“There’s something to be said for fucking in a park,” Deanne said, laughter in the observation.
He turned back to her, a smile playing on his lips. “There is. Although the last time we did that, you bolted and I dropped you from a great height. Plus a squirrel shat on my…” His words faded away as the dark torment he’d witnessed earlier in her eyes returned.
She shifted beneath him, not so much to move him off her, but nonetheless, he could sense her agitation. “Deanne,” he said, touching the back of his knuckle to her jawline. “You really, really need to talk to me.”
Letting out a sigh, she closed her eyes. “I think…” she began, and then stopped.
“Think what?”
“I think this is a conversation requiring clothes,” she finished, giving his back a soft tap.
He studied her for a silent moment before dipping his head in a single nod. “Okay.”
Her pussy contracted around his length as he withdrew from her. The caress sent a lick of arousal through him and he all but groaned. Their twelve hours weren’t up yet, it seemed. How much longer before the insane rutting of the mating fire passed?
“Here,” she said, handing him his jeans as he levered back onto his knees.
He took them, unable to stop his laughter. One leg was a blackened, burnt mess. The other…spotless and untouched.
Deanne’s wry chuckle drew his attention to her.
She sat cross-legged exactly where she’d lain, his shirt in her lap, watching him.
Biting back the desire to kiss her, Ryan straightened to his feet and tugged on his semi-destroyed jeans.
She snorted, rolling her eyes. “It’s very hard for me to be confused and angry with the situation when you do things like that,” she complained, before pulling his shirt over her head. It covered her body like a loose dress. He wanted to rip it off her.
“What situation?” Ryan lowered himself back to his knees. The melted slickness of the carpet rubbed against the one left bare by his burnt jeans.
In his chest, his heart tripped over itself.
Could a Fire Mate tell another the relationship was over? Was that possible?
He didn’t know. Why would he? He hadn’t planned on finding his Fire Mate for at least another century.
When he got back to Australia, he was kicking Tyson’s arse for not preparing him better for all this, and giving Sera a damn good lecture about how inconvenient it was for her to go into labor when he needed some guidance.
“How long have you known you were a dragon shifter?”
Deanne’s soft question made Ryan frown. “What do you mean, how long? I’ve always known. Do you mean, when did I know the mating fire had—”
He stopped when she shook her head.
“I mean,” she said, distress a faint note her voice, “how long have you known you could shift into a dragon?”
The question made no sense to him. His expression must have made that clear.
An exasperated sigh tore from her. She dragged her hands through her hair, her gaze jumping around the room.
He studied her, once again wishing he had a way of dipping into her thoughts at will. A heavy knot twisted in his stomach. “You…you weren’t kidding when you insisted you weren’t a dragon, were you?”
She slid her stare back to him. His throat tightened at the conflict in her eyes. “I…” She looked away, her jaw clenched. “If I’m a…a dragon shifter…I’ve…”
“Never shifted into your dragon form?” he finished for her.
His head roared. Christ, what would it be like, to never know a part of who and what you were? And then, to discover via a rush of carnal lust and hunger so potent, it rendered you defenseless and powerless to ignore?
Swallowing at the weight pressing on his chest, Ryan frowned. “Are your parents—”
…my parents…
…what happened to my mother…
…my father…
…Julian…
The thoughts—Deanne’s thoughts—skipped through Ryan’s head, and with them, images of a short man with cold, dark eyes striding across an endless expanse of knee-deep snow. A short man with corded muscles, holding a hunting knife dripping blood in one hand, and a crossbow in the…
Ryan bolted to his feet. His heart smashed into his tight throat. “Extraho Venator,” he said on a breath. “Dragon killer.”
Deanne’s eyes widened. The blood drained from her face. “Ryan,” she said, scrambling to her knees. “Let me explain…I need to—”
He staggered back from her, incapable of processing what the jumbled turmoil of her thoughts had shown him, told him.
“Your father…” The words scratched at his dry throat. His eyes burned as he stared at her. “Julian. He’s an Extraho Venator.”
Deanne flinched at the title. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “And so am—”
The door crashed open with a crack of splintering wood, a second before the man Ryan had seen in his head strode into the room, crossbow raised.
“Thank you, Daughter,” he said, bolt leveled at Ryan. “Good girl.”
Deanne lunged at Ryan just as the man—her father—smiled and squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 8
Everything turned hot. But unlike the exquisite inferno of the mating fire, this heat seared through Deanne like a scorched blade. Cutting and icy-cold at once.
Something thick sank into the back of her shoulder. Pierced her flesh. Penetrated her muscle. Scraped at her bone.
The impact drove her forward, smashing her chest-first into Ryan.
Behind her, Julian roared, his incensed “No!” tearing at her fraying sanity, and then there was nothing in her mind except pain. Agonizing heat.
“Deanne!” Ryan’s voice scraped at the edges of the pain. His fingers flailed at her arms, her face. “Fuck, Deanne…”
She tried to scramble backwards off him, tried to turn to her father, tried to speak, but the pain in her shoulder intensified.
A cry tore from her throat, wild and inhuman.
Ryan’s hands flailed at her arms again. Something hot and wet poured down her back.
“Daughter,” a male voice bellowed. “Move!”
Male. Father. Julian.
I’m going to fucking kill this—
Ryan’s thoughts snarled through the pain in her shoulder and the terror in her head a heartbeat before the world blistered into red-soaked heat.
Whatever connection she had with him vanished. All she could sense, all she could feel, was the agony in her body. All she could hear was her father demanding she move.
Her heart shattered. Her mind splintered. A lifetime of knowing who she was, what she was, fractured as the reality tore into her.
Raised to kill dragons. Mated with one.
Born one…
She swung her stare back to Ryan.
“Deanne!” Julian—the man who had raised her—yelled at her. “Get off him!”
Ryan tried to haul her to his side, his enraged stare locked on her father.
Kill…
One word. One thought. Ryan’s. In her head.
Existence blistered again. A pulse of heat slammed into her like a ball of fire, so fierce she was pushed backward. If it weren’t for Ryan holding her, she would have been propelled through the air, toward her father.
Her father, who she knew without even looking was cocking another bolt in his crossbow.
Kill the…
Ryan’s thoughts snarled through her head again, his fury hotter than the air around them.
…Extraho Venator. Kill the…
She slammed Ryan to the floor.
The pain in her shoulder turned to a screaming heat. She shut it off. Ignored it. Julian had taught her how to deny pain. The lessons had started when she was only a little girl, barely able to stand.
Pain served no purpose.
“Deanne,” Ryan growled, fingers digging into her upper arms. “Get off me. I have to—”
“I won�
�t let you kill my father,” she ground out, smashing her palms to his chest.
His eyes widened as he fought against her.
And then he roared as a crossbow bolt slammed into his left shoulder.
A shrieking cry drilled through Deanne’s head. Was it Ryan’s? The dragon that he was? The dragon she’d just mated with?
Ryan writhed, clawing at the bolt embedded in his body. Agony contorted his face as he wrapped his fingers around the shaft and pulled it from his shoulder. Blood pumped from the hole, flowed over his flesh, even as his stare locked with hers.
Deanne… Hate and torment filled his voice in her head. Get off me. Get…
“Deanne!” her father roared, closer behind her. “Get out of the way so I can kill this fucking blight to all things natural !”
The order lashed at her. Ice filled her veins.
“Fucking dragon killer,” Ryan snarled, scrambling onto his feet, his stare locked on Julian.
Julian, who was bearing down on them.
Julian, who was cocking another bolt into his crossbow…
Deanne shoved Ryan back, her head roaring.
“Get out of the way, daughter,” Julian ordered. “I need a clear shot of his—”
Ryan scrambled for him again. Threw himself forward from the floor. The air crackled as heat blasted from him.
Deanne gasped, tumbling sideways. And then cried out as her father was flung backwards, hit by the invisible force of Ryan’s burning rage. He struck the wall behind him, the impact knocking his crossbow from his hand.
“Extraho Venator,” Ryan snarled, stalking toward him, fists bunched. His skin rippled, its color no longer that of a man but a mottled, shimmering red.
Deanne’s stomach clenched. Her throat seized shut.
Shifting. Ryan was shifting. Right there.
As he bore down on Julian, he was changing. His dragon was rising to the surface.
Revealing itself.
Exposing itself.
“I’m going to turn you to nothing but ash, dragon killer,” Ryan promised.
Slumped on the floor against the wall, blood seeping from somewhere at the back of his head, the skin of his face red and blistered and weeping, Julian pulled his hunting blade from inside his singed jacket.
“You’ve been fucking a dragon killer, blight,” Julian sneered back, inching up the wall. “How’s that make you—”
The air shimmered as Ryan blasted another invisible ball of heat at Julian. “Die, Extraho Venator,” Ryan said on a low growl. “Burn in—”
Deanne threw herself at Ryan.
Drove him across the room.
They hit the sofa, both staggering and tumbling over their feet.
By the time she’d recovered her balance, Ryan was staring her down.
“I can’t let you kill my father, Ryan!” she said, even as her heart and body cried out. In confusion. In grief. In pain.
In rage.
“That’s my girl,” Julian chuckled.
Ryan’s eyes transformed. No longer human. A shudder racked his body. His muscles bunched.
“Ryan!” she screamed, stare fixed on him.
He swung his face her way, hands hooked into claws at his side.
“What are you doing, Deanne?” he asked. Confusion and betrayed hurt boiled through him. She didn’t hear his thoughts, but she didn’t need to. She could see it in his face. Hear it in his voice. “What have you done?”
“I’m…” She didn’t finish. She didn’t know how.
Instead, she struck out of him, hitting him with her own invisible wall of heat.
Hitting him hard.
She still had no idea how, but then, why would she? Until less than an hour ago, she had no true concept of what she was.
“Deanne!” her father roared. “Stop. I can’t kill it if you’re in the—”
She ignored him. He had, after all, taught her how to ignore pain. How to deny its existence.
Focus locked on Ryan, she blasted out another inferno of invisible force.
It struck him, sending him backward.
Flinging him through the air.
Into the room’s huge window.
Through it.
The room filled with the crash of shattering glass. With the furious shout of her father.
With the inhuman screech of a dragon.
Deanne had a moment—a split second—to see Ryan’s human body hurtling like a ragdoll through the dawn sky beyond the broken window, and then he shifted into his dragon form.
His massive wings beat the air. His green eyes held hers as he hovered outside the building, the early morning sun reflecting off his red scales in a golden-copper sheen.
My Fire Mate…
His voice, his stunned confusion, flayed at her mind.
Chest tight, she reached behind her shoulder and tore the crossbow bolt from her back.
Her brain recognized the pain, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she ran across the room, snatched up her father’s crossbow, cocked the bolt so recently buried in her body and then turned back to the gaping hole in the wall.
Leveled the loaded crossbow toward Ryan.
Aimed it at him.
Go, she ordered without a word, staring at him down the barrel of the ancient weapon. Now.
The dragon outside screeched. Once.
And then, with a single thrust of his wings, he was gone from her sight.
Grief and agony splintered Deanne’s heart. A numb emptiness rolled over her.
“Why didn’t you fire?” Julian demanded from behind her.
Deanne pivoted on her heel and drew the crossbow level with her father’s heart.
He stopped walking toward her, eyes narrowing. Something she’d never seen before flickered in their dark depths.
Fear.
“What are you doing, Daughter?”
She pulled a slow breath and curled her finger around the bow’s trigger. “Waiting for answers, Julian. And so help me, I will pull this trigger if I don’t get them right now.”
Julian didn’t move.
Not even when someone pounded on the door to Ryan’s room. “What’s going on in there?” a male voice shouted, each word accompanied by more pounding. “Open this door now!”
Deanne regarded her father.
Father? Really?
“Am I a dragon shifter?” she asked, holding his stare.
His jaw bunched.
Whoever was outside the door hammered his fist on it again. “This is hotel security,” he yelled, presumably because he figured that would get the door opened. Deanne wanted to tell him it made no difference to what was happening inside. “Open the door!”
Julian narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”
The single-word confirmation punched at Deanne. Her breath caught in her throat. Her stomach churned.
“And you’ve never thought to tell me?” Her voice was little more than a scratch. “Are you a dragon shifter?”
Disgust etched Julian’s face at the last question. His lip curled. “Of course not.”
She frowned. “Are you really my father?”
“Yes.”
“So, my mother…” Her voice cracked on the word. “So my mother was a dragon shifter?”
He nodded. A single dip of his head, his gaze never leaving hers.
Deanne’s stomach churned again. A crushing vise seemed to be wrapping her chest. Hot dust coated her mouth and throat. “What happened to her?”
More pounding on the door. Followed by muffled words Deanne could still understand: Get the manager. And call the cops.
She ground her teeth, watching her father study her.
“What happened to her?” she demanded, still pointing his crossbow at him. “Tell me.”
From beyond the shattered window, the sound of approaching sirens wailed on the cold morning air.
“Open this door!” the person in the hallway demanded again.
Deanne flicked the door a quick glance. They were running out
of time. She was running out of time.
“We should go,” Julian said.
She fixed her focus on him again, aware he’d shortened the distance between them when she’d looked away.
Closer. He was closer. Close enough he could make a move for his crossbow.
“Tell me,” she ground out.
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I’d been tracking the dragon for months,” he said, the faintest hint of contempt creeping into his voice. Still, his eyes revealed nothing about what he was feeling. “I finally found it in Moscow. It was in its human form—a female. The second I saw it, I was consumed with a sexual depravity, a sick lust to have sex with it I could not refuse. I had to copulate with it. I had to. No matter how vile and perverted and wrong it was, I had to fuck it. There was nothing I could do to fight the desire. It was like my mind and body were being raped by a perverse sexual want.”
Deanne drew in a sharp breath. The mating fire. He was describing the mating fire. Her father had experienced the mating fire with her mother.
Her mother…a dragon.
“What did you do?” she asked.
His lip curled again. “I surrendered to the depravity. I fucked it, against the back wall of a church, with the tip of my blade pressed to its throat and the moon the only witness to our depravity. For an unfathomable number of hours. I had no choice but to fuck it. To let it touch me, suck me…” He shuddered, disgust twisting his face. “I couldn’t stop myself, no matter how repulsed I was.”
Sickened shock curdled in Deanne’s stomach. She swallowed.
“Where is she now?” she whispered. Her eyes stung with unshed tears. Her pulse thumped in her ears. “Why…why don’t I know anything about her? Why don’t I remember her?”
Her mother. He was talking about her mother.
“I fucked it over and over for the entire night.” The statement left him on a venomous sneer. “Every time I tried to kill it, to get away, the sexual hunger controlling me came back tenfold. I am well aware of the irony of a dragon killer being mated by some kind of aberrant magical destiny to a dragon. I am as disgusted by it now as I was then. Finally, after I don’t know how many times I sank my flesh into it, the compulsion faded.”
“And you what?” Deanne frowned. “Just left?”
“I tried to kill it first,” Julian answered. “It defeated me. Used the same invisible wall of heat to slam me against the church that the dragon you’ve been fucking used on me just now. When I regained consciousness, it was gone. A year later…it was not so lucky.”
Crouching Tigress Horny Dragon (Fire Mates #3) Page 9
