His hands reached for her hips, his fingers sliding against her bare skin. Charley’s eyes widened at the contact. Yeah, he felt it too. It was electrifying. “My dear, when I come collecting on this generous offer, I will take everything from you. I will own you.”
Her chest was rapidly rising and falling. She stared at his lips like she couldn’t decide whether to kiss him or bite him. He’d have been happy with either.
“Now, how about you tell me who hired you and I’ll tell you about your father.”
*****
Like fuck was she going to give up the name of her employer. That was like rule number one. Although the information on Daddy Dearest did intrigue her, she wasn’t about to ruin her career for a little bit of family history. It was nice to have the confirmation that she was on the right track though. Dragon just always seemed to fit well when she was researching.
“Sorry Cupcake, I can’t do that.” Charley stood up and backed away from him. The teasing may have been a bad plan. She hadn’t expected to react as she had. Apparently her body liked what he was selling, his too if what she felt in his lap wasn’t a gun. Although, the stiffy he sported was damn satisfying to her. At least she made him uncomfortable for a little while.
It was his breath on her ear that she felt first. His fingers brushed across her skin, pushing her hair onto the opposite shoulder. When it was bare, he stepped into her. Charley’s body pulsed with nervous energy. She wanted to kick him in the balls and break his nose, but her will to do so was hard to grasp. Soft, wet kisses trailed down the column of her neck. Her eyes fluttered and the need to moan hung on her lips.
“Torn between pleasure and hate. I do sympathize with you. However, I find it more comical than anything.” His voice was smooth and sinful in her ear. “My how you must hate yourself right now. Your body deceiving you like this.” He stood behind her, letting his body mold against hers. It gave her a shock, an unwelcome one. Her body was deceiving her, but even through the deception, she realized that his body wanted her as well.
“It seems I’m not the only one fighting with myself.” She rocked her hips and ground her ass into him.
“My dear, you are sadly mistaken.” His hands traced the curves of her and rested on her hips where he could get a better grip. “I’m not fighting it. I can hate and lust all at once.”
“So you’re a multitasker. Wonderful. So am I.” Charley stomped on his foot then swung an elbow to connect with his jaw. She heard rather than felt the bone crunching hit. Swinging out of his grasp, she turned and lift her knee to hit him in his happy place. Silas deflected with a smile.
“Cute,” he told her with a smirk. Silas dabbed at his bloody nose with the back of his hand.
Charley gave a horrible fake as shit yawn. “Gosh I’m tired.”
He raised an eyebrow. “MmmHmm. Well, we have time to deal with all of this later. Your stay here has just begun after all.”
“Actually I think I’ll be checking out soon. Don’t worry, I’ll leave you a good Yelp review. Goodnight Silas.”
He watched her, his face blank. He was trying to figure out what she meant by checking out. She wouldn’t tell him but it meant just what he thought it did. Charley was getting out of this place once he turned his tight ass around and walked away.
“Goodnight, Charley.”
Chapter Eight
Her day had gone as expected. She ate all of her favorite foods including a full batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. To hell with salmonella, she thought. It’s not like it could kill her at this point. She read her favorite parts of her favorite books. Watched Hocus Pocus. Said goodbye to her mountain and the critters living around her and then went to bed knowing that she would never wake up.
It was exhilarating.
Mated dragons could appear to their mate when they died. It was brief and was over all too quickly, or so she had been told. Lennox had never come to her. It was part of the reason she hadn’t thought him to be dead. But he had been. The stubborn man had been holding out.
He came to her now. Her eyes drifted closed and when they opened back up he was sitting on her bed. Her breath shook as she took him in. It had been around eight months since he died. Eight months of loneliness, sleepless nights and more tears than could ever be counted. He looked just the same as she remembered him, shorter than most men but still taller than her. His blonde hair was cut closely to his head so it looked like he had fuzz for hair. She liked to run her hands over its softness when she would cut it. His blue eyes were brilliant and clear. He drank her in just as she was with him.
It was self consciousness that had Darby moving the blanket up to cover her body. She wasn’t what he remembered. She held on for others and in the process she let her body got to waste.
“My sweet Darby, don’t hide from me,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes to his voice. A sound she had missed more than her own breath. “Len,” she said with watery eyes, “I knew you’d come.”
“Always,” he promised. “I’ve been here the whole time.”
Part of her knew that. She could feel him at times near her. “Why did you take so long?”
“Others needed you.” He lifted a hand to her face but his clear form went right through her. He was here but not here, not in the way either of them wanted.
“More than you do?” she asked pushing herself up to sit. It hurt but the pain didn’t mean anything anymore it would be gone soon.
“Never,” he growled and the vibrations curled her toes. Lennox wouldn’t have taken Darby if Dacea needed her and he had. They were brothers in all the ways that mattered. “But they needed you now and I have you for eternity. Postponing this was a simple thing, a blimp in the grand scheme of things.”
It hadn’t seemed like it to her. These past months had stretched and multiplied. Every new day was torture. But not anymore. “It’s time?”
“Yes.” He smiled excitement in his clear blue eyes. “Sleep now, Love. I’ll see you very soon.”
Darby hesitated not wanting to lose him again. She drank him in, every hair, every muscle, every movement. Lennox chuckled and stood, more like floated. He came to her and waited for her to slide back into the pillows before leaning over her and kissing her forehead. She couldn’t physically feel him but her skin was warm where he had touched his lips to her. Darby closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them again, he was gone but this time she wasn’t scared.
For the last time she closed her eyes on the world with a smile on her face and love in her heart.
Chapter Nine
Dacea paced his room. In four hours, he was going to be Mated and married to Hailey. He walked over to the windows and turned. This day had been meticulously planned for months. He reached the door and turned. Everything was perfect. Once again he hit the windows turning to walk the worn path in the carpet once more. So why was the knot in his stomach getting tighter with every passing minute?
Alex came into the room and Dacea stopped pacing. He looked at him searching for…something. Bad news, good news, just some kind of news to explain his twisted gut.
“Hailey is asking for you.”
“Is she ok?”
The man smiled. “Yeah, she’s good. Just wanted to talk to you about something. I don’t know,” he said before Dacea could bark at him. “She didn’t tell me what about.”
Dacea left the guest room and went upstairs to where Hailey was getting ready. The ceremony was going to be held at the Rolling Ridge Vineyard, a place where they both enjoyed going to on the weekends. The vineyard was nearby and they had both opted to get ready at home and then meet there. At their bedroom door he knocked briskly.
“Céile?”
“Dak,” she was right there on the other side, had been waiting for him.
Something in her voice twisted the knot tighter. His hands fisted. “What’s wrong?”
“Darby isn’t here yet,” she said cautiously, hoping he had the reasoning as to why.
D
arby was supposed to arrive hours ago. He had assumed she had and went right to the girls. He cursed. This was the news he had been waiting for.
“Alex,” he said knowing his friend had followed him back to the room.
His hand clapped Dacea on the shoulder. “I’ll find her.”
“Dak, where is she?” Hailey asked through the door. Her worry mirrored his own.
He let his forehead rest upon the door. “I don’t know. I…” He had to take a breath and slow down. “Hailey, I don’t think I can do this without her here.”
Hailey muttered something from the other side of the door then unlocked it and swung it open. “Fuck tradition and superstition,” she said as she got her first eyeful of him...and he of her. She had gone with the lace dress and his words dried up in his throat. She was magnificent. Her makeup was soft and natural, playing up her doe eyes and full lips. Her hair was pulled up with intricate little braids woven throughout. She was…just stunning.
She smiled softly at him and held out her hand. He clasped it in his. “Let’s go,” she said.
His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Where?”
“To find her. How fast can we get there?”
Dacea pulled her in to his chest and kissed her. This was his woman putting off their mating to go find a friend. Extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.
“Three hours by car. One hour if I fly.”
She nodded. “Flying it is. Just let me change.”
She turned out of his hold and went back into the room where Lia had already pulled some clothes for her.
“Céile,” he said smiling as she turned. The open back of the dress was damn tempting.
She looked over her shoulder, her hand reaching around to the zipper. “Yeah?”
“You look beautiful.” Her blush was satisfying enough. He left her to change and went to do the same.
*****
“What do you mean by she is gone?” Silas asked with a gravelly voice. He had been woken up two hours early by one unfortunate soul from downstairs.
“Just that, Sir. She is not in the cell anymore.”
He sat up and turned on the light. It was almost noon and Hailey was getting mated in three hours. Still too early for him to get up, considering how late he stayed up till, but at this point there would be no falling back to sleep.
“There’s nothing on the vid-“
“Just shut up,” he snapped. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Silas swung his feet onto the ground and ran a hand through his hair. She had said she was going to leave, he hadn’t believed her because, well, he knew his security and there was no physical way for her to leave there alive. On his way to the door he grabbed the pair of cotton pants Hailey had given him for Christmas and slipped them on. He slept naked had no use for such garments but now he was glad he had them. Getting fully dressed right now was not appealing.
Shirtless with a low hanging pain of green plaid cotton pants, he left his room barefoot. At the foot of the stairs someone had coffee waiting for him. He pick up the steaming mug and continued down to the lower level where he would get to the bottom of Charley’s disappearance, if that’s what it even was, and seek revenge on who ever had woken him up.
“S-Sir,” a guard sputtered when he saw him walk into the main control room. Silas smiled. They had never seen him in anything other than a suit, barefoot and half naked with a wild case of bed head threw them off loop.
“Show me the feed.”
He turned back to his controls and pulled up the feed for Charley’s room. Look at that, they were correct, she wasn’t there. From here, nothing looked out of place or moved in any way. No broken wall or removed air vent, no broken lamp post as she tried to beat the clear wall with it. People had tried everything over the years to get out but none had been successful, until now.
Silas left the control room. He finished off his coffee. His mind was beginning to lose its fuzziness from sleep and becoming more alert. At Charley’s door, he opened it and stepped inside studying everything. It was pristine. She had cleaned before she departed.
How nice of her.
He looked at all of the spots that had been tried in the past and nothing was harmed in anyway. It looked as if Charley had either walked out or vanished.
“Do we have a recording of when she left?” he asked no one in particular.
Still, someone answered him. “No Sir, the video went out for three seconds at 4:56 this morning. She was gone when it came back on.”
“Interesting,” he murmured.
There was a piece of paper on the chair he had sat in the night before. Silas picked it up. A smile crept over his face. Just a few words scribbled across a scrap piece of paper with a small heart at the end.
See ya 'round Lover
“What should we do, Sir? Um, Sir?”
Silas shook his head. Yes Charlotte, you will see me around. This wasn’t over between them. Oh no. This chase was just beginning.
“Sir?”
“Nothing. Leave it be and get back to work.” Silas left the room, walking around the guard. He jogged up the steps and folded that little piece of paper and put it in his pocket.
Chapter Ten
The wind was cold and she was glad that Lia had made her wear her winter coat even though it was a warm, bordering on hot day. Up where they flew, the air was colder and the wind was fiercer. She shivered slightly as Dak flapped his wings, making them go faster.
All morning she had worried. At first she thought it was cold feet but that was just stupid. Her feet were the tropics right now. When Darby didn’t show, she knew it was what she had been worrying about. After asking around, no one had heard from her in a few days. Darby was never late and would always call if she was going to be. There was no call, no answer when she had tried. Something was definitely wrong.
Dak was holding it together somehow. When she had heard the same fear in his voice, she knew she was on to something. Not going to check on Darby wasn’t an option. Mating or not, she was family and that came first.
Dak had begun to lower them. Hailey saw the lake first. Nestled at the base of the mountain, Darby’s cabin sat between a fairly large lake and a mountain peak. She was the only one on that particular mountain and considered it under her protection. Her witchy voodoo nature magic kept the area fairly hidden and protected.
When they touched down the forest was eerily silent. She climbed off of Dak’s back and rubbed his scaly nose. He huffed a puff of warm air on her, instantly heating her cold bones.
“Thanks,” she told him and kissed his giant cheek. “Go change. I won’t go in until you are ready.”
Hailey pulled the backpack off of her back and laid his clothes on the ground. They had brought a first aid kit too, just in case.
He slipped on the sweatpants and t-shirt and wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you for doing this,” he whispered in her ear. Silly Dragon, like she would be anywhere else?
“Let’s go find her.”
He led the way. The house wasn’t locked which at first she thought was a good thing, it meant that Darby had been in and out of the house at some point that morning. Then she reconsidered, what if someone had gotten in?
“Darby?” Dak called into the empty kitchen and living room.
There was a mug in the dish drain but no coffee in the pot. It hadn’t been turned on at all that morning. Hailey swallowed back a lump of worry.
Don’t freak out yet. We still don’t know anything.
Dak went to check the rooms as Hailey went to the loft. There was nothing up there, it hadn’t looked used in months. A thin layer of dust covered everything. Her footsteps down the wooden stairs echoed in the empty cabin. Not finding her didn’t ease the worry and doubt. It was very possible she already left. Hailey hadn’t taken notice to where her car was parked or not parked.
“Dak, I’m not seeing her anywhere.” No answer. Hailey frowned and turned down the small hallway. “Dak? Dak where…no.” Hailey staggered. Th
e ground had opened up and ate her whole. “No.” Already tears gathered and fell from her eyes. “Darby. No,” she whimpered.
Dak sat on Darby’s bed not hearing a word Hailey had said. All of his focus was on the body cradled in his arms. He hung his head over her, his shoulders shaking as grief poured out of him. The room grew blurry through her tears and her legs were no longer willing to hold her up. Against the doorframe she slid to the ground.
“No,” she whispered again. “God, please no.”
*****
He held onto Darby, knowing she wasn’t there anymore. When he saw her on the bed, so content, he knew. He knew she was dead. He didn’t want to believe it, but knew in his heart that it was true. He also knew that it was time and that she wanted it.
But he wasn’t ready to lose her.
He didn’t even get to tell her goodbye. She just…left him.
Gone.
Hailey had joined him on the bed at some point. Hours had gone by. They couldn’t move though. Frozen there, just holding her. Wishing and praying that she would come back. That she would wake up.
He needed her.
HE NEEDED HER!
How could she just…go?
Hours. They had been gone for hours. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that someone would come looking. But the voices and creaks of wood as they entered the cabin shook him out of the daze he had been in.
“Dacea? Hailey? You guys here?” Alex called out. He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Dacea still had no voice.
“Why are all the lights off?” Lia asked and a glow from the hallway came into the bedroom. The light his Darby’s face and all of the pain, still fresh and raw, tore at him again.
She had died smiling.
She looked so happy.
“Guys, you missed your own mating ceremony. We got worried. Oh, damn you scared me Dacea.” Lia said from the doorway. He didn’t look up. He didn’t know if Hailey did or not, she hadn't spoken in hours. Her occasional sniffle was all that confirmed she was in the room with him anymore. At some point she had carried herself to the bed and sat down but she hadn’t moved since.
The Hailey Holloway Complete Series Page 56
