by Isa Hunt
“But where is he? And how can you get hold of him?” asked Benoit.
I shrugged, feeling a sudden sense of helplessness.
“I . . . I don't know,” I said. “He didn't say anything. All he said was 'help me.' I . . . I have no idea where he is. But I have to help him. For God's sake, my little brother who has been missing and presumed dead for years is alive! I have to help him, I have to . . . ”
Benoit squeezed my hand reassuringly.
“And we will help you to help him if we can. Trust me, Kelly, we will do that.”
“But right now, I'm sick of walking around smelling like a damn campfire,” muttered Rex. “I need a shower and some new threads. Come on, let's get that taken care of, then we can worry about this. And let's not forget the main purpose of the mission: we have to get Kelly to New York City.”
“And what exactly are we going to do there?” I asked. “You guys never did tell me exactly why we're going there.”
“It's not the end point of the journey,” said Paul, “but it's an important stop along the way. There's someone there you have to meet, someone who is going to help you with all things dragon related.”
“Right,” I said. “And who is this person?”
“Her name is Li-wun Chen, and she's one of the last living white dragons.”
“White dragon?”
“A wind dragon,” said Rex. “She was once a dragon queen . . . so there's a lot she'll be able to teach you.”
I was intrigued. I was going to meet another dragon. There were so many questions I had, so many answers I needed, answers that hopefully this Li-wun could provide.
But at the back of my mind there burned the most urgent question, one I doubted she could answer, dragon queen or not: where was Jason? Where was my brother?
CHAPTER 3 – BENOIT
I watched with eager eyes as Kelly emerged from the dressing room. The red dress she was wearing really brought out the brightness of her hazel eyes, and the way it hugged her slim figure brought out the subtle but sensual curve of her hips and breasts. I felt myself getting turned on, felt heat pooling in my crotch as my cock began to swell – but quickly forced the thought from my mind. Even though Kelly was my mate, now was neither the place nor the time.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Stunning,” I replied, being completely honest. “Absolutely gorgeous.”
She grinned, but I could see that sadness and a sort of anxiety remained in her eyes. She was still, no doubt, thinking of her brother.
“You really think I look stunning?” she asked.
“Would I lie about something so serious? Take the dress, it looks beyond amazing on you. We're paying.”
She ran up to me and hugged me tightly – a little too tightly, which caused pain to shoot up my left side.
“Ow, ow,” I grunted. “Broken ribs, remember, broken ribs.”
She quickly released me, looking guilty.
“Oh my God Benoit,” she murmured, “I'm so sorry, I just, I just forgot about your ribs, and . . . oh I'm so sorry, I hope I haven't made it worse.”
“No, no,” I said, trying my hardest to hide the grimace of pain that was trying to break out across my face. “I'm fine.”
She smiled, and there was a sparkle of unmistakable flirtatiousness in her eyes. I was turning her on – or maybe it was the fact that she was getting to buy a whole bunch of new, expensive clothes. Either way, when I caught that look in her gorgeous eyes, I felt the heat of desire flushing its liquid fire through my body.
“Do you want me to kiss it better?” she asked, speaking in a soft, seductive voice.
“A kiss from you could heal even the most grievous wound, Kelly,” I said, staring into her eyes, the pain in my ribs quickly fading away, driven out of my body by my swelling lust.
She laughed softly, almost shyly.
“You have such a way with words, Benoit,” she said, smiling and staring into my eyes.
“I have a way with many things,” I said coolly, flashing her a subtle but suggestive grin. I then glanced over her shoulder at the dressing room behind her. A thought came to me – a sudden, naughty thought. I looked quickly over my shoulder to see where the store assistant was and noticed that she was busy helping another customer. Good . . .
“Let's step into the dressing room,” I whispered to Kelly. “Just you and me . . . ”
She grinned mischievously.
“I like the way you think, Benoit,” she said, and taking my hand, she led me into the room, shut the door swiftly behind her and slid the latch into place.
“We'd better make this quick,” she said. “Anyone could come knocking at any second, you know . . . ”
“Well, let's not waste these precious moments then,” I replied, and leaned in for a kiss.
My lips met her soft, luscious lips, and as soon as our tongues were in each other's mouths every last ounce of pain evaporated from my body. I forgot immediately about my broken ribs; all that mattered was Kelly. Waves of lust flowed hotly through my blood. I slipped my fingers through her hair as we kissed, and I heard her moaning softly with pleasure. I slid my free hand slowly down her back, unzipping the dress as I did.
Her hand, meanwhile, slipped down to my crotch, and she started to massage my rapidly-swelling cock with a light, almost teasing touch. I pulled the dress off of her shoulders, and as it slipped off of her, I saw that she was dressed only in panties. The sight of her pert, round breasts with their pale nipples standing swollen and erect with arousal sent a powerful surge of heat into my stiffening cock. I bent my head down and took her left breast in my mouth, swirling my tongue around her hard nipple. As I licked and sucked on her nipple, nibbling teasingly at her breast, I slid my right hand into her panties, down over her perfectly smooth crotch area, and found that her pussy was already soft and dripping wet, glowing with the heat of her arousal.
I slowly almost teasingly started to work her engorged clit with light, rhythmic touch, using my forefinger, while with my other fingers I teased the opening of her cunt, so wet and welcoming. I wanted to be inside her so badly as she started to gasp and moan softly with pleasure, but I wanted to make her cum first before I slid my rock-hard manhood into her.
“Oh God that feels good,” she murmured between sighs of bliss. “You're so good Benoit, God you're good . . . ”
Suddenly, the sanctity of the moment was shattered by a loud knocking on the door.
“Excuse me, but what's going on in there?” demanded the store assistant. “I see two pairs of shoes in there! There's only supposed to be one person in there!”
“He's um, he's just helping me put on the dress, it's a little tight!” called out Kelly.
“Tight like your beautiful pussy,” I whispered into her ear, still aflame with arousal.
“Benoit!” she whispered back. “That's enough! We can't afford to get arrested for like, public indecency or something – as fun as that might be!”
She pulled my hand out of her panties.
“We'll finish this later . . . in private,” she said with a smile, her face flushed with arousal.
“Alright, alright,” I said reluctantly, knowing that she was right.
“Excuse me, but you need to come out of there, sir,” said the assistant from outside.
“I'm coming, I'm coming,” I replied, annoyed.
Kelly suddenly lunged forward and hugged me tightly.
“You're amazing,” she said, staring into my eyes. She had forgotten about my broken ribs, but I didn't want to make her feel guilty about hurting me, so I pretended that it didn't hurt.
“So are you,” I gasped through gritted teeth. “I gotta get out of here. See you now.”
As soon as I was outside the dressing room, I let out a gasp of pain.
“Merde,” I cursed in French, my native language.
I wasn't angry at her, of course; she had hugged me as a gesture of kindness and affection. It was just the pain from the broken ribs, caused by
my near suicidal car-flipping, which had successfully taken out a number of the bikers who had been pursuing us.
My broken ribs were another reason to get to New York City quickly and get Kelly to Li-wun. Not only was the old dragon queen – or rather, dragon empress, in her home country – one of the wisest and most knowledgeable of all shifter kind, she also had the power to heal even serious injuries. And with the constant ache, these broken ribs were causing in my torso, I could use some healing.
I heard footsteps approaching from the left, and turned to see Paul and Rex walking toward me.
Rex was dressed in a flashy beige and white suit, while Paul was attired in a more conservative-style gray suit.
“You two are looking – and smelling – a lot better,” I said.
“Likewise, man,” said Rex, who looked at my subdued black suit and nodded with respect. “Looking good, looking good.”
Kelly then walked out of the dressing room and smiled broadly as she saw all three of us.
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “You guys look amazing! Damn. I'm one lucky girl.”
She was now dressed in the first set of clothes she'd bought, a simple pair of jeans – tight jeans, that showed off her long, sexy, shapely legs, and a simple white t-shirt. The other clothes were on her arm.
“What have you got there, little lady?” asked Paul, baring a toothy grin. I couldn't help but feel a little flurry of jealousy as he said this. I knew we had to share her, that it was our sacred, traditional duty as alphas to share the dragon queen, but who could blame me for wanting her all for myself? After all, I'd just had the opportunity to have her alone ripped from my grasp . . . Ugh.
“Oh, just a little red something,” she said with a flirtatious wink.
Paul chuckled.
“Red for the fire drake, the red dragon queen,” he said. “Perfect. I'm sure you look regal in it.”
“And hot,” added Rex with a lascivious smile. “You must look smokin' hot in that little number. Rarr!”
Kelly chuckled and almost blushed.
“Alright, alright guys,” she said, “enough with the comments. As awesome as it is being flattered by three gorgeous men, I think we need to get back on the road, right?”
“Correct,” I said. “We can't afford to waste any more time. Artemis surely knows about what happened at the house by now, and he'll be coming after you. Coming after all of us. And remember, he has eyes and ears everywhere. We cannot afford to linger.”
“I'll ride with you, Benoit,” said Kelly. “If that's okay with you.”
I felt a glow of warmth and pride spreading through my body; Kelly had chosen me, above Rex and Paul. Already I could see that there was a glint of jealousy in their eyes. That didn't matter though; for the next few hours, I was going to have Kelly to myself.
“Of course. Come on, let's go.”
We paid for the clothes and walked out to the cars. Paul got into his Ferrari, while Rex climbed onto his sports bike, and roared off up the road on one wheel, showing off, as usual. Since I'd destroyed my Porsche, I was driving a different car: a beautiful – and powerful – late 60s Ford Mustang we'd taken from the house. It had belonged to one of Jake's thugs, but since they were all dead now, it wasn't as if they needed this ride anymore.
I hurried around to the passenger side of the car to open the door for Kelly.
“Such a gentleman!” she exclaimed, baring her beautiful white teeth in a broad smile.
“I always am,” I said, and closed the door softly behind her.
I then went around and started the car up, enjoying the bassy thunder of the big V8 motor as I revved it.
I started driving, smiling and just enjoying having Kelly to myself, despite the pain in my side from the broken ribs. We drove in silence for a while – a comfortable silence, not an awkward one – before Kelly finally spoke.
“So, you're from France, huh?”
“I am. My family used to own an estate there, near the border with Switzerland. There was a castle that my forefathers built eight hundred years ago.”
“Wow,” she exclaimed. “That's a lot of family history right there. And your ancestors were all . . . ”
“Wolf shifters,” I said, completing her sentence and instinctively knowing what she was going to ask. “Yes.”
“What made you leave?” she asked.
I sighed sadly and shook my head. Thinking of the old country always made me melancholic.
“We have driven off our lands,” I said. “Artemis's forces have made headway in Europe.”
“He's got people in Europe too?”
I nodded.
“His ambitions are great. He means to rule over all of the shifter kind, all over the world. Since he took power by murdering his sister, he has been making alliances with all sorts of corrupt shifter alphas all over the world. They have been rebelling against traditions, going to war against those who would uphold the old ways and stand for justice and peace. My father and the elders of my pack tried to stand up to the warlord Artemis sent. They fought hard – we fought hard – but there were just too many of them. We lost, and I was forced to flee across the ocean, coming here to America where the resistance was still strong. I pledged myself to the dragon queen who was yet to come, the daughter of the great red dragon queen.”
“By 'the daughter of the great red dragon queen' you mean me, right?” asked Kelly cautiously.
I nodded.
“That's exactly who I mean, yes,” I said with a smile. “I came all the way from France to serve you.”
She chuckled and shook her head.
“Well, now there's no pressure at all for me to be this great queen you guys all seem to think I'm supposed to be, huh?”
“I know it must be daunting,” I said to her, “and really intimidating, I guess, to be thrown into the midst of all this madness like you have been. But when we saw you finally transform into the dragon you were born to be, back in that house, when we saw that – when I saw that – I knew at once that I had made the right decision to come to America to seek you out. I knew at once that you would be the queen I had hoped you would be.”
“Jeez, you sure know how to ramp up the pressure,” she said, chuckling softly.
I laughed.
“I don't mean to do that. But hey, sometimes it's good to have a little pressure, no? Sometimes it brings out the best in people.”
“Well, I always have been able to think quickly under pressure, and come up with plans when things seem tough,” she said. “And you're right, for me at least, a bit of stress and pressure does bring out the best in me. So . . . we'll see. We'll see about this dragon queen thing. I mean, I'm all very new to all of this shifter stuff, and I haven't even scratched the surface of it all – but I'm learning.”
“When you get to meet Li-wun, she will teach you, she will teach you a lot,” I said. I hoped my tone sounded reassuring enough.
“Let's hope so,” she said, suddenly sounding a lot more unsure than she had before. “Because I feel like I'm in over my head. Like I'm really in over my head.”
I wanted to tell her that things would only get better from this point on . . . But I knew that that might not be the case. In fact, it was very likely that things would get more difficult from this point on . . . Way, way more difficult. We here heading into stormy waters now. Very stormy waters, and only with the greatest strength and fortitude would we be able to weather the coming storm.
“You'll be fine,” I said. “You'll be just fine . . . ”
CHAPTER 4 – KELLY
As we drove on and got closer and closer to New York City, a sense of worry, even dread, began to grow inside of me. Was I really prepared for what I was getting myself into? How on earth was I, a bartender from a small town in Florida, supposed to step into the obviously gigantic shoes of this dragon queen I was supposed to be?
It was all very . . . daunting, as Benoit had put it. Yeah, daunting. That was a good way to describe it. I mean, like I'd said to him, I
often performed best under pressure. I'd always been like that since I'd been a kid. But this, this was an entirely different kind of pressure to any I'd experienced thus far. I mean, being a freakin' queen of a nation of beings I hadn't even known existed up until a few days ago . . . Can you say crazy? Because this was crazy. This was like Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Night kinda crazy. No, even crazier than that.
And now, to add to the madness, there was this business with my brother. I was still in shock from hearing his voice again after all these years. I mean, deep down inside I'd known that he was still alive. In my heart, I'd known it, and I'd never believed all the people who told me he was at the bottom of some swamp, or whatever. But even though I'd known that he was out there somewhere, I hadn't been prepared to actually hear from him again.
All I knew was that he needed me, he needed me to save him from . . . From what? It was all so confusing, so maddening, so frustrating . . . and so scary. I was entering a world of uncertainty, a world in which it seemed that anything, anything at all could happen. Where everything I had once thought was real had been turned upside down, and where things that had seemed like fantasy had turned out to be a very tangible reality.
I sort of wished that I'd never walked home from the bar that night. If I'd just shelled out a few dollars for a taxi to take me home, none of this would have happened.
No, no, scratch that. It would have all happened, no matter what steps I had taken to avoid it. And if Jake, the thug sent to capture me by Artemis, had got to me before Benoit, Paul and Rex, things would have turned out very differently.
There was no time to sit and think about how things could have turned out, or what could have happened. No. This was my destiny, and I could either fight a futile battle, one that I would certainly lose, against it . . . or embrace it.
I thought back to how I had felt when I had been flying in the sky in my dragon form. All of the weird recurring dreams I'd had all my life, vivid dreams of mountains and fire, it all made sense now. And I had felt, in my dragon form, a sense of home and belonging like nothing I'd ever experienced in my life.
