Drawing his sword, Mercury swung his heavy blade down at Adrien, who caught it with his own, deflecting it to the side with a sharp clang.
Then, using his forward momentum, Adrien drove his sword deep into Mercury’s shoulder. He shouted out in anger and pain and tried to swing his blade directly at Adrien’s face.
But Mercury was all but defeated now, and Adrien snapped his hand into Mercury’s, knocking the blade out of his hand. It clattered to the side, then dissipated into a gray smoke, the magic that summoned it fading.
“What’s… happening?” Mercury grimaced, his face contorting with rage as he struggled against the blade.
“Surprise, surprise. Having a hard time escaping, are we?” Adrien asked, a slight grin on his lips now.
Just as the power of his silver could nullify poisons, the silver of his sword could nullify specific dragon powers. Especially ones as vile as Mercury’s.
Mercury lashed out at Adrien, but he pushed him backward, driving the sword into the wall. Mercury howled, and Adrien answered with one final punch to the face, knocking him out completely.
Adrien’s sword kept him propped up like a mannequin as Mercury’s still face listed to the side.
When Citrine got back, they could figure out what to do with him. Right now, Kelsey was the only thing on his mind.
“Wow, pretty ghastly.” He heard Kelsey’s voice right behind him, and Adrien flinched in surprise as he turned around.
“Amazing,” Sever muttered, a little paler than usual but patching up quickly.
“He’ll be fine. Or at least not dead. Yet,” Adrien replied.
“Nice wings,” Kelsey said in awe as she reached up and ran her hand along the edge of Adrien’s wing. The touch sent warmth flooding through him.
Then to everyone’s surprise, the main doors to the room crashed open with a bang, and they all turned in the direction of the sound.
Twenty
“What the hell is going on here?” Citrine asked, looking around, consternation on his face turning quickly to shock, then concern as he surveyed the room and the people inside it.
Kelsey kind of felt bad for him, missing it all to come back right now. He would probably feel guilty when he found out what happened.
As Citrine stepped forward, his cell phone rang, and he pulled it out. His brows lowered as he listened to whomever was talking to him, presumably angrily.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Aegis called me, too. I was only gone an hour, if that. How was I supposed to know something would—” He groaned. “Yes. I understand. I’ll be there in the morning.” He hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket and walked forward, running both hands through his dark, mussed hair.
He stopped in front of Mercury and looked over at Adrien. “Are you all right?”
“I am now,” Adrien said. “Move back. I’m drawing in my wings.”
She took a step back and watched in awe as the large, sparkling metal objects folded in and then disappeared, leaving him looking normal and human once again. Well, except for being supernaturally beautiful.
He faced her, running his palms over her neck, her shoulders, her waist, her face, touching her everywhere, as if he had to be sure she was okay.
And she was because he was there. Ever since she’d met him, he was always there when she needed him.
“Sever might still be hurt,” she said, looking over at Sever, who was still standing against the wall.
“I’m okay,” Sever said.
“Are you sure? We can call in the sapphire dragon,” Citrine said. “He is a friend of mine.”
Sever shook his head. “I’m fine now. I promise. Thanks to Adrien.”
“Please,” Adrien retorted, walking over to his friend and looking him up and down. “You are the one who made the sacrifice play. If not for that, Kelsey couldn’t have gotten my ring off.”
“I’m sorry,” Citrine said, looking at Mercury. “If I had any idea this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have left you. I…” He trailed off, running his hand through his hair again. “I have failed in my duties.” He looked around him. “The club is destroyed. The—”
“Stop,” Kelsey said, unable to watch such a nice man beat himself up like that. “It was all part of Mercury’s plan. He was waiting for you to leave. He set it up so Robbie would go, knowing you would follow.”
“I couldn’t find her,” Citrine said. “She was gone by the time I got to her apartment. I… broke in. She left in a rush.”
Kelsey walked over to him. “Mercury told some people who were looking for her where she was. I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone, but I had no idea she was leaving. I’ll tell you whatever you want know.”
He gave her a weary smile. “It’s okay. I know you were just trying to be a good friend to her. We can talk later. For now, I need to call in crews to clean up this place, and tomorrow, I have to fly out for a meeting with the oracle. I’ll want everyone to kind of stay low key until I get back.
Kelsey nodded as Adrien came up, putting his arm around her. “Mercury was that women who kept coming in and harassing you, too.”
Adrien narrowed his eyes. “That makes weird sense. For some reason, we can’t sense him when he’s disguised. That’s how we suspect he tricked Sever into thinking the coarse metal dragons were responsible for our near deaths.”
She blinked. “What? Deaths?”
“Oh boy, there is a lot to tell you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to all happen this fast.”
“Why don’t you take your mate back to your room?” Sever said, pushing off the wall and walking forward. “I’ll stay with Citrine, and we’ll take care of things here. Call in the right people to take this guy back to the oracle. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more when he’s questioned there. For now, just take care of Kelsey. And yourself.”
“Thank you, Sever,” Adrien said. “Again.”
“Yes, thanks,” Kelsey added, but Sever just waved a hand, urging them to go.
And honestly, Kelsey’s legs felt like rubber after everything she’d just watched, how worried she’d been about Adrien and Sever and even her own safety.
How much she’d just learned in an hour.
Adrien swept a hand under her knees and picked her up in his arms, carrying her to the broken doors and stepping over the debris to get through them.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”
“What, were you going to wait until I was totally in love with you to tell me you were a dragon?”
He frowned. “I don’t know.” There was plaster in his black hair, and she thought they could both use a shower to wash off.
“Well, it’s too late, because I’m already in love with you.”
He looked down at her as they reached the apartment. His face was covered with scratches that were rapidly healing before her eyes. “I see. Wait, really?”
“Yes, really,” she said, leaning up to touch his face and then place a kiss on lips that were still dusty. She didn’t care. He’d fought for her. She’d seen who he really was. Wanted to know even more.
She could still feel his ring on her finger, where she’d put it so she didn’t lose it while the fight was still going.
He pulled back and looked down at her hand. “Whoops.”
“Whoops what?”
“Well, that’s part of how we seal mating. By putting the ring on our mate’s hand.”
She flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She tugged on it. “Hm.”
“No,” he said. “Keep it there forever. Okay?”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s oddly comfy anyway.”
“It’s enchanted,” he said. “I imagine it became the right size when you put it on.”
“I see.” She unlocked the door and he pushed it open, and they walked together into her apartment, which felt all the more like home when he was there. “You know, when I left the restaurant, left my money with Bernard, had nowher
e to go, I was sure my future was ruined. That I’d lost the only good thing to happen to me, even though life wasn’t great. I had the necessities. Food. A roof over my head, but I wasn’t happy.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. You deserved to be happy.”
“But that’s the thing,” she said. “I didn’t know what fate had in store for me. If I hadn’t run from Bernard, if I hadn’t decided to not accept that life, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have stumbled upon happiness.”
“I see,” he said, listening patiently as they walked to the bedroom.
“I wouldn’t have met you. I wouldn’t have met Sever and Robbie and Citrine. I wouldn’t have found a home. I had so many other homes not work out. I’m glad I didn’t give up. I’m glad I kept going, kept looking for something else.”
He nodded. “Me, too.”
“I’m glad I broke into Date-A-Dragon.”
He grinned. “It’s a very good thing you did. Because I wasn’t living either.” He sat on the edge of her bed and looked toward the window. “I was always watching out, thinking of different horizons, wishing I could be in my old world that I left behind. You see, me and the others were lured into a trap and caught in an avalanche. But being frozen doesn’t kill dragons; it merely puts us to sleep. So I was awakened and lost in this new world.” He grinned. “In my world, I was at the top of the food chain, literally and figuratively.”
That explained his somewhat snobby demeanor at times, but he’d gotten so much better since he’d known her.
“In a way, you were the perfect person to be sent to me,” he said. “Just like I like to think I was perfect for you. I needed you to show me that someone could keep fighting no matter what situation they were put in, that they could still have hope. And I needed to show you that hope could be rewarded and share with you all the resources that I have taken for granted. And in the meantime, come to appreciate everything I have.”
She cocked her head. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before. I just knew it felt right.”
“Because you’re so faithful,” he said. “The angel and the cynic. It works.”
“How?”
“Because I can protect you, and you can make sure I never grow too hard.”
She sighed, putting a hand over his. “I can do that.” She looked down. “We’re getting dust all over these lovely covers.”
He shrugged. “We can buy more. Dante can produce gold at will and will give me as much as we want. Silver was more valuable in my day than it is now, but Dante can literally produce it. We can live in a mansion, buy an island.”
She blinked rapidly. “What?”
“I know,” he said. “It’s a lot to take in. Right now, let me just take care of you.” Then he picked her up again, and she let out a little squeak of surprise.
“Where are we going?”
“The shower, like you suggested,” he said. “I want to wash all the evidence of what just happened away from you. Touch and hold you and make sure you’re okay. Then I want to make sure you’re mine.”
She smiled. “I think I’m okay with that.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “More than okay.”
She kissed his cheek, and he smiled. “How did any dragon get so lucky?”
“I told you already,” she said. “Luck has nothing to do with it. Fate, on the other hand…”
“All right,” he said. “Well, let’s go make fate happen.”
She couldn’t agree more.
Twenty-One
Adrien watched his mate’s beautiful eyes close as he washed her hair, letting water stream over, washing the bubbles away as he tried to keep the water away from her face.
She was so beautiful, and the way she tilted her head back and let the water stream down just exemplified everything she was as a person.
She faced everything head on. She accepted things even when they were unbelievable or hard to understand. She faced life and kept marching forward, while he’d been stuck, longing for the past for so long.
How they had come together, her marching to the future, him yearning for the past, he didn’t know. But it was perfect.
They could make a new future together, either alone or with new and old friends.
He could slowly talk more about being a dragon, and he knew she would accept that as well. Even before she’d taken the ring off, he’d seen the acceptance in her eyes.
He didn’t know if anyone had ever looked at him like that, like she understood everything about him and was okay with all of it.
He ran his hands over her waist, smooth with silky soap, and then over her breasts, and she gasped, opening her eyes, little droplets of water on her spiky lashes as she looked up at him. She ran her hands over her face and neck, pushing the water back, and gave him a smile.
“Feeling frisky?”
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close. “Yes, definitely.” He kissed the wet skin of her shoulder. “You know I’ll never get enough of you.”
“I can’t believe I get you forever,” she said. “That’s what this means, right? You couldn’t really explain mating back there.”
He cupped her cheek. “I’m still not sure how you trusted me so much.”
“Perhaps because you were willing to risk your life for me from almost the moment I met you. Perhaps because you’d prepared me, warning me that you only date for keeps. Perhaps because I was starting to feel I couldn’t imagine life without you, and no matter how odd it seemed from a logical viewpoint, I wasn’t going to give up the amazing time I’ve had with you for anything.”
He sighed. “How are you so wonderful?”
“I have to be, to fit with you.”
“I never thought I would be this mushy,” he grumbled into her shoulder. “Be sure not to tell anyone.”
“Of course,” she said. “Besides, I like that this part of you is only for me. You can still be grumpy to everyone else. If they’re a woman, I prefer it.”
He laughed. “No problems there.”
“Good,” she said, holding him tight.
“I just… I love you. My kind, we know almost from the moment we meet our mates that they are meant for us. I never believed in fate before. It seemed to keep screwing me over. But when I met you, even as I fought it, I knew you meant something to me. From the first time I saw you, I couldn’t let you out of my sight. That’s why I watched you from the balcony. I just—”
She put a finger up to his lips. “You don’t have to explain it. I love you, too. I really do. My heart can’t imagine living without you.”
“Sometimes you just find someone who makes you feel so complete, who you know you can love more each day. Who will make life better just by being there,” he said. “That’s what a mate is.”
She sighed and ran her hands over his back, grazing him lightly with her nails. “I like that.”
“So you want to go make it official?” he asked, looking down at her.
She nodded, holding him tightly. “I want everything you can give.”
He picked her up again, loving the feel of his mate in his arms, loving having a purpose, someone to protect who made him want to get up in the morning.
He loved everything about this world now that he had his powers and a woman he loved and could move on and find some sense of purpose.
He set her down on the bed, looking at her naked, wet, glistening form, his eyes greedily devouring every aspect of her as her green eyes watched warily.
“I still feel like you should have been with someone more beautiful,” she said nervously.
He laughed, crawling over her on the bed, feeling predatory and powerful, wanting to use all of his power to show his mate how much he wanted her.
His hands closed over her wrists, putting them over her head, and he felt silver well from his fingertips, holding her hands down, bound to the mattress as the silver snaked down into it.
She struggled slightly, blushing. “Adrien, what—”
“I’
ll let you go in a moment,” he said. “Just let me look at you.” He sat back between her legs, eyeing his mate, her bold green eyes, shy expression, soft cheeks, beautiful, curvaceous, feminine body that was as opposite of his hard, muscled physique as possible.
Everything about her was just perfect.
He drew a finger over her belly, which sucked in slightly, and he frowned. He leaned forward to kiss her belly button, running his tongue inside it as his hands smoothed over her hips. She gasped and arched against the silver bonds, but couldn’t move at all.
“Just let me show you how beautiful you are,” he said. “I love you for who you are.” He crawled forward, straddling her to place a kiss on her earlobe. “I love the woman you are. How brave you are. What you’ve come through. How you got to me.” He bit on her lobe, sucking gently before releasing it slowly through his teeth.
“Adrien,” she moaned.
“But your body, it’s absolutely perfect to me.” He sat up and looked down, making an hourglass motion with his hands. “I couldn’t have designed it more perfectly.” He leaned forward over her again, tickling her ear with his breath. “You know, in my time, curves were everything.” His hand trailed over her belly, caressing it softly before reaching the apex of her legs. “But no matter how you are, you’ll be perfect.”
He looked at her in question before touching her most sensitive spot, and she nodded eagerly. He released the silver, watching it disappear down into the mattress where he’d leave it in case it was needed, and her arms flew up to wrap around his neck.
“I love you,” she said. “You make me feel beautiful.”
“That’s because you are beautiful,” he said. “And I don’t intend to stop convincing you of it until you believe me.”
“I believe you when I’m in your arms,” she said, holding on tight. “I want to believe you.”
He laughed and laid her back on the bed, loving the way her brownish-blonde curls bounced on the pillow. “What did you think of my silver?”
“I liked it,” she said. “It was smooth against my hands, and honestly…”
Silver (Date-A-Dragon Book 2) Page 15
