The Dragon's Heart (Dragon Lore)

by Eden Ashe

  While Hunters didn’t have the ability to shift forms, what they did have were extraordinary senses and superhuman strength, along with the ability to adapt and blend into any surrounding, despite their size. They could thrive in cities because of their human appearance. Dragons, however, were not meant to be confined. They needed wide, open spaces. Along with advances in modern technology, which made tracking them easier for the Hunters, they were dying out faster than they could procreate.

  It didn’t help that dragons tended to be unpleasant, overbearing, anti-social and possessive as fuck. They could be tamed. It just took a hell of a special female or male to make them even want to try.

  A low growl took root in his throat before his next thought could fully form. He stopped dead in his tracks. “Luca.”

  “Yeah.” Dragan skidded to a stop behind him, his body already coiled for fight. “What is it?”

  “You don’t think Dallas would use Shelby as bait to lure Cage out, do you?”

  Daniel didn’t need Luca to answer. He read the same conclusion he’d come to in the other dragon’s face.

  “Go.” Luca jerked his head in the direction of the cave, already on the move again. “I’ll grab Bain and Broderick, then loop back around.”

  Daniel nodded. His human form wasn’t fast enough. With a shimmer of the air around him, the dragon was airborne.

  * * * *

  An hour into obeying Daniel’s command to stay in the bedroom drove Shelby out of her mind. She was bored, and she was worried. It wasn’t a good combination.

  Cleaning didn’t help. By cleaning, she meant gathering up the arsenal of weapons the man had left strewn about, in and under every available surface in the cave. Rearranging the furniture didn’t help, either. She braided her hair, remade the bed, moved the furniture back to the original positions, and organized the dressers. Then she stood there, at the edge of where the bedroom ended and the rest of the cave began, her bare toes just inside the invisible line as she contemplated technicalities.

  She knew Daniel could be an overbearing bastard at times, but surely when he’d commanded she stay in the bedroom, he hadn’t meant it literally. She’d searched every inch of the room, unable to find anything that would make her safer there than anywhere else in the cave.

  Yet she couldn’t make herself leave the bedroom. She’d done enough horror movies in the early years of her career, acting the dumb young victim to know it was always the stupid blonde who didn’t listen to rules and the first one to bite the dust in some horrible way. Shelby may be blond, but she wasn’t stupid.

  She leaned back against the wall, then slumped down it, thudding her head lightly against the cool stone behind her. Following rules wasn’t unusual for her–it was what she did every day. She didn’t have to cry on command, or feign anger, or pretend to fall in love with the biggest douche bag on the planet. She just had to save Daniel’s sanity, and stay where he’d put her.

  She sighed, a long, dramatic sound as she pulled her knees up to her chest. She tried to close her eyes, but images of a faceless Hunter after Daniel invaded her brain. She snapped them open again. Bored, she swiped her finger over the ground next to her. Her nose wrinkled as she brought her hand closer to her face. She squinted at the shiny, iridescent dot shimmering on the tip of her finger.

  A dragon scale. Of course it was a dragon scale, why not? Her laugh bubbled out as she closed her eyes and made a wish. The second she let out the small puff of air, every instinct she had roared to life.

  She didn’t waste time trying to convince herself she was imagining the warning bells going off in her head. Instead, she scrambled to her feet and dashed into the bedroom, digging through the bottom drawer of Daniel’s dresser. She grabbed the first knife she wrapped her fingers around. In a move she’d learned in the first action film she’d done, she slipped it up the sleeve of Daniel’s sweatshirt just as the boulder in front of the cave shimmered.

  Slamming the drawer shut, she stood up as nonchalantly as possible, even managing a cheerful smile she didn’t feel as Dallas stalked in.

  The reason for her unease became clear the second she met his eyes. They were the same, yet… different. Like he’d closed off. Disconnected. She’d seen that same expression in Daniel, only this time, Dallas wasn’t her mate. She didn’t have to be a genius to know her safety and wellbeing were not at the top of Dallas’s priority list at the moment.

  “Hi.” She smiled, ignoring the way the blade bit into the tender skin on the inside of her wrist. She leaned to the side as if to see around him. “Um, where’s everyone else?”

  He stalked into the bedroom and wrapped his large hand around her upper arm. “Daniel wanted me to come get you.”

  “Oh.” This time, she didn’t fake the worry in her voice. She knew Daniel trusted Dallas, but instinct told her something wasn’t right. “Where are we going?”

  “Cage is stalking you. We can’t be sure Seren hasn’t betrayed us by telling him how to enter the cave.”

  Shelby nodded as if it made perfect sense. She tightened her fingers around the hilt of the knife to keep it in place as she ran to keep up with Dallas’ long, determined strides.

  She didn’t point out Cage had helped Daniel get her out of the hospital. She didn’t think it would change anything even if he did believe her.

  His face was set, completely shut down as they stepped through the enchanted boulder. She tried not to worry that he wasn’t acting right. She liked Dallas. She really didn’t want to hurt him. Even then, the chance of him doing serious damage to her in the process was likely.

  They didn’t go far, which was a blessing because she was still barefoot.

  Dallas’ bellow cut off her spinning thoughts. “Cage! I have the mate. You want her, come and get her.” He waited a beat before he roared, “Show yourself!”

  Shelby swallowed hard as the mountains surrounding them quaked. Chunks of stone poured down off the mountainside as Cage stepped out of the tree line’s shadow across the natural clearing from them. His gaze flicked over her for the barest of seconds before he leaned against a tree, crossing his booted feet at the ankle. Boredom flashed in his eyes.

  “I’m not here to fight,” he drawled, though the deep rumble of his voice still echoed through the small valley, doing nothing to calm the shuddering mountains. “I didn’t come for the girl.”

  Dallas hauled her up against his side. Her eyes flicked from him to Cage, and back again. She liked Dallas. Daniel trusted him, and though she didn’t remember much from the hospital, she vaguely remembered Daniel going head-to-head and toe-to-toe with Cage while mistrust had shimmered in the air between them.

  While Dallas was acting off, Cage was doing his best to appear as non-threatening as a six-foot-ten, three hundred pound giant was able. He stayed on the opposite side of the clearing, his stance lazy. While Shelby could see the weapon sheaths attached to his hips and crisscrossing his powerful chest, she was pretty sure they were empty.

  “Where’s Ashborne?” Cage demanded. “We need to talk.”

  “Hunting you.”

  Shelby loosened her grip on the knife slightly, just enough to allow her easy access if things got any worse. Tension and temper rolled off Dallas in waves.

  She nudged him lightly with her elbow. “Dallas?” When he ignored her, his jaw ticking violently as he watched Cage, she huffed a little and nudged him again. She let him see how worried she was. “I don’t think he’s armed.”

  “He’s a fucking Hunter,” he snarled. “It’s all they’re good for. Mindless killing.”

  Oh boy. Even at this distance, she felt Cage’s body coil as he realized what was happening before Shelby did. She barely had time to duck and cover her head, a scream tearing out of her throat as tempers ignited. The dragon leapt out of Dallas, just as Cage hit the beast head on, sending them both flying into the side of the mountain.

  * * * *

  “Come on, baby, I need you to open your eyes for me, alright? Please, baby, op
en your eyes.”

  Shelby groaned quietly as she tried to obey the command in Daniel’s desperate voice, but she couldn’t get herself to do it. He’d called her baby. Not Shelby and not princess. Baby.

  She jackknifed into a sitting position as fear bubbled up inside of her. The second she saw the temper and worry on Daniel’s gorgeous face, she understood.

  She was dead. She knew it. She had to be. It was the only way in heaven or hell Daniel Ashborne would ever call her baby.

  Clamping her hand to her head in an effort to stop it from spinning, she groaned quietly as she tried to scoot backward away from Daniel. If she was dead and he was there, it meant he’d followed her just to yell at her.

  “Give me a few before you start bellowing at me, Daniel, alright?” She scooted back some more, not because she was afraid of him, but because she couldn’t see anything but him. Not that his face was a bad thing, ever, but if she was in Heaven…she blinked. She recognized the couch. “Why does Heaven look like the cave?”

  He scowled, and butterflies suddenly leapt to life inside of her. Even furious, his eyes still warmed her. She shivered, then decided she should be closer to him instead of farther away. His gaze darkened as he watched her. A low, dark growl rumbled in his chest. “Stop moving, damn it. You have a concussion and you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Her breath caught with hope. “So…I’m not dead?”

  His growl turned into a snarl. “Ryuu. Fuck no, you’re not dead, though you goddamn did your best to make it happen!” He shoved a hand through his hair before he surged to his feet, stalking to the other side of the cave and back. It was almost a full minute before she felt the temper in him ease enough he could turn to look at her again. “What the hell were you thinking, woman?”

  She winced as his bellow rattled around in her head, ratcheting her headache from intolerable to nearly excruciating. “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded weak to her own ears. “I don’t remember–”

  Her words cut off as she saw Dallas in the kitchen, working thread and needle through a good size gash in his leg. Her throat closed up as she spun around, expecting to see the charred remains of Cage’s body, only to see the Hunter leaning against the wall behind her, the puckered scar bisecting the left side of his face twitching.

  “Oh.” She slumped back down on the couch and blew out an unsteady breath. “Okay, so no one’s dead?”

  She regretted the question as soon as Daniel’s lip lifted into another snarl. “No. Not yet. Whether or not I kill Dallas is still in question.”

  She ignored that, because she knew whatever Dallas had done, if it was bad enough to deserve death, he’d already be dead. Her eyes searched Daniel’s. “What happened? I remember Dallas and Cage…but that’s it.”

  She wanted to reassure him that she hadn’t ignored his command to stay in the cave, but that would mean ratting out Dallas. Whatever his intentions had been, it hadn’t been for her to get hurt.

  * * * *

  Daniel shoved his hand through his hair again as he stared at her, unable to tear his gaze away. Because the other side of him was still too close to the surface, he growled quietly and pushed the coffee table closer to the couch. He sat, then leaned toward her, bracing his arms against his spread legs.

  He didn’t know how he’d managed to hold back the tremors this long. He knew how fucking dangerous it was to be this close to her until he let the rage free, but he knew she needed him, thanks to the mark. She wasn’t looking to the others for answers. She’d screamed his name when Dallas and Cage had used the air above her as a battleground.

  “Dallas isn’t talking,” he started, unable to keep the fury from his voice, “but from what Cage has said, Dallas was doing his best to egg him into a fight. He finally got what he wanted, but you’d already stabbed Dallas by the time Cage leapt across the clearing after him.”

  All the blood drained out of Shelby’s face as she searched in and around the couch, pulling the cushions out, only to shove them in again while muttering under her breath.

  He pulled the four-inch blade she’d used on Dallas from the sheath he kept at his ankle. “Looking for this?” he asked dryly.

  She scooted back on the couch. “You mean I–” her words cut off as her gaze snapped to Dallas. “Oh God, I did that to him? Why?”

  Daniel tucked the dagger back into its sheath. His head was pounding with the need to destroy something. “You don’t remember?”

  She started to shake her head, then groaned. “Cage. Seren saved my life. She’s pregnant, and Cage helped us escape the hospital. He wasn’t armed when he stepped into the clearing, but Dallas kept running his mouth. I didn’t want either of them to die, so I guess I stabbed Dallas to slow him down.”

  Because that reasoning didn’t make a damn bit of sense to him, he ground his teeth together to stop the bellow trying to escape. “How did you know Cage wouldn’t kill him?”

  “I didn’t.” She winced and brought her hand up to her head. “I meant to stop the fight before it happened, only it didn’t work that way. What happened to me?”

  “Your wrist or your head?”

  She dropped her gaze to her wrist. As soon as she saw the gauze, she immediately shoved her arm behind her back. The movement was so ridiculous, he would have snorted if he wasn’t so close to violence. Who the hell did she think had wrapped it in the first place? She peeked up at him. “I cut myself, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” he snapped through gritted teeth.

  Bain cleared his throat from behind Daniel. “It was smart to tuck it into your sleeve, but you defeat the purpose if you slice your own wrist before you can gut the other guy. You’re lucky you didn’t hit an artery.”

  His sweet little mate glared over his shoulder at Bain. “It wasn’t like I had time to plan out a strategy. I just grabbed a knife and hid it.”

  As soon as he was capable of talking in more than one-word sentences, he would forbid her from doing anything dangerous ever again. Bain was right, her reasoning was sound, but she sure as fuck didn’t have the experience with blades as sharp as his to pull something like that off without practice.

  He dragged both hands through his hair before he reached out and tangled his fingers with hers, startling her into stillness. The cave was full of dragons, and Cage, and because he had no fucking idea how to say what was storming through him, he let her see the madness in his eyes. Hearing her scream for him, seeing her caught between Dallas and Cage as they’d used the air above her as a battle ground…

  He’d thought he’d known fear before, but he hadn’t known shit. Helpless terror had gripped him when he hadn’t been sure he’d get to her in time. His throat closed up now as his body began to shake. Closing his eyes, he dragged in a harsh breath, then dropped his head against hers. “Never do that to me again, woman.”

  21

  “Are we done?” Cage asked Daniel as he pushed off against the wall. The dragons came to attention, tracking Adrian’s every move as he leaned his hands against the back of the couch. He met Daniel’s gaze head on. “If you two are done with the lovey-dovey shit, I didn’t come here for my health.”

  “What are you doing here?” Luca asked, his voice tight. He was sprawled in the room’s only chair. Though he looked bored, the tension radiating from him was all kinds of deadly. Daniel was already on edge, and that worried Shelby. She felt like she was in the middle of a powder keg with a lit fuse. “Where’s Seren?”

  Cage crossed his arms over his chest, one dark brow winging up over dark green eyes, as if letting them all know he didn’t have to explain shit.

  “The dragon safe house.” Cage finally shrugged. “She’s too pregnant to shift and fly, and she knew she’d only slow me down on foot.” A sneer lifted the scarred side of his face. “I left her with Gabriel. She said he wouldn’t get sucked in by her hormonal mood swings, and I needed to get her out of the city.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled something out, tossing it onto the coffee table next to Daniel.
“I found something I thought you’d want to see firsthand.” He ran a hand over his shaved head. “It’s not pretty.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.” Dallas swung his head around. “Explain to me again why we’re accepting help from a fucking Hunter? How do we know he’s not setting us up?”

  A slow, deadly smile curved Cage’s mouth, and his rough voice was mocking. “How’s the leg there, cowboy?”

  Shelby winced at Cage’s reminder she’d hurt Dallas, but Dallas…

  He surged to his feet and was in Adrian’s face a second later, his bleeding leg forgotten. Fury pulsed around him.

  A slow grin spread over Cage’s face as he straightened, his dark green eyes going flat. “You want to go, flyboy? Let’s go.”

  Shelby’s head went woozy as she swung her shaken gaze to Daniel’s, sure if those two came to blows, not even the monstrous cave they were in would survive the damage, but Daniel was already on his feet.

  He moved between them, shoving the men apart. He rounded on Dallas. “Stitch your leg up, goddamn it, before Shelby passes out again.” He waited a beat to make sure Dallas backed down, then dragged a hand down his face. He turned his attention back to Cage. “Alright. I’m listening.”

  Adrian crossed his arms over his chest as he shot a quick glance at Shelby. The puckered skin of his scar twitched once before he seemed to control it. He looked back at Daniel. “You were right. This whole thing is fucked eleven ways to Sunday. I did some checking after you left the hospital. I eventually ended up in the evidence room at the police station. With Shelby being so high profile and the media breathing down their necks, they were more methodical than I’d expected. They just didn’t know what they had.”

  Cage remained silent, the cave thick with the pressure of anticipation. His lip lifted in a snarl as he widened his stance, lowering his arms and fisting his hands at his sides. “I found him.” He jerked his head at the object still resting on the coffee table. “That’s everything I have on him.”