She hated all of them. “I want to know who put me on the mediation.”
“You’ll heal me if I tell you?” He looked so pale, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Yes.” Of course, she would’ve tried anyway because she wasn’t a monster like the rest of them. Revenge and blood and war. That’s what Thane wanted, and by now, she knew to take him at his word.
“Lena Orvyn,” Fraser said.
Thane took a step back as if struck. “No. You lie.”
Lena. The name was familiar, but Emerson couldn’t place it.
Fraser nodded and looked at Thane. “She told me to assign Emerson to the mediation and to keep her involved at all costs.”
Emerson glanced at Thane, too, whose teeth were…sharpening as he shook with rage. The skin above his indigo eyes was deepening to gray. It seemed like they knew the culprit after all. Lena Orvyn. Now maybe this could end. Nobody else had to die.
She approached Fraser to save his damned hand. Disgusting. “Matthew, I don’t know how to do this.” Open a vein? “Can you help me?”
Fraser reached out toward her. “If you just cut—”
And then his head fell off, hit the floor with a soft thud beside his hand, and rolled to expose a rictus of surprise.
She blinked twice, but still didn’t understand what she was seeing. She looked at Matthew, who was lowering his sword again, fresh blood sliding down the blade. The corpse of Martin Fraser leaned slowly forward but was held morbidly upright in the chair by its deep seat and high arm.
“My lady,” Matthew said, “he betrayed two dragons today, my lord Thane and Lena Orvyn. I wasn’t letting him near a third.”
***
“No, I told you I’m done,” Emerson said when a gentle hand touched her shoulder. Matthew’s. She’d collapsed on a chair at the big table, her head buried in her arms. She was getting out of here as soon as she could stop shivering.
They were so violent. Why were they so violent? All this death. Some things were starting to make sense, though. How had Thane managed to live so long if not by killing everyone in his path?
She stole a glance at him from across the room. He was weirdly crouched low and rocking on his feet, a strange, savage purr coming from his chest. Thane was battling inner demons, she could tell. The impulse to go talk to him, talk him back to himself, collided with the instinct to survive, to stay away. She didn’t know what to do.
“You need to go back up to your room,” Matthew told her. “Now.”
The sharp, red blade, still clutched in his hand, continued to drip on the floor. The carpet was ruined already, so she might as well vomit on it, too.
Thane bellowed in pain, strain making the tendons on his arms, shoulders, and neck stand out. His shoulders were rolled forward like Gerard’s had been before he’d caught fire, before he’d shifted. She’d known Thane was close, but now he seemed on the very brink.
“Go now. Please.” Matthew took her under the arm and yanked her to standing.
And then, suddenly, he was knocked out of her sight, and Thane loomed large, a smoky musk wrapping around her as he dragged her down to the floor with him. She screamed as he caged her between his arms and legs. His very pointy teeth were not an inch away from her neck, his breath so hot it singed. And there he stayed, trembling above her, but not attacking.
Her body flashed hot in response, something within—her own personal fortifications—crumbling at his nearness. She was vulnerable and in the clutches of a man-monster, but she had no idea which part was dominant.
“Matthew?” she called, her voice a little high and thready.
The barrier between her and Thane was breaking. She didn’t know what would happen if it collapsed entirely. He was so close, so raw. And in her own way, she was, too. This was dangerous.
“He grabbed you.” Thane’s voice was barely human, but he wasn’t taking a bite…yet. “I can’t trust anyone. I thought I could. But if she betrayed me, then…”
He had to be talking about Lena Orvyn, the woman Fraser had named. She must be really bad news for Thane to lose it like this.
Tentatively, Emerson tried to look past him and spotted a black boot and its very still leg on the other side of the room. “I think Matthew is hurt.”
“He’ll live,” Thane said. “I can’t move. Not yet. Not safe.”
“He was trying to get me to safety.”
“You’re safe here. Safest here. With me.” His body was shaking.
She was alone with a man at war with his dragon, so she was pretty sure her safety was questionable at best. But as the seconds ticked into minutes, her heartbeat slowed and her breath evened. Underneath the smoky darkness of the dragon, he smelled like a morning shower, clean and fresh but tinged with a note all Thane—a combination that wasn’t bad, not really. His warmth relaxed her tensed muscles. Melted her.
She discovered that she wasn’t afraid. Not really. Who better to protect her from an emergent dragon than Thane? Yeah, even if the dragon was him.
She trusted him. For the first time in forever, she trusted someone.
“I don’t like all this death,” she finally said.
His forehead touched hers, another tremor rolling over him. “I thought Lena was a friend.”
“Is she your…?” Lady friend? What do dragons call sweethearts?
“No. She’s Carreen’s sister. She searched for Carreen with me, remember?”
She nodded. Yes, she remembered now. He’d mentioned Lena during the drive on the way out here.
“Did she know about Rinc? Did she take Rinc from me?” The turmoil in his voice was too much for her to take.
“I hope not,” she said. “But we’ll find out.” Emerson had some questions for her, too.
“We’ll find out.” Thane seemed to hang on to that promise.
They’d hang on together.
Silence fell, and still Thane kept her close. When his tremors finally abated, Emerson spoke again. There was a dead body ten feet away, and the iron tang of the blood was making her sick. “Could you maybe keep me safe elsewhere?”
He inhaled hugely, as if breathing her in. “Yes. I know a place.”
He ungracefully slung her over his shoulder and carried her through the house, down some stairs, and palmed a security panel, which opened a door. They descended into darkness, and she deeply regretted asking to move…until lights flickered on one by one across a cavernous room. She had an upside-down view of a cache of riches the likes of which she’d only seen in movies.
Holy cow.
“This is your hoard,” she said as he set her down.
The neat piles of gold bars were almost cliché, but seeing them in person made it a truly extraordinary experience. He had art displayed on the walls—masterpieces, no doubt—and texts in covered cases. How he’d managed to get a car down here—a fancy old Mercedes—was beyond her.
“A safe place,” he said, sounding more like a sad, exhausted version of himself.
A bank of high-tech safes lined one wall. She nodded slowly, in awe. “For serious treasure.”
He smiled and met her gaze. “And precious things.”
CHAPTER 8
“She must be really bad news,” Emerson said.
Thane slid his gaze to the floor. “I’ve been blind.”
Lena. She was why he’d never discovered Carreen and Rinc. Lena had hidden the truth, and he’d never once suspected her. He’d been a fool to believe her grief and desperation.
Carreen would find a way to send me a message, Lena had assured him. She’d have to be trapped for her to be silent so long.
But who would hold her? Thane had demanded a thousand times. Why?
He’d thought it had to have been an enemy to the Ealdian line, or else they’d have spared the babe. He’d never a considered a sister who hated the other so much that she murdered her child, too.
He was ashamed to remember wondering if everything would’ve been different if he’d married Lena an
d not Carreen. He’d merely agreed to the contract. Marriage was business, and Carreen had done her part. Lena married later and had her own son. He’d had no reason to suspect bitterness between the two.
“Will you stay here while I check on Matthew?” His man-at-arms had been silent too long. “I promise I’ll come back.”
Emerson seemed to be trying hard to keep herself together, and Thane appreciated it.
“Can I look at all your cool stuff?” Her voice had a tremulous quality she couldn’t entirely hide. He didn’t blame her for wanting to run away anymore. Carreen had hated violence, too.
“You might like what’s in there.” He pointed to the vault on the far right and told her the code. He’d never told anyone a code before. Never. Not even Matthew had unrestricted access to the hoard, and he’d never been left alone in the vault.
“I won’t steal anything.”
“You’d better not.” He tried to sound lighthearted, but it came out rougher than he’d intended. Oddly, he’d give her anything she asked for. He didn’t know why, except perhaps because the stars would soon be his treasure, and the sky would be where he kept his hoard.
Yet here he was, turning to go back through the security door, leaving more or less a stranger behind. When he closed the door after him, locking her in, the dragon within settled contentedly, uninterested in the scent of blood and the sudden availability of fresh meat. The dragon was satisfied, while Thane was in pieces.
He found Matthew sitting against a leg of the table, pain creating lines of stress across his forehead and around his mouth. But since he was awake and had moved, the healing process had to have begun, years of Thane’s dragon blood mending what he had broken. But it seemed Matthew’s back was still injured since he wasn’t standing or moving his legs.
“Does Emerson live?” Matthew sounded devastated.
“She’s fine. I put her in the vault while I came to check on you.”
Matthew narrowed his eyes. “You’ve never lied to me before.”
And he wasn’t now. “Emerson Clark is currently admiring my collection of royal jewels. I gave her the code to the safe before I left. She says I have cool stuff.”
Cool stuff. He liked that.
“You gave her…?” Matthew blinked at him stupidly. “Have I died? I’ve died.”
Thane shook his head. “You’ll probably outlive me. Actually, once I go to Havyn, I really do think you should serve Emerson. She’ll need you.”
“I’d planned to die with you, my lord.”
The old way. The beloved servant going into flame and ash with his master. In modern times, it was rarely done, but then again, neither he nor Matthew was a modern man.
Thane couldn’t turn down this gesture, not after everything he and Matthew had endured together. “I’m honored, friend. It’s decided. We’ll find another way to help Emerson take to wing.”
“She’s so—”
“Beautiful, I know. And brazen. And smart.” What a dragon should be.
Matthew lifted a brow. “I was going to say heedless. My lord, you are smitten.”
Smitten, yes. What a bittersweet ache it was with all the other turmoil in his heart. It’d been a long time since he’d wanted anything. “You’re smitten, too.”
Matthew closed his eyes and shivered with pain. “She was so irritated at me when we first met, I couldn’t help it. And you seem more and more like your old self.”
Felt like it, too. The dragon within was smug.
“Ransom Heolstor wants her,” Thane said.
Matthew affected a small shrug, another improvement. “Strong line. And Ransom is intelligent.”
“If I had more time…” Thane didn’t finish the sentence. The thought behind it was uncomfortable. Matthew would understand anyway.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, my lord, as I’ve only served a dragon these past several centuries, but I was under the impression that Bloodkin have all the time they want.”
Thane was shocked for a moment at the idea. He could have her, if he was strong enough. In fact, the dragon wasn’t putting up much of a fight. The dragon had…changed its mind?
“If I take Emerson for my own,” Thane said as Matthew carefully stood and then toed the severed hand of Martin Fraser, “we may not be going to Havyn. There will be no fire or flight for either of us any time soon.”
He’d fought the Night Song for so many years and had almost lost to it, but he couldn’t deny that his dragon was now interested in another mistress—an end to loneliness.
How strange that Emerson should arrive in his life when Carreen and Rinc had been discovered, their murderer named. A little sooner, and Thane would’ve refused to see her. A little later, and he’d be fire on the wind.
Matthew stooped, grunting, to pick up his short sword. He wiped the blood from his blade with a handkerchief. “She might be disinclined to accept your suit, my lord.”
“You don’t think she’ll want me?” He was Ealdian, a black dragon, royal among their kind.
“I didn’t say that. But you do lack finesse.”
That stopped him. “Finesse.”
“And patience, my lord.”
“All dragons are patient,” Thane argued. It was how they watched their riches grow. Compound interest.
“She’s not just another woman to warm your bed, my lord. She’s a Bloodkin, the heir to her line. I won’t lie to please your vanity.”
“Heaven forefend you should,” Thane mocked him. “Pray, how do I win the dragon maiden? Since you are such an expert?”
Matthew sheathed his blade, ignoring Thane’s sarcasm. “For starters, don’t announce your intentions. Considering her introduction to this life, she’ll refuse you outright.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Yes, he was. He’d thought to tell her straight-out in case she had been considering that boy, Ransom Heolstor.
“You might compose a sonnet. Commission her portrait, perhaps. Find an undiscovered flower and name it for her.”
“I don’t understand how those things will get her naked in my arms.” Which, truth be told, was an immediate goal.
Matthew made a disapproving sound with his teeth and tongue. “You are too motivated by fire, my lord.”
“I’m a dragon, and so is she.” It didn’t help that the scent of Fraser’s spilled blood was fuzzing the edges of his mind.
“She’s also a woman of rank. Woo her.” Matthew lifted a hand. “I’ll say no more. I’ll wait before I cancel the arrangements for Havyn. We may be going there yet.”
“You have so little faith in me?”
“You’ve gone a bit wild these last few weeks, my lord. You’re not in any form for seduction. Carreen and Rinc’s remains were just discovered, you have a debt to settle with Lena Orvyn, and now you want to pursue Emerson? These passions are all born of fire.”
“My dragon won’t harm her.” He’d taken her to his hoard, after all.
“Fire is fire,” Matthew said. “It burns.”
“You dare a lot to speak to me this way.”
“I’m not afraid of you, my lord Thane. I’m afraid for you. Tread carefully. You have everything you want within your grasp.”
And both the past and future on balance. Yes, he understood. And Matthew was the only person he’d hear it from. Fine. “I suppose you won’t let me eat Martin Fraser?”
Matthew merely looked at him.
“Hmph,” Thane grumbled. “But you’re the one who killed this one.”
Thane returned to the vault. He descended slowly into the temperature-controlled, fire-safe lair where he stored his hoard. Patience, Matthew had said. Woo her.
Thane’s dragon disagreed. Vehemently.
Emerson was sitting on a pile of his gold, a Habsburg crown on her head, rubies and emeralds strung from her neck, large bracelets like unchained manacles on her wrists, and a strand of pearls doubled up and wrapped around an ankle. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, their color back to their human brown.
&nb
sp; She’s also a woman. Damn Matthew to hell for being right. Revenge and seduction were not good bedfellows.
“I take it you found something you like?” Yes, he wanted her. To see the world through her eyes. Kiss her. Lick her skin and taste the salt of her sweat.
His dragon stretched in anticipation, but Thane forced it down. Not now.
“I figured, why not?” she said. “Bryan said I was royalty. And royalty wears crowns ’n’ shit.”
Hmm. This wolf brother of hers might be an asset, after all. “He was right. Among shifters, you are.” Red and black dragons together would be wonderfully terrifying.
Thane knew that she was distracting herself from what had happened upstairs with Fraser, but she’d come around. Patience. He had so little.
“Why do you even have jewelry?” she asked. “You don’t wear any.”
“It seems I acquired it for you.”
She gave an inelegant, tear-clogged snort. “Oh, please. They’re useless.” She shook her head. “No, don’t look at me like that. They are. Just sitting here in your vault. And no one can really wear them anywhere, either.”
She would. And nothing else. In his bed.
He approached slowly and sat on a nearby stack of gold bricks. Any closer and he’d be too tempted. “Why don’t you tell me about your hoard.”
“I don’t want it,” she said.
“Not that one,” he amended. “Yours. Every dragon has a hoard. It’s in our nature. A collection, maybe? My first, when I was child, was smooth rocks from a stream on the Ealdian lands. I still have them around here somewhere.” Locked in a vault. Mine.
“Rocks.”
He nodded. “Smooth ones.”
Something shifted in her gaze. Half her mouth tugged up. She’d thought of something.
“Are you going to tell me?” he asked.
Emerson shrugged. “Since I received my Bloodkin windfall in college, my cupboards have always been full to bursting with food. I never have an empty refrigerator. And it’s all mine.”
Thane concealed a shudder of dragon rage. She’d been hungry at some point in her life. Very, very hungry. The Herreras had much to answer for.
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 38
