by Skye Jones
Dangerous. These two men were dangerous to know.
“As to your second question,” Callum drawled, “we’re here for the female.”
Rhyndor turned those blue, blue eyes on her, and the air in the room went supernova with heat. Her head spun and her vision swam.
“Here you go. Don’t try to get up yet.” Claire stood over her, concern etching her features and a glass in her hand. “Take the water and take a small drink. Don’t try to get up.”
Lilly looked around in shock. How did she end up on the floor?
Angry, low male voices reached her. Oh, shit! The men, they’d said they’d come for her. They might be hot, but no way would she be going with them. They scared the crap out of her. Still woozy and dizzy, she understood one thing. She’d never tell anyone she’d seen them before. It all added up to something too scary. Something threatening to take away her autonomy if she let it. So, she’d keep it her secret.
“Don’t let them take me. I’m sorry I’ve been a pain, but don’t let them take me.”
Claire shook her head vigorously. “No way. You’re not going anywhere with them, don’t you worry. I’ve heard of this Rhyndor before. He did crazy bad things a long time ago in some war or other, and he and Nathan are sworn enemies. You know our other sister?”
Lilly sipped at the blessedly cool water and nodded.
Claire went on. “Her mate, Steffan, many years ago he lost his previous mates. That bastard Rhyndor took their lives. Killed them for this witch he hung with. Nathan took his bonded male in retaliation, and we all thought the fucker was dead, to be honest. One thing’s for certain. He’s not coming within ten yards of you.”
About to state how, technically, the man was already within ten yards of her, Lilly bit back her cocky response. If she pissed off Claire and her mates, they might get sick of her and let these beasts take her.
For a moment, a sick thrill ran through her and her blood heated at the idea, but she swallowed it down with more cool water. She’d lost her mind. It provided the only explanation for how she came to be sitting on the floor, half wanting to run far away from those two big, scary men and half wanting to run toward them as fast as her legs would carry her, telling them to do wicked and terrible things to her as they carried her off.
“Come. Let’s leave the men to their talk. You need to sit down and get yourself together.” Claire led her out of the room and toward the large glass conservatory.
Not sure what else to do, Lilly meekly let herself be dragged away from the two visitors, but she couldn’t resist turning back for one last glance. Rhyndor turned to her as she paused by the door and ran his tongue over firm, harsh lips, and her legs nearly buckled. Shit, she was in trouble.
*****
“I ought to end you where you fucking stand!” Callum had never seen his cousin so angry. He watched Nathan pace the length of the kitchen.
“How the fuck could you take up with this murdering piece of shit?” Nathan jabbed a finger right in Rhyndor’s face, tapping his forehead with the blunt edge of his nail.
Rhyndor’s jaw tensed as a muscle ticked there, but he didn’t do anything.
Callum swallowed down his rage because he’d promised Rhyndor he’d come here and be all calm and shit and not cause a scene. Guilt nipped at him too, sharp at his usually worn edges, for letting Nathan and his family think him dead for the longest time. He’d walked away, and no dragon walked away without letting his clan and family know where he was going. In doing so, he’d let them think the worst. Simply because he’d needed to escape the claustrophobia of clan life. “Cousin, understand something now. We are blood, you and I, and I have regrets for my behavior in the past. But Rhyn is my bonded male. He comes first. You fucking disrespect him, and I will defend him.”
Nathan snorted, and his lips turned down.
Rhyndor put a hand out and touched Callum’s arm, and a moment of pure calm washed over him, banking the inferno of rage he’d been building up at Nathan’s dismissive gesture. His cousin had always been an arrogant shit, all high-handed and imperious.
“Let me speak.” Rhyn once more touched him briefly before turning his attention to Nate. “It is true I took lives I’d no right to take. As did you.” Rhyndor spoke in that hoarse, sexy fucking way he possessed, and Callum wanted to kiss him right there and then. To claim his mouth in front of his stuck-up cousin and show Nathan how much he loved his male. But he didn’t, he stayed still and kept quiet.
“We were at war, and Steffan did terrible things himself, but I admit I was wrong to kill his mates. It’s why I disappeared for such a long time. I felt…bad.” The word came out slow and elongated as if the letters tasted so odd, Rhyndor struggled to spit them out. “And trust me, Nathan, I didn’t often suffer pangs of guilt in those days. They were barbaric times, but taking his mates proved so terrible it changed me. I nearly went mad, truth be told, and I decided to drown the noise in my head with the noise of human life. I went to the busiest place on earth, Manhattan.
“One day, over three decades ago now, I saw a male I thought could be you from behind. When the person in front of me turned around, I realized it wasn’t you, but I sensed a fellow dragon straightaway. I walked by him, wanting to find out why a dragon would be amongst humans, when his scent hit me. The rest, as they so clichédly say, is history.”
“How could you?” Nathan stared at Callum, refusing to look at Rhyndor. “How could you take up with this piece of crap?”
“Seriously, cousin. Stop it, or I’ll shut your mouth for you.”
“You’ll have to go through me first.” Dominic pushed himself forward.
Callum bit back his laugh at the interference. The dragon male may be pretty, but he had no chance in a fight between them. He’d be toast, quite literally, in minutes.
Nathan knew as much and turned to put a restraining hand on his mate.
“All I ask—” Callum tried for patience “—is a little respect when you talk of my bonded male. There’s a lot we need to discuss, and we won’t get anywhere if we are fighting and insulting one another. Now, we can either go outside, you and I, and sort this out the old-fashioned way, or we can be all civilized and talk shit through.”
“I want him, not you.” Nathan jabbed a finger at Rhyndor again, but he didn’t touch him this time.
Callum laughed. “I want doesn’t get. You can’t have him because he’s mine.” The windows rattled when he roared the last word, and Dominic went as pale as the off-white walls behind him.
Yeah, let the bastards see what they were up against, because these days, Callum maybe had as much power as his cousin, and Rhyndor… Well, who the fuck knew? Rhyndor refused to fight anymore. Not even in self-defense, but Callum sensed the deep wells of incredible power his bonded male kept locked down.
“I say we go and talk this through, Nate.” Dominic touched Nathan’s arm, a mirror image of the way Rhyndor had tried to calm Callum.
“You said you want the female.” Nathan changed track suddenly.
“She matches us. We came across her totally by accident, in New York. Out shopping with her human mother. Neither of us believed it at first. We scented her, and the shock…finding our mate in the middle of New York City… We realized straight off she didn’t understand what she was. So we followed her, but we eventually lost track. It took us a while to find her again, and a few months back, we rented a house near her family home in Connecticut. We planned to find a way into her social circle, get introduced to her and tell her who and what she was, but then you came and took her. We understood her heritage once we looked into your little triad here. Figured out she must be Havsa, as is your mate. And, of course, there’s Steffan and his mates.” Callum wanted this over with. He hated being back here. It reminded him leaving hadn’t been kind to those he’d left behind. He’d disrespected them by simply disappearing. But at the time, he’d been stir-crazy.
“I owe the male, Steffan, a debt of apology. A tithe, and I hope he will accept.�
� Rhyndor’s sad words hit Callum in the gut, but they made him angry too. Rhyndor had to stop with the fucking guilt trip all the damn time. It ate away at him, and not even their bond seemed to stop it. Callum hoped against hope that finding a female to protect and cherish might be the thing to bring Rhyn truly back to the living.
“You don’t owe Steffan anything!” Callum bit back his anger and tried to force calm into his words. “He took your bonded male in retaliation. He may have used Nathan here as the weapon, but Steffan pulled the trigger. Don’t you get bored of it, Nate?” He switched the focus of his attention. “This fucking shit happened centuries ago. At some point, the vengeance and the killing have to stop. Rhyndor won’t fight you. Hasn’t fought for centuries. Not in aggression or self-defense.”
Nathan narrowed his eyes at Rhyndor and shot out a wave of heat toward him. Callum let it hit, knowing Rhyndor wouldn’t stop it and sensing it’d do no real harm. Maybe if Nathan saw Rhyndor wouldn’t defend himself with his own eyes, he’d believe them? Rhyn went down hard and hit the tiles. Nathan blinked twice then bit out a response. “Lies. Fucking lies. You’re going to lull us into a false sense of security and then attack us.”
“Rhyn.” Callum knelt by his male and lifted his head gently. “My love, stand. Can you stand?”
Rhyndor groaned, but he stood.
“Put your arms up for me, babe.” Rhyndor did as asked, still stunned, and Callum pulled off his T-shirt.
Dominic gasped, and Nathan’s eyes went comically wide. Scars covered almost every inch of Rhyndor’s body. There were bullet holes and deep claw marks, gashes from swords and knives, and puncture wounds from where he’d been hit repeatedly with a mace.
“When I found him, he was half dead. Letting himself be used as a fucking punching bag for human idiots training to fight. He’d been living that way for centuries, and many of these scars are from serious attempts by various dragons to end him. He let them attack him and walked away, wounded and in pain. So, tell me again, cousin, how this is all a trick? I understand that Steffan will want vengeance. But he needs to realize something. He comes after Rhyndor, and he comes after your blood—because I will defend what’s mine. And Steffan will also take away the best chance that spoiled and confused little princess in there has of ever having a happy life. Because we match her so fucking well. She’ll be safe and secure with us…and very, very content. Right now, she thinks she’s in love with an absolute waste of space, as far as our information says. A piece of trash who has led her on for years, plays with her heart, and needs to learn a lesson about how you treat dragon females.”
“What about your pet fucking witch? The bitch always came two steps behind you. Where’s Celine?” Nathan asked, ignoring Callum and focusing on Rhyndor.
Callum sighed as Rhyndor began to speak, but he choked on the first words. Callum put his hand on the small of his bonded male’s back. “Let me explain. Please, Rhyn.”
He looked at his cousin and hoped the horrifying truth of what he said shone in his eyes. “She enchanted him. Made him do things he never wanted to do. Didn’t any of you wonder how he went from one of our most honorable and venerated dragons to a murderer for hire? She wove a spell so strong and deep it bound him in ropes of magic for centuries.”
Nathan frowned, but his eyes flickered to Rhyndor and something almost soft shone there for a moment.
Rhyndor leaned against the counter, letting it hold some of his weight. “It’s why I regret what I did. I have memories of it, knowledge of it, but at the time, I possessed no control over my actions. She’d been building her magic for centuries when she trapped me. So, you see, she wasn’t my pet witch, I was her pet dragon.”
His shoulders slumped, and Callum’s heart fucking hurt. He hated seeing his magnificent mate brought to such wretchedness.
“It’s too much of a coincidence that we found one another and then found the little pampered princess. There’s magic at work here. Fate. The gods want it this way.” Callum hoped Nathan bought it, because they’d taken a huge risk coming to his clan. But they wanted the female, and he fervently hoped Lilly might be the thing to finally bring Rhyn fully back to the living.
As much as they loved one another, his male still lived consumed by his guilt. Callum didn’t need caring for or protecting in the way a young female raised to be human would. He believed if they claimed the female to protect and look after, it might reignite Rhyn’s warrior instincts. Never mind how much Callum wanted her for himself. He’d basically run out of options, though, with Rhyn. The day he’d scented Lilly, he’d almost fallen to his knees and thanked the gods. Because he had to believe some sort of intervention was at play here to send them such a perfect female and place her right in their path. He said as much now, aloud.
“As I say, I think magic must be at play with us finding each other and coming across Lilly—but good magic. Maybe the gods want Rhyndor to have something good in his life finally? I love him. He’s mine and I’m his, so understand this, Nate. If you harm one hair on his head, he might not fight you, but I will. We want to stay a few days. Get to know Lilly. And then we need you to contact Steffan.”
“Holy fuck, Callum. You always were the black sheep of the fucking family.” Nathan scrubbed a hand over his suddenly drawn face, but he nodded. “You can stay. But I swear to you, if anything happens to any of my clan while you are here, I’ll burn you to a crisp myself, but not before you see your male here destroyed. Family of mine or not.”
Callum knew his cousin meant every word. And he knew it because he’d do the same if anyone touched either Rhyndor or Lilly. The female might not be theirs yet, but ever since he’d scented her that fateful day in New York, he’d been a goner. He’d been highly amused to follow her spoiled lifestyle once they’d found her, but he didn’t worry about it. And Lilly didn’t seem like the other young adults in her social circle. She didn’t wear extravagant clothes or spend her life at the spa or beauty parlor, and she volunteered at an animal shelter.
Besides, he and Rhyndor possessed more than enough money. But she wouldn’t care about such things once she’d experienced being with two males who matched her so well. She’d been spending her time with silly spoiled boys and girls. Boys, like the idiot Zach, who worked for their daddies and had soft hands and a sense of entitlement wide enough to drive a truck through. She’d never been with a proper man, let alone a male of her species, and with them, she’d get two who’d fought and forged their charisma and strength over centuries.
“Why have you been living amongst humans?” Dominic asked.
“I wanted to get away from Dragonea life. I hated it for a while. Sorry, guys, but I did. It was an amazing coincidence I found Rhyndor and we matched. But once I did, I didn’t want Steffan to find him, so we moved around for a while. I have an apartment in New York. I found Rhyn in Chicago, letting fighters in the underground bare-knuckle scene use him as a punching bag for their training. I made him stop the crazy shit, and we returned to my place in New York. We spend most of our time now in Connecticut, nearby to where Lilly lives. We also spend some of the year in the city, in the apartment I have there. It’s worked well enough for us, but now we have a female to protect, if she’ll let us. We want back into dragon society.”
“If you felt so bad, as you proclaim, why not go find Steffan and let him kill you?” Dominic raised one eyebrow in challenge at Rhyndor.
Rhyndor rubbed at his heavy scruff and blew out a breath. “I’ve been afraid if I met with the male and he attacked me, some sort of long dormant defense mechanism might kick in, and I’d fight back and maybe hurt him. My poison lives in him. Gods know how he’s survived so long. If I went back into fight-or-flight mode and put any more in him, he’d die. I couldn’t risk having it on my conscience.”
Callum sighed. Rhyndor hadn’t merely attacked and fought Steffan, he’d used his dragon claw to place a strong poison deep under his skin. It was the worst of dragon warfare and strictly forbidden these days. He knew Rhyndor
hated that he’d done it.
“He’s going to want to kill you. Gods know how we’ll stop him once he finds out you’re alive.” Nathan folded his arms and regarded them both. “He might want to kill me, too. No joke. He’s going to go apeshit when he finds out I’ve let you stay.”
“He has his mates now. Maybe it’s mellowed him about the past.” Callum prayed it to be the case.
“Doubt it’s mellowed him enough to walk away from the dragon who murdered his mates. We must hope he’ll decide to let you live, but you need to realize he might not. You can walk away now. I won’t tell him you were here. Leave Lilly, she’ll find some males eventually.” Nathan smiled. “We’ve had a never-ending parade of them since she got here.”
Callum’s teeth clenched at the idea of all those young males coming to try to mate their Lilly, because that’s how he saw her. As theirs. “Not going to happen, cuz. We’re not leaving. Not without her.” He didn’t add how much he needed her, not only for himself, but also to try to save Rhyn from his internal hell.
“She has free will. You do get that, right?” A frown divot popped between Nathan’s brows. “She only goes with you if she decides to. You can’t force her.”
“I’d never force her. I doubt we’ll have to. You know how strong it is. I can scent how perfectly you three match, and it’s the same with us. She will want us like crazy.”
“As may be. But she’s different from Claire and Mia. Lilly likes her human life. Can’t wait to get back to it and the male, Zach, you mentioned. She volunteers at an animal shelter, writes some sort of blog. Seems to find it hard to accept she’s Dragonea, and unlike her sisters, she’s never experienced her magic. I doubt she’ll want to live in a clan.”
“Which is why she’s perfect for us. We have no clan and don’t want for one. We intend to live as we have been, but with the ability to visit our brethren from time to time.”
