Coven: (A Steamy Dragon Shifter/Vampire Romance) (Dragon Bound Book 1)

by Serena Akeroyd

  The room was delicate and innately female.

  Remy stood out in it. He was too big, too coarse, with his size and his manner. But she’d never been so happy in these quarters.

  Ever.

  If anyone had asked her if she was a superficial woman, she’d have said, without a doubt, yes. But now, she realized she wasn’t.

  Remy, though handsome, was unlike every other lover she’d had. Not that she’d had many. She’d been too busy for sex. Too busy to do anything other than run her coven and be Sanguenna.

  The few times she had lovers, they’d been chic and smart. Elegant and debonair.

  Remy was earthy and raw. Crude and unashamed. He had a majesty about him that came from his family’s position, but he held himself like a warrior.

  She loved that about him.

  She just wanted to love more of him.

  Huffing out a breath, she turned to stare at the moon beside her bed that glowed.

  Her eyes caught the little Christmas tree her cleaner had propped on her dressing table, and she smiled at the decoration.

  Christmas was next week.

  The thought had her thinking about her feet.

  As she’d done every other night when Remy had passed out beside her, she tried to make her toes work. She probably had the same face as when a human was trying to crap, but she strained and worked hard to tense muscles that she had no control over. She forced them with her will to work, but no amount of forcing was getting them to even twitch.

  Just as she was about to give up though, her little toe decided to wiggle.

  She shot upright and stared at her feet.

  Trying to do it again, she tensed her muscles, but it remained stubbornly still.

  She leaned forward and began to wiggle it with her fingers, gently encouraging the damn thing to work again.

  It didn’t.

  But it had moved. Just for a second.

  That had to bode well, didn’t it?

  Glowering at her feet and legs, she fell back against the sheets. Deciding that she’d wasted enough time on something she had no control over, she blew out a pissed off breath and thought about sleeping.

  As was usually the case, just thinking of slumber was all she required to pass out.

  With a moan, Mia lifted her foot and began to scratch at her calf.

  She’d never, not in all her life, been bitten by a mosquito. Mosquitos, after all, required fresh sources of blood. Not old ones. But still, this fire on her calf had to be a mosquito bite, didn’t it?

  Groggily, she opened her eyes and peered at the closed shutters on her windows. No light bled into the room around the frame, so she knew it was night-time.

  She yawned, still tired, and used the heel of her foot to rub at the patch on her calf again. Jesus, it itched like a bitch.

  “For fuck’s sake,” she groused when the damn thing just carried on burning. Sitting up, she leaned over and began to scratch the area just above her ankle. Then, when she did, and she felt ‘something’ there, she let out a scream.

  Beside her, Remy immediately jolted upright. Hell, he did more than that. He leapt off the bed, his stance that of the aggressor.

  She eyed him, stunned for a second by his readiness in the face of a threat, and then snapped, “No one’s attacking. What the hell is this on my leg?”

  He blinked at her, then reached over and switched on the light that dangled over the bed. Thousands of glass beads glittered and sparkled as the chandelier light popped on, and when she saw her calf, she screamed again.

  Then, when she realized she’d been scratching ‘it’ with her foot, she screamed louder.

  “Woman, still thy screams!” he hollered, climbing onto the bed again and scrambling across it to grab her hand. “What on earth’s the matter?”

  A knock sounded at the door, but before they could tell the person behind it to go away, it opened and her staff of daywalker security ran in.

  “Ma’am?” Christoff, the head, demanded as he began eying the bedroom, hunting the threat that had prompted her screams.

  She gulped. “It’s nothing, Christoff. Nothing. You may leave.”

  He eyed her a second, then shot a look at Remy, who was kneeling naked on the bed. He flushed, then mumbled, “My apologies, ma’am. A thousand pardons.”

  He thought they’d been having sex.

  If only.

  She wafted her hand in dismissal. “It’s fine, Christoff. Just leave us.”

  He backed off, facing her all the time as he stepped blindly backward. His men followed until he closed the door in front of him.

  Remy cocked his brow at her when she turned her attention on him.

  “What are you looking at?” she snarled.

  “You. Apparently, they’re not used to you making much noise in here.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Trust you to take it that way. Pervert.”

  A grin appeared, and it widened—further pissing her off. “This pleases me.”

  “Well, it doesn’t please me.” She squinted at him. “Anyway, I haven’t asked you about your old lovers so don’t be asking me about mine. In fact, why are we even talking about this and not the fact I have scales on my calf. Scales, Remy. Not a mark, not a tattoo like you said, but fucking scales when you told me, cate-fucking-gorically there’d be no goddamn scales!” She let out a panicked breath. “And I moved my foot. It’s itching, like hell, and I moved my foot to scratch at my calf.”

  His eyes brightened. “Do you think you’ll be able to walk?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Last night, I managed to get my little toe to wiggle, but I don’t know how I did it, and I couldn’t get it to move again.”

  “Try twitching your legs now.”

  She did, concentrating hard on what, before Remy had appeared in her life, had been a move made without thought. She managed to shuffle her feet, and the excitement the pair of them displayed would have been more appropriate if she’d done an Irish jig worthy of an America’s Got Talent final after an hour’s lesson.

  “Thank the Mother,” he stated as he rounded the bed and approached her side. Holding out his hands, he murmured, “Let’s get you on your feet.”

  She slapped at his fingers. “Stuff that. What the hell is going on, Remy? Feel them, they’re scales.” She shuddered. “They’re all shiny. Skin should not be shiny,” she barked, then wailed, “I’m turning into a snake.”

  He grimaced but leaned over her calf to examine the new patch where his mark had appeared.

  Remy stared at them then brushed his fingers over the flecks of skin. He pulled a face, always reassuring, and murmured, “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “Never?” she shrieked, then, raising her knee—a feat that stunned and pleased her—she tilted her leg so that she could study it more.

  The scales followed exactly the markings on his breast, but it wasn’t that that concerned her. She’d had a few crocodile purses over the years, and the texture of that skin was akin to that.

  It creeped her the hell out.

  “Please tell me this will go away,” she half-begged. “What if I exfoliate?”

  He shook his head. “I wish I could, dearling, but I have no idea why this has happened.” Then, he coughed, but she knew he was trying to hide his amusement. “I doubt exfoliation will work.”

  “Why don’t you? Haven’t you ever read of anything like it in the House books?”

  “No. Marks are very basic. The deeper the bond, the darker the mark, but scales?” He shook his head again, and she wanted to grab his ears and hold him still. “No. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  He looked at her then stared down at proof she was half-lizard. “Are they really so bad?” he asked softly. “They’re simply my pattern.”

  “You’re asking me if it’s okay I’ve suddenly developed scales?” She fell silent and let out a shriek. “Are you crazy? Of course, it’s not ok
ay.”

  He clenched his jaw, obviously irked by her reaction—boo fucking hoo. “We need to return to the other realm. I must present you to the Queen.”

  She reached for his hand and jerked him to a halt. “Oh, no. You do not get to be mad at me about this. This is fucked up. You know it; I know it. I get to freak out around about now.

  “After nearly three weeks paralyzed from the waist down, then finally being able to move my legs again, it’s okay that I’m not handling this with a smile and a nod.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you want me to say?” His words were softer now, and she sensed he’d stopped being offended.

  Like he had the right to take offense when she had crocodile skin on her calf!

  Jesus wept.

  “I don’t know what I want you to say,” she garbled. “I want you to make this better.”

  “I can’t, dearling. Don’t you understand that? I can’t, because I’ve never seen it before.” He sucked in a breath. “We’ll go to the other realm. There should be a saddle waiting for you at the cavern. We’ll alight to Greytook’s town and collect your garb then head to the Queen’s court. After, we can see if any other leman has such a marking.”

  She firmed her lips then folded her arms across her chest. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Excuse me?”

  His tone was dangerously gentle now.

  She ignored it. She could be just as dangerous as her caveman of a mate.

  “I’m not going anywhere until...” She gulped then pressed her fingers to her eyes.

  When she realized she could probably walk again, she swiveled off the bed and clambered to her feet.

  The last thing she needed was to be stationary. She needed to pace off this energy. Needed to burn it off like she’d been unable to for the past few weeks.

  It was hard, at first.

  Her knees almost gave in at the first sign of her weight in nearly a month. Then her ankles kept buckling. Walking was suddenly as hard as it was when she was little more than a baby.

  Through it all, damn him, Remy was there. Several times, he caught her, took her weight and helped her get back on her feet—literally.

  The pacing and striding she longed to do was impossible. Just staggering around the room was incredibly difficult.

  Frustrated, exasperated, and downright irritated, the final time her knees buckled, she let them. When Remy went to grab her, she pretended to be spaghetti and allowed herself to collapse on the floor.

  He growled at her. “What did you do that for?” he demanded, dropping to his knees to try to gather her together so he could stand her up again.

  She slapped at his hands then slapped at his arms. “Go away,” she yelled at him because, suddenly, being near him was just too damn much.

  He’d brought this change into her world.

  Now, she was doing a good impression of a pair of snakeskin shoes without the ability to walk. These shoes weren’t made for walking, it seemed.

  Her mouth quivered with the onset of tears.

  “You don’t mean that,” he said huskily, and she knew she’d stunned him.

  “I do!” she retorted, and lifting her hands, covered her eyes. “I never asked for any of this, Remy. And now, something has happened to me that you’ve never seen before. I’m scared, dammit. I’m scared. What if...”

  He said nothing at first, but neither did he move. “What if, what?” he asked quietly.

  “What if it spreads? What if it does something no other mark has done before?” Her mouth began to do more than quiver now; it started to tremble. Hell, her entire body did.

  The ramifications of being the first this had ever happened to were more than just a damn inconvenience—it was terrifying.

  Shaking with that terror, she began to cry. When he pulled at her wrists, trying to dislodge her hands from covering her face, she yelled, “What are you still doing here?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he replied grimly. “I belong at your side, not in another room. Even if you’re mad at me. That matters not. You are mine, and I am yours. Whatever happens, that will never change. Your words will not alter that, neither will mine.”

  His words penetrated her fear when nothing else could have.

  Words like mine were powerful spells to weave on a terrified woman. Because though she was a Vampire, a thousand times stronger than the average human female, though she was Sanguenna, a thousand times more powerful than the average female nightwalker, at her base, she was simply a woman.

  A scared and panicked woman.

  And she told him that. “I’m not mad, I’m scared.”

  “I know, dearling. I can feel your fear. I did not understand it, but now I do. We cannot know if it will spread so we must not fear that, yet.”

  “Yet being the operative word,” she hissed, then closed her eyes again.

  “What point is there in worrying about something we do not know deserves our concern?”

  “You can say that when I know for a fact you’ve been concerned about how long I’ve been unable to walk?” She studied him a second through eyes that were pink from crying. “I know you have. Whenever you pick me up to carry me around, I can see it on your face. You were wondering when I’d be able to walk again; if it would ever happen. I never said anything, but the instant you started showing concern, I knew that I’d been off my feet longer than usual.”

  He grimaced. “That is the truth, and had you asked, I would have shared that truth with you.”

  “I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want it to be the truth. Already we’ve broken some kind of record,” she snapped. “A record we never intended on breaking.”

  He sighed. “We needs must go to the other realm. If there are any answers to be had, they’ll be found there. Not here.”

  “No. Not yet. You may go. You may apologize to the Queen, and tell her I’m not ready to attend to her. Explain the situation. Tell her something unusual has happened, but I’m not going anywhere until I know this damn thing won’t spread.”

  “And waiting here will do that, will it? If it’s going to spread, it will spread just as quickly here as it will over there.”

  “Yes, but here, I’ll be surrounded by my coven. Not your House. Not by people I don’t know.” She shook her head at him when he tried to lift her. “No. I won’t go. Not yet.” She smacked at his hands. “I’ll call the guards,” she threatened when he jerked her onto her feet.

  “You’d call your guards on me?” he demanded, sounding stunned, and damn his hide, hurt.

  “To stop you from dragging me over there. Yes.”

  He let out a low growl, and then, before he could say something she knew he’d regret, he did what he’d said he wouldn’t do... left her.

  And that, contrary though it made her when she’d been the one to push him away, had her sobbing all the harder as she crumpled where he dumped her—their bed.

  Twelve

  “What’s going on?” Brady’s question had her turning her head away from him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Doesn’t look like nothing,” he retorted, climbing onto the bed like he wasn’t breaking a thousand protocols by simply being in her room, never mind atop her mattress.

  But then, she’d never been strict with him.

  A fact she was starting to regret now.

  She eyed him as he settled back against the foot of the bed. “Get comfortable, why don’t you?” she snapped at him.

  “Oh, I intend to. Christoff told me you woke up screaming, and shortly after, Captain Neanderthal stormed off. You didn’t come out, and he hasn’t come back. What’s up?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Nothing.”

  He snorted then pulled out a candy bar from his pocket. As he unfastened the wrapper, he murmured, “I’d offer you some, but I know you can’t partake.”

  She gritted her teeth. “I’ll take some.”

  He cocked a brow at her. “You know what will h
appen.”

  “Do I look like I care? My mate’s abandoned me. I think I can handle the sugar rush.”

  He snorted. “You’ve never had one before, so how would you know what one feels like?”

  “Stop being pedantic, and give me the damn chocolate.” She held out her hand and ignored the amused smirk pasted on his features. He knew she was going to regret her next course of action, but the bastard that he was, he wouldn’t stop her.

  Jesus, friends could be such assholes sometimes.

  She put the chocolate between her teeth, pulled it out, and demanded, “Aren’t you going to try and stop me?”

  He shrugged, crossed his arms against his chest. “You’re a grown woman. It’s not my place to stop you.”

  She glowered at him and threw the bar on his chest. When the slightly melted chocolate stained his white shirt, he glowered back at her, but she smiled. Quite content with seeing the stain.

  Brady was a neat freak.

  Now, they were both disturbed.

  Mean of her, maybe. But like she’d said herself, friends could be assholes sometimes.

  “Well, that was a shitty thing to do,” he chided, staring mournfully down at the big brown patch on his whiter than white shirt.

  She bared her teeth. “I’m in a shitty kind of mood. Who let you in anyway?”

  “Like Christoff would dare say no to me,” came the immediate retort.

  “Why wouldn’t he?” she said with a scowl. “I said no one could come in.”

  “He’s scared of me,” Brady said with great relish. “And that’s something I’ve been cultivating for the last twenty years. I won’t let you mess it up.”

  She blinked at him. “Just who the hell is supposed to be in charge of this place anyway?”

  “You, mostly, except when it comes to certain matters.”

  His complete and utter ease had her gawking at him. “What matters are those?”

  “Daywalker matters.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t handle my own shit and this shit too.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way. I only mentioned it because I would prefer it if you didn’t chastise Christoff for obeying me.”