“Dallas?” she murmured, searching his face out of shell-shocked green eyes. “I know we can’t go to Seren. I can’t put her and Ava in danger that way, and Adrian isn’t himself. He didn’t even recognize me. He doesn’t know where he’s been or what’s happened to him. He could be a walking time bomb.” She blew out a breath. “I feel helpless.”
Distraction. He needed to distract her until he figured out what the hell to do. His gaze dropped, and he had the sudden urge to back her into his truck and fill his palms with her breasts and his mouth with her taste. The urge to take her again shouldn’t have surprised him. It was said that a dragon was insatiable when it came to his mate, but they were outside in broad daylight, and he wasn’t an asshole like Micah Dragan to take a woman in full view of the rest of the world.
And she was upset. He should probably find a way to take care of that.
He dragged his gaze from the swell of her breasts back to her eyes, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Just as a safety precaution. “What if we find another healer? Someone not Seren who can objectively figure out what’s wrong with him and who he can be trusted with?”
Relief flashed over her face. She went up on tiptoes to cup his face and gently pull him down to her level. She kissed him lightly on the lips. “I think that’s a fantastic idea. I need to be doing something.”
He took the kiss a little deeper before he reached over her shoulder and opened the passenger door to his SUV. “I know you do.” He wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her into the passenger seat easily, walking into her to nuzzle the side of her throat. “Because if he so much as crosses his eyes at my mate again, I will pull his spine out of his left nostril and strangle him with it.”
When she shivered and dropped her head against his chest, he thought to himself that it was a damn good thing he didn’t believe in love, because he knew it was the only thing that stopped him from being a complete idiot around her. If he loved her, he’d have to claw the eyeballs out of every man that looked at her twice.
Which, considering how much attention she drew sitting in his SUV, might not be a bad fucking idea anyway. Forcing himself to pull back from her, he slammed her door shut and turned to growl violently at the men that had stopped to openly leer at her when they thought he wasn’t looking.
He didn’t feel better until they’d all scattered, and then he grinned as he moved around his truck to climb behind the wheel. Maybe he could do this mate thing after all.
Chapter 18
HIS LIGHT MOOD didn’t stick around long. Adrian was a sore subject. Apartment shopping was a sore subject. Their mating was a sore subject.
After her fifth attempt at trying to draw him into conversation, she finally tossed her hands up and shook her head. “You know,” she started through clenched teeth, determined to keep her voice sweet and even, “if you want to help me save my brother, talking to me about it and about what could have happened to him might help.”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer. “Who said I want to help him?” He slammed on the brakes at a stop light and turned his fierce glare on her. “Let’s get one thing straight, Lil. This has fuck all to do with him. I’m doing this for you. That’s it. He can go back to whatever ‘hell’ he apparently crawled out from.”
Lily’s chest tightened. “Thank you.”
His gaze narrowed at her whisper, suspicious. “For what?”
“For believing in me even if you can’t believe in him.” She undid her seatbelt long enough to lean over the center console and kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”
The poor man looked flummoxed. There was suspicion in his eyes as he waited for the catch. “It has nothing to do with believing in you,” he finally muttered. “You’re my mate. He touched what is mine. This is all so I can get him healthy enough to eviscerate him slowly.”
She wiggled her nose in an effort to hold back the snort, but it was no use. It came out anyway, and she was so dumbfounded all she could do was gape at him. “What is yours?” she repeated.
His brow furrowed. “Judging by the look on your face, I’m assuming yes, what is mine, is not the correct answer?” He scowled at her. “It’s too late to change your damn mind about the mating now, Lily, goddamn it.”
She ignored that last part and focused instead on what was making her uncomfortable. “I’m your mate, Dallas,” she said slowly, “but that doesn’t make me yours.”
“Yes,” he said. “It does.”
* * *
SHE DID THAT adorable little scowling thing that killed him and opened her mouth a couple of times before she finally managed to find the words. “All right, let’s try it this way. Are you mine?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
That took the air right out of her. “Really? You consider yourself mine?”
This time, he was the one confused, and he wasn’t sure he liked the vulnerability growing in his chest. No, actually, he was damn fucking sure he hated it, but it was there, anyway, like a ball of lead so deep he couldn’t claw it out. “You don’t? Consider me yours?”
Her teeth caught at her bottom lip. It was a quirk of hers, whenever she wanted to take her time to think something over. “Yeah, actually, I do.” She let out a soft sigh as she reached over the console and laid her fingers gently on his wrist. “My Dallas.”
The relief that flashed through him would have staggered him had he been standing. He let out a shuddering breath and turned his hand over to link his fingers with hers. “So you see why I need to hurt him.” When she shook her head, he slipped his hand into her hair and gently tugged her head around so she had to look at him. His voice was hoarse and quiet. “He scared you, Lil. I am never going to like the man. Don’t ask me to.”
Her fingers brushed over his mouth before she realized what she was doing and snapped her hand back, blushing. She smiled when he shot her a wicked grin, and then folded her hands in her lap. “That wasn’t Adrian, Dallas. There isn’t a force on this planet that could convince my brother to hurt me. Something has to be really, really wrong with him.”
“Which is my point,” he muttered. “He’s not your brother.”
She growled at him, or at least tried to. It was so damn cute it was all he could do not to smile. He didn’t want her to think he was laughing at her.
Moving back into traffic, he found himself glancing at her more often than he was checking out his mirrors, but he couldn’t help it.
Of course she was perfect. Everything about her was perfect. He smiled. She was going to make a damn good mate. She cared about him and his safety and could fight for him as determinedly as she’d fight against him if she thought it was necessary. If he could keep his emotions out of it, there was no reason why he wouldn’t be happy for the rest of his life.
His parents had cared for each other deeply, had been the strongest partners, but it had never been a love connection.
Dallas, the son of a wealthy Roman, had been five summers old when his father had taken him out to the soldiers-slash-gladiators to begin his physical and mental training. While Augustus’s warriors had been as legendary as the Spartans, he’d expected more out of his only son. As his heir, Augustus had expected Dallas to be the strongest of them all. A giant compared to the human soldiers, all responsibility rested on his shoulders. He was expected to be the first into battle and the last one standing. He trained him ruthlessly to be the coldest, hardest warrior of the thousands of men he would eventually lead, the most lethal, to allow no weakness to penetrate Dallas’s defenses.
Love made a man susceptible to betrayal, and it made him vulnerable. Not only to his enemies, but to his own emotions. A man, a warrior—a leader—could not make the best decisions for those beneath him if he couldn’t think of anything but his mate, if emotion clouded his decision making. It was okay, Augustus had hammered into his head over and over again, to feel fondness for your mate. She was, after all, the mother of your children and the heart of your home, but just as lov
e was foolish in a male, it was foolish in the female. It was her duty to run the keep efficiently and tirelessly and to keep them strong in times of war. Reactions clouded by emotion put everyone in danger. It was impossible to make the decision that was best for all when one person held all of your emotions.
“Dallas?”
Dimly aware that Lily was talking again, Dallas pulled into a parking spot downtown. He cleared his throat and forced himself to focus on what she was saying.
It shouldn’t be that easy to give her all of his attention. He shouldn’t be this fascinated with her. And he sure as all hell should not feel like he’d been sucker punched directly in the chest whenever he saw her with her niece. He wasn’t opposed to having children, and his blood ran hot thinking about trying to make a baby with her. But it shouldn’t be distracting him.
“Dallas.”
He flinched when he caught himself drifting off again. This was going to have to stop. This was exactly the kind of distraction he did not need. “I’m sorry.” Ryuu. This was going to be harder than he’d expected. Dragons were instinctively and legendarily possessive with passions that ran as hot as the internal fire that raged inside of them with every beat of their hearts. “What were you saying?”
Her teeth worried at her full bottom lip, distracting him again. “That I’m the one that’s supposed to be procrastinating. Not you.”
For the first time since he’d been younger and in less control, the dragon inside of him prowled the cage in his mind, impatient and restless. “You’re too close.”
She blinked large, vivid eyes at him. “What?”
He shook his head and climbed out. His father had hammered home the message that love was weakness, vulnerability, and that lust was never to be confused with love. But with Lily, it was all tangled up, and he needed time and space to start untangling it all so he could get back on steady ground.
She was frowning at him when he opened her door, her hands automatically going to his shoulders as he lifted her out. “What do you mean I’m too close? Too close to what?”
“Me.” He set his teeth at the hurt that flashed over her face, but he told himself to go with it. The more distance he kept her at, the better off they would both be. And then, like the goddamn idiot he was, he opened his mouth. “You’re very distracting, and I’m not used to being distracted.”
Instead of waiting around to see the devastation in her eyes, he grabbed her hand and led her toward the crumbling brick brownstone across the street. Huge pots of vibrantly-colored flowers sat on either side of the wood and glass door with more flowers spilling out of whitewashed window boxes. A battered sign, serenity, was the only evidence they were in the right place.
He grimaced. The flowers were the only color on the rundown block, and he figured the odds were fifty-fifty he’d come back to find his SUV without tires.
Bells tinkled overhead as he pushed the warped door open, pulling Lily in behind him. A quick glance around told him there wasn’t a piece of furniture in the place newer than third generation hand-me-down, but it was clean and, surprisingly, charming.
“Where are we?” Lily asked, stepping in closer to his side, her pale brow furrowed.
Dallas shoved his free hand through his hair. “Serenity.” When she only looked up at him with a questioning quirk of her brow, he shrugged. “We can’t take your brother to Seren, and any Hunter healer is out of the question if we don’t want word getting out that he’s back and fucked up. Especially not when you’re staying in the same place he is. I’m not sticking you in the middle of that shit-storm.”
This time she frowned. “Why do you assume other Hunters would want him dead?”
“Because in the month he’s been gone, the majority of them have turned to sheer anarchy. With Alexi Dragan dead, it leaves the dragon underworld vulnerable, and the Hunters are more than happy to step up and destroy them all.”
The dragons and Hunters had been at war since the goddess Gwendolyn had created the former, and while Adrian and Daniel, the dragon king, had bonded a temporary truce, it had started to splinter the second Cage had gone missing. Those Hunters who wanted every dragon dead were doing their damndest to make it happen.
She opened her mouth to argue with him but before any words could escape, a soft, lilting voice with an accent Dallas had never been able to place sounded from the stairs to their right. “Welcome to Serenity. Dallas! How can I help you?”
While they’d met a few times after a series of battles that had required every healer within a hundred mile radius, he was surprised she remembered his name.
Lily rushed around him, only to come to an abrupt halt at the vision in front of them. A few inches taller than Lily’s five-foot-two, the strawberry-blond bombshell with sapphire eyes smiled pleasantly when she stopped directly in front of Lily. Without warning, Lily’s hand flashed out, wrapping around the other woman’s. “I need you to come with me.”
Confused eyes flicked from Lily’s face to his and then back again. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” She led Lily over to one of the threadbare couches. “Sit.” When Lily obeyed her command, Dallas followed, letting the healer know Lily was his to protect. The woman sat next to her and smiled. “Okay, now tell me what’s going on so I know how to help.”
Unease settled in Dallas’s gut. He didn’t think the female was dangerous, she’d healed him before, but there had always been something about her that tugged at some memory he’d forgotten centuries ago. “Wait a minute.” Both women’s heads snapped up at his sharp command, but he kept his attention on the new female. While he recognized her, he’d never been interested enough to learn anything about her. “What’s your name? What’s your connection to this place?”
Her smile went crooked. “I forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I’m Fiona. I own Serenity.” She waited a beat to see if he was going to question her further. When he didn’t, she turned her attention back to Lily. “Why do you need me to go with you?”
Dallas interrupted her again. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. “Fiona, this is Lily. My mate.” When Lily’s head snapped around so she could gape at him, he winked at her. She was his now, and it was too late for her to change her mind. “We have a situation and need a healer who can get inside someone’s head and let us know if he’s mentally stable or gone completely insane.”
Lily gripped Fiona’s hand before she could turn him down, her voice pleading. “Please. It’s my brother. Something’s wrong with him, and if we don’t find someone who can help him, I’m never going to be able to see him again.” Though her voice trembled once, Dallas was damn proud of the way she held and kept her gaze steady on the healer’s. “He has a mate and a baby at home, but he’s not acting like himself. He has these new scars on his head and all over his body, and he seems to be having a hard time differentiating between reality and…” She raised her free hand, palm up. “I don’t know, but there was a moment when he didn’t even recognize me. He’s been missing for a month and doesn’t remember anything from that time.”
Fiona studied her for a long moment with her brow furrowed before she shook her head slowly. “Is he a Hunter like you,” she asked, then shifted her gaze to Dallas, “or a dragon like you?”
“Hunter.” Lily squeezed her hand. “Please. I promise you’ll be safe, and we won’t keep you long. I just need to fix him. Please. I need my brother.”
The healer blew out a breath and nodded, surprising the hell out of Dallas as she got to her feet. “All right, let me get my purse and some supplies.”
When she turned her back, Dallas crouched in front of his mate and brushed the hair out of her face. “You okay?”
She snorted and scooted forward to drop her head on his chest. “Hell, no.” The turmoil in her dark yes wrenched at him when she lifted her gaze, and even if he had to search every corner of the world himself, he was going to find a way to erase the shadows in her eyes.
He
brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “Hang in there,” he murmured as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him. He dropped his chin onto the top of her head and closed his eyes. “If this one can’t fix him, we’ll keep searching until we find one who can. I promise.”
Chapter 19
LILY DIDN’T START to get nervous until they were back in front of Dallas’s building, the gorgeous Fiona in tow. With her waist-length strawberry blond curls, striking sapphire eyes, flawless, jaw-dropping body, and porcelain skin, Lily was pretty sure the healer was the most beautiful creature on the planet. Even her scent, lilacs and vanilla, was enchanting.
Not that her brother would care, or even notice. While Adrian had been a Class-A male slut before meeting Seren, there wasn’t any other woman in the world who he’d even look at twice now. To make it worse, he had a weird secretive streak where the only person he allowed inside his head, to know the deepest, darkest places inside of himself, was his mate.
While Lily knew that was exactly how it should be, he couldn’t afford to be stubborn about this.
Dallas glared at Lily when she hopped out of his truck without waiting for him to open her door. Behind her, Fiona slid out, then went still as her gaze landed on something in the large floor-to-ceiling windows in Dallas’s building. “Who’s that?” she asked, her voice suddenly tight.
Lily and Dallas both looked up to see what had caught her attention. Gabriel stood in the window, one arm braced against it as he looked down at them. Even from the distance, Lily could see his glare. She made a face. “That would be Gabriel.”
Fiona looked slightly panicked, but she blew out a breath and straightened her shoulders. “Gabriel. All right.”
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