by J. L. Weil
My hand extended, and I found myself reaching out to touch the closest dragon. It was Issik. He stared down at my fingers. “Let me guess, this is going to be very dangerous, isn’t it?”
The four of them shared one of their famous looks. “Yes.”
“But we swear on our lives, we will protect you.” Kieran rushed to jump in, and smooth over the mounting anxiety that had built in my chest.
I believed them. They had as much to lose as I did. Probably even more so. “Anyone have an idea of how to break this curse? This bitch is going down.”
They rewarded me with four grins of pure sin. My dragons.
No. Not my dragons.
I was just helping them, and once we unwove the spell Tianna put on the dragon descendants, I would get on with my life.
Whatever that meant.
And my delusions of the future ran amuck in my head.
Chapter Eleven
The journey back to the keep wasn’t as treacherous as the trek to the cave had been. We picked our way through the woods, winding down the same path we had traveled earlier in the day. I started to lose steam quickly, lagging behind and tripping over my achy and exhausted feet.
After the third time of stumbling over a branch, Jase slipped an arm around my waist. “Hold on to my neck,” he murmured, waiting for me to lift my arms.
“I can walk,” I insisted, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.
“Are you always this stubborn? And clumsy?” he added.
My head whipped to the side and I glared. “I am neither stubborn nor clumsy.”
He smirked, and I knew I was in trouble, not the life-threatening kind, but the why-does-he-have-to-use-those-dimples-on-me kind. “Good. Then you better hang on.” Jase didn’t give me a chance to argue. Dipping his shoulder, he put an arm under my legs and lifted me up.
I crossed my arms at first, refusing to give in, but it was awkward, leaving me no choice. My hands slipped around his neck.
Minutes later, my head became too heavy and I could no longer resist the urge to rest it on the space between his shoulder and neck. I sighed softly, comforted by the calming scent of him. Like the sound of the sea, he lulled me to sleep. I was pretty sure he’d used his tranquility on me, but I was too tired to care, especially when he suddenly brushed his lips over the side of my cheek. My fingers tightened at the nape of his neck as a surge of tingles danced inside me.
It was nothing. Just a simple kiss, and yet it felt anything but simple. If I wasn’t careful, these four dragons would find a way into my heart. I didn’t know how I could feel so equally attached to them, but there was no denying something definitely was brewing between us. Just what was I going to do about it?
My eyelids fell closed, and they didn’t open again until my arms were wrenched off Jase’s neck. He laid me down in my bed as I glanced up at him from half-lidded eyes. I rested a hand on his arm, not wanting him to leave just yet. “Are we home?” I asked groggily.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress shifting to one side under his weight. “Yes, and it would be in your best interest if you stayed inside. No more escape attempts.”
My fatigue vanished. I opened my mouth to say something in my defense and then quickly snapped it closed. How had he known? For all intents and purposes, I could have been just running aimlessly in the woods.
“The wraith has your scent. He’ll be back with others too, and you’re going to need our protection, Cupcake.”
Shit.
Well, that just sealed the deal, didn’t it? Jase gave me no choice. If I tried to run again, the wraiths would probably find me first. “Fabulous,” I muttered sarcastically.
His finger brushed along my jawline, lingering just over my bottom lip. “Try and get some sleep. One of us will be near.”
Was that supposed to provide me comfort? It didn’t. Just the opposite. My entire body erupted in a heat similar to when Zade had blown his breath into my lungs. “How near are we talking? Like in my room?” The coloring of my cheeks morphed in the darkened room, and his eyes were drawn to them.
He grinned. “If you like.”
Did I want him in my room?
I was afraid of the answer. “Is there a bed big enough for five?” I joked, but the gleam in his eyes made me sorry I had.
He raised a single brow. “Are you into that kind of thing?”
“No,” I exhaled on a nervous laugh. “Definitely not.”
“You sure?” he asked, trailing a hand lightly down my arm.
At the moment, I was only into him, but I shook my head, giving him the truth. “No. I can’t explain it, but I’m all mixed up inside.” And then there was the fact that the four of them could sense my emotions. I still hadn’t digested that clusterfuck.
“Maybe I could help you clear things up.”
The mischief in his eyes told me his idea of “clearing things up” would only complicate matters more and entangle my feelings deeper in the web woven by the descendants. Don’t look at him. Keep your eyes glued to the bed.
“Look at me,” Jase murmured.
His velvet voice pulled at me, and I lost the battle. Staring into his smoldering deep purple eyes, I held my breath and waited. He leaned down, a lock of dark hair cascading over the side of his temple.
My heart started pumping, and my fingers dug into the bed. He was going to kiss me. Dipping forward, my eyes drifted shut, and that was when I felt his mouth brush the tip of my nose. He sat back, a smile teasing his lips, and in the moonlight, I saw a flash of dimples.
Argh. He really knew how to torment a girl. My grip relaxed against the sheets as I exhaled and struggled with the desire to pull him to my lips. What did that say about me? I should be running far and fast from Jase Dior.
But I couldn’t.
And from the smug grin on his face, he knew it. The jerk probably had kissed every girl here.
The thought was like being thrown in a bath of ice-cold water. My eyes hardened, and I pushed at his chest so he no longer leaned over me. “I’m not your current plaything, and that goes for all of you.”
Irritation reflected clearly across his face. “Why would you think that?”
“You have a house full of girls just like me.” They had been special at one time.
His expression turned to stone, masking any emotion. “The thing is, Olivia, none of them are like you.”
“How do I know you’re not just telling me what I want to hear?”
“For one, it’s the truth. And two, we’ve never had a connection to anyone before.” His hypnotic voice placated me.
How could I forget for even a second our emotional fivesome? “I just don’t want to be screwed with,” I confessed.
What I really wanted to do was demand to know how many of the girls he had kissed, how many he had slept with. Jealousy was an ugly feeling, but the vision of my dragons with other girls sent me into a tizzy. Ten percent of my frustration could be attributed to exhaustion, but the other ninety percent was all possessiveness.
“I don’t know what is going on in that pretty head of yours, but I’m not just being a flirt. The way I feel about you is serious,” he murmured.
How do you feel about me? I asked inside my head but couldn’t bring myself to say the question out loud.
Jase tucked the corners of the blanket around me so I was cocooned in the bed. “Now, get some sleep.” Standing up, he walked out the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Which was a scary place to be. Almost as scary as the wraiths.
Feelings were weird.
Back in the real world, I’d never really had a boyfriend. I had dated a little, then Mom got sick and my love life no longer mattered. But when I looked at Jase, Zade, Issik, and Kieran, there was something unique about each of them that I found endearing. The four dragons struck different chords inside me.
What made me feel so possessive of them? Was it because they were dragon shifters and I’d never met anyone like them? D
id they exude some kind of pheromone attracting me to them? That would make sense, but this need to be near them, to touch them, and do things to them that would have made my grandma blush, didn’t make sense.
They had kidnapped me, and here I was thinking about their lips.
All four sets of them.
I had to think about this for a moment. What was I saying? Four?
That was quite a lot of dragons to handle, yet I couldn’t choose one over the other. But I was totally getting ahead of myself. They might not even think of me as anything more than a means to an end—their freedom. So what if they had kissed me? Well, Issik technically hadn’t—the only one of the four who had shown any restraint. Or maybe it was just lack of interest, but at times, he seemed to care about my well-being. That had to count for something, right?
My mind continued to make excuses on his behalf, until a new thought struck me.
What would happen if I somehow, by a million-to-one shot, managed to free them from the curse? Would they discard me like the other girls then? Would that be a bad thing?
Yes. The thought of living in the same house as one of them, and being cast aside as just another girl, filled me with dread. From the moment I’d arrived in the Veil, they had made me feel special, and I liked sitting on the pedestal they’d created. What did that say about me?
As I lay in the dark, my memory recalled each of their faces and how distinct they were.
Jase, with his dimples and calm disposition, was the levelheaded one the others turned to, even if they didn’t realize it. A natural leader.
Kieran, the fun-loving and light-spirited dragon, had a wicked side to him that I was dying to unleash. The lip piercing, the tattoos, and those luminous green eyes spelled danger.
Zade, everything about the golden gold was hot, from his body to his soul. But he had a quick temper to match the fire in his eyes.
Issik, my ice prince—guarded and quiet. But under that frozen exterior was a heart waiting to be thawed. I surprised myself by wanting it to be me who would get him to open up.
Dear God.
I was falling for them. For all of them. How did that even happen?
Four guys. One girl. They would never go for that, would they?
Shaking my head I rejected the idea. No. They were proud and selfish—especially regarding me—but they were “sharing” me as they so eloquently had put it.
Just maybe…
I was insane. This wasn’t happening. Stop fantasizing about these dragons and start devising a plan to get the hell off this island. You still want to go home, don’t you?
That was the thing. Everyone had warned me I might like it here, but yet, I hadn’t believed I would ever consider staying in the Veil Isles. The truth was, I didn’t want to go back to the streets of Chicago. To the cold, harsh winters. To being alone. To fighting for my survival each day.
My life in Chicago hadn’t been easy.
What did I have to lose here in the Veil?
The answer… nothing.
This could be my chance to start over, and do something meaningful with my life. It wasn’t the life I’d imagined, but that didn’t mean it had to be any less significant.
The image of four dragons, wrapped around me like a warm security blanket, engulfed me as I drifted off to sleep.
I’d been cooped up inside for two days, and I was seconds away from throwing myself off the balcony, just to see which dragon would save me. My boredom had reached that crazy level where I was dying for excitement of any kind.
There was no TV. My cell phone didn’t work in the Veil. And the four dragons that were keeping me captive in this room hadn’t bothered to show their faces.
I hated being ignored. They were up to something, but I didn’t know what. Why else would they disappear?
Maybe they are bored with you.
Maybe they don’t need you after all.
Maybe my insecure self should just shut the hell up!
I finally got fed up with the silence, and went looking for them. I found Davina, Harlow, and Kaytlyn instead.
The three girls cornered me outside of Jase’s office, which I had been about to barge into unannounced, and demand to know that he tell me what was going on.
“Everyone is talking about you,” Harlow said as my hand reached for the doorknob.
I spun and pasted the biggest fake smile on my lips. “That’s nice,” I replied snappily. “Have you seen them?”
“Them?” Harlow drew out the word with a smile that was anything but nice.
Gag me. Girls like her used to make me sick in high school. “Yeah, you know, the four assholes who kidnapped us.”
Kaytlyn snickered. Davina’s hand flew to her mouth, and Harlow sneered. At least I had gotten a reaction out of them. This was the most interaction I’d had with people in days. “Are they ignoring you already?” Harlow tsked her tongue. “I guess the rumors aren’t true then.” She looked loftier than a cat who had just eaten the mouse.
I crossed my arms and planted my feet firmly on the ground in case things turned south. The fire in her eyes told me she wanted to go a round or two with me in the ring. And based on how I currently felt, I would welcome the release of anger. I angled my head to the side. “The one about the descendants being linked to me? It’s true. You never know what will happen when you give someone your blood.” My bitchiness had reached new heights and it was all their fault. Damn dragons.
Harlow stuck up her nose. “That’s not what I heard.”
“Then I guess you don’t have a reliable source.”
“But the curse hasn’t been lifted,” Davina pointed out, but not in a cruel way like Harlow would have. She sounded genuinely curious.
I shook my head. “No, but something else happened.”
“We wondered what all the secrecy and commotion was about,” Kaytlyn added, and was rewarded with a jab in the gut by Harlow.
So I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed things were weird. “What commotion? Where are they?”
Harlow shrugged. “Gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” That didn’t make sense. Jase had said they would protect me, that one of them would always be near, and yet here I stood… alone. My face fell, and I regretted the moment of vulnerability I’d revealed to Harlow.
Her expression was filled with smugness. “They all left two days ago. The night you came back.”
I wanted to call bullshit, but from the looks in the other girls’ expressions, she wasn’t lying. Why would they leave? Where did they go? How could they abandon me without even saying goodbye?
“It was bound to happen. They tend to lose interest pretty quickly once they get what they want,” Harlow gladly gloated.
She was lucky there were witnesses; otherwise, I would have popped her in the face. I wondered how pretty she would look with a broken nose. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” I was being cocky. I only hoped it didn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
Flipping her hair in a dramatic fashion, she appeared indifferent. “Suit yourself. I was just offering a bit of friendly advice.”
Ha. She didn’t know the meaning of friendly. We both knew she didn’t give two shits about me. “Don’t you have someone else to intimidate?”
The smile that crossed her lips was one of victory. She’d gotten what she wanted—to get under my skin.
Drawing in a breath, I turned around, twisted the knob on the door to Jase’s office, and stepped inside. The room was so quiet; the only sound was the water lapping outside. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent that was all Jase—wild summer nights and ocean spray.
Curling into the deep leather couch, the smooth fabric cooled my cheek as I lay down and tucked my hand under a knitted pillow. I felt crushed, and I couldn’t even rationalize why. From the moment they had flown into my life, my mind had been scrambled. It was all so much, and for the first time since I arrived in the Veil, I broke down. Tears I couldn’t stop fell, streaking down my chee
ks as I stared at the empty office. I lost track of time, but hours must have passed, and soon my eyelids grew heavy. It became a struggle to keep them open, and eventually, I closed my eyes.
Chapter Twelve
For the first few seconds upon awakening, it felt like a fantasy—not sure of my surroundings—and then it all hit me. Dragons were real. I had some kind of emotional link to four of them, and for some reason beyond my comprehension they thought I could save them.
What a joke.
But it wasn’t. This was my life.
I hadn’t opened my eyes yet, still lingering in the dregs of sleep. Something tickled my nose, and I brushed it aside, not ready to face another empty room, but the feeling was persistent. I swatted the air near my face, and hit the tip of my nose. Snickers from around the room had me cracking one eye open and then the other.
I was no longer alone in the room, and the descendants were in deep shit.
“Where the hell were you?” I yelled at the four of them, bolting straight up on the couch as I shoved long strands of honey hair out of my face.
“She’s mad,” Zade said, smiling. He leaned against the wall, feet crossed at the ankle.
Four sets of eyes observed me, each sparkling different colors in the dark room. The hearth had been lit, and the wood crackled, casting a warm glow. “Damn straight I’m mad. You guys just LEFT ME.”
“We have kingdoms that needed our attention.” Issik exhaled as if irritated, but his eyes seemed to soften when they looked me over. He was the closest, sitting on my couch, while Kieran stretched out on the other sofa.
Fine. I understood they had responsibilities, but Jase? This was his home. “Where were you?” I asked him directly.
He folded his hands together on top of his desk. “Searching for answers.”
“And just where the hell does a dragon go looking for clues about breaking a curse?” I was being a smartass, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I was so relieved to see them, to know they were safe, but that relief had quickly turned to anger.
