he could hear her voice through the distance. The soft sound tinkled in the air around him as if crystallizing, becoming solid. Warming him. He threw up his defenses against it, and tried like hell to find enough temper to keep her out of his heart.
He couldn’t get there. He couldn’t make himself be angry. This was how it was supposed to be for her. She should have found someone who had the ability to make her laugh, to bring out the joy inside she kept shoved down deep in an effort to protect herself. She needed someone who knew how to talk to her.
All Daniel managed to do was find new ways to piss her off.
He closed his eyes. Maybe that was what he needed to do. If he pissed her off enough, was a big enough bastard to her, she’d walk away on her own. The bond wouldn’t break, but he could find the right buttons to push with one of the other dragons until they decided to kill him, and put them all out of their misery.
