by Dena Christy
Afraid for him? “What are you talking about?”
Iszak looked at him and a look of disbelief crossed his face. “You didn’t talk to Rickman about why she left did you?”
“He told me she was gone, and that’s all I needed to know.”
“You idiot. I guess it’s a good thing that I talked to Rickman then, isn’t it? He told me that she was very upset about the hunters and that she was afraid that you would be killed by them.”
Could that be the reason that she’d left? That she was afraid of losing him, not that she was rejecting who he was?
“But we killed the hunters last night. She left after I got back.”
“Rickman said that she was afraid there would be more. Is there any reason you can think of that would make her afraid enough of something happening to you that she would rather walk away from you than stay with the threat of hunters hurting you?”
The answer came to Gregor in a flash and when it did her leaving made so much more sense.
“Elle was married before and her husband was murdered. I’m sure she is terrified of going through something like that again. I still don’t see the point of this discussion. It doesn’t matter why she left, she’s gone.”
Iszak rolled his eyes. “Do you love her?”
Gregor’s upper lip curled in a snarl. “Of course I love her. Do you think I would feel like a knife had stabbed me in the heart when I discovered she was gone if I didn’t?”
“Then why the fuck are you ready to curl up and die?” Iszak’s voice had risen a few decibels and with it Gregor’s temper.
“What do you want from me? Don’t you get it? She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t love me. What is the point of doing anything except curl up and die when I have a curse hanging over my head and will end up dying anyway. I might as well sit here and wait for the inevitable.”
Iszak stood up and his chair fell back. Gregor narrowed his eyes for a second when his brother grabbed a fist full of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. Gregor grabbed his younger brother by the wrist and yanked, but Iszak’s grip was secure.
“Fucking let go of me. With the mood I’m in I’d take great delight in kicking your ass and you won’t be any good to your woman for at least a week.”
Iszak gave a laugh. “Well, at least then you’d be doing something.”
His brother let go of his shirt and Gregor sighed. It was clear that his brother was not going away.
“What do you want from me, Iszak?”
“I want you to fight for her. I don’t want you to curl up and wait to die. Andor and I only just got you back and we don’t want to lose you again. We especially don’t want to be the ones who have to kill you.”
Gregor gave his head a shake. He didn’t want his brother to be forced to end his life but what other choice did he have? He would not wait for the madness to consume him and take the risk of hurting anyone.
“She’s gone. There is nothing left to fight for.”
“She loves you. She left because she was afraid that something would happen to you. If she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t be so scared. Go talk to her.”
And open himself up for rejection a third time? No way.
“She’s made her decision and I’m going to respect that.”
“My God you are so dense sometimes. She decided in the middle of the night, after her home and livelihood went up in smoke. Oh, and she also learned that her boyfriend is a dragon, and that there were hunters out to kill him. Do you think that this is a recipe for rational decision making?”
No, he didn’t. Should he talk to her? Did he really want to lay himself on the line again and open himself up to rejection? What if what she told Rickman was the only a plausible excuse for leaving him?
Iszak must have seen the indecision on his face because he grabbed his arms and looked him in the eye.
“You love her. She is your woman, and she’s out there alone. Isn’t she worth risking anything and everything if there is even that smallest chance that she loves you and just needs to be reassured that life with you won’t be one long waiting game for you to die? Go fight for your woman, Gregor.”
Gregor nodded his head. Elle could reject him again, and he didn’t know how he could cope with that. But there was also a chance that she wouldn’t. That he needed to talk to her and assure her that what she feared would happen to him would not happen.
He turned to the door and stopped short when he saw Julia standing there, looking pale.
“What is it?” Iszak brushed past him to stand by his woman’s side. She glanced up at him before looking at Gregor.
“I called my grandfather to tell him that the two hunters are dead. He asked me about Nash and I told him that he left town as ordered and was on his way back. My grandfather says that he’s not there, which means he never left Waldron Valley.”
“Elle’s in danger.” God how could he have been so stupid to believe that Nash would have quietly left Waldron Valley when the other two hunters had not.
He needed to get to her, but first he had to warn her to stay where she was and to not leave her motel room for any reason. He quickly dug his phone out of his pocket and punched in her number. As the phone rang, he prayed that his stupidity in not going after her right away had not cost her life.
Elle slowly backed away from the door, her eyes riveted to the gun in Gabriel's hand. She raised her hands in surrender and Gabriel walked in the motel room and kicked the door shut behind him.
"Gabriel, what is going on?" She stared at her one-time friend, and her heart sank when she saw the look in his eyes. This was no longer the man she knew, the one from so long ago that she never dreamed would hurt her. Perhaps that man had never existed. She wondered for a moment if she'd ever really known him at all or if she was seeing the real Gabriel Nash for the first time.
"How could you do it, Elle? How could you give yourself to him?" Gabriel's voice hissed at her like a snake, and his eyes narrowed with pure malice.
"I told you when we had dinner that I was seeing someone. I don't know why you are acting like this. I made it very clear to you that all we would ever be was friends."
"You did not mention that the man you were with was not a man at all. How could you give yourself to a dragon?" The way he said dragon made it sound like he was speaking of the lowest sort of creature imaginable. Her stomach turned sour when she realized that Gabriel must be a dragon hunter, and that he had been the shadow she’d seen from the shop door last night. "How could you do it, Elle? After I'd only just found you again after you disappeared four years ago."
"I didn't disappear four years ago. I was rebuilding a new life after Ian died. I didn't owe you anything. The people important to me knew where I was." The implication was clear. He hadn't been important enough for her to tell him where she'd gone. Perhaps even back then some deep instinct had told her that she needed this man out of her life.
The muscle flexed in his jaw and she knew a moment of regret for speaking her mind. He was not the most stable of individuals at the moment and he was holding a gun. The truth would not be a welcome addition to this conversation.
"It was supposed to be you and me once Ian was out of the way. The way it should have been all those years ago before I was stupid enough to introduce you to him."
Shock splashed over Elle in cold waves. Was he implying what she thought he was?
There was something, deep in his eyes, a knowledge of something that she didn't even want to face, but needed to. She staggered back from him.
"It was you. You killed Ian." Why had she never thought of it before? When Ian had been murdered, the police had asked her if Ian had had any enemies, and she'd answered no. She'd never considered that Ian's biggest enemy had been in their lives in the guise of his friend.
A deep and burning anger rose up inside her. The knowledge that Ian's death had not been random at all, that this man had been responsible, uncorked all the rage that had been bottled up inside her for four long years. She never h
ad a target for that rage before, but now one was standing right here. Her hands curled into fists and she flew at him. "How could you do it? He was your friend. He trusted you."
She swung wildly at him and connected with his jaw. Pain shot through her first but it was smothered by the satisfaction of seeing him fall back and land against the table in front of the window. Seeing her moment through the haze of her anger, she moved quickly toward the door. She had her hand on the knob when he seized her. His arm came around her waist like a vice and she sobbed in anger as she kicked back with her foot. She connected with his shin and heard him grunt.
Her satisfaction was short lived when the cold barrel of the gun pressed against her temple. In her rage she'd forgotten all about it, but the cold steel against her skin was a potent reminder.
"He was in my way." Gabriel's lips moved against her ear as he growled at her and revulsion crawled down her spine. "You were meant to be mine. And now another is in my way and you will help me get rid of him too."
"You're crazy." He had to be deranged to think that she would want to be with him after this. "Gregor has nothing to do with why I'm not with you."
He shoved her away, and she let out a cry of pain when her hip hit the table. The force of it knocked her to the floor, and she looked up at him. God why couldn't she keep her mouth shut. The man towering over her with pure hate on his face had a gun, yet she was the one who was acting like a crazy person.
"Then there is really no reason for me to let you live." He leveled the gun at her and for a moment it felt like her life had ended. It was in that moment that she realized, too late, that she'd allowed her fear of the unknown throw away her chance for happiness. Now she knew what true fear felt like, and the emotion that sent her running from Gregor last night paled in comparison.
"Please, don't do this. I'm sorry, I didn't know what I was saying. I was just angry over the shock of all this. I'll be whatever you want me to be, just don't do this."
She was back peddling, and she knew it. But she couldn’t let it end this way, not on the floor of a cheap motel room at the hands of the man who murdered her husband. When the time came for her life to be over, she wanted it to be at a ripe old age, with the man who she loved with all her heart. With Gregor.
But in order for that to happen she needed to get out of this mess, and she knew she could not do it alone. Her first step was to convince this lunatic that she would spend the rest of her life with him. She swallowed back the revulsion at the thought.
He hesitated for a second and the barrel of the gun lowered a little. Although her words had seemed desperate and unbelievable to her, she could see in his eyes that he wanted to believe them. He needed a little more convincing.
“Have you not wondered why I’m here and not with him?” She slowly folded herself up so that she was in a seated position. When the gun dipped a little more, so that it was not pointed directly at her, she knew she had his attention. Her movements were slow as she levered herself up to stand. He jerked the gun up as if he was wary that she was going to attack him again. As much as she would like to fly at him, she needed to be smarter than she’d had been so far. Her only hope of getting out of this was to convince him that she was not a threat to him. She had to live beyond this confrontation. She had to get a message to Gregor somehow. As much as the knowledge of what needed to be done went against her better nature, she knew that the only way she was ever going to be free of this man was if he was dead. That was something that she could not do alone, and Gregor had just as much a stake in this since this man would not stop hunting him.
“Why are you here?” He was going to allow her to talk, and she knew that her survival hinged on what she said to him.
“I didn’t know he was dragon. I thought he was just a man when I met him and you hadn’t come back into my life yet. I only found out last night that he was a dragon when I saw him turn into one. I went back with him to his house because that is where he took me, but while he was asleep I left.” The truth in this rang through since it was a version of what had happened last night that he would want to believe. “I was afraid, Gabriel. That was why I ran away from him.”
He moved the gun down by his side, and the tension inside Elle eased a little. She wasn’t safe yet, but at least the immediate danger of her death had passed. If she was going to stay alive, she needed to guard every word she said. He put the gun down on the table and approached her. She was careful to look at him, and not at the gun, although she longed to grab it and turn the tables on him. He was closer to it than she was and she knew that she could never get it before he could.
“Do you mean it? You didn’t know?” He took a step toward her and ran a finger down her cheek in some perverted parody of tenderness. She braced herself so the revulsion surging through her right now didn't show on her face. Her ability to make him believe that he was the one she wanted was the ticket to her survival, and she wanted to live more than anything.
“I didn’t know. How could I have known? He never told me. He fooled me into thinking he was just a man. Do you honestly think I would be with such a… creature as him if I had known?” In her mind she asked Gregor to forgive her for what she was saying.
“You couldn’t, you wouldn’t be with that thing.” His own prejudices and twisted desires made him want to believe what she wanted him to believe. “And if I kill him for you? Would that make you happy?”
It would devastate her but she had to get a warning to Gregor, she had to let him know that this man was after him and to do that she needed to make him believe that Gregor’s death was what she wanted too. She only hoped that the combined strength of three dragons was enough to deal with this man and that nothing happened that would endangered Gregor.
“It would, but I want to be a part of it. Don’t leave me here while you deal with him yourself.” She needed to be there, in case something went awry and she needed to intervene on Gregor’s behalf. If she was there for whatever he had planned his focus would be divided and that would be to Gregor’s advantage.
“We can do it today. I have it all planned. I had thought that I would have to drag you to the place I have planned for this, but it will be so much easier now that you want to do this with me.” He paused for a moment as if it was dawning on him that she was being perhaps a little too accommodating. She couldn’t allow him to think for a moment, otherwise this game between them would be over before it started.
Shoving down her hatred for this man, she stepped closer to him and put her hand on his chest. “I want to do this with you, Gabriel.”
She hoped it was enough to convince him, and the look in his eyes told her it was.
“Get your phone and call him. You will be the bait that lures him to his death. Make sure he doesn’t suspect anything when you talk to him.”
There would be no danger of that happening.
She turned away from him and closed her eyes in a fervent prayer that she and Gregor would live through this as she picked up her phone. It rang in her hand and she almost dropped it when she jumped. A glance down showed her that Gregor was calling her. She looked over at Gabriel.
“It’s him.”
His eyes narrowed for a second. “Well, what are you waiting for? Answer it.”
She swiped to accept the call and put the phone to her ear.
As soon as she heard his voice, all the fear that had been tumbling inside her came out.
“Gregor.” It was all she could get out, and he knew right away what was happening.
“Put him on the phone.” His voice was a fierce, dark growl and she need not have feared that her man was walking into a trap. Somehow he knew exactly who was with her.
She pulled the phone away from her ear as she tried to get herself under control. She handed it to Gabriel. “He wants to talk to you.”
16
Rage burned deep in Gregor’s belly as he clutched the phone in his hand. How dare this cowardly little hunter think that he could take his woman and
get away with it? As he waited for Nash to come on the phone, Gregor imagined all the things he would do to the man as a punishment for terrorizing his Elle. Roasting him alive was at the top of the list. This man wanted to hunt dragons? He was about to learn what it meant to incur a dragon’s wrath.
“If you want to see her again, do exactly as I say.”
Gregor swallowed down the urge to hurl abuse at him for daring to dictate terms to him. He had to remember that the most important consideration in all of this was Elle’s safety and not his pride. This had to be about her. Once she was safe, then he would be free to deal with Gabriel Nash once and for all.
“What do you want me to do?” He had no idea how he kept his voice calm and collected with his dragon’s fire burning deep in his belly. Hearing Elle’s voice and knowing she was in danger had raised every protective instinct he had and the dragon inside him clawed to get out. It would come out soon enough, but for now he needed to keep his composure.
“I want you to meet me in the place where Julia betrayed her family. Your brother will know where it is since it’s the place where he attempted to destroy her father. Go there and you will have your chance to get Elle back.” The corner of Gregor’s lips curled up in a snarl when he heard the smugness in Nash’s voice.
“And you expect me to believe that you will just let her walk away from you and you won’t do anything to stand in our way?” Nash must think he was stupid if he thought that he would believe that he wasn’t walking into a trap. There was no way the hunter was going to let Elle go without a fight. He’d done too much to get her in the first place to ever let that happen.
“Oh, I’m not going to just let you walk away from her. She’s mine and has always been mine. But I will be generous and give you a chance to try to take her back. There will be a fight between you and me. May the best fighter win.”
That was it? Gregor suspected that there was more to this than met the eye. Perhaps Nash had a secret weapon or more likely he thought that his hunter friends were still alive and would be with him to help him spring his little trap.
