by Eden Ashe
They all had their weak spots. You couldn’t spend two thousand years fighting side by side with someone and not know his or her Achilles Heel.
Hell, it wouldn’t surprise any of them if he ever decided to attack. Part of him was sure they had been preparing for it since he’d broken free of Leanora’s spell, and had a plan in place for when it happened.
As her laugh echoed through the cool, crisp air around him, he let out a low, dark growl. Like the sap he was, he wondered if the Hunter hadn’t shown up that night, if things could have been different. If he could have been different.
Over the last eleven months, he’d convinced himself she was just a damn good actress. He’d only been feeling for her exactly what she’d wanted him to feel. He snorted. He was such a jackass. He was as in love with her now as he had been that night. Had the Hunter not shown up, he would have torn the goddamn world apart at the seams to find a way to keep her happy for the rest of their lives.
He wanted to believe it wasn’t too late. That he could tell her how he felt, and she would want him. Determined to start righting all of his wrongs, he straightened as her laugh shimmered in the air again. He shifted into his dragon form and headed for the cave.
When he entered, he wanted to turn tail. He should have stayed the fuck outside. It would have been better for his sanity, and just safer all around when he saw her sitting on the couch, crowded on all sides by the other dragons.
She was in the middle, Broderick and Dallas sprawled on either side of her, Bain perched on the back of the sofa next to her, while Luca sat on the floor in front of her.
Even more brain-twisting, it wasn’t just Shelby laughing–they were all doing it as they watched something on the television.
He didn’t pay attention to anyone but her. She looked…happy. Carefree. He had no idea what they were watching, but he’d never seen anyone laugh so hard at a show before.
Though it royally pissed him off the other dragons were sharing the moment with her instead of him, he loved the sound of her laugh too much to be an ass about it.
It occurred to him that if he succeeded in finding a way to break the mating bond, there was a good possibility one of the other dragons in the room would step in to take her as mate. The pain it caused in his chest had him stumbling back a step as rage blurred his vision.
* * * *
“Daniel.” Shelby’s hands shook as she crouched in front of him, gently shaking his shoulder. She didn’t know what happened. One moment everything was normal, and the next, the lights in the cave had started flickering as a low, violent rumbling sound began. By the time they had realized it was coming from Daniel, he’d hit the floor. “Daniel, wake up. You’re scaring me.”
His eyes snapped open, temper already flashing in the silver depths. He reached behind him for his weapon. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head slowly as she wrapped her hand around his wrist to stop him from pulling out his knife. “You passed out.”
His gorgeous face was astonished. “Bullshit.”
“It’s true, we all saw it,” Bain drawled. “We were watching Parks and Recreation when you just hit the ground like a pansy. What the hell happened?”
Daniel growled as he got to his feet. He then bent over, hooking his arm around Shelby’s waist, lifting her gently. “Nothing happened.” He turned to the dragons in the room. “I need to talk to my mate. Alone.”
Shelby watched the other dragons study him for a long moment. She scowled at them while moving in closer to Daniel. “It’s okay, you can go. He’s not going to hurt me, and you all know it.”
“Yeah, we know,” Bain drawled. “But we like you, and it’s fun to make Ashborne’s head hurt. Nothing’s ever gotten to him before.”
“Well stop,” she chided, frowning at him. “It’s not nice.”
“Sure it is,” Broderick chimed in. “It’s funny as fuck, too.”
Daniel’s lip lifted in a snarl. “I will start knocking heads together.”
Shelby snorted, expecting them to argue, but to her shock, the threat was enough to get them moving. She frowned as she turned to Daniel. “Are they afraid of you?”
“Yes.” His face went neutral. “They’re never sure if I start pounding on one of them I’ll stop when my point’s made.”
She shook her head, not sure she understood. “Why would you pound on them?”
“We’re dragons,” he said simply, as if it explained it all. “It’s what we do. It releases tension. You don’t get to know someone for countless millennia without getting on each other’s nerves.”
Her head canted as she wondered if she’d ever get used to the dragon way of life. “Do you fight with your friends often?”
“They’re not my friends, and no. Like I said, they don’t trust me.”
Her teeth worried at her bottom lip for a moment. “So how do you release tension?” When he just gave her a bland look, she was sure she was going to be sick. “Never mind. What did you want to talk to me about?” He scooped her up and carried her to the back of the cave, toward the bedroom. She tilted her head back so she could smile at him. “How is it you’ve been outside for hours and you’re still so warm?”
“I’m just hot?”
Shelby went still, the only sound in the cave was her erratic heartbeat. Then a whoop of pure joy escaped her. “Daniel! You made a joke.” She leaned up, cupped his face in her hands, and grinned as she kissed him. “I’m so proud of you.”
He kissed her back, then sat on the edge of the bed and settled her on his lap. Shelby shifted until she straddled him. Looking at him was her favorite thing in the world, next to kissing him.
“Tell me,” he demanded. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned your father to me?” When she dropped her gaze to his chest, he let out a frustrated rumble. “Dallas mentioned it.”
His hands locked around her hips when she tried to scoot off his lap. The determination in his eyes worried her, and she already knew she had no defenses against him. If he wanted something from her, they were both aware he would get it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He didn’t like hearing that. She felt his fury building, and for a moment, she was sure he was going to tear something apart. “But you will tell the others?” he asked.
“I didn’t tell anyone anything.” She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “You know more about me than anyone. That’s the way it should be.”
This time, it was pure arrogance sparking in his eyes. “Yes, it is. So tell me about him.”
She sighed. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Daniel. It’s not open for discussion.” Because she could feel the panic starting to rise in her throat at his resolve to find out every dirty detail of her life, it took everything she had not to shut down and hide her emotions from him. “Please. Just let it go.”
Instead of yelling at her like she’d expected, Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist. He pulled her against his chest, resting his chin against her shoulder. “He hurt you.”
Unwanted tears flooded her eyes. She knew the softness in his tone. When he was angry, he yelled and he snapped and he growled. When he was contemplating killing someone, he turned to ice. He was prepared to kill her father if he’d hurt her. “No, Daniel. He didn’t hurt me. He just didn’t care.”
He slid his hands into her hair and tugged, forcing her to meet his gaze. “How is that not hurting you?”
“He had another family. They were perfect without me. He tried to get me to fit in with them, but I was never able to.” At his confusion, she blew out a breath. “I was the result of a one night stand. He’d cheated on his wife with my mother.”
“What happened to her?”
She shrugged, absently rubbing at the dull ache in the center of her chest. “She died in a car accident. A drunk driver they were never able to find.” When his eyes went dark with sympathy, she forced a smile. “I was little, so I don’t remember much about her. My father took me i
n afterward, but he traveled a lot, and his wife hated me. When it became too much for them, they shipped me off to other relatives, then eventually to boarding school. After a while, they stopped planning for me to go home for holidays and school breaks. He said it was just too difficult. No matter what I tried, how much I tried to be one of them, I didn’t fit in. I made everyone uncomfortable. Luckily, I’d joined the drama club in seventh grade, and I found people I understood and liked. I learned that I could be anyone I wanted to be. I was good, so good the drama teacher started taking me to auditions.” Because he was back to his furious pissed-off dragon state, elongated pupils and all, she forced a smile for him. “At my first audition, they hired me on the spot. They said they’d never seen anyone so adaptable and capable of becoming someone else.”
His brows drew together over his eyes. “It bothers you.”
She tried to shrug it off, and gave him a dazzling smile. “It makes me a good actress.”
“Shelby.”
She winced at the anger in his words. She pushed at his shoulders, needing to be off his lap, but he tightened his arms around her waist before she could climb down. She gritted her teeth at that damnable raised-brow look he was giving her. “What?”
“What do you mean? You could be anyone you wanted to be?”
“I spent my childhood trying to fit in, to be who my father wanted me to be so he would keep me. I tried so many different personalities, tried to be so many different people.” She shrugged and made a face, though her voice was quieter than she’d wanted it to be. She hated herself for it. “It didn’t work.”
“Your father is an idiot, princess.” Even as her mouth dropped open, he shot his hand into her hair, tangling his fingers at the nape of her neck. He rested his forehead against hers. “What happened when the paparazzi found him?”
Her fingers played with the ends of his beautiful hair. It hurt to go back and think about it, but she realized being close to Daniel made it better. He always made the bad things better. “Nothing. Well, he, my step mother and their girls couldn’t wait to reconnect with me. They were on the first flight out.”
He dropped his chin on the top of her head. “What happened?”
“They missed me.” Because she couldn’t get what Daniel had said about her sister out of her head, she now doubted everything. “They were sorry, and they wanted to make it up to me for the way they’d treated me.” She shrugged, the ball of shame she’d always lived with settling in her belly again. “It didn’t take long for them to realize I hadn’t changed, and for their act to start to slip. They were convinced if I could act and become famous, my sisters would be even better. So I set up an audition for Alicia that didn’t go well. It was my fault, of course. I’d sabotaged it somehow, to get back at them for being mean to me when I was a kid.”
“You are evil like that.”
“I really am.” Against her will, she laughed at his dry comment, and wrapped her arms around his neck. God, it felt good to laugh with him.
Daniel pressed his lips to her temple as he pulled her even closer. “How did your father end up as your manager?”
Shelby squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re going to think I’m an idiot.”
“No,” he murmured quietly. “I promise that’s not going to happen.”
She snorted pathetically, letting him know she didn’t believe him. She said the words, anyway. “He and Alicia showed at my door a month or so after you disappeared. They couldn’t handle my step-mother’s reaction to the scandal, and her complete lack of sympathy.” Her face crumpled as she remembered that day. “He hugged me. He told me he was sorry, and that he and Alicia were there to help me through it. I trusted him, and I was so grateful for the way they stood by me, the way they helped me, I set up another audition for Alicia. Then I asked my dad if he wanted to be my manager. Part of me knew he was using me, but in my world, everyone uses everyone. At least I had a relationship with him.”
Daniel was quiet for a long moment, before he just murmured softly, “Your father deserves to be shot.”
“You…” her voice trailed off as she shook her head slowly, confusion rippling through her. “That’s it?”
“I’d rather string him up and eviscerate him slowly, while taking my time peeling his skin from his bones, but that could take days and I don’t like the idea of being away from you for so long.”
She felt it. She literally felt the second she went from being half in love with the man, to being all-the-way-to-her-soul, heart-deep, wildly, madly, completely and absolutely in love with him. Not because he wanted to eviscerate her father, but because he hated that she’d been hurt. She leaned up, cupped his face in her hands, and with a smile blooming over her face, she kissed him.
* * * *
Daniel was kissing her back before he realized what he was doing. By then, it was too late to stop. He was lost in her eyes, in her smile, in the way she looked at him and simply made him feel.
Tangling a hand in her hair, he let his mouth move over hers slowly, suddenly determined to give her back what she’d given to him last night. It was the least he could do after she’d laid herself bare to let him in.
Mindful of how precious she was, his hands were feather-light and gentle as he slowly stretched her out on the bed, his body carefully covering hers. He was ever aware of how small she was against his massiveness. Hurting her in any way was not something he would survive.
Determined to take his time with her, he peeled her clothes off slowly. He needed to see her. Touch her. Feel her.
She was so perfect to him, in every way possible. Her small, tight body was so magnificently formed it nearly brought him to his knees. She was amazing. Every inch of her, from the dark freckle at the corner of her left eye, to the small, nearly invisible scar on her chin, to the soft, round breasts and narrow waist, were exquisite.
He’d be afraid of breaking her, but the idea of never being inside of her again was enough to push him over the last fine edge of insanity.
She bowed up into him on a soft sigh, pressing her body willingly to his as his mouth slipped down her waist to the core of her. The way she responded to him–the way she needed him–it was almost enough to make him believe the parts of him were all right. Made him want to be all those things–gentle and sweet and patient, and so much more. Just for her.
Part of him knew it was the mating mark causing her reaction to him, but the same part of him hoped against hope, if he gave her enough of everything she needed, she’d take pity on him and agree to be with him. He didn’t want to be without her anymore.
He drove her up with his mouth until she screamed with her release, ignoring his own needs in his desperation to give her the world. He knew even after he died, he’d never stop craving the sweetness of her.
“Dear God, you killed me.” Her head fell back as her body bowed with a long shiver. “I’m dead. I’m in heaven,” she murmured with a slow, languid stretch, a lazy smile curving her mouth, “and holy damn does it feel good. I mean, wow.”
He grunted as he fell onto the bed next to her. She immediately rolled over on top of him. “Wow, huh?”
She smiled and leaned down to trail her mouth slowly over his Mack-sized chest. “I thought you were angry at me.”
“No.” He caught her hair in his fist, holding her still. “Shel–don’t.” He cursed quietly when her body stilled. He didn’t have to see her eyes to feel her uncertainty. It took him several tries to get out the words he wanted to say. “This time was for you.”
She frowned, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip as she shook her head slowly. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not about being fair.” He gripped her hips and with all the gentleness he could muster, set her on the bed next to him. He stood up, thankful he still had his track pants on, aware if she dropped her gaze, she’d be able to see just how much it was killing him.
He heard her teeth chatter before she grabbed the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around
her shoulders. “Daniel, what’s wrong?” When he ignored her, she mimicked a growl and scooted off the bed so she was standing in front of him. “Don’t do this. What’s going on?”
He didn’t move for so long, the woman actually reached out to pinch his bicep. He started to growl at her, to demand she get away from him, when something inside of him snapped.
He moved in. His hand tangled in her hair as his other arm banded around her waist. He hitched her up, his face burying in her shoulder. “I need help, Shelby.” The words tore out of somewhere deep inside. It terrified the hell out of him. He was giving this woman all the power in the world to break him. “Please don’t give up on me, baby. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Just don’t give up on me.”
“Daniel.” She murmured it gently as she wound her arms around his neck. She rested her head against him as his shoulders shook violently. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m right where I want to be. Hey.” She trailed one of her hands over his shoulder, until it pressed against the mark on his chest that matched her own. “What do you feel?”
“You. I just feel you.” He shifted his hold on her as he took them both to the ground, and wrapped himself around her. He had no idea how she’d done it, but she had. She’d made him need her, and now he needed her so goddamn fucking much he couldn’t breathe through it. “So help me, Shelby. I know I should let you go. I know it, but I can’t fucking get my body to cooperate with my brain. I don’t know how to fight it.”
She lifted her head, letting him see the wild storm raging inside of her. “I don’t want you to let me go. I’m as much a part of this mating as you are. Don’t you get it?” she asked, her eyes searching his. “Even if you found a way for both of us to survive the break, I’d still find a way to be with you.”
“No.” He gritted it out through clenched teeth as he dropped his head back on the bed. She only shifted on his lap until her face was directly above his. He trailed the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. “You’re saying that because I’ve left you no goddamn choice. I came in here to tell you good bye. It’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
