Rena.
As the fog lifted, Zander cursed under his breath when Zed’s hibernation cave came into focus. He was standing on the edge of the glittering pool of water, and the slow, steady pulse of Zed’s heartbeat thrummed through the cave hypnotically. Encased in the towering wall of quartz on the other side of the pool was his twin brother. Curled in a fetal position with his massive wings and tail wrapped protectively around him, Zed remained trapped in hibernation.
Zander, however, was in his human form and wearing the sweatpants he had fallen asleep in. He normally slept in the nude, but given the situation with Rena, he had deemed that an unwise choice. He was so engrossed in the moment that he didn’t realize right away that he and Zed weren’t alone.
“What is that sound?”
Rena’s voice drifted over Zander’s shoulder along with her energy signature. When the distinctly feminine tendril wafted around him, he sucked in a sharp breath and wrestled for control. Eyes closed, his hands curled into fists at his side, he tried to focus on keeping his energy pattern calm. He could feel her there as she sidled in alongside him. Though they weren’t in a physical plane, the effect of her presence was no less powerful.
Maybe it was even more powerful.
“It’s Zed’s heartbeat.” His words were clipped and controlled. “He’s in the dreamrealm with us but…”
Zander flicked his eyes open and glanced down at Rena, momentarily losing all capability of speech. The woman was clad in a white men’s button-down shirt that skimmed over her curvy little body with mouthwatering perfection.
Holy shit.
Is that what she went to sleep in? In his bedroom—his bed—directly above the couch he had begrudgingly gone to sleep on?
How was it that something as simple as a plain white shirt could generate such a seductive look? The loose-fitting garment covered her backside, and the hem dipped to the middle of her thighs. Her legs were toned and well-defined, and her toes were painted with a bright-purple polish.
Wait a minute. Men’s shirt? What man?
Irritation, mixed with a healthy dose of jealousy, fired through him. When Zander finally turned his attention to Rena’s face, he was greeted with smug amusement.
“Get an eyeful?” She stepped back and extended her arms before spinning around. Rena wiggled her hips and cast a flirty glance at him over her shoulder as she popped the collar. “You should recognize the shirt—it’s yours.”
Relief soothed the burn of jealousy, but when she stepped toward him, he turned his attention back to Zed.
“Made yourself at home, I see.”
“I suppose.” Rena’s voice was light with feigned innocence. “You’re something of a mystery, so I did a little snooping in your bedroom. I am a PI, after all.”
“Find anything?” He sighed heavily and folded his arms over his chest, trying like hell to act disinterested. “Other than my shirt?”
“Yes.” She bumped her hip against him playfully before taking her place beside him again. “You have shitty taste in books and are apparently obsessed with the lives of the United States presidents. But your music, now that, I like. The Stones. The Eagles. The Doobie Brothers. All excellent. I love good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll, baby.”
“Glad you approve,” he said absently.
“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud.”
“Forgive me if I’m not in a playful mood, but I’m trying to figure out why you and I are here in the dreamrealm with Zed. You should be with him, but I shouldn’t. At least, not anymore. He saw you and recognized you as his mate the last time you were here.”
“Oh, I remember.” Rena snorted with derision. “He kept growling the word mine over and over again, and then he tried to eat me.” She brushed one hand through her hair and let out a breathy sigh. “And not in the good way. If your brother ever gets out of this mess, you’re going to have to teach him a thing or two.”
Zander’s gut clenched at the obvious reference to their inappropriate dalliance in the kitchen. He was about to remind her that had been a mistake, but the unexpected sound of movement on the ledge above captured his attention. Pebbles and dirt skittered down the wall to the right. Rena heard it too. They both turned toward the sound, and tension swirled in the air.
“What was that?” Rena hugged her arms over her breasts and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Could someone else be here? In the dreamrealm, I mean? Because this isn’t a memory like the dreams I’ve been in before. This is…different.”
“In theory? Yes. But that would be highly unlikely. No one else knows about you, me, and Zed, or the connection you’ve made. Well, except Isadora, but she would have no reason to be here.”
“Who’s Isadora?”
“An old friend.” His gaze tripped over the ledge. “A witch.”
“Jeez. There are witches too?”
“Among other things,” he murmured.
“Hang on. Vito knows,” she said simply. Rena popped up on her toes as though trying to get a better look at the ledge high above. “Maybe it’s him. He’s an Amoveo, right?”
“Victor or Vito or whatever you call him is a broken-down old man.” Disdain edged his voice, and Zander did nothing to hide it. “When an Amoveo loses their mate, their powers begin to weaken until they vanish all together. Basically, they become human. They start to age, and eventually, they die. By the look of him, the old man lost his Amoveo abilities, to say nothing of his marbles, a long time ago. I doubt he’s dream walking after all this time.”
Zander flicked his gaze to the rocky ledge and scanned the area, searching for the source of the disturbance, but as far as he could tell, there was nobody in the dreamrealm but the three of them.
“No one else has invaded the realm. I would sense another energy pattern.” He rolled his shoulder, trying to release the tension. “I’m still not sure why the three of us are all here—together.”
“Is it a problem?”
“It could be.” He ran one hand over his stubble-covered chin and looked around warily. “I didn’t bring us here, and since you aren’t familiar with how to navigate the dreamrealm, I’m pretty sure you didn’t do it. I don’t think Zed could do it. Not given the state he’s in. Besides, Zed and I are usually—”
“Fighting with each other.” Rena finished the sentence for him. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been there, remember? Getting fried by you two every night for months.”
“You mean the other night, when I found you, it wasn’t the first time?”
“No. I wish,” Rena said, laughter threading her words. “It was probably the hundredth time or thousandth. Jeez. I don’t know. I lost count. The night you showed up was the first time I didn’t get toasted to ashes like—”
“Like her,” he said solemnly.
An awkward silence hung between them as regret shimmied up his back, but he shoved it aside. A pity party wouldn’t help any of them. Least of all Zed.
“Yeah…I guess. But as we’ve established, I’m not her.” She settled her hands on her hips and dipped one foot in the light-blue water. “Whoa. This is warm. I mean, like hot-tub warm.”
“It’s heated by the earth, an underground hot spring. The same heat source is part of what allows us to stay in hibernation. Although Zed’s sleep is far longer than usual.”
“This is a real place, right?” She puffed the hair off her forehead and gestured with one hand. “I mean, I know this is a dream but—”
“Yes.” Zed’s heartbeat reverberated off the walls like a war drum. If Zander didn’t know better, he would have said the sound was getting louder. But his brother remained motionless and buried in the wall. “It’s deep within the ground in Montana.”
“Wait a minute. Montana?” Rena stilled. “The Amoveo are in Montana too. Let me guess—”
“Yes,” he finished the thought for her. “Zed is in hibernation on the Amoveo’s
property.”
“Holy crap,” she said with a laugh. “I’m guessing they aren’t happy about that.”
“They don’t know about it.” He let out a beleaguered sigh. “Honestly, the younger Amoveo don’t even know my people ever existed. This cave is deep beneath the ground, but it’s still on Amoveo land. Kind of a ‘screw you’ from the witch, I think.”
“By putting him there, she made it even harder for you to get your brother out.”
“Yup.”
“Well, if you have to be trapped somewhere, this place is pretty cool.” She pointed to the wall of quartz. “Even without the hibernating dragon. This cave is wild. Exquisite, really. Look at the edges of the pool. The design is intricate. It looks almost like an artist carved it on purpose, but it was just the water, you know? Countless years of water lapping against it…tiny ripple after ripple… Let’s go in!”
She started to unbutton her shirt, but Zander grabbed her wrist, preventing her from going any further.
“Stop.”
Zander swallowed against the tide of lust. Rena turned her body so they were toe-to-toe.
“What’s the matter?” She peered up at him beneath a fan of dark lashes. “It’s only a dream, right?”
“No.” His impatience rose. “It’s the dreamrealm. What we do here matters and has consequences, just like in the earthly plane.”
“What kind of consequences?”
Rena inched closer. He loosened his grip on her but didn’t let go, even though that was exactly what he should have done. Instead, he brushed his thumb over the warm, smooth flesh of her wrist. A list of reasons raced through his head for why they couldn’t strip naked and dive into the water together. However, not one of them was loud enough to drown out or squelch the rising surge of lust.
The beast still lingered.
It was buried deep in his soul the way Zed was in the rock.
Trapped.
“You know what I think, Zander?” Rena’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “I think you enjoy torturing yourself. You’ve been doing it for so long, I doubt you know how to do anything else.”
The truth of her words stung, and staring into those caramel-brown eyes, something inside him broke apart. Rena was like the water in the cave. Relentless. Pushing at him insistently but seductively. Each time she challenged him, she washed away another hard-earned layer of his defenses.
Rena exposed him and discovered him all at the same time.
MINE!
The gritty, animalistic voice rumbled through the cave. The force of it shook the ground. Rena almost went tumbling into the water, but Zander tugged her against his chest, holding her there, where she fit so perfectly.
“Holy shit,” she whispered. She was shivering, and her energy pattern whirled around him like a tornado. “Zander…I think your brother is waking up.”
She leaned into him and her arms folded between them, seeking shelter. Zander slid his hands down her back, telling himself he was doing it to soothe her fears, not because he simply wanted to be as close to her as possible.
“Zander!” She grabbed his chin and turned his face toward the wall. “Zed is waking up.”
“But that’s not—” Zander stopped speaking when a flicker of movement caught his attention. The cold hand of dread clamped down on his heart, because Rena was right. Zed was still encased in his hibernation cocoon in the fetal position, but he was no longer motionless. His enormous form twitched and shifted, the way a child does inside its mother’s womb.
“This is good, right?” She smiled broadly, and the beauty of it almost blinded him. “This is what you wanted. I mean, what you’ve been hoping for.”
“Not in the dreamrealm! He can’t emerge from hibernation until we get there! We need to wake up, Rena.” Zander curled his hands over her shoulders and shook her, forcing her to look at him. “Right now!”
MINE! MINE! MINE!
Zed’s thunderous telepathic roar ripped through their minds, and Rena threw her hands to her ears. Her eyes screwed shut as she slipped from Zander’s grasp. He went to grab her, but another quake rocked the cave, and he watched helplessly as Rena tumbled into the water.
Fog rolled in, swallowing him in a cool, misty cloud. Zed’s heartbeat still thundered furiously through the air. The dreamrealm loosened its hold on Zander, and for the first time in centuries, he prayed his brother would not awaken.
* * *
“Zander!”
Rena shouted his name breathlessly as she shot up in bed. Her clothing and sheets were soaked with sweat, and her heart thundered wildly against her ribs. She tried to kick off the wet, gray sheets, but they tangled around her legs as she struggled to regain her bearings. The sound of Zed’s outraged roar and the suffocating sensation of being drowned still lingered. Amber light from the rising sun spilled in from the windows and burnished the swirl of bedding, assuring her she was no longer in the dreamrealm.
She was in Zander’s bed.
No more cave or pissed-off dragon.
Shuddering with nerves and a healthy amount of fear, Rena was about to shout for him again when she heard Zander’s heavy footsteps tromping up the stairs. This wasn’t the first time she had called out for help because of a nightmare, but it was the first time someone had answered her cries.
Relief fired through her, and two seconds later, he burst through the doorway before coming to the side of the bed. Shirtless and only wearing a pair of sweatpants, his hair was tousled, and he fleetingly reminded her of a little boy with an adorable case of bedhead. Although, no little boy she knew had a ripped torso like his or one covered with a litany of scars.
“Are you all right?” he asked through heavy breaths.
The mattress dipped as his large frame settled in beside her. She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded furiously while Zander pushed strands of sweaty hair off her forehead. The tangle of fear in her chest, the one that threatened to choke her, loosened with each gentle stroke of his fingers.
“Rena?” He cupped her face gingerly, his thumb fluttering over her cheek. “Are you all right?”
“Mmhmm.” Tears stung her eyes. But embarrassed laughter threaded her voice as she swiped them away. “Jeez. I’m not usually a crier. Sorry, but that one scared the hell out of me.”
“You have no reason to apologize.” He tucked her hair behind one ear before letting his hand drop into his lap. “You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact…”
Mourning the loss of his touch more than she wanted to admit, Rena pulled her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them tightly, hoping that would ease her shivering body. “What the hell happened back there?”
“Your connection with Zed is getting stronger.” His mouth set in a grim line, and gruff frustration laced his words. “Everything is moving faster than I thought it would. None of the usual mating rules seem to apply. I’m not sure if it’s because you’re a hybrid or because Zed’s cursed. Or both.”
“Well, since I don’t know squat about the mating process or whatever, I’ll have to take your word for it.” She nibbled her lower lip as she replayed the slew of information she had learned in the past forty-eight hours. “You said something about a mate tattoo, right?”
“Yes.” His jaw clenched, the muscle beneath the stubble-covered flesh flickering.
Rena was tempted to touch it, but instead, she fiddled with the damp sheet tangled around her legs.
“Like the Amoveo, we find our mates in the dreamrealm, and then we can bond in the physical plane. Once the connection has been made, the mate tattoo starts to form. The men get one on the thigh and the women, usually, have it emerge on their back.”
“Wait, so a tattoo just kind of appears?”
“Each bonded pair has a mark that is unique to their mating.” Zander cleared his throat as though uncomfortable discussing it. “Two dragons
intertwined. But the color patterns within the tattoo are different for each couple.”
“Amoveo don’t get a tattoo like that?”
“Not unless they’re mated to a dragon.”
“I don’t have one, you know. So, then, you could be wrong about me being Zed’s mate.” She arched one eyebrow and shifted her body. “You can check if you want.”
“I don’t think that would be wise.” He sliced a sly glance at her and shook his head. “And like I said, nothing about your mating with Zed is normal.”
Rena blanched and looked at him like he was out of his damn mind. How in the hell could he continue to think that she should be with his brother after what happened between the two of them yesterday?
“Unbelievable. You’re still convinced that I’m supposed to be your brother’s mate.” She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. “Even after what happened in the kitchen last night?”
He said nothing at first, but there was heat in his eyes, and she warmed beneath his penetrating stare. For just a second, Rena thought he was going to kiss her. However, when he curled his hand around hers and pulled it from his face, her heart sank.
“Yes, you are,” he whispered. “You have to be.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it. And who says that’s the way it has to be?”
“Rena, Zed and I are identical twins, which is unheard of for our kind. The Amoveo too. And this screwed-up situation is exactly why. When you were born, your body was preprogrammed and matched with Zed’s genetic pattern, which is also mine. It’s biology and fate. Plain and simple.”
“So you’re telling me that I’m only attracted to you because of fate and that I’ll feel the same way about Zed.”
Zander nodded curtly but said nothing.
“I don’t believe you.” Rena snatched her hand from his as embarrassment shimmied beneath her skin. “What about love? Or don’t the big, bad dragons believe in that?”
“Love isn’t a factor.”
“For who?” she asked incredulously. “Because it sure as hell matters to me, thank you very much. I didn’t think it ever would, but you changed all that, Zander. I am worthy of love…and so are you.”
Undiscovered Page 18
