by Jen Crane
“I didn’t pursue you to seduce you, Stella,” Gresham said and grasped my chin so I was forced to look at him. “That was never my plan. Hell, I considered you a child. I had Livia. My intentions were to bring you to Thayer and to monitor your form.”
“What if I’d turned into a dragon first, Gresham? What would you have done then?” That’s the question I asked, but my knee-jerk jealousy to the mention of Livia was what most occupied my mind. Did he miss her? Was he regretful? Did he consider me immature and inexperienced in comparison?
“If your form had been a dragon, then I would’ve interceded.”
My heart stuttered to a stop at his business-like tone. “What does that mean? Interceded?”
“Thayerian sentiment has been strongly anti-dragon since the Steward Massacre,” he said. “You know that. If a new dragon had emerged, an outsider especially, you’d have been assumed savage and condemned before you knew what hit you. The entire situation had the potential for catastrophe. Not just for Thayer, but for you, too.”
“You still didn’t answer my question. What would you…what could you have done if I was a dragon like my mother?”
“I don’t know,” he said tersely. “But it was important to learn who you were, where your loyalties lie, what your vulnerabilities were.”
“Didn’t you have some underling that could’ve done that? Some special agent. If you’re so important, couldn’t you have sent someone else to spy on me? Surely there are other guys who are more my type if seduction was your goal.”
I was hurting. I wanted Gresham to hurt, too. I’d been humiliated, reduced to a mark to be targeted. I thought Gresham was interested in me, that I’d grown on him during the time we spent together…like he’d grown on me.
He shook his head, ignoring my jab. “The fewer people who knew about you the better. Livia’s premonitions may have alerted me to your existence, but even she didn’t piece together you might’ve been a dragon. I handled you myself to keep those invested to a minimum.”
Handled. Ouch. I fought back more tears—I had to remain focused on my endeavor to find more information while Gresham was offering it. “So, the people who know about me are limited to the two of us, the Drakontos dragons, and Brandubh?”
“And Aemon,” Gresham said. “He knows.”
“Aemon? Professor Lochlain? Why does he know?”
“Well, I had to give him a damn good reason to come with me to your world to get you, for one thing. He’s also a trusted friend and an expert on dragon lore.”
I scowled at Gresham. “Weren’t you afraid he’d pronounce me a primordial savage, too?”
“I wasn’t, no. Aemon’s as level-headed as they come. And trustworthy.”
“So, am I still in danger? Does the fact that I’m half Drakontos mean I’m still heir to enemy status, or does my father’s omni heritage negate that?” I didn’t know what to think about myself. Maybe Gresham could give me some clue, some direction.
“You know I don’t see you as an enemy. Don’t be ridiculous. As for you being in danger, that remains to be seen.”
His shoulders slumped so low on a tired breath I thought they might touch the rocky ground. “It’s complicated. For now, let’s leave this pit while we still can. We’ll visit Aemon once we’ve recovered from the shock of the day. You can get to know him. We’ll discuss how to proceed, form a plan.”
I considered my options. Yes, I wanted to get away from Rowan Gresham as quickly as possible. But where would I go? Back to my room at Sabre Hall? I couldn’t tell Timbra; I couldn’t tell anyone about my dragon—about all I’d learned. Not yet. With Mom gone, the only people I had left were Gresham and my friends from Radix. My old college roommate, Lizzie, and the rest of the people back home had no clue about this world.
The only ones who knew about my dragon form were people I couldn’t trust. That scared the hell out of me. Besides being alone, I was in danger, and I wasn’t even sure from whom. The tremors that had died down resurfaced with fury. The trembling wasn’t limited to my legs this time, but surged through my body up to my teeth. I snapped my chattering jaws shut, but that only sent the movement through my neck, and my head bobbed like a cork at sea.
“What’s wrong?” Gresham searched my face for some indication of the source of my trauma. “What are you thinking?”
My silence had said much. I didn’t cry again, but I wanted to. My body hunched over in distress and I cupped my brow trying to squeeze a plan for what to do next from my brain.
I had always thought myself not the type to fold under pressure, that I’d never be pitiful or whine about the unfairness of my circumstances. But dammit, I’d had a real hard day. Infamous but unknown relatives appeared from nowhere only to betray me. Gresham was almost killed—hell, I was almost killed. I tore an evil sorcerer’s throat out by my teeth—the first time I ever tried to kill anyone, to my recollection. And the man I fought to save, the one on whom I’d come to trust and depend, admitted he befriended me to spy on me.
I very seriously considered curling my weary body into a tight ball and shutting out the world. I couldn’t handle the situation. I wasn’t equipped. “I…I can’t trust you,” I said as my voice cracked with emotion. “I can’t talk to anyone about what’s going on. I don’t have a soul to trust, to confide in. I don’t know what to do.” My wobbly knees finally gave way and I crumbled to the rock and dust.
“That’s just not true, me cynamome,” Gresham said and joined me on the ground. “I asked to be in your life, and I meant it. I know what this looks like. I know you doubt my sincerity and feelings for you after what I’ve done. But you have to believe I was shocked to find you—to find us—when my intention was only ever to observe you.”
I sniffled. Wiped my nose. “How can you expect me to believe that when you’ve admitted you deceived me from the start?” I was so tired. So, so tired.
“I don’t know,” he said and heaved his shoulders. “If we have to start over, if I must work to regain your trust day by day, then it’s what I’ll do. One advantage to being so long-lived is developing patience enough to eventually acquire what’s most valuable to you.”
I had no response to that. We sat facing each other in silence on the dusty ground, both at a loss for answers, for direction.
“Gresham?” I finally said.
“Yes?”
“What does ‘me sinna moam’ mean?”
“Mmm?” he hummed and ran his thumb across my knuckles.
“Me sinna moam. You said that when you argued I could trust you.”
“Oh. ‘My faire bryd, me swete cynamome.’ It’s from The Canterbury Tales. It reminds me of you. Your cinnamon hair.”
“Oh,” I said. Real clever response, I know, after a man complimented me with Chaucer.
“I don’t know about you,” Gresham said and squeezed my hand, “but I’d like to find some pants.”
I jerked at the sudden awareness we were having the conversation sans clothes. I hadn’t noticed. I was finally becoming accustomed to the forced nudity that came with having more than one physical form. After the initial embarrassment, I smiled.
Hey, you have to celebrate the little victories in the face of such massive failures.
Chapter 2
Gresham and I traced together to my room at Sabre Hall, and our nudity made the fragile situation that much more awkward.
My subconscious brain chose to ignore my particular reality, and instead rehashed all I had learned over the course of the day. Once the information began trickling in, it forced open a crack that flooded my drowning mind. I had gained a mountain of knowledge about myself, Gresham, the dragons, Brandubh, and of course about my mother and father. I was overwhelmed with information, with emotion. I didn’t know what to do next, or how to feel about Gresham…about any of it, really.
Time to decompress was what I really needed. Time to sort everything out, put the different bits of information into their correct mental boxes, and then open them one by o
ne. It was essential that I consider the contents at my own pace and make a plan.
But there was no way that was possible. Even with time, I wouldn’t be equipped to handle such pressure. It was all too serious and too depressing and too hard and too damned scary.
A month earlier I’d been a twenty-two-year-old college kid with, okay, no real plans for the future, but also no pressure, no serious concerns. I drank too much and danced a lot. I got my nails done while taking Cosmo quizzes. The biggest challenge I faced was deciding between groceries or a new handbag. I may not have been fulfilled or challenged, but, by god, I was stress-free.
I missed those days. I wanted one of them. I was desperate to be rid of the constant, smothering pressure to study more, learn more, be better. I was sick of regretting the depraved history of my family and tired of worrying about my own potential for depravity.
Ugh, to feel good for a change. I was lonely, still in mourning about my mother, and I wanted to forget for just a little while.
“Gresham,” I whimpered. He whipped his head up at my tone, sending black hair in disheveled swaths across his forehead. The way I called his name was an entreaty, an appeal.
His wide chest expanded and released on a ragged breath. “I want you; you know this,” he said. “But I’ll not be accused of taking advantage of you again.”
I closed the distance between us and stood just outside of touching, the front of my body so close to his that the heat of him left my back jealous and bereft.
“I know what you’ve done, Gresham.” I held his gaze, forcing him to understand the depth of conviction behind my words. “I know who you are. And right now, I don’t care. I want this.” My voice cracked as I said, “I need this.”
Gresham lowered his face with excruciatingly slow deliberation, his gaze never leaving my own even as his lips brushed mine once, twice, back again. When he was satisfied he’d given me every opportunity to change my mind, he took them so softly, so sensually that my addled brain short-circuited. I stood motionless, relishing the pleasure of his breath across my skin, the trace of his fingers along my collarbone, the brush of his thumb over my breast. He lifted my hair and bent to kiss my neck. I arched my spine in response and felt his smile of approval on my skin.
Our kisses grew more frenzied, rougher, but no less sensual as I moved back and forth against him. My breaths left my body in pants.
He pulled his mouth from mine and sought approval in my gaze before ducking to my body again. God, he was so talented. I was so needy, so very turned on.
“I want you now, Stella.” Rowan Gresham brooked no argument.
A whispered “Yes,” was all I could manage.
He backed me up to the bed, kneading my body and sucking lazily on my lower lip before he released it. His eyes were alight with wicked intentions, and I knew with sudden clarity that I was way out of my depth with him.
I dove in anyway.
I lay back as he stalked over me. That divine scent of earth and spice and man enveloped my senses, and I couldn’t deny the ache within me any longer.
Upon catching pieces of his fragmented thoughts earlier, a suspicion started to form. I wondered if we could communicate wordlessly.
“I need you, Gresham.”
I didn’t have to say it aloud. He’d heard me, all right. His eyes widened and he bit down on his bottom lip, a lazy smile playing at the edges of his mouth.
“Dear gods, Stella, are you trying to make me lose my seed before we’ve even started?”
“No one calls it ‘seed’ anymore, Gresham.”
“Rowan. When we’re together, I want you to call me Rowan.”
I tried the name out, rolled it around in my brain, if not yet on my tongue. “Rowan. I dunno. Seems strange. I’ve always thought of you as Gresham. I do know that I am loving this telepathy.”
“Are you always this chatty in bed?” he asked.
“No, not typically. Guess you bring out the best in me.”
“Let’s see what else I can bring you to.”
He approached me with the confidence, the finesse, of a Spanish bullfighter, and I sucked in a hesitant breath.
“You all right?” he asked and pushed a mass of red hair from my forehead.
I nodded and gave a wicked grin, putting on a front far more confident than I felt.
When he smiled back at me, his amber eyes crinkled at the corners. But the smile was soon lost to another look. This one was darker, possessive, intent.
He found his way smoothly, and if I had any remaining desire to chat, it was replaced by a different desire altogether. I became lost—lost to the exquisite force of his big body, to the feel of his powerful arms surrounding my head, and of his hands in my hair, on my face, on my lips.
He murmured lovers’ words next to my ear between kisses. “So good, Stella,” and “I never thought we could be like this,” or “You’re exquisite.”
“You always this chatty in bed, Gresham?”
He grinned, gazing down at me as lust battled with amusement.
“Rowan,” he said. “I told you to call me Rowan.”
Ultimately lust won out. Slow and gentle was replaced by intentional, forceful, as he took my lips and swallowed my uninhibited cries of pleasure.
“I can feel you pulsing around me,” he whispered wordlessly through my mind and I groaned with satisfaction. I adored the feel of him inside me as I absorbed his unspoken words, welcoming this invasion into another of my private spaces.
* * *
Afterward, Gresham slid beside me and pulled me tightly into him. I instinctively threw a leg over his middle and an arm around his chest. We lay there unspeaking, breathing hard and gathering our thoughts. Making love under the cover of darkness is one thing. Doing it wildly in broad daylight is quite another. There was no concealing darkness to hide anxious expressions, no pretending to sleep to avoid immediate consequences.
Lovers. We were officially lovers. I wondered if he would regret it. Again.
I darted a glance up at him and found him staring at me. An expression I hadn’t seen him make before slid across his face. His lips pulled back into a smug grin; his eyes were languid. So confident, so satisfied. So male.
We didn’t say anything. There was no need. We simply lay there, enjoying the moment and each other.
Chapter 3
“Wow. When I pursued you as a suite mate I had no idea you’d be famous,” Timbra said, her wide eyes blinking innocently.
“Oh. Shut. Up.”
Timbra Redfern was not only my suite mate at Radix Citadel for Supernatural Learning, she was a valued friend. My best friend. That she had adorable furry ears and knobby knees was of no consequence. We all have our little issues. Mine, of course, was that I didn’t just turn furry; I also grew scales. Tough, armored scales of auburn and copper covered my body when in one of my new-found animal forms. In my other, I became a massive red wolf.
I only knew one other person who had more than one physical form, and that was my…lover, Rowan Gresham. ‘Boyfriend’ wasn’t a good descriptor. Gresham was decidedly not a boy. We hadn’t known each other long enough to be partners. Lover would have to do.
Timbra’s black eyes eyes were alight with mischief, her long lashes fanning across her cheeks with each blink. “I’m serious! Look around. Every person in this place either wants to be you or to do you. And I’m definitely going to have to change panties when I get back to my room.”
My burst of laughter was accompanied by an involuntary snort.
“Never mind. Not everyone. No way I’m screwing a snorter.”
Timbra Redfern was witty and hilarious, but very few people knew it. On the outside she was stunning. Her willowy body looked flawless in any outfit, and she walked with grace. Her presence was always known, and she didn’t even try. But on the inside she was quite shy. She preferred blending in. The most striking thing about Timbra, though, was her ears. The velvety pointed things always protruded from the top of her dark honey ha
ir and twitched whenever she was nervous or upset.
Grins were still pasted on our faces as we made our way to the back of On a Roll sushi bar where Boone, Ewan, Layla, and Mari were toasting tiny cups of saki.
Timbra was right; gazes darted and eyes widened as I passed, and my keen hearing picked up fragments of whispers. “That’s her!” and “You think it’s all true?”
There were a few comments on my appearance that set my spine a little straighter “I’d give a canine for an ass like that,” or “That hair; that skin. So exotic.”
I caught the end of one “…scrawny whore” and wheeled around, my gut clenching and face reddening as my temper flared at the insult.
Livia. Dean Livia Miles, head of Radix’s Department of Craft and Ritual. Not my biggest fan. It had been Livia, a talented clairvoyant, who’d alerted Gresham to my existence in the first place. Her visions of me in his bed had been the cause of much contention between the two of them. That Rowan Gresham’s bed is exactly where I had ended up lent her psychic abilities real credit. Not that she lacked credibility—she was dean of one of Radix’s most important departments, after all. A fact she’d made miserably clear to me at every opportunity.
When I first met her, I thought Livia Miles sophisticated and lovely. Now, heartache and bitterness pinched her features and she looked thinner, older. I did feel some regret for the way things had ended between she and Gresham. On the night of their breakup she found me in Gresham’s home dressed in nothing but his white button-down shirt. The circumstances had been innocent enough, but Gresham let her believe we’d been intimate. I thought this a fairly callous move on his part, but Livia Miles was nothing if not calloused already. She could handle it.
In fact, it looked as if she was on a date. With none other than the sandy-haired Sabre Bar playboy and bartender Knox Mahon. Livia made a big show of rubbing her fingers playfully over his and then focusing her undivided attention on his every brogue and burr. Message received, Livia, I thought. You’ve moved on. I’ll be sure to tell Gresham. Like hell.
