by Lolita Lopez
Finding enough courage to really look at it, Eris gasped. A pair of glowing amber reptilian eyes stared right back at her. Golden wings streaked with red and green blocked out the silvery clouds and the inky black sky above. Instead of inspiring fear, the image before her filled her with the most incredible sense of awe. This thing, this mythical beast, was something fantastic to behold.
The creature lowered its snout and brushed it along her cheek and neck. He inhaled deeply and shuddered. A chilling growl escaped its throat. Terrified that it found her smell enticing, she pressed both hands to the beast’s chest and shoved hard, praying he wouldn’t next take a bite to see if she was as tasty as she apparently smelled.
With a gruff groan, the beast stiffened and reared back until it looked her in the eyes. The scaled hide under her hands began to change again. Her jaw slackened. Stupefied, she watched the dragon transform right before her eyes. Was she hallucinating? Was the toxin from the apple finally wearing off?
The great golden beast lost its wings and reptilian skin. Those amber eyes with slivered pupils shifted to a normal round shape. Dark hair tumbled around bronzed shoulders. The scales gave way to long swaths of tattooed symbols covering the body of a…
It wasn’t a dragon at all.
It was a man.
Chapter Two
Eris couldn’t breathe. Her confused gaze locked with that of the bronzed man still pinning her to the ground. Not even the darkness could hide his good looks. He was outrageously and impossibly handsome with that square jaw and aquiline nose. His strangely hued eyes glinted dangerously. That dark hair of his fell forward when he leaned toward her, closing his eyes and drawing in a long, slow breath.
When he grabbed her wrists and forced her hands to the ground above her head, she didn’t fight him. Her brain protested her inaction. She should be screaming and kicking and twisting her hips, but her body remained motionless. Gazing into his face, she felt oddly lulled. His spicy, heady scent comforted and soothed her. Unable to help herself, she licked her lips and wondered what his mouth tasted like.
His grip on her wrists changed. Instead of holding her down like his prisoner, he loosened his grasp and rubbed small, tight circles on her skin with his thumbs. Her skin prickled under his touch, the ticklish and hot sensation running down her arms and into her chest. He leaned closer, so close their breath mingled, and then interlaced their fingers. She gulped nervously when his face dipped toward hers. Was he going to kiss her?
At the last moment, he angled to the side and tucked his nose against the curve of her throat. He sniffed her in the most animalistic way and then—oh, God—he licked from the spot where her pulse beat so rapidly right up to her chin. Eris shuddered at the wicked, feral thing he had done.
Whatever he tasted on her skin made him growl again. The sound of it sent a throbbing ache right down to her feminine center. She tried to squeeze her thighs together, but he had pushed his bare knee between them. There was no mistaking the feel of something heavy and stiff pressing into her belly, but she didn’t dare glance down to confirm her suspicion. Naked and aroused, the man no longer seemed intent on killing her. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
He nuzzled her cheek and pressed her face to the side. His lips traveled along her skin until they brushed the corner of her mouth. He reared back just enough to meet her uncertain gaze. For a moment, he simply stared at her. His amber eyes reflected his own curiosity and confusion. He seemed to be as rattled as she was by the energy sizzling between them.
But she couldn’t stop looking at his sensual mouth and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. She had a feeling she wasn’t getting off this massive and very private estate alive. If she was going to die tonight, she might as well do it with all her questions answered.
Bold as brass, she lifted her head and pressed her mouth to his. A spark of something incredible jolted her belly. High above them, the sky arced with lightning. The bolt was so bright she could see it through her eyelids. The man sucked in a sharp breath at her unexpected action and broke away from the chaste kiss. Her lips parted, and she gazed up at the sky over his broad shoulders.
A breathtaking display of green and white lightning brightened the night sky, and there—just above them—floated a silvery cloud in a shape that looked so much like a dragon she blinked three times, certain she was seeing things. It didn’t disappear. It remained there, floating slowly like some sign from above.
A memory surfaced. Visions of the bewildering and vivid dreams she had experienced since living with Ivy flashed before her like the lightning bolts. Until moving into that apartment with her friend, Eris had never been much of a dreamer. When she could remember them, her dreams were boring and simple affairs. After Ivy became her roommate, all that changed. She dreamed of wild and strange things, of storms and fires and bloodied knights…and dragons.
Warm, heavy raindrops splashed on her face. Broken out of the spell by the feel of their slick wetness gliding along her skin, she met the man’s intense gaze. He idly stroked her cheek and ran his thumb along her lower lip. “We have to get you inside.”
His deep, rumbling voice shook her from the stupor his touch and scent had inspired. She finally found the courage to fight him. “No.”
His mouth curved with a sinful smile. “Yes.”
“Please,” she begged, suddenly afraid. “Let me go.”
His smile flattened and sadness darkened his face. “There’s no going back for you. You stole one of my apples.”
He rose to his feet, bent down, and scooped her up as if she weighed no more than a child. Like a conquering invader, he tossed her over his shoulder and gave her bottom a smack, the heat of his hand penetrating the denim stretched taut across her backside. “You’re mine now.”
*
What the hell am I going to do with her now?
Nico carried the woman he had captured across the lawn and patio, skirting the edge of the fountain and taking the steps that led to the double doors he had nearly ripped off the hinges earlier. He had an idea of what he’d like to do with the light-eyed and dark-skinned young woman, and those ideas were indecent and dirty and ever so wicked. That single taste he’d allowed himself was the sweetest he’d ever had of a woman.
My woman.
It was a primitive thought and one he should be ashamed for thinking…but he wasn’t. He didn’t even know her name, but he knew that she was his. After all the years of secretly hoping that someday his mate might cross his path, he didn’t dare believe his luck that she was so beautiful. If anything could tempt him to forsake his vows to the Brotherhood of the Green Hide, it was this staggeringly pretty woman. The thought of having his own mate, of sharing the same happiness that Stig, Griff, and Mad had found, sent hope burning through him like wildfire.
Despite the rain soaking them from head to toe, he caught the sweet, earthen scent of female dragon blood mixed in with all that human. The moment he felt the way her touch had affected him, he knew.
She is my mate.
But she had stolen and eaten one of his family’s treasured apples, and that meant she had earned a swift death for her theft. Unless, of course, he argued that as his mate she was his family and therefore had every right to one of the apples that was under his—their—guard. He was the head of the Drakon tribe. It would be his decision that stood on this matter.
He carried his delicious-smelling mate down to the second cell he kept in his well-fortified basement. After destroying the first one, he might need the chains and the door of the second to keep his frightened little dragon hybrid in place. If she refused to touch him, he would quickly revert to his beastly form and scare the hell out of her.
He barred the door behind them but remembered the way she had so easily picked the locks on his home. He placed his palm against the metal and silently whispered a warding spell before drawing the necessary symbols with his fingers. She wouldn’t be getting out of here without him.
Safely tu
cked away with his mate, he carried her to the back wall of the cell and grasped one of the long chains and cuffs. Carefully, he set her down and quickly wrapped the cuff around both of their wrists. She let loose a gasp and jerked hard enough that he actually lost his balance. She kicked out her leg, but he dodged at the last second. His hand shot out to protect her pretty head from slamming into the stone wall.
“Stop!” The word came out harsher than he had intended. Her eyes widened at his rough tone. He hated seeing fear etched into her face, but he loved that the light in the cell allowed him to see her real eye color. The grayish-blue irises staring back at him were astonishingly beautiful against her rich brown skin. He wondered about her lineage and suspected Reynard would uncover all sorts of interesting details when the archivist dug into her family history.
“Please,” she said with a little sob that tore at his heart.
Gently, he rubbed her arm. “You’ll only hurt yourself if you insist on jerking on these chains. We have to stay this way tonight.”
“I’m your prisoner?”
You’re my mate. But he didn’t say that. “Yes. Unless you want to see the winged version of me again, you had better keep your hand on me at all times, understand?”
She swallowed nervously and squirmed but didn’t try to tug away from him. “What are you?”
His eyebrow arched. “You know.”
She shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.” He touched her cheek and silently rejoiced when she didn’t flinch or pull away from him. After that light show on the back lawn, he had no doubt she was feeling the effects of the mating pheromones pouring off him. The spicy scent of arousal drifting from her skin made his mouth water, but it wasn’t even close to the potency of a mating heat. If she had very diluted dragon blood, she might need him to make love to her before a full mating heat would take effect. That’s how it had happened between Stig and his new mate, Cora.
Wanting her to name him, he tapped her chin. “Say it. Tell me what I am.”
She lifted her anxious, disbelieving gaze to his face. A spark of determination brightened her unusual eyes. “Dragon. You’re a dragon.”
“Yes, I am.” He touched his chest. “My name is Nico, and I am the leader of the ancient Drakon tribe. My breed is known as the Greek Golds.”
“Breed?”
“There are different species of dragon. Some of us have red hide and others green or black. I spit acid as my main weapon, but I have friends who make lighting, spit fire, or clap their wings to create thunder.” Unable to help himself, he wrapped some of her black wavy hair around his finger. “In the morning, I’ll take you to my library and teach you everything you need to know.”
A strange look crossed her face. “You’re not going to kill me?”
“Kill you? No.”
She narrowed her eyes. “When you chased me down like a hawk after a field mouse, you seemed rather determined to end my life.”
“You stole one of my apples. It’s the law.”
Her pouty lips parted with shock. “You were going to kill me over a freaking apple?”
He supposed it did seem rather ridiculous. “The apple you ate wasn’t an ordinary apple. It was special.”
“Special?” Her bowed eyebrow lifted skeptically. “What? Is it some type of nifty GMO you’ve cooked up in that lab of yours? Maybe you’re doing a little transgenic apple farming or trying out some cisgenesis?”
Taken aback by the easy way she used scientific lingo, he asked the obvious question. “Is that why you broke into my home? To steal research from me?”
She snorted. “You think I broke into this place and risked another mark on my rap sheet for some stupid apples? I flipped through your journals and there’s nothing useful in there. Your experiments are worthless and officially madness.”
“Madness? Worthless?”
“Immortality? Really?” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a nicer setup than most universities, and you’re playing around with telomeres and bristlecone pines? If I had a lab like that—”
“Yes?” He leapt at the chance to find some common ground with her. Considering he fully intended to keep her as his mate, he needed to find ways to bond with her. If that meant giving her his lab or building her an entirely new wing of the house for experiments, he would do it without a moment’s hesitation. “What would you do with my lab?”
“Something useful,” she said. “Something practical. I haven’t spent the last six years studying and working hard to waste my time on fanciful dreams like immortality when there are real diseases and problems that need fixing right now.”
“So you are a scientist then,” he replied, his belief in fate bolstered by the realization they shared vocations. “What’s your field?”
“Bioengineering,” she said. “I’m a grad student.”
“Interesting,” he murmured, his heart already warming toward this brilliant beauty. “What’s your name?”
“Eris Jones.”
The name hit him like a punch to the gut. “You’re Ivy’s friend! You’re the one she was with when she went missing in Mexico during spring break.”
Panicked, she backed away from him but their cuffed hands kept her tethered to him. Her free hand came up in a defensive way. The sight of it made him wonder how often she had been hit in the past—and by whom. “You know Ivy? Where is she?”
He settled his hand on her shoulder in a gesture meant to be comforting. She tensed but he ignored the stiffness in her muscles. “She’s not here anymore, but she’s safe. She’s my family,” he added quickly, hoping to set her at ease. “I helped rescue her from the men who had kidnapped her.” He figured blurting out Ivy’s new status as Madoc’s mate wasn’t going to help matters any. “She’s with someone I trust very much.”
Eris breathed hard. “Do you swear on those precious apples of yours that she’s safe?”
“I do. How did you know she was here?”
“She called me this morning, but I missed it. The voice mail was scratchy. I could only make out a few words so I asked a…friend of mine to figure out where the cell phone call had originated. He gave me the coordinates for the cell towers. One look at Google Maps and I realized this was the only place for miles.”
He didn’t miss the way she had hesitated before saying friend. Was it her boyfriend? An ex, he hoped, because it would be incredibly sticky extricating her from a current relationship now that his dragon had recognized her as a mate. “So you thought you’d break into my home and steal her away?”
“She’s my best friend in the whole world. She’s all the family I have. I failed her in Mexico, but I wasn’t going to fail her here. Breaking into your house was the very least I was willing to do to get Ivy back.”
The passionate way she spoke ignited his pride. She spoke like a she-wolf, all power and honor and loyalty with a vicious threat in her pale eyes. He didn’t doubt for a second that she truly would do anything for Ivy.
He needed to keep her close while he was in heat, but using chains to hold her wasn’t very appealing to him. Whether Eris understood or not, she was his mate, and he refused to treat her like a common thief. After the way he had chased her down and nearly broken her neck, she probably thought him capable of much worse than simply chaining her to a wall.
He shifted their bound wrists and rattled the chain hooking them to the wall. “You’re my prisoner.”
Her eyebrow arched again and she shrugged carelessly. Bravado filled her silky voice. “So? It’s not like this is the first time I’ve been in cuffs.”
“No, something tells me you’ve been in worse scrapes than this.” He was already beginning to fill out a picture of Eris Jones. She had a scrappiness about her that he’d seen countless times in children forced to mature beyond their years. This was a young woman who had known harshness and pain. Every protective instinct within his body surged to life. He wanted to gather Eris in his arms and keep her safe from everything ugly and mean in th
e world.
“Something tells me it’s going to be a long night. Maybe I’ll tell you about them.”
“You will.” He brushed his finger along her cheek. “But not tonight, Eris. Tonight, you have a choice to make.”
“What choice is that?”
He stepped back from her but held tight to her wrist so he wouldn’t be forced into another transformation. “I’ve been injected with a drug that causes my body to go into a heat phase. It’s the reason I was in my dragon form when I chased you down tonight. I wouldn’t have done something so dangerous if I had been in complete control of my body.”
“But you’re human now,” she said, her gaze rolling over him as if he were a puzzle to be solved.
“I’m human because you’re touching me.” He saw the flash of confusion in her eyes. “My dragon side recognizes you as something special. If I were unleashed and in heat, I would roam for the next eight nights in search of the perfect woman, the perfect match, to my dragon. Only her touch would turn me human in the darkness of night.”
“Why?” She whispered the word on a shaky breath. He noticed the way she kept her gaze glued to his face, but he sensed she wanted to look lower, much lower, to the raging erection pointed right at her.
“You’re a smart girl. You know why.” She gulped, and he could smell the fear on her. The bitter, powerful scent of it made his gut churn. “I won’t force you. I won’t hurt you. Whatever happens is your choice.”
She fixed him with a hard glare. “Why do I get the feeling that the choice you’re about to offer me is to let you fuck me or never see Ivy again?”
Her brutal description of the choice he had been about to offer shamed him. He glanced away from her, suddenly unable to bear the disappointment and anger in her voice. Swallowing hard, he decided the easy way out wasn’t the best one.
