Eternal Mates 7 - Taken by a Dragon

by Felicity Heaton

  Anais did manage to smile now. “Your problems make mine look like nothing.”

  Sable shrugged. “Give me battles and enemies any day of the week. It’s love that really knows how to hit you hard and kick you when you’re already on your arse. The trick is to stand up, dust yourself off, and go out there and give it a swift kick in the balls until it falls into line.”

  Anais frowned. “You are speaking metaphorically now… or am I meant to go and find Loke and kick him where it hurts again?”

  “Again?” Sable grinned. “That’s my girl. Call when you’ve made up your mind… okay?”

  “Okay.” Anais nodded. “I just need some time to get my head on straight and think about what I want.”

  Sable’s expression softened as she backed towards the metal stairs. “It’s a big decision… but it could be worse. You could be half-angel, married to a demon king, trying to balance running a realm with protecting the world.”

  Anais couldn’t stop herself from chuckling at that, even when she wasn’t laughing on the inside. She waved Sable away and went back to staring at the city, feeling the pressing weight of her options on her shoulders as she tried to decide what to do.

  Loke couldn’t survive in her world and he couldn’t teleport as Thorne and Loren could, so he couldn’t transfer her between Hell and London. If she was going to be with him, she had to give up everything.

  But it might just be a sacrifice she was willing to make to be with the man she had fallen in love with.

  The distant sound of alarms sent a jolt of adrenaline burning through her and she turned on her heel and bolted towards the stairs that led down into the building. She took them two at a time and drew her sword as she reached the bottom and burst into a corridor on the top floor. Red lights flashed as the sirens screeched, hurting her ears.

  She took a moment to get her bearings and then grabbed a man as he ran past. “What’s happening?”

  “Some non-human just landed in the cafeteria.”

  It was probably Thorne looking for Sable. He always caused a ruckus when he showed up unannounced in the cafeteria. But what if it wasn’t?

  She followed the man as he sprinted down the corridor, leaving her behind as he caught up with a group of hunters. The hunter quarters were on this side of the building, meaning the way into the cafeteria from this direction would be blocked by the number of men and women trying to get into it to face the non-human.

  Anais banked right at the first junction, breaking away from the group and following a long corridor that ran the length of the building and would bring her down on the other side of the cafeteria. Fewer hunters would hit it from the direction she had chosen, meaning she could see what had landed in it and could get in on the action if it wasn’t Thorne and was an attack.

  She ran past the first set of stairs on her right and took the second down to the next floor, following it as it bent back on itself halfway, and banked right again, sprinting as fast as she could down the empty corridor. As predicted, everyone was coming at the cafeteria from the same direction. Score for her, since her patrol had been quiet. She might get to work off some tension tonight after all.

  Anais leaped the wall around the next set of stairs and landed awkwardly on the steps below. She lost her grip on her sword as her bones ached from the hard landing, stumbled down the remaining steps and slammed straight into someone. Her cheeks blazed as she took them down with her in a heap and landed on top of them.

  “Damn, I’m sorry.” She shoved herself up, her eyes leaping to the face of the man who had provided a nice cushion for her fall, and froze as she met stunning aquamarine eyes. “Loke?”

  He grinned at her and she almost pinched herself to see whether she had knocked herself out as a result of her fall and was dreaming. It wasn’t possible.

  She scrambled off him and he slowly got to his bare feet and grimaced as he stretched, making every honed muscle of his torso flex. She was definitely unconscious and dreaming. He looked far more delicious and gorgeous than she remembered. He stooped and picked up her sword, appraised it with an amused smile, and then held it out to her.

  “What are you doing here?” She took the sword and the weight of it felt real enough.

  Maybe she wasn’t dreaming.

  Loke grabbed her wrist and began dragging her up the stairs she had fallen down, his long blue-leather-clad legs taking them two at a time and making her have to do the same to keep up with him.

  “I am abducting you.” His rich deep voice stirred warmth inside her and she could only stare at the back of his head as she absorbed what he had said.

  He had come for her.

  A chill swept through her, raising the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck, and a laugh bubbled up her throat and tumbled from her lips.

  Loke paused at the top of the steps and looked back at her. “You seem unwell. Did the fall injure you? I tried to land beneath you but perhaps I did not manage it well enough to stop you from hurting yourself. You came at me quite unexpectedly. I tracked your scent and the feel of you on my senses, but I had not expected you to launch into my arms like that.”

  “I fell.” She wished she hadn’t said that when his blue eyes brightened with amusement.

  He had been under the impression she had thrown herself at him on seeing him, and it certainly painted her in a better light than the truth that she had been a clumsy oaf.

  “You must be more careful, Little Amazon, there is only one of you and you are irreplaceable.”

  Those words melted her heart and she threw herself at him this time, looping her arms around his neck and dragging him down for a kiss. He growled against her lips, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him as he kissed her. She heated to a thousand degrees and melted into a puddle as he mastered her mouth, his passion flowing through her and speaking of his need for her. His desire.

  He really had come back for her.

  She shoved away from him and held him at arm’s length as he tried to pull her back into his arms. When she locked her elbows to resist him, he stopped trying and frowned at her, his mouth flattening into a grim line of displeasure.

  “How are you here? Why are you here? You can’t be here!” She might have been speaking too fast because his frown took on a confused edge and he just stared at her. Her fingers tensed against his bare chest. “You can’t be in the mortal realm. It’s too dangerous for you… you’ll die. You have to go back.”

  He nodded. “I intend to, but there is something I must do first.”

  The way desire darkened his blue eyes and heated her inside said that what he had in mind was wicked and possibly time-consuming.

  “You don’t have time. You’ll get sick again and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t know how you got here, but we have to get you back to Hell. We can talk there.” She pressed against his chest but he didn’t move.

  He was a solid wall of muscle and strength, unmoveable.

  That gave her pause.

  He wasn’t burning up, sick or trembling and weak.

  Loke smiled and heat flooded her again, leaving her trembling and weak. “Tell me something, Little Amazon, did the elf prince explain what would happen as a consequence of you giving part of your life in order to save mine?”

  She wracked her brain but couldn’t find an answer to that question. There was every chance that Loren might have explained some things, but she only remembered him explaining how to save Loke. He hadn’t mentioned any consequences.

  She shook her head.

  Loke’s handsome face shifted in a way that made her feel he had known that and having her confirm it had irritated him. “I will have words with him about it when I next speak with him.”

  “Was there a consequence?” She looked up into his eyes and sought the answer from them. They smiled at her, soothing her fears and showing her that the consequence he had spoken of wasn’t going to be a bad one.

  At least not in his opinion.

&nbs
p; “We are bound, Little Amazon. The piece of your life you gave to me has tied us together. I could feel you when I was in Hell.”

  She nodded now, amazement filling her as she realised that the reason she had always felt as if Loke was somewhere close to her was because she was bound to him. They were connected to each other.

  “The consequences of what you did reaches deeper than merely binding us together though.” Loke planted his hands on her hips and slowly drew her closer to him, his gaze on hers the whole time. “It has given me a link to this world, one that allows me to be here without endangering myself. I cannot shift, and I am weaker, but I will not die in this world.”

  Anais had difficulty taking that in and what it meant.

  Loke could be in the mortal realm without it killing him, and that meant he could visit her and she could continue her work with Archangel, at least for now.

  Her heart stopped soaring and plummeted as she realised that it hadn’t really changed anything.

  The banishment that meant he couldn’t survive in the mortal realm wasn’t the reason he had left her.

  “But the visions,” she whispered and his face softened as he lifted his right hand and brushed his knuckles across her cheek.

  “I thought about what the prince told me after he had taken me back to Hell, and I have found a way to stop the vision from coming to pass.” His blue gaze tracked his fingers as he stroked her cheek and she sensed the nerves in him, a trickle of fear that ran through her too.

  Whatever he had discovered, he feared how she would react to it.

  “Tell me,” she whispered and caught his hand, stopping him from caressing her. He opened his hand and pressed his palm to her cheek, and she held it there as she drowned in the endless depths of his blue eyes and the love they held for her.

  “I am weaker in this world and I cannot shift. My dragon instincts are suppressed, but not extinguished. I still feel a need to mate with you and it still compels me to go through with it, but it is not as fierce as it is when we were in Hell.” His voice trembled the tiniest amount and she wanted to smile at how afraid he was of saying things straight to her.

  His fear was ungrounded.

  She wasn’t going to reject him.

  Because she wanted what he was offering to her.

  “I want to be your mate, Loke.”

  His eyes shot wide and he stared at her in stunned silence.

  Anais giggled. “That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it? You want to mate with me in this world, where you feel more in control.”

  He nodded.

  Swallowed hard.

  “You will be my mate?”

  It was a ridiculous question, but one she knew he needed to hear her answer so he could believe it.

  “Yes.”

  Loke grinned, his gaze fell to her lips and he went to pull her into his arms.

  The sound of crossbows clicking as they were loaded froze both of them to the spot and Anais edged her eyes beyond Loke to the hunters stood there, aware that there were more blocking the other end of the corridor and the stairs behind her too.

  She had been so caught up in seeing Loke again and the thought they might finally be able to be together that she had forgotten he had caused a mass panic and everyone had been hunting for him.

  “This has to be the first time I’ve seen a captive come back after escaping.”

  Anais grimaced as Mark’s, the head of the hunter department, voice cut through the wailing of the alarms. How the hell were they going to get out of this one?

  Loke set her away from him, turned to face the sharply dressed fair-haired man where he stood in front of three male hunters, and narrowed his blue eyes on him. Anais looked between them as their eyes locked in silent combat and the tension in the air rose. She wasn’t sure what Loke was going to do.

  Mark had close to a dozen hunters backing him up. She would fight with Loke if it came down to it, but her dreams of being able to continue as a hunter for Archangel would die in that same moment.

  Loke finally dragged his eyes away from Mark and settled them on her, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking up at him, even when she knew he would see the conflict in her. She wanted to be with Loke, but she had a job to do here too, a mission that meant a lot to her and she wasn’t ready to leave it all behind. Not yet. She wanted to be his mate, and eventually she would leave Archangel to be with him permanently, but she needed time to adjust and needed to fulfil her mission here.

  A hint of a smile curved the corners of his lips and he looked back at the head of the hunters and said the last thing she had expected to hear, but it was something she knew he was doing for her, because he loved her and he wanted her to be happy.

  And that meant the world to her.

  “I have come to offer a deal.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Loke hadn’t expected things to take the turns that they had after he had flown to the elf kingdom to seek an audience with the prince. He’d had to face down an army of dark elves all determined to be the one who speared his chest with their weapon, and he had thought that would be his greatest obstacle in his challenge to reach Anais.

  He had been mistaken.

  He hadn’t anticipated the elf prince agreeing to teleport him to the mortal realm and then dropping him in the middle of what had appeared to be Archangel’s eating hall and wishing him good luck. The wretched male had grinned at him as he had teleported away, leaving him to face the hunters alone when he could have easily helped him by making his presence known. They knew Prince Loren. They would have put down their weapons if he had asked it of them.

  But the male had wanted to test his resolve.

  Loke knew that and it was the only reason he wasn’t going to track the wretch down and teach him a lesson when he returned to Hell.

  He would prove to the prince that he was determined to fight for Anais and win her as his mate.

  Loke also hadn’t anticipated running into Anais when he had been tracking her movements within the building while outrunning the hunters who also wanted to be the one to spear his chest with their weapon. It seemed elves and humans were no different. They both saw a dragon and wanted to slay it.

  Saint George had a lot to answer for.

  The last thing that Loke hadn’t anticipated?

  Striking a deal with a man who appeared to be a leader among the hunters.

  But he had seen the look in Anais’s eyes and knew in his heart that her position and her mission with Archangel meant a lot to her, and therefore it meant a lot to him. He wanted her as his mate, but he didn’t want to jeopardise her happiness in order to achieve that. She had a life in the mortal realm and family too, and she would always want to spend part of her time in this world. He had come to terms with that over the days they had been apart.

  That was the reason he was now standing in the office of a sandy-haired male who looked at him as if he was expecting Loke to breathe fire whenever he spoke or sprout horns and wings.

  The male leaned his backside against a wide oak desk and folded his arms across his chest, causing the sleeves of his black suit to tighten over his muscles. Even in his weakened state, Loke was far stronger than the male, but the hunter had a glint in his grey eyes, a coldness that made it clear that he would fight Loke regardless of the difference in their strength if he didn’t like what Loke was about to propose.

  Loke took a step towards him and Anais shuffled restlessly where she stood near an unlit fire pit dug into the wall. The mortal world was filled with distractions that Loke wanted to explore now that he could survive in it, but he managed to keep his focus on his business with the male and off every fascinating object in the room.

  “I did not return so you could incarcerate me again,” Loke said, wanting that out in the open and made as clear as possible before he started. “I would not consider it. It appears I am able to retain enough strength when in this world now to do a great deal of damage to any who might be foolish enough to attempt to re
strain me.”

  The male nodded.

  “I am come for my mate.” Loke frowned when the male’s dark eyes left him and shifted to his left, towards Anais where she lingered near the fireplace. Loke could feel her embarrassment as the male scrutinised her, and he was on the verge of growling at him when the male did the right thing and took his eyes off Loke’s mate. “I am not leaving without her, but I am not taking her from you either. She will remain as one of your hunters, and in exchange for your kindness and understanding in this matter, I invite your scientists to meet with me in Hell where I will… show them my dragon.”

  “Loke,” Anais whispered with concern and disbelief lacing her soft voice and he held his hand up to silence her.

  “I will not subject myself to any form of studying, but I will do all that is necessary to provide your people with a better understanding of my species, including the fact that we are not a threat to mortals or this world.” Loke held the male’s grey gaze.

  There was a flicker of warmth in it now, a note of intrigue and interest that gave Loke hope.

  “Very well. I will make the arrangements at my end and I’m sure the research division will be pleased to hear they will have their chance—”

  “Olivia will lead the team,” Anais interjected and the male flicked her a glare.

  Loke growled at him, flashing a hint of sharp teeth as anger blasted through him and they shifted. The male backed down, schooling his features and settling his gaze back on Loke.

  “Olivia will lead the team,” Loke said, his tone brooking no argument from the male. “If she is not present when your people arrive at the agreed time and location, I will change my mind about not being a threat to mortals in this world.”

  “It isn’t wise to threaten Archangel.” The male lowered his hands to his sides and gripped the edge of the desk.

  Loke narrowed his gaze on him. “It is not wise to threaten my mate.”

  The hunter looked as if he wanted to glance at Anais again, but sensibly kept his focus locked on Loke instead. “Olivia will lead the team of scientists. You will help us understand more about dragon physiology and your realm in Hell, but also the reason dragons cannot live in this world and why you can. Anais will retain her position within Archangel. Agreed?”