A Dragon Gambles For His Girl: A Nocturne Falls Universe story

by Kira Nyte

  Nope. Mark would pick some fancy new model sport something-or-other, if he hadn’t changed too much over the decades. His Keeper had a love of prestige and speed. Clunky SUVs would be out of the question. A nice Ferrari or Bugatti, maybe.

  Alazar left the credit union and cruised down Main Street, keeping his eyes peeled for a Ferrari. Then he came upon a sleek Jaguar F-Type coupe that screamed Mark.

  Mark straightening out of the driver’s side was pretty good confirmation, too.

  Alazar pulled into an empty spot a few cars down and stared at the man he hadn’t laid eyes on in three decades. Last time he and Mark were partnered up, his Keeper had been in his mid-twenties, young, fierce, and fearless. The older Mark still possessed a fierce edge and wisdom etched into the fine lines around his eyes. He’d grown a neatly trimmed beard and kept his hair a tad longer than most his age.

  His gaze shifted as Mark stepped onto the sidewalk, shouldered through a crowd of tourists funneling out of Hallowed Bean, and paused next to a young woman who’d gotten out the passenger side of his car.

  The young woman.

  Alazar’s heart fluttered wildly as his dragon reared. His skin tingled, his scales pressing to come forth, but he reined in his beast, down to his talons. His vision pulsed, his line of sight shifting, changing, taking on an orb-like picture with more clarity, more detail than his human eyes. His dragon fought for freedom, grappled for the unseen connection that sprang to life the moment he spotted the woman. Heat coursed through every inch of his vascular system, infused by the fire stoked low in his belly. He swallowed down the curl of smoke creeping up his throat, choked, and coughed out a thin plume of light gray.

  When he looked up, Mark and the woman were gone.

  “Oh, no you don’t.”

  Alazar jumped out of his car—actually, stumbled in his disoriented state—and took a few seconds to compose himself. He engaged the car alarm and fell in step with the wave of people crowding the sidewalk, unable to enjoy the costumes and the excitement, especially on the children’s faces. He had one goal, one target, one need.

  His dragon followed the connection, the pull, toward the Hallowed Bean, pausing only to let customers out before he ducked into the packed coffee shop. He silenced his thoughts, cloaking his presence as much as possible. Walking up to Mark like a kid at Christmas wasn’t the best idea. Nocturne Falls had been marked by their enemies. He didn’t need to wave a surrender flag.

  Alazar lifted the collar of his leather jacket around his neck, ducked his head, and moved to an angular alcove near the hallway to the restrooms. His height was a curse when he needed to blend in. Slouching cut about an inch off his six-four stature. Incognito was not in his repertoire.

  Behind his sunglasses and jacket collar, he pretended to glance over the crowd while really keeping an eye on Mark and the woman as they moved closer to the order station. Mark rolled out his shoulders a handful of times, scanning the coffee shop every now and again. Even containing his presence, Alazar did not doubt Mark could sense him close by. Part of the Keeper-dragon package.

  Ultimately, it was the woman who claimed his focus and held on tight. From his position, he could not get a clear look at her. The layers of clothes and knitted hat didn’t help his cause. She hugged herself with one arm while biting her thumbnail, her face close to the pastry case. Heat nudged through his veins. Whispers taunted the back of his mind as the strange connection intensified.

  Mark and the woman placed their orders and moved to an empty table tucked in a small alcove across the way. Alazar debated making his presence known until Mark climbed out of his seat to gather their drink orders and settled back down at the table. The woman took a sip of her coffee, clutched between two small, thin hands obscured by the length of her jacket. She hunched over the table, her booted feet resting on the lower rung of the chair, a woman trying to hide in plain sight. She was small, that much Alazar could tell. He made out the gentle slopes and curves of her profile, as well as the unnatural shadows cast beneath her eyes. Dark waves hid her cheeks, held in place by that knitted cap.

  Her frown deepened as Mark spoke. On a few occasions, she shook her head, waved a delicate hand, or turned her face toward the ceiling.

  Suddenly, she threw up a hand in a motion for Mark to stop and pressed to her feet.

  Alazar looked away as the woman wove through the line waiting to order. He did not miss the glance she cast his way from the corner of his eye. He certainly didn’t miss the violent thrum that unleashed inside his body as the soft scent of sweet vanilla followed her toward the ladies’ room.

  He did not straighten up for a good thirty seconds, giving the woman time to disappear into the bathroom. When he glanced down the hallway, he was surprised to find her standing in front of the door, brows furrowed as she stared at him.

  His mouth went sandpaper dry. Small in height and size, she resonated a fierceness that flashed through the stunning gold lacework of her dark eyes. Her generously slanted brows enhanced the gentle tilt of her eyes, but accentuated the dark circles beneath. He would have blamed the lighting in the hallway had he not noticed similar shadows cast along the delicate arch of her cheeks not hidden by the asymmetrical cut of her hair.

  Her pouty lips parted. Her nostrils flared and the crease between her brows deepened before she ducked her head and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Alazar sucked in a breath, tasting the smoke that had filtered up into his mouth. An alien sensation of weakness teased his legs as he moved through the crowd, his attention on Mark. His Keeper added a packet of sugar to his coffee and stirred, staring into the liquid as Alazar slipped up to the table and glided smoothly into the woman’s empty seat.

  Mark’s head shot up.

  Alazar lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and lounged back in the chair. Damn, it was nice to see his Keeper again.

  “Alazar.” Mark blinked several times, his lips moving soundlessly. At last, his eyes lit up and his lips curled into a wide smile. “Alazar.”

  “I’ll get my bro-hug on the way out.” Alazar smiled back. “Zar saw you at the credit union.”

  Mark chuckled. “I thought that was Zareh, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. Here. In Nocturne Falls.”

  “Believe away.” He flicked his hand up and down, motioning to his Keeper. “You look great. Time’s been kind to you. Keeping out of trouble?”

  Mark chuckled. “That should be the question I propose to you.”

  “Trouble and I are buddies.”

  “I see you haven’t changed, and that’s good.”

  Alazar hunched over the table, holding Mark’s gaze. “Nope. Not a bit. Still the funny guy with a gold addiction.”

  “Ahh. Although the funny façade hides a dragon with tremendous layers.”

  “An onion to the core. So, tell me. What have you been up to?” Alazar lifted the cup that belonged to the woman to his nose and inhaled the scent of mocha, strong espresso, and female. “What have you been hiding?”

  Mark’s hand paused with his coffee halfway to his mouth. He stared back at Alazar for a long moment, then lowered the cup to the table.

  “You know,” Alazar continued. “I have this thing about being woken up from a dead sleep to find my jewel in a stranger’s possession and my Keeper willfully refusing to speak with me.”

  “She’s not a stranger.”

  Alazar tipped his head and pressed out his bottom lip in a motion of “maybe, maybe not.” Before he’d laid eyes on the woman, he wasn’t happy Mark shared the jewel with her. Now, he was intensely curious because his dragon confirmed all of his unspoken suspicions.

  “To you, perhaps not. To me, yes. She is. So, who is she?”

  “My niece.”

  Alazar laughed quietly. “That’s not possible. You had one brother and he died when the slayers attacked The Hollow.” He pushed the mocha concoction aside. “So…?”

  “Mike didn’t die. I was able to get him out before the magic melted our ho
me. We barely escaped. One of the dragons who lost a Keeper and who died shortly after the attack carried Mike from The Hollow. I told Mike to run, and keep running. It took me two years after we split up to locate him again. He had found a woman, married, and they were expecting a daughter.” Mark’s expression softened, his gaze shifting away from Alazar. “Ariah. My niece.”

  Alazar could barely control the rush of his dragon’s excitement as he lifted his gaze to the woman who had paused a few feet away. The moment his eyes connected with her dark gaze, irises flickering and swirling with gold veins, the breath in his lungs ceased and his world shook.

  The lifemate pull exploded inside his mind and unleashed a powerful current of raw emotion within his dragon.

  Protect. Cherish.

  Smoke and bones, I’m done for.

  Chapter Six

  The subtle scent of wildfire laced through her nostrils on her way to the bathroom. With the scent came a fierce warmth that extinguished the endless chill in her blood. She didn’t think anything of it at first. For all she knew, it could have been a mixture of coffee, espresso, and burnt milk. Nothing would have come of the scent and the sensation had the stranger propped against the wall beside the hallway not caught her attention.

  The man was pretty darn hot. Oh, forget that. He was impossibly gorgeous, with a tapered jaw shadowed by a hint of scruff and thick waves of russet hair he had pulled half back in one of those messy man buns. She wasn’t a long-haired-man kind of gal, but it was perfect on him.

  Aside from the split-second assessment she performed as she skirted him, she couldn’t shake a sudden influx of weakness. It made her dizzy and she caught herself with a hand against the wall to reorient her shaken body.

  Think it’s time to eat yourself back to a healthy weight.

  She turned back as the man rolled off the wall and peered down the hallway. He’s looking for you. A preposterous thought, but deep down she knew it was true. The lingering gaze from behind his dark sunglasses pulled her in.

  She escaped into the bathroom, not only from Uncle Mark’s persistent chatter about dragons, but now from the effects of the stranger. There was nothing else to do to prevent making a fool of herself. There was no possible way that guy had any interest in her aside from vaguely noticing her walking by.

  It took her longer than she cared, and a few extra splashes of cold water on her face, to compose herself. From the moment she and her uncle stood in front of the cozy coffee house—even though they had eaten a short time earlier, she always had room for coffee on a brisk day—a strange tingle teased her spine. An unusual sensation of being watched refused to release her from its grip. She tried to ignore it, blaming the unnerving encounter with the couple at the credit union for upsetting her state of mind. She had even opened her mind to try to capture any thoughts that may have pointed to a cause for the sensation, fine-tuning the dials in her head to fade out nonsense.

  In the end, she turned off the thoughts, coming away empty.

  “You need to relax,” she whispered to the pale face in the mirror. “Just…relax. And stop using the bathroom as an escape route.”

  Ariah left the bathroom and headed back to her uncle. She stopped short when she saw who had taken her seat.

  For the briefest moment, she felt like she was being tossed in a raging sea, her body tilting and turning over and over. When the man lifted beautiful amber eyes to her, she all but fainted. The proverbial gut punch left her breathless and her heart racing to provide oxygen to her brain.

  Her world stopped.

  “Smoke and bones. I’m done for.”

  Ariah blinked as the thought filled her head with a deep, rich sound. Her knees wobbled.

  “Ariah, honey, is everything okay?”

  Her uncle’s concerned question barely resonated through the violent rush of blood in her head, sounding hollow and distant. She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone dry.

  The strange man was beside her in a flash, strong arms wrapped around her before her legs completely gave out. Heat pulsed along the thin fabric of her shirt, cocooning her in a blanket of secure warmth she never wanted to escape. Her nostrils filled with the delicious aroma of fire and spice.

  A dragon’s scent.

  Yes. He smelled like what her uncle described a dragon would, if dragons were real. The scent was as comforting and reassuring as the arms around her.

  The man led her to her seat, guided her to her butt, and pulled up an empty chair from another table. He straddled that chair and folded his arms casually over the back. His eyes narrowed on her before he cast her uncle a hard glower.

  “She’s unwell,” the man groused.

  Ariah’s brow furrowed. Gorgeous or not, he would not pass judgment on her so blatantly.

  When she opened her mouth to say just that, her uncle cut her off.

  “She’s been through tough times.”

  The man scrutinized her uncle. By the time he turned those heart-melting eyes back to her, there was nothing but tenderness glowing in them.

  Ariah lifted a finger. “I’ve no idea who you are, but don’t talk about me like I’m not sitting here. That’s obnoxious.”

  “Ariah, this is Alazar Brandvold.”

  Ariah regarded the stranger for a small eternity. This was the man who would be unhappy because she was skinny? Sweeping a glance over the guy, she could possibly see why. She was a stick compared to his tall, lean, and definitely more muscled form. His dark blue jeans hugged nice legs and his leather jacket stretched over the wide berth of his shoulders. He could snap her with a breath.

  A soft whisper of instinct promised her he would bring no harm to her, stranger or not. The soft glow of his eyes reinforced that promise.

  “How do you know my uncle?”

  Alazar watched her but addressed her uncle. “What have you told her?”

  “Everything,” Uncle Mark said.

  “Sure doesn’t seem like everything.” Alazar tipped his head and looked over his shoulder. “Here isn’t the best place to discuss family matters. Too many humans milling about.” He flashed Ariah a devastating smile. In that moment, she craved to have his arms around her again. “You shoot pool?”

  Ariah arched a brow. “Pool?” She cleared the knot from her throat. “Um, sure. Yeah. Every now and again. Why?”

  “Al, she’s not a gambler.”

  “Come on, Marky. Give me some credit.”

  She couldn’t help but snicker at the way this thirty-something-year-old hunk made her serious uncle blush and brought him down a notch with nothing more than a humor-laced comment and a nickname. Her uncle rolled his eyes.

  “Nothing like a little fun to break the ice.”

  “Ice is nonexistent around you.”

  “True, true.” Alazar chuckled, another sinful sound that left Ariah a puddle of melted mush. She wasn’t quite sure about the exchange between this stranger and her uncle, but whatever was happening, she could detect no threat. “It’s a problem when maintaining a higher core body temperature.”

  Ariah’s face heated under Alazar’s pointed attention. She grinned and rubbed the back of her neck, wishing the blood she felt warming her cheeks would leave her face. A long time had passed since she earned such potent and genuine attention from a man, and never one so handsome. Despite his rather sharp, angular features, down to the hollows of his cheeks, the slope of his dark brows, and the slant of his eyes, the light in those eyes and his amazing smile softened his dangerous edge.

  “You know, the Vampire Bites are pretty delicious. I can grab a few for you to try,” Alazar offered. “A close friend of mine can devour a bag in record time.”

  Ariah took a deep breath and dared to meet the guy’s gaze. Her eyes faltered on his grinning mouth and super kissable lips. She didn’t need his body warmth to heat up areas inside her that had lain dormant for far too long.

  “We ate not long ago, but I couldn’t pass up the offer for a great cup of coffee.” Ariah motioned to her mocha la
tte. She shifted in her seat. Her body’s reaction to Alazar was beyond normal and yet way too natural. The only problem was the awkwardness of her uncle sitting at the table. It was about as strange as having a sex talk with her father. “Thanks.”

  Mark tapped the table with his fingertips before scooting his chair back and rising to his feet. “I forgot something in my car. I’ll be right back.”

  “Uncle—”

  He smiled and clapped Alazar’s shoulder. She caught the whitening of his knuckles as he squeezed. “You’re safe with him. I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”

  Ariah pressed her lips together and watched her uncle weave through the crowd before disappearing outside. A muted sound escaped her throat, heat flushing her cheeks. Well, she was certainly making an impression, and probably a poor one at that.

  “Well, um, so what do you do?” she asked. As soon as the question left her mouth, she cringed inwardly. She talked to people on a daily basis. Why was it so difficult to start a conversation with this guy?

  He’s gorgeous, and sexy, and you’re the equivalent of an upscale street rat.

  Alazar’s gaze turned away from his inspection of the patrons filling the coffee shop and focused on her. “I fly.”

  “You’re a pilot?”

  Alazar pushed off his chair, angled it to face her, and settled in the seat. He propped a foot on the bottom rung of her chair, lounging back casually. His ease helped to settle her awkward nerves. She found extra strength in cupping her latte between her hands. It steadied the tremors that shook her fingers.

  “Not quite.” A devilish grin touched the man’s mouth. “I breathe fire, too. And I have a gold fetish.”

  Huh. Flying fire-breather who has an affinity for gold. Ariah wondered how much of an influence her uncle had on his friend when it came to his dragon obsession.

  “I don’t suppose you’re going to elaborate on that.”