Narrian: Discovering his Dragon (Return of the Dragons Book 6)

by Rinelle Grey

  Narrian stared into his eyes, searching for a way to tell him, but all she saw was a kindness and understanding that threatened to bring tears to her eyes.

  “I… I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have here either,” she found herself saying.

  What? Where had that come from? Was she getting sappy?

  She’d be a damn sight better with another warrior here. Together, they could probably take that dragon.

  Bruce, he was no help at all. So why, when she tried to think of a dragon she’d rather have here, did her mind stubbornly refuse to accept the substitution?

  Well, he had pulled her back into the chamber and saved her life.

  He was no help with fighting though.

  The smile he gave her, his face lighting up with happiness, and that dimple on his cheek, those did make her feel better, even if they didn’t help against the dragon.

  Then, as if he’d realised what he was doing at the same moment, his expression changed. It became more guarded again. He still smiled, but it was a polite, pasted on smile, not the truly genuine one he’d given her a few moments ago.

  “Lucky we’re enjoying each other’s company, since we’re going to be here a while,” he said.

  This time, Narrian couldn’t detect any double meaning in his words, and she couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed about it.

  “What we should do is take a nap,” she said firmly. “We’ve had very little sleep tonight, and we have no idea what’s coming, or how long we’ll be here, so we need to be ready for anything.”

  “But if we’re both asleep, we might miss something,” Bruce said doubtfully.

  He was quick, for a human. Narrian nodded. “We’ll take shifts. You sleep first, I’ll take second shift.”

  Bruce shook his head immediately. “I just slept, while you were… um…” He blushed, but didn’t stop talking. “While you were recovering. You take first turn.”

  It was hard to come up with an argument against that. Narrian somehow didn’t think that saying she couldn’t sleep right now, she was too wound up, was going to help.

  She needed to set a good example.

  And if she was sleeping, then Bruce couldn’t ask any more awkward questions.

  “Right,” she agreed. “Wake me in two hours, or at the first sign of any trouble.”

  Bruce nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll be waking you. I’m not fighting any dragons on my own,” he joked.

  Narrian couldn’t help giving him a smile. “Good.” She tried to make her voice sound firm, but she suspected it sounded anything but.

  She lay down on the cool, stone floor, and tried to get some rest.

  But as she had expected, her brain just wouldn’t stop. For some reason, it kept replaying every interaction she’d had with Bruce since that morning. And it kept dredging up older memories as well. Seeing him watching Karla and Taurian, that determined, hurt expression on his face. The mentions she’d heard, of how Bruce had helped Lisa send a car crashing into Ultrima to protect Taurian. How he’d stayed to support Karla when Taurian had announced he would mate Wayrian, despite knowing she wasn’t going to come back to him. She’d heard, but not seen, how he’d taken a bullet for Karla, when the life dragon had manipulated one of the humans into firing on her.

  That was real loyalty. Real love.

  That human woman hadn’t known what she had. What she’d lost.

  Not that she hadn’t gained a lot in Prince Taurian, but it was different.

  Taurian didn’t have to try hard to be brave or strong, he just was. Bruce. Well, he appeared soft. Quiet. Helpless.

  He was anything but. Under all that polite paleness, he was just as hard as the dragons were.

  Why was she thinking about this? Why now?

  What did it matter to her what this human was like? Was she assessing him, to see if he could help her in another attempt on the dragon?

  No, she’d already decided that would be foolhardy.

  She didn’t need his help.

  She rolled over restlessly, and caught sight of him through her eyelashes. He sat with his back against the wall, staring at something on his phone. The light from the screen reflected up on his face, so serious and studious.

  Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?

  She took a moment to study him. He was unlike any other man she’d ever known.

  Dragon men were hard and tough and relentless. She’d always thought she liked that. Admired it. But though she had plenty of male friends, she’d had no interest in taking any of them as a lifemate.

  Did she feel that way about Bruce?

  The very idea made her feel nervous. She wanted to shy away from it, and pretend she’d never thought of it.

  But that would just be deceiving herself, and there was no point in that.

  Her immediate thought was that she hadn’t known him long enough to even consider him as a lifemate. Which was true. But she also knew enough about him to know what sort of person he was.

  And he was someone she could admire.

  She’d known plenty of dragons who were willing to fight for what they believed in. In fact, she took it as a matter of course that they did.

  Humans were different. Their frail, weak bodies died so easily. Fighting was a far bigger risk for them, so they probably had to believe something far more strongly to be willing to fight for it.

  She’d misjudged Bruce, in the walk out here. She’d taken his physical weakness to mean a mental weakness. She could see now that that wasn’t true.

  She bit back a sigh. None of this was helping to answer her question. She was still skirting around it.

  And she didn’t want to think about it.

  She rolled over again, deliberately facing away from Bruce, and tried to ignore the sounds of his movement she could hear. Her shoulder blades itched, and she was sure she could feel him staring at her.

  She closed her eyes, and tried to shut it all out. She had more important things to be worried about right now than how she felt about some puny human.

  Chapter 9

  Bruce leaned his head back against the wall, no longer even pretending to read the book on his phone. He’d tried to focus for a while, but eventually he’d given up. Who cared about imaginary spaceship battles when he was living something far more exciting.

  The dragon up above was quiet. He had been for a while. Maybe he’d left when it started raining a while ago.

  Bruce hoped so. The temperature had dropped considerably, and the stone floor was starting to feel cold and clammy. He was more than ready to get out of here.

  He wasn’t so sure about going home to England though, and he didn’t want to look into why.

  He checked the time again. Two hours. He’d promised to wake Narrian for her turn keeping watch. But it had taken her quite a while to actually fall asleep, he could tell by her tossing and turning.

  Somehow though, he knew she’d be upset if he let her sleep longer.

  He hid a smile as he reached over and touched her shoulder gently. “Narrian?”

  She was awake instantly, sitting up, staring around the room, alert and ready to fight.

  Only there was nothing to fight, of course.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “You wanted me to wake you after two hours, for your turn at keeping watch,” he reminded her.

  Narrian shook her head impatiently. “No, what’s that noise?”

  Bruce frowned. Noise, what noise? It took him a few minutes to figure out what she was talking about. Then it hit him. “Oh, you mean the rain?”

  Narrian’s frown deepened. “That isn’t rain.”

  Bruce bit back a laugh. “I know you don’t get it much here in Australia, but I’m from England, and we know everything there is to know about rain. That sound is definitely rain.”

  It almost felt good, after he’d been so hit by the heat earlier, to not be bothered by something the Australian dragon was.

  Narrian shook her hea
d impatiently. “Don’t you get it? We’re in the middle of the desert. It doesn’t rain. Not like this. How long has it been going on for?”

  Bruce stared at her, feeling stupid. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that rain wasn’t normal? “I don’t know, ten minutes maybe?”

  Now that he thought about it, it was actually pretty heavy. As though for emphasis, a bright flash of lightning flooded the room, followed an instant later by a crash of thunder. It sounded like it was right overhead.

  Probably because it was.

  “Lightning dragons can create thunderstorms,” Narrian explained, her face tight.

  Bruce’s heart sank. How was he supposed to know that? It wasn’t like anyone had mentioned it before. “Why didn’t he do that sooner then?” he said, hoping to find a reason it wasn’t the dragon, that it was just random chance. “What’s it going to achieve anyway, other than making it less hot?”

  “He was probably just waiting, expecting me to come back out and try to fight again. I would have if you hadn’t stopped me, so it wasn’t a bad guess. When we didn’t come out, he thought he’d try to flush us out. Literally.” Her expression was grim, and she headed towards the entrance of the chamber.

  Bruce’s heart sank. Flush them out? He didn’t like the sound of that. Surely the lightning dragon couldn’t create that much water?

  He followed her to the entrance, wincing when he saw a large puddle at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes followed the water up, where it was running in rivulets down the stairs, forming many small waterfalls.

  “This isn’t good,” Narrian said, shaking her head.

  The size of the puddle actually lessened Bruce’s fears. “It’s not that much water. I don’t think it’s a real concern.”

  Narrian turned to him, her face serious. “Don’t you get it? If this much water has come in in ten minutes, how much is there going to be in an hour?”

  Bruce frowned. “We might be ankle deep in water. A little wet, but at least it isn’t cold.”

  Narrian’s frown didn’t lessen. “Rain out here is a little different to places where it rains often. The ground won’t soak it up, it just runs off, causing flash flooding. And it’s certainly not going to soak through this stone.”

  She was serious, she actually considered this a real risk.

  And for someone who was willing to storm up a flight of stairs and attack a dragon, that was saying something.

  Bruce assessed the situation again. Already the rivulets running down the stairs had doubled in size, and the puddle was growing at alarming speed as well. It had nearly reached the pedestal in the middle of the room.

  Narrian could be onto something.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  Narrian looked up the stairs and frowned.

  The dragon was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t fool Bruce. He was out there, waiting for them. In fact, he was trying to flush them out. Literally.

  “We have to get out of here,” Narrian said firmly. “Before this gets any worse.”

  “That didn’t work so well last time,” Bruce reminded her.

  Narrian folded her arms and glared at him.

  Bruce felt a little bad for the comment, but it was true. Rushing up the stairs and attacking the dragon wasn’t going to work any better now than it had then.

  Narrian sighed. “Do you have that medallion then?”

  The medallion. He’d forgotten about that. He fumbled in his pocket for the medallion, holding it out.

  He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it. Lisa had closed the door, while she and Verrian were in the Mesmer chamber. If they could close it, they could stop the water.

  Narrian took the medallion and reached out to put it in the spot near the stairs where it looked like it would fit perfectly. Before she could fit it in though, a low roaring sound filled their ears.

  Narrian froze, staring up the stairs.

  Bruce’s heart skipped a beat. What was that?

  He looked at Narrian, and was just about to ask her if she knew, when he saw it.

  What appeared to be a flood of water rushed down the stairs, as though a river above had broken its banks.

  “Hurry!” Bruce shouted.

  Narrian fumbled with the medallion, forcing it into the hole and turning it, as the water rushed towards her.

  Bruce backed away slowly, towards the pedestal in the middle of the room.

  The wall of water hit Narrian’s legs, just as a grating sound filled the room. For a few moments, she struggled to stay where she was, then she surrendered to the water, letting it push her back.

  The stone shuddered, more sand raining down from the roof, and the slab of rock began to slide out and cover the hole. Bruce watched it, holding his breath. Would it work?

  The movement of the stone was painfully slow, as water continued to rush in at an incredible rate. But bit by bit, the stream of water slowed as the rock cut off its way in.

  The dragon above them roared in frustration, the sound dulled by the water. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed, as though the storm itself were having a temper tantrum.

  The stone seemed to be sliding across the entrance inch by inch. Bruce was sure it was far slower than it had opened. Maybe the water was affecting it?

  It hit about three quarters closed, then ground to a halt.

  Water still poured in, though admittedly much more slowly.

  Narrian looked over at him, as though asking what to do.

  Narrian, asking him.

  It was enough to make Bruce push forward through the waist height water and wade towards the entrance.

  Narrian came up behind him as he reached for the medallion and turned it back a little.

  The entrance began to slide open again.

  Quickly, Bruce turned it back the other way, and it obediently began to close again.

  This time, it made it just a little further, before grinding to a halt again.

  Bruce tried the same trick again, and then again, but it didn’t move any further.

  Water, or sand, must have made it into the mechanism, preventing it from closing properly. It was amazing that it had worked at all really, after three hundred years. Pity it had to fail now, when they really needed it though.

  The force of the water coming down the stairs made staying there impractical. Bruce reached for Narrian’s hand, there was no point in trying to talk, the water was too loud, and pulled her away from the stairs, into the furthest corner.

  Water swirled around their waists, pushing them together. Bruce didn’t fight it.

  Narrian was shivering, and Bruce had to admit, the water was cold. Especially so after the heat of the desert.

  He hesitated for a moment, then put his arms around her, pulling her close. He didn’t say anything, what was there to say.

  Closing the entrance, even partly, would buy them some time, but not much.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Narrian said softly. “There’s no way out.”

  “The others might arrive in time,” Bruce said, trying to sound positive.

  Narrian shook her head. “Even if they did, what are they going to do? That water is going to keep coming in, whether the Trima dragon is there or not. Opening the entrance is just going to make it worse.”

  Her voice sounded hopeless, and Bruce’s heart sank.

  She was right. Their chances of rescue were pretty slim. But he refused to give up hope.

  He put a finger under Narrian’s chin, and lifted her face. “You’re a dragon warrior,” he said firmly. “And dragon warriors don’t just give up.”

  Her expression was bleak. “What else can I do? There’s nothing here I can fight.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. It wasn’t like you could battle water or rock or sand. He just couldn’t bear to see her so helpless.

  Impulsively, he kissed her.

  He wasn’t sure why. Maybe he hoped it would distract her. Maybe he craved the physical contact to stave off his own fears and t
urmoil.

  Whatever it was, she seemed to feel the same way. She sighed, and relaxed against him, her arms going around his waist too, her lips responding with a desperation that took his breath away.

  For a moment, he wished she’d kiss him like this when they weren’t facing death. Not as a distraction, but because she wanted to.

  Then he let that thought go too. It didn’t matter. None of it did. This is where they were right now, and it felt right.

  Chapter 10

  It was easy to ignore the danger swirling all around them when Narrian’s lips were on Bruce’s.

  His lips were warm, and soft, and comforting. There were no demands. Nothing to live up to. He was just there when she needed him most. She felt an acceptance she’d never felt before in her life. There was no need to be something she wasn’t. No need to live up to anything or anyone.

  He saw what she was, and… he seemed to like it.

  This feeling was more than just the danger they were in, wasn’t it?

  For the first time, she examined that thought without fear. Did she feel something for this human? This man who she had thought she knew, but who had surprised her at every turn.

  She never would have expected it, but she did.

  She pulled her head back, breaking the contact of their lips. She wanted to tell him. She wanted him to know, since it was unlikely they were going to get out of this alive.

  She opened her mouth to tell him, and her eyes fell on the wall she had punched in anger earlier. Cracks spread out from the fist sized dent in the stone she’d created. She’d been lucky not to bring the roof down on them.

  Then again, if she had, they wouldn’t be in this mess right now, they’d have a way out.

  She froze, her heart skipping a beat.

  Bruce’s eyes flickered open slowly, and he stared at her.

  A grin spread across her face. “I know how we can get out of here.”

  His eyes widened. “How?”

  Narrian hesitated, then gave him one last kiss on the lips. Turning away from his surprised, blushing face, she pointed to the wall. “If I can make a hole here, we can get out this way.”

  “Won’t the water just come rushing in there?” Bruce asked doubtfully. “Surely it’s just as wet everywhere up there.”