by Eden Ashe
She wanted to laugh at him. He meant the question sincerely and her answer mattered to him, but she knew him almost as well as her brother. He was on edge, worried, and trying not to let her see it.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes searching his fallen angel face and ice blue eyes. “You are not allowed to hurt him, Gabriel, do you understand me? No matter what happens, you are not allowed to hurt one hair on his head.”
The vein pulsing in his forehead was the only outward reaction the giant male gave that he was unhappy with her order. “I know nothing short of a natural disaster could have kept your brother from you and Seren and the baby, Lil. I’m not planning on hurting him.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about,” she snapped, surprising herself. She wasn’t sure where the temper and worry was coming from, but she could feel it eating a hole in her belly. “You are not allowed to hurt Dallas, got it? I’m not kidding, Gabriel. He’s off limits to you, Adrian, and Daniel.”
His eyes widened, and Lily had the wild thought that under any other circumstance, at any other time, she would have giggled madly at being able to finally—finally—shock the great Gabriel into silence, but she couldn’t get a hold of her emotions enough to manage it at the moment.
Finally, after several heartbeats, he let out a single nod. “Got it. Where’s your brother?”
“My room,” Dallas snarled. “I opened the door, and he passed out, went down like a damn redwood.”
Gabriel straightened and headed toward the bedroom at the back of the hallway. “Did he say anything first?”
Dallas cleared his throat. “Ah…” His words trailed off as Gabriel stopped walking and raised a brow at him over his shoulder. “He told me to get my hands off his sister’s ass.”
Gabriel closed his eyes and counted to five, then nodded and walked into the bedroom. “At least we know he doesn’t have amnesia.”
Lily rushed in after him, automatically putting herself between her brother and the giants in the room. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure Dallas’s downstairs neighbors could hear and dance to it. “Wait. Hunters can’t get amnesia.” As something else occurred to her, she slowly wrapped her arms around herself. “Gabriel, where’s Seren? Why didn’t you bring her with you?”
Instead of answering her, he moved in and gripped her around the waist, lifting her. Turning, he deposited her back on her feet next to Dallas, then went to look down at Adrian.
“Gabriel,” Dallas snapped. “Answer her.”
The Behemoth ignored him, too, as he pulled off her brother’s ball cap and rested his large hand on the top of Adrian’s shaved head. Though he’d never confirmed it, none of them believed he was a dragon. Whatever he was, even Lily knew his power was unlike anything any of them had ever seen. He was quiet for so long Lily almost screamed in frustration. Gabriel finally shook his head and stood. “He came here instead of going home. That means something. And until I know what—”
His words were cut off as an anguished roar tore through the room, rattling the walls. Adrian jack-knifed into a sitting position. His eyes flew open and landed on hers. She lurched forward and threw her arms around his neck as tears of relief rushed out of her.
The prick of a knife at her throat confused her, but the savage snarl that echoed through her brother’s chest had her pulling back to see if she’d hurt him.
And her brother, the man who’d rescued her, protected her, saved her, looked her right in the face and pressed the tip of the knife she’d given him as a birthday gift to her throat. “Put your weapons down,” he snarled violently, “or your little whore Vanessa here gets it.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dallas’s pupils lengthened to slits as his dragon leapt to the surface, prepared for battle. The air thickened with Lily’s confusion and terror—not for herself, Dallas knew, but for her brother—making it hard for him to breathe. Her raw fear was inside his head, in his bloodstream, and rocketed straight to his soul.
Gabriel must have felt it, too, because his massive body stiffened next to Dallas, his hand clamping over his head. A low snarl reverberated in his chest. “What the fuck?”
The hell if Dallas knew, but he’d worry about it later after his woman’s life wasn’t in danger. His body braced for impact, his gaze locked on to Cage as he climbed off the bed. The Hunter’s eyes were unfocused but full of rage and something like terror.
He probably would have given a fuck if the bastard wasn’t currently holding a knife to Lily’s throat. “Let her go, Cage.”
A single tear leaked out of Lily’s eye, landing on her brother’s forearm. “Adrian, it’s me, big brother.” Her voice broke on a soft sob. “Please. Let me go. Seren and Ava need you. Don’t make Gabriel and Dallas kill you. Please, Adrian.”
Dallas gritted his teeth, temper building in the base of his skull as he took a step toward one side of the room while Gabriel made the same move toward the other. In the same heartbeat, Lily’s body went limp. Cage’s hold on her slipped, and she used the single second he needed to tighten his grip to sink her teeth into his forearm.
He dropped her on a roar, and she shot forward, knocking into Dallas with the force of a mini-five-foot-three stacked hurricane. Gabriel was across the room before Dallas’s arms had closed all the way around her.
Gabriel pulled his fist back and slammed it into Adrian’s face. Though Adrian wasn’t much smaller than the Behemoth’s seven-foot-tall size, the power behind the punch snapped the Hunter’s head back and had blood fountaining out of his nose. He swayed as his dark green eyes rolled into the back of his head. Dallas had to lift Lily off her feet to stop her from rushing to the bastard as he pitched forward, hitting the ground face-first for the second time in an hour.
Proving there was a strength to Gabriel that surpassed what even an ancient dragon his size should have, and that none of them understood, he hauled Adrian up and tossed him on the bed like he weighed nothing. Then he crouched down and laid his fingers against Cage’s throat, checking his pulse. Gabriel spread his hand over the top of Cage’s shaved head and murmured something in an ancient language Dallas didn’t understand.
Dallas hadn’t realized he’d buried his face in Lily’s hair to assure himself she was unharmed until Gabriel turned, saw him, and lifted a brow. “I’m going to call Daniel and get his ass here. I put a spell on Cage, temporarily paralyzing him until we can figure out what in the fucking hell is going on here.”
Dallas untangled himself from Lily and shoved her behind him, then went toe to toe with the giant. “He took Lily hostage. His own goddamn sister. He needs to be locked up.” He’d rather the asshole be put down, but he wasn’t going to fucking say so in front of Lily when he could still feel her fear as acutely as his own anger.
In a rare sign of frustration, Gabriel shoved his hand through his short, dark hair. “Actually, I agree. But I don’t know what to fucking do with him.”
“Call Seren.” Lily stepped forward, her arms crossed over her chest. She glared through her fear at them both. “Why haven’t we done that already? He needs his mate. She’ll know how to fix him.”
“This isn’t a physical wound, Lil,” Gabriel said softly. “This is mental, and if he doesn’t recognize you, it makes him a danger to Ava and Seren. I’m not letting him loose. We don’t know where he’s been. We don’t know what’s happened to him or what he’s done. Right now, he’s a loose cannon, and we cannot afford to have the strongest Hunter in existence going rogue on the city of Los Angeles.”
* * * *
An hour later, every dragon on the west coast was camped out in Dallas’s living room. Dallas was hoping it was enough fire power—literally—to keep her brother from doing something stupid.
Not that Adrian looked the least bit intimidated. He stood in the middle of the room, his arms crossed over his chest and his legs spread. He stared straight at her, unblinking.
She knew that look. Even with the beard covering the lower half of his face and the ball cap s
hielding his eyes, Lily had no doubt what was going through his head. He trusted Gabriel, Daniel, and Luca, but he was pissed at how close she was to the Destroyer and that those he had trusted had let it happen.
He was acting like Adrian again. He was back to being her brother, though so far, he’d refused to answer a single question.
It all combined to make Lily’s instincts and emotions go haywire. She’d always trusted Adrian’s instincts, but Dallas was safe.
“Fine.” Dallas stepped forward, partially shielding her from her brother, temper pulsing out of him. “If no one else is going to fucking ask it, I will. What the fucking hell is wrong with you? Who the hell is Vanessa?”
Fear flicked in Adrian’s eyes before he dismissed him and turned his attention back to her. “Fuck off, asshole. I’m not explaining anything to you.”
Dallas ignored that. “Where the hell have you been? I don’t give a shit that the others may trust you. I don’t, and you ripping at Lily’s heart is seriously pissing me the fuck off. So start giving us answers, or we’re going to finish what we started.”
Adrian’s scarred lip lifted in a sneer. “That’s the last time you threaten me, dragon.”
Gabriel let out a low string of curses as the fury of the two men magnified and pulsed out, shaking the entire ninety-story building. “Both of you, back the fuck off. This isn’t solving anything. Cage, answer the goddamn question.”
Lily scooted around Dallas, deliberately putting herself between him and Adrian before they could tear each other apart. When they both growled in raw fury, her nose wrinkled. She looked up at her brother. “Please, Adrian,” she whispered.
He shifted his gaze to her and ran his hand over the top of his ball cap. He shot a look at Dallas. “Got any vodka?”
Luca headed into the kitchen. “I’ll get it.” When he came back out a moment later, instead of a shot glass, he handed the new, unopened bottle to Cage.
A sick feeling settled in Lily’s belly as her brother tilted his head back and downed half the contents as if he was drinking water. When he’d finished the last of the bottle, he sat on the couch, his gaze still trained on her. “You’re saying I’ve been gone a month?”
She moved forward slowly, afraid of spooking him. Her stomach jittered at the thought she’d be able to scare him. “Explain, big brother,” she said softly as she knelt in front of him. He leaned forward, his arms braced on his spread legs, the empty bottle dangling from his fingers. She pulled it out of his grasp and set it aside while never taking her gaze off his. “I need you to explain to me where you were and how you found me.”
“I don’t know. I walked into the cavern with Daniel and the other dragons and woke up in the Destroyer’s bed. All I have are these vague memories that don’t make sense.” His gruff voice broke, and there was sheer terror in his eyes. “Lil.”
She didn’t have to look at Dallas to know the temper and worry in him was amping up. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “He won’t hurt me.”
Though she’d been talking to both of them, her gaze remained steady on Adrian’s. The sound that tore out of his chest was borderline savage. “I don’t trust him.”
Lily lifted her chin. She wasn’t breakable. She’d survived without him. “You’re not in a good place to talk right now, big brother,” she said quietly. “You’re scaring them.”
His dark green eyes went wild. “I don’t—I don’t know. I have images, flashes, bruises. New scars.”
Her gut churned until she was certain she was going to be sick. “Who is Vanessa?”
He pulled off his ball cap and ran a trembling hand over his head. “Why the hell does everyone keep asking me that?” he snapped. “Who the fuck is Vanessa?”
“You called Lily ‘Vanessa’ and held a knife to her throat.” Daniel spoke up for the first time.
Adrian surged to his feet and roared, “The fuck I did!”
Dallas shoved Lily behind him. “How did you know Lily was here?”
Adrian clamped his hands on his head. “I didn’t.” His frustration was tangible enough it reverberated through the building. “Why the hell did I find The Destroyer’s hands on my sister’s ass? Anyone want to tell me how that happened?”
They all visibly winced, but Lily was the one who spoke up. “That’s not important. Why did you come here if you didn’t know I was staying here?”
“I think I remember going to your place and seeing it demolished. The debris smelled like you and the Destroyer, so I came here. I think. But I have other memories that can’t be real.” His eye twitched, his voice going deceptively low. “You’re staying here?”
The insanity and madness in him made her gasp. For the first time since he’d rescued her, she didn’t go and curl up next to him when she was afraid. Instead, she reached for Dallas’s hand. “I made a decision, Adrian, and you’re not allowed to yell at me for it, do you understand? You weren’t here, and he’s my choice. I like Dallas. A lot.”
He pulled the brim of his cap lower over his eyes. “There’s something wrong with my head, Lil. I don’t remember anything. There’s this black hole, but I keep having these flashes of Porter torturing me. But I killed him years ago. Didn’t I?” He dropped his head and scrubbed both hands over it. “I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”
Just the thought of Porter being alive made her want to vomit then shower in bleach until she managed to erase the images. “He was torturing you? You never told me he tortured you.”
“He didn’t,” Gabriel said. “I was there when the bastard was ended. Adrian wasn’t the one tortured.”
“Then why do I—” Adrian cut off with a harsh laugh. “Iosa. I’m going insane.” He raised his gaze to Gabriel’s. “You need to lock me up somewhere. I’m not safe.”
“No shit,” Dallas snapped.
Adrian didn’t react at first. He stood motionless for several moments until he nodded once. “Kill me.” His voice was low and quiet. Settled. “You have to kill me. Do it now before something else happens that I can’t control. No one I love is safe if I can hold a knife to my sister’s throat…and not even remember it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sound that tore out of Lily twisted something deep inside Dallas. Adrian’s words hung in the air as if they’d crystallized and become solid, the tension in the room thickening until they all nearly choked on it.
Lily jumped up suddenly. “I have something for you.” She hesitated when she was directly in front of Dallas, her eyes pleading with his. “Don’t do anything, Dallas, please.”
His gut tightened at what she thought he was capable of. “I’m not going to kill him while you’re in the other room, Lil.” He had no problem gutting the bastard and strangling him with his own spine if needed. But he didn’t know if his reaction was because he despised the asshole with every fiber of his being or because he was dangerous.
Ryuu. Yeah. Emotions fucking sucked balls.
When she sighed in relief and bolted toward his bedroom, he turned his temper on Adrian and the others. “What the hell is going on?” he asked on a snarl. “What the hell is wrong with you, telling us to kill you in front of your sister? For fuck’s sake, she’s finally putting the pieces back together and learning to trust her instincts, then you go and pull this shit. I ought to put you down for that.”
Cage held his gaze. “Then do it now. I won’t fight you. I’m the strongest Hunter alive, and who knows what I’m capable of—what I’ve already done—that I don’t remember.”
Lily came back in and sat down next to Adrian. She handed him the damaged baby book, then placed her hand on his cheek and pulled his attention toward her. “Seren named her Ava.”
His hands shook as he ran his fingers over the tiny face on the cover. “She’s so beautiful,” he murmured.
Dallas didn’t miss the confusion that was flickering over Cage’s face. Shit. Dallas would have bet his left arm the Hunter had no idea who the baby belonged to.
Lily curled up
next to him. She needed him so much, and even he’d known how much the Hunter had been looking forward to being a father. It didn’t do a damn thing for the terror clawing at his chest, though, or calm his raging need to put an entire continent between her and her head-fucked brother.
“She’s a sweet baby,” she said softly. “With her Momma’s fierce temper.”
One corner of Cage’s mouth tilted upward. Dallas glanced at the others and jerked his head toward the kitchen. He still had every intention of putting Cage down, if only for breaking Lily and Seren’s hearts, but whatever demon had struck him when he’d woken up, he seemed to have beaten it back for the moment. He’d give Lily this, then he’d kill him.
The problem was that, even as the other dragons walked into the kitchen, Dallas couldn’t make himself follow. Lily needed her brother and Dallas got that, but he needed her, too. And Cage was a threat to her well-being he hadn’t expected and wouldn’t dismiss.
He didn’t want to be jealous of a dead guy, but Dallas was acutely aware that he was running out of time with her. The longer Dallas was with her and the closer they got, the more tempted he was to say fuck it and go for round number three. Not because he was willing to take a mate, but because he goddamn fucking liked her, and the need to get inside of her again, fill her up and pound himself inside of her, was building every time she touched him.
Dallas didn’t move when she rested her head against her brother’s arm, telling him a story about his little girl. He let out a violent, frustrated sound and stalked into the kitchen.
