“Getting there won’t be easy. The woods around town and toward your valley are already full of troops,” Emma said, killing the engine.
Tyler leaned toward her and it took all her willpower not to flinch.
“Emma,” he said softly, speaking to her for the first time since she told him to shove-it and find a vampire, “we won’t be going through the woods. We’ll fly over them. They can’t stop us.”
She frowned at him. “Bullets might not stop you, but a hand-held missile probably could. And if it didn’t, whatever mortal was with you would be toast,” she grumbled. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“I won’t allow anything to happen to you,” Tyler said. Before Emma could respond, he nodded toward several men walking out of the woods. “Anyway, it looks like we’ll have an escort.”
“Who’re they?” Keith demanded.
“Enforcers,” Lydia said. At Keith’s questioning look, she added, “Last night after we returned to the Fortress, Tyler and I talked. I came back and stood guard through the first half of the night and Tyler stood guard the last half. When we headed to town, I brought in a few guards to keep the two of you safe.” She held up her hands. “I know you believe you can take care of yourself and Emma, but there is no escaping the fact that you’re both mortal. You might be able to shoot enough bullets into a vampire to stop one of them, but you’d have to take his head to kill him.”
Keith sighed in frustration, nodding his agreement. “And if there was more than one vampire, as a mortal, I’d never stand a chance. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” Lydia said softly, wrapping an arm around his waist, supporting him as he stepped out of the jeep.
Chapter - Just a Drop
Emma washed her hands at the kitchen sink, ignoring the moody young man behind her. She had to get a grip on her wishy-washy emotions. Food would help.
She glanced at the phone, but the big display showed no new calls. A hint of worry flickered through her. Kayla should’ve already called.
She grabbed the remote control and flipped on the flat screen. Music blared from the TV.
From the corner of her eye, she watched Tyler jump like he’d been shot.
She snorted, struggling not to laugh. Lowering the sound, she flipped through the channels, stopping on a local station. She figured all the major news channels would have updates. She wasn’t disappointed.
A reporter stood in front of the White House, droning on about the president’s decision to enact martial law.
She tried ignoring Tyler, but it wasn’t easy.
Pretending to scratch her wrist, his confusion and yearning flowed into her the moment her fingers touched the heated flesh. His emotions disappeared and the black hole grew bigger.
“Emma,” he said quietly.
“What?” Keeping her back to him, she rummaged in the fridge for sandwich meat and cheese. She tossed them on the counter and grabbed the lettuce and tomatoes.
She glanced at him, but continued getting stuff together for sandwiches.
“Look, I know you’re angry.”
“You think?” she asked snappishly.
She snatched a knife out of the drawer and began slicing the tomato.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said, leaning closer. “That wasn’t my intent when I said vampire.”
“I can’t help being mortal,” she snapped. Glaring up at him, furious that he had the audacity to mention wanting a bloody vampire. “I didn’t ask to be your stupid mate. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“And you think I did?” he asked angrily.
The pain behind his words startled her. The knife slipped off the tomato, slicing a long gash along her finger.
She cried out, clutching her bleeding finger. She moved to the sink, but he stood in the way.
“Move,” she said shakily, “water will slow the bleeding.” She grew light headed. Ugh, she hated blood.
He cupped her hand in his. Before she could stop him, he stuck her bleeding finger in his mouth, curling his tongue around the throbbing gash.
She tugged, but he refused to let her hand go. “Tyler, geez, that’s gross. There’s no telling what you might give me.”
He pulled her finger from his mouth. “Give you?”
“Yes, you moron, you’re not human. What if you give me some kind of virus that just makes you sneeze but kills me?” Her condemning words stumbled to a halt.
Her finger wasn’t bleeding. The gash sealed shut before her eyes. He had somehow healed her. Her heart raced at the implications.
He dropped her hand and the loss of his touch hit her. She sucked in a deep calming breath, trying to understand her confused emotions.
“I was trying to help,” he said, tipping her chin up with a quick touch of his finger. “Until I know if you’re my mate, you’re mine to protect.”
Surprised, she blurted out. “You don’t know if I’m your mate?” How could he hesitate, when it was so obvious they were mates?
She didn’t have a single doubt, not with his emotions and thoughts hitting when she least expected them.
“When I touched you the first time, I thought my skin tingled, but that doesn’t confirm you’re my mate.” His eyes grew hooded and he shrugged his shoulders. “I won’t know for sure until my skin heats and a mate mark appears.”
She swallowed. His lack of heated skin put a new spin on everything. The unknown was always harder than the known. No wonder he bounced from being nice to irritable at the drop of a hat.
She was a total stranger, a stranger that might spell his death in a few years. He was a near-immortal dragon stuck with the possibility of a mere mortal as a mate.
She struggled with her new knowledge. His words still hurt, but if their places had been reversed, she might’ve acted the same way. She snorted to herself. Right, who kept feeling sorry for herself?
“Lydia said it could be months,” she said hesitantly, unsure if she should tell him the truth. He needed to know they definitely were mates, but she didn’t know him well enough to gauge his reaction. She didn’t particularly want a new hole in the kitchen wall when he flew into a rage.
“Yeah, well, that just changed. I’ve tasted your blood and your body absorbed the healing properties in my saliva. The exchange will help rush things along.”
Her head snapped up. “You could’ve asked my permission first. Who says I want to rush this mate thing along?”
“Wouldn’t you rather know?” he questioned. His gaze turned thoughtful. “If you took a drop or two of my blood, we might find out even sooner.”
She stilled. Unsure if speeding up the process was a good or bad thing. She tilted her head studying him, wishing his emotions or thoughts would pick that moment to flash in her head. It didn’t happen.
“Fine,” she agreed impulsively. Maybe drinking his blood would keep the black hole from growing any bigger. That would be a blessing. She was getting desperate to make it go away.
Anyway, at that point, what could rushing his side of the mate-thing hurt? The thought scared the crap out of her, but she knew they were already mated. Her only question was whether she could reject him after the black hole disappeared.
From his raised eyebrow and parted lips, her answer had surprised him. He didn’t give her time to change her mind. Picking up the knife she dropped, he sliced the tip of his finger. Blood beaded. He held his finger to her lips.
She calmly accepted his finger into her mouth, sucking the warm blood down her throat. It tasted salty, but that was it. She didn’t have a sudden revelation or yearning to drink more.
He leaned closer. His warm breath feathered across her cheek.
He slowly pulled his finger out of her mouth. She had a split-second warning before his lips captured hers. Lightly, he brushed his lips against hers. Once. Twice. He hesitated.
Her heart raced as the feathering touches returned, skimming across her cheek. She shivered and leaned into his touch. She didn’t like the ide
a of a permanent mate, but having him as a boyfriend sounded like a great idea. His lips tilted her world, setting her on fire.
The kitchen door swished open.
She jumped away from him, taking several jerky side steps down the length of the counter.
At a snail’s pace, Lydia and Keith made their way into the kitchen. Her arm curled protectively around his waist. He had cleaned-up and changed clothes, but didn’t look any better than before.
Realizing her uncle didn’t notice her kissing Tyler, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Tyler stepped closer, reaching for her.
She tilted her chin up and shook her head. “No,” she said softly, not wanting her uncle or Lydia to overhear as they settled at the kitchen table.
Her chest ached, hurting as she refused him. She really did like him. His touch warmed her very soul, but she couldn’t forget the emotions she had been feeling from him. “You really can’t stand the thought of what I am. Until you can look at me without disgust in your eyes, just keep away from me.”
“Disgust?” He snarled in disbelief, looming over her. “Did I just act disgusted? Because that sure as heck wasn’t what I was feeling.”
“Then your memory is shorter than mine, because at the jeep you couldn’t get away from my touch fast enough.” Gathering up the food, she settled everything on the table.
“Any word from Kayla?” Keith asked, grimacing as he shifted. His hand curled around his ribs.
“No,” she said, worry creased her forehead. “When I talked to her last night, she said they’d be home by morning. It’s nearly two. She should’ve called by now.”
She picked up the clunky handheld phone, wishing her cell hadn’t caught the brunt of her fall the day before. She figured the SIM card still worked, but the phone was a lost cause, cracked down the middle. Teach her to carry it in her hip pocket, not that she planned to land on her butt again anytime soon.
“Hi, guess what? You missed me! Leave a message at the beep,” Kayla’s recorded voice said cheerfully.
Emma groaned and left another message, her words repeated what she’d said early that morning. Refusing to give up, she tried Kayla’s home phone. It beeped and the answering machine popped on.
Hours later, Emma’s stomach growled. She wished she had eaten a sandwich with the others. At the time, her stomach had been in turmoil, knotting every time she glanced at Tyler. Now, there wasn’t time.
She grabbed a granola bar, and shoved it in her pocket.
Hurrying out the door, she looked around her front yard, searching for a way out of her current problem. It was nearly seven o’clock and Lydia was insisting they leave immediately.
Emma understood the hurry. A few minutes before, an enforcer reported several dozen armed men heading toward the house. She wasn’t exactly excited about an up-close and personal meeting with the U.S. military, and if the dragons stuck around, she knew a confrontation was only a matter of time.
Thirty feet away, Keith had his arm firmly around his youthful-looking mate. Since lunch, they had been discussing the pros and cons of flying to Capital City and what would happen when they got there.
She hadn’t doubted Lydia would get her way. Even with his face beat-up, Keith had a softness Emma had never seen. He had never looked at his first wife the way he looked at Lydia.
The day had been a roller coaster of emotions and it wasn’t over yet. In a way, she was relieved Tyler didn’t have the beginnings of a mate mark, because if he could’ve sensed her emotions, he might’ve felt forced into accepting her. She certainly didn’t want his pity along with everything else.
She rubbed her wrist, not understanding why her body produced the heat of a pre-mark when Tyler’s didn’t. Why in the world would she, and her uncle, progress faster in the mate pairing than the two immortals? It seemed backward.
She snorted to herself. What did she know about anything? She was having a hard enough time being acquainted with two sets of emotions and the infrequent word or two that popped into her head.
Clenching her hand, she realized her palm was warmer than before while her wrist was cooler to the touch. Sliding her fingers up her arm, she gasped in surprise, from elbow to shoulder her skin burned with a deep warm blaze.
His voice sounded inside her head. “I’ve got to get Emma in the air with me.” A full sentence spoken, the words clear as a bell. As if he stood behind her and whispered in her ear, the words gave the same impact. Shivers ran up her spine.
Watching him didn’t provide any answers. Talking with two enforcers, he appeared stone-faced, lacking any emotion.
He was a puzzle. The moment she heard his voice in her head, a thread of desperation fill her. His emotion echoed within the empty area inside her. Why would he be desperate to get her in the air?
If she was going to fly, she wanted to be safely inside an airplane. Riding on a dragon’s back, wasn’t her idea of fun. She didn’t want to be completely dependent on someone who might become angry enough to chomp her in half. Human or not, both dragons had revealed they could lose the human thinking side of themselves. Yeah, she did not want to be flying several hundred feet above the ground when a dragon went ballistic. Talk about disaster.
She froze, unable to move. Could that be why he wanted her in the air? Was he thinking about accidentally dropping her? Emma shivered over her morbid thoughts, and wondered if the cold prickle running up her backbone was a subconscious warning.
Lydia changed to full dragon and knelt next to Keith.
With growing unease, Emma watched her uncle slowly climb onto Lydia’s back. The dragon seemed to be watching his progress even closer than Emma was. Her long neck twisted backward and she inched her muzzle closer to him.
Emma heard Lydia’s rough exhale from across the graveled driveway. The dragon snuffled against his pants leg, urging him a bit closer to the base of her neck.
Keith chuckled and inched forward, rubbing his hand across her scaled snout.
The crunch of gravel announced Tyler’s arrival. “Ready to go flying?” he asked, a slight frown creased his forehead.
“Sure,” she said calmly, while mentally screeching, NO WAY!
“How will I stay on?” Emma asked, trying to keep her voice steady. Her heart raced with fear. Rubbing her hand down the side of her jeans, her face turned slightly green at the thought of being that high in the air without any kind of safety harness on.
“There’s a bit of a dip where my neck connects to my back. Most people feel safest there.”
“Oh,” she said, motioning to Lydia, “so that’s why she moved my uncle closer to her neck.”
“Yeah.” He pulled a strand of shiny black and clear cut-beads from his pocket and handed them to her. “Here, put these in your hair,” Tyler said gruffly.
Emma blinked in surprise, feeling her face flush with pleasure she stuttered, “Thanks.”
No guy had ever given her anything. From his frowning face, he wasn’t too pleased with himself. The gift of beads must be a type of tradition. She noticed Lydia had given Keith a strand. She’d laughed at the time. Her uncle wasn’t the jewelry type.
Most cultures had a ton of traditions. The dragon race might have hundreds of customs. Any single one of them ready to trip her up.
From his tense shoulders, Tyler must’ve been forced into giving the jewelry to her. She slipped the beads through her fingers, wondering what the consequences would be if she accepted or not.
He issued a slight growl and his face darkened into a scowl.
Gee, what a surprise, she thought sarcastically. He was already regretting giving them to her. Whatever it was, she still wasn’t sure.
The strand wasn’t simple. Looking closer, her eyes got bigger. The black beads were actually faceted gems in the shape of teardrops. Each teardrop hung between an intricately woven section of small clear gems, sparkling brilliantly in the sunshine.
She sucked in a sharp breath. She didn’t know gems, but they looked like diamonds to
her, and she knew the dragons didn’t have the technology to make simulated diamonds. No wonder he acted ticked-off. That strand of gems must have cost a fortune.
“This looks awful expensive,” she said. Shaking her head, she refused the jewelry, handing it back to him. “I can’t accept that kind of gift.”
“It wasn’t that kind of gift. Let me have it,” he huffed, plucking the strand out of her hands. “They go on your right side.”
Wishing she could crawl under a rock, her face burned with colorful embarrassment. When a boy handed a girl jewelry, it normally reflected a gift given. It had been an easy mistake to make.
She shivered as his fingers lightly brushed the side of her face. He slipped one end of the beaded strand into her hair, next to her temple, and said, “Attach here.” Pulling the loose end backward, behind her ear, nearly to the back of her head, he repeated the process.
Fingering the beads, she wondered how he managed to make them stay in her hair. She hadn’t felt him tie the strand in her hair. She was lucky to get any kind of clip to stay in her straight, silky mop. She wasn’t going to be responsible for losing a high dollar piece of jewelry that wasn’t even hers.
She gently tugged on the strand, but they stayed firmly anchored. “Okay, fine, if they weren’t a gift, then why’d you stick them in my hair? And how…,” tugging harder, “crap, ouch! How do I get them out?”
“Didn’t you hear me tell them to attach?” he grumbled, glaring at her as she continued tugging on the strand. “If you keep that up, you’re going to break them or yank a hunk of hair out. They won’t come out until you give the order.”
“Since they aren’t mine, I don’t want a fortune in gems stuck to my head,” she said, glaring back at him. She stopped pulling on the delicate gems. “So take them out. Now.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t yours,” he grumbled. “I had the two-way strand made for you.”
Emma narrowed her eyes. “You said it wasn’t a gift, now you’re saying you had a strand of gems made for me? Would you make up your mind,” she huffed.
“It’s a tool, nothing more. A faerie created the strand, weaving a thread of dorcha energy through it. The two-way lets you speak to me while I’m in dragon form. To turn it on and off, simply touch one of the beads and say two-way on or two-way off,” he said in a clipped tone, before striding away from her. He stopped a dozen feet away and shifted into dragon.
Emma (Dark Fire) Page 9
