Lumen pushed out a heavy sigh. “He’s one of the Forsaken,” he said. “Have you ever heard of them?”
She nodded. “Half-breeds between shifters and…” she began.
“The word is hard to say, even for me,” he replied. “Vampires are creatures of legend. Hiding in shadow, disappeared for generations. Even now, no one seems certain whether they exist or not. But the Forsaken have somehow lived on, and it seems that they’ve come out of hiding.”
“I heard about them when I was a child,” Neko said. “In dark stories. I’d always thought them a myth. Of course, I’d always thought the Kindred a myth and yet here you are, with me now.” She drew a finger along his muscular arm, reassuring herself with his presence. “Very real, and very wonderful. It’s too bad that Umbra’s kind seems to be so much the opposite of yours.” She fell silent for a moment before speaking again. “He told me that you—the Dragons—knew what he was. But you didn’t know, did you?”
Lumen stiffened for a moment before replying. “No. If I had, I would never have left you alone. Until yesterday, I didn’t know that he was one of them. Nor did I know that they still posed a threat, after so many years of silence. When you and I came upon the sundial and found the new verses, I began to suspect the truth, but even then I wasn’t sure.”
Slowly, Neko whispered the words, as though she were recalling a poem from her childhood:
“At home in the dark
Are those whose flesh is thin.
Beware their true nature…Of course. It makes sense now.”
Lumen nodded. “That’s why I wanted to speak with the Kindred—to learn the truth of it all—or rather, to confirm my suspicions. My mistake was leaving you alone. I should have warned you about what was weighing on my mind, but I didn’t want to frighten you with theories and strange assumptions.”
“Frighten? I wouldn’t have been—” She stopped herself, on the verge of telling him that such a thing was impossible. But that would have been a lie. She’d never been so afraid as during those moments the previous day, alone in that alley. The stench of death around her reminding her of her own mortality—of how close she would come to losing her life. “Your theories wouldn’t have frightened me. Not in the way that reality does.”
“I know. You’re a brave, wonderful creature,” he said, softly kissing her hair.
“Not so brave. I was terrified yesterday. But not of death, so much as other things.”
“And so, tell me about it,” he replied. “What were you afraid of?”
“Something far worse than death. The notion that I’d never find my way to you again—that our bond would be severed forever. During the seconds when I thought I would die, I could only think of you, Lumen. Of never seeing your face again. Of having found this incredible abundance of feeling for someone, only to have it ripped away so soon. That is fear. Fear of loss. Of never feeling so…happy…again.”
Lumen pressed his lips gently to her forehead, tears welling in his eyes. “I understand,” he said, whispering to mask the shakiness of his voice, “because I felt exactly the same way, my sweet Neko.”
“Nothing has ever scared me like the thought of being permanently separated from you. “ She took his hand in hers, holding it tight. “Not even Umbra’s cold, merciless eyes.”
With a sudden jerk, Lumen pulled away, rising from the bed to march to the other end of the room. His body visibly tense, he turned back to face her.
“Don’t say such things,” he snarled. “Never say such things.”
Neko started at the change that had come over her lover. His eyes had altered in those few seconds, and in a flash she could sense that the two of them were no longer alone. His Dragon was with them, standing facing her, speaking from within his human lair. The powerful being who had rescued her from Umbra’s grasp. The protective force that hated the Forsaken with every fibre of its being.
Impulse guided the shifter as he spoke, his voice a hoarse growl. As human as he looked, it was the Dragon who addressed Neko, commanding and authoritative. “Maybe you should be afraid of him. I don’t want you going near that bastard again.”
“Well, whether you want me to or not, I might have to,” she said, her tone shifting immediately into something defiant, distant, recalling her dream. Suddenly their affectionate moment was turning cold, hard. “Someone needs to take him out, Lumen. If not me, then who?”
“A Dragon would fare much better against such a creature. You don’t understand; the Forsaken are incredibly…”
“Strong, quick, deadly. You don’t need to patronize me. I was there, remember? I’m the one whose life was almost squeezed away.” She rose to her feet, defiantly meeting his gaze. A power play on her part. She meant to stand her ground against the Dragon. He was not her master.
“Apparently I do need to tell you. You weren’t strong enough to take him on,” he pointed out, something close to anger seeping into his words—whether directed at her, or the half-breed who’d tried to steal her from him, she couldn’t quite say.
“I’m not going to spend my life running from men—beasts—like him,” she retorted. “I won’t be ruled by fear. I also won’t be ruled by people—or Dragons—who think it their right to tell me what to do.”
“Well, you bloody well should be. And you should stay a million miles from Umbra’s ilk.” His voice was all but hostile, the Dragon filled with rage.
But Lumen’s human mind and heart could feel Neko pulling away with each piercing word out of his mouth. She was shutting down, erecting an emotional wall between herself and him. And so he mustered all his strength to clamp his jaw shut, forcing himself to stop talking.
The creature inside him wanted nothing more than to argue. To command her to stand down, to obey his wishes. But his human side was putting up a fight; resisting the commanding presence. It was just as Aegis had warned; he would lose her if he allowed the wrong side to take control, to try and control her. It would be an almost certain way to destroy what they’d begun to build together.
Don’t let the Dragon rule your heart, he told himself. Check him—put him in his place.
“Forgive me,” he said, reining his emotions in and deliberately softening the edges of the words as he approached the bed once again. His fingers reached tentatively to touch her arm, “I just want to look after you.”
She looked for a moment as though she might snarl another retort. What he’d said wasn’t really an improvement from issuing orders. For Neko, being looked after was an act of condescension rather than kindness.
But instead of snapping at him, she forced herself to soften as well. She, too, had a beast inside her. A raging, independent woman who had always lived to defy rules.
Now, though, she was beginning to understand the intricacies of love. It was no simple matter, and the unattractive concept of compromise was one that reared its head on occasion. A necessary evil, but one that she had to face, if Lumen was willing to do the same.
He was right, after all—to face Umbra would be dangerous. And her headstrong attitude was driving a wedge between them. For now she should embrace him and be happy to have this time together after her brush with death.
“I know you want to protect me,” she said softly. “But I’ve told you a thousand times that I can look after myself. I realize that I didn’t do such a good job yesterday, but have faith in me. I’m growing stronger—I can feel it. You’ve given me gifts that I’m only now getting used to.”
“Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. I—my Dragon—has grown more protective of you than I ever thought possible. Sometimes it gets the better of me. He and I both forget your strength.”
Neko managed a shallow smile. Each of them, she knew, was learning to manage this relationship—this meeting of two stubborn, dominant personalities. A Dragon and a Hunter made for a fiery combination, at the very least. All of the passion that had made them an explosive combination in bed also meant that they spent some of their waking hours wanting to defy one a
nother, to assert their dominance.
But love and dominance weren’t necessarily compatible, she reminded herself.
“I like that you look out for me,” she said, her tone earnest. “And don’t think for a second that I’m not grateful to you for saving my life.”
She leaned forwards and gifted him a soft kiss as a reward, both for the life-saving and for his apology, which couldn’t have been easy for him.
“Well then,” he said, “when you’re fully recovered, I have a proposition for you and your fellow Syndicate members. Much as I’d love for you to stay out of the fray, I see that that it’s not likely to happen.”
“Oh?”
“Now that the Forsaken have shown themselves, we—the Guild and the Syndicate—will need to help one another. I mentioned to you that we want to forge an alliance. We will provide the Hunters with the necessary weapons to help combat those who are like Umbra.”
“Then I’ll have Bertie assemble some of our best. We should meet soon.”
“And we will, once you’re ready,” Lumen assured her. “Although you look very well, I’d like to wait a little before gathering everyone together. Just to make sure you really are all right.”
“Okay. But I think you know by now that I don’t like being cooped up indoors very much. And the truth is that I feel fine.”
Lumen laughed. “Fair enough. Give me one day to enjoy you and then we’ll talk about heading to Hampstead Heath to meet. Is that acceptable?”
“I can live with that.”
Dragon Bone
As they lay on the bed a few minutes later, he stroked fingers over her skin, relishing the realness of her. “There’s something else that we’ll need to discuss, and soon. Neko, do you remember that you told me you know where the Relic is?”
For a moment she didn’t respond. Lumen sensed that she was contemplating her answer, hesitant, perhaps, to divulge the information.
“Yes.” The word was nothing more than the briefest whisper, a world of secrecy hidden in its depths. “The truth is that I’m not completely certain, though I felt like I had a sort of epiphany in my brief time with Umbra. Call it a hunch, a moment of clarity—or a far deeper feeling than that. Something in my soul, telling me where to look.”
“Your instincts are very good. If you have a hunch, it’s likely something worth following through on.”
“True,” she said, her voice still quiet, as though concealing a secret from anyone who might be listening. Her dream’s odd message was still on her mind, but it was one that she held close to her chest. Not even Lumen could know her thoughts and intentions; it would be the surest way to forge a wide chasm between them. “And I will follow through—soon. Just give me a little time to sort my thoughts on the matter.”
Lumen registered her words with a wince. She’d used the singular pronoun. “I will follow through.” Not “We will.” What was going through that mind of hers? For a moment he considered prying into her thoughts, if she wasn’t going to tell him. After all, he had the ability to extract information from almost anyone. He’d done it to her during their first meeting. He could make her talk to him if he so chose.
But no. Things were different now. She was his lover. They were in a relationship, which was meant to be founded on trust and respect. So he needed to be patient. If she was keeping something from him, no doubt she had her reasons. He could only hope that they were good ones—and not the foolish sort that might get her killed.
“I have something to give you,” he said, slightly changing the subject. “If you—and I—are going to head back out into the perilous streets of London, I want to make sure you’re well armed.” He drew his arm out from under her and rose, walking across the room to the tall white dresser that stood against the opposite wall. Opening the centre drawer, he extracted a box and carried it back to the bed as Neko pulled herself up to a sitting position.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A gift, from my ancestors—in a manner of speaking, at least. I never thought it would amount to anything more than a set of mementos, tributes to my bloodline. But now it seems that these have become potentially useful.”
He handed it to her. A long, wooden box, made of dark, rich wood, its top carved with a crest of two Dragons holding up a large, ornate shield. She pulled its lid open, its hinges resisting her only a little.
Inside was an assortment of weaponry: daggers, from large to small, their hilts made of silver inlaid onyx, expertly conceived and beautiful. One was even curved into a sickle-shape, like her Khopesh.
But the most striking aspect of the weapons was the blades themselves. White as snow, and so fine that, when turned sideways, they appeared no thicker than a piece of paper.
“So strange. They’re not metal,” she said, picking one up and pressing her fingers to the flat side of the blade. “What is this material?”
“Dragon’s bone,” he said. “You should replace some of your own weapons with these for the time being.”
Neko let out a skeptical, huffing sound. “Bone? It would shatter at the first contact with anything hard. I have titanium blades; they’ll be much better for my purposes.”
Of course, titanium had done nothing against Umbra’s flesh, and she shuddered at the recollection.
As though reading her thoughts, Lumen said, “I think you know that your blades are quite useless against a Forsaken at full strength. You need something laced with the power of the Kindred to defeat Umbra’s kind.”
Lumen wandered over to a nearby chair and pulled one of Neko’s daggers from her bandolier, which was draped over the chair’s back. Handing it to her hilt first, he said, “Cut through this blade with the Dragon bone.”
“Cut the dagger? Are you nuts? There’s no way that’ll work…”
“Just try.”
She held her knife in her left hand, suspending it over the bed, and with the Dragon bone, sliced through its blade as though it were nothing more than a softened piece of butter. The silver blade dropped onto the bed before her, the diagonal cut a straight, perfect line.
“Holy shit.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief. This material really was magical.
Lumen nodded. “Harder than any substance known to man. And sharper. Able to take off the limb—or head—of a Forsaken in an instant, if wielded by the right fighter. Umbra wouldn’t have such an easy time against these. Let’s hope that you never see him again. But if you do…”
“Thank you, Lumen,” she said, her eyes finding his. “These are amazing.”
“The Guild has many more, and we will provide the Syndicate with what they need.”
“Well, they’ll be grateful, I’m sure. I’ll set these into my bandolier later—hopefully I won’t slice through the leather.” She laughed.
“The beauty of Dragon bone is that it only cuts what it’s meant to. You’ll find your bandolier unmarred by the weapons.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Carefully she placed the daggers back into the box and sealed its lid.
“Neko,” he said, taking one of her hands in both of his, stroking her skin with his thumbs. “Just be careful. Until you—and I—find the Relic, you will be hunted. Umbra will always be looking for you. The Forsaken don’t take well to losing their prey.”
She drew his hands to her face and kissed each of them softly, turning them over to cradle her face in his palms. He was so protective. So caring. And for once, she welcomed the shelter he was offering.
“I will be careful,” she promised. “But for now I don’t want to talk of such things. Do you know what I’d really like?”
Her eyes sought his, and, filling with teasing mischief, narrowed.
He raised an eyebrow, delightful thoughts racing through his mind. She really was looking healthy and strong, and once again the place between his legs began to throb with desire for her. “I can only begin to imagine that you’d like me to do unspeakable things to that gorgeous body of yours, beautiful woman.”
�
�No, you horny madman,” she laughed. “I was thinking about a bath for my weary body.”
“A bath,” he said. “That can certainly be arranged. Provided that you let me wash all the important bits.”
* * *
Lumen ran the bath for her, just as he had on her first visit to the underground flat. Leaning back against the vanity, Neko watched as she gave her teeth a much-needed brushing. Her chest filled with affection as she watched him, light flowing in from above. The gentle ebbing of the lake’s water created a glow that moved about the room in easy waves, highlighting Lumen’s face. His strong jaw and incredible eyes enthralling Neko as she stared at him as though for the first time.
When the tub was nearly full, Lumen turned to face her, a gorgeous smile on his lips.
“You’ll need to take off your clothes,” he said. “But I can help with that.”
“I know you can. Skillful fingers, those,” she laughed as she stepped towards him, raising her arms in submission. “Do with me as you will, Dragon man,” she said. He took the lowest hem of her t-shirt between his fingers and pulled upwards, exhaling slowly as, inch by inch, her skin revealed itself to him.
He peeled the shirt away, tossing it to the side to flit down onto the marble floor, and pressed his hands into the narrowest part of her waist. Her beautiful brown eyes looked up into his, affection seeming to flow from her like a warm mist, engulfing them both.
She drew her hands up around his neck, directing his face down towards hers. A moment later their lips met, sending her floating upwards in a sea of pleasure. How could anything feel so good? Somehow, kissing him had become even better after her near death experience.
Reeling with pleasure, she found his tongue, tasting him again as though to ensure that he was real, and he savoured her back. Grateful for this moment. Taking nothing for granted.
He was so delicious. If ever she had to ask for a last meal, he would be her choice. Tender, delectable and sweet all at once. A feast that could last her seven lifetimes and then some.
Dragon Hunter Box Set: A Dragon Shifter Serial Page 22
