by Maggie Ryan
“Our mate has many powers. But he does not have the fire of the dragon to warm him.” Draco shot me an almost naughty look, the closest this humble man had ever come to bragging.
“Oh, yeah—Draco meaning dragon, the guardian dragon, hence your gorgeous tattoo. But I saw you turn to a wolf. How can you have the fire of a dragon, if you are a wolf?” I gasped as my mind danced around a new idea. Draco’s name meant dragon. Deo had mentioned that Draco can not only transform to a wolf, but also something more dangerous if necessary. Something so deadly, Deo had hoped I’d never have to witness it. It couldn’t be. Could it? I couldn’t believe it hadn’t crossed my mind before. “Draco… you don’t also shift into a dragon, do you?”
Opening the passenger side door of the huge car, Draco patted my plugged bottom, then simply said, “In you go,” ending our conversation. That was the way of the men of my pack. They told me what I needed to know, when I needed to know it.
It took all my willpower to turn off my lawyer brain and stop myself from asking a flood of burning questions. Was he a dragon? If not, what was he, besides a wolf? What determined which transformation he would make? How had he gotten that gorgeous art on his chest that looked to be far more organic than ink? The discipline of two strict mates—and my little pink gemstone plug—reminded me of my chosen submission, so for now at least, I held my tongue.
I allowed myself a frustrated sigh as Draco walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side door. I slid back in the leather seat. Draco’s eyes flickered to mine. Had he heard my huffy breath? Damn wolves—you couldn’t get anything past them.
Shutting his door, Draco leaned over to be sure I had buckled my safety belt. My face burned at being cared for like a child. But if I was honest with myself, the attention made my insides melt. Draco’s tender actions made me feel safe and cared for.
Clicking the latch of his own seatbelt, he adjusted the rearview mirror to his liking. “Where to, princess of mine?”
“Hmmm, somewhere warm? Miami?” I asked, shivering in the cold car, waiting for the engine to heat up enough to warm the frigid air.
“Have you become so attached to Artem you would like to visit his home state of sunny Florida?” he joked.
“Err… no, thank you.”
“Artem has enjoyed working beside you. He finds you to be… unusually bright. Gifted even.”
“I don’t know how—we barely talk in there. I sort through my giant pile of paperwork. He sorts through his. Once in a while we share something with each other. That’s pretty much the extent of our working relationship.”
“In time, he will grow to love you like a daughter of his own,” Draco replied softly, carefully checking the lane for oncoming traffic before pulling the Escalade into the road.
“That’s what Deo said.”
“Our mate is a smart man.” Draco shot me a severe look. “You would do well to listen to him.”
Ignoring his comment, I continued, “But it hasn’t happened yet. Artem barely pays attention to me. To be honest… well, I can’t help but think that secretly he hates me after I… you know.”
“Artem is not a man to be unforgiving when a sin has been confessed and a price paid. It will happen—give it time.”
Would Artem forgive me and come to love me, with time? I doubted it. And time—that was the one thing we didn’t seem to have enough of these days. Time to rest before the next battle, time to prepare for a war I didn’t have special powers to fight. Time to be with Deo, with Draco. Time for them to do incredible things to my body. For me to learn to pleasure theirs. To share our love.
Still, perhaps what I really needed to do was forgive myself. Both my mates assured me that Uncle Artem had already done so and I trusted them and… well, there was the gift of coffee waiting for me daily.
Draco placed a reassuring hand on my thigh. His voice light, he asked, “Have you and Artem found anything that can help the pack prepare?”
“Nothing substantial.” A pinprick tapped at the back of my mind—a kind of nagging that I experienced when I was on the cusp of a discovery but didn’t quite have all the pieces to the puzzle. “There was this one thing though…”
Hope filled his voice. “What is it, Cassie?”
Sighing, I thought about the inconsistency I had discovered in one of the many handwritten ledgers. It was a dark green, leather-bound book, its pages gilded with gold. “Well, it’s nothing much but I can’t shake the feeling that it means something.”
“Trust your mind. Tell me.”
“I found one of the ledgers had three pages torn from its bindings. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but we have literally gone through hundreds of these things and not one—not a single book—is missing so much as a corner of a page.”
“That is something,” he murmured quietly. “What was the last subject before the pages were torn?”
“It was the part Deo mentioned to me… about how the Ambrosias are gifted with powers, different abilities throughout their lives. Then a line about how males had powers.” I paused, shrugging and then smiling. “I’m guessing one of your great-great-great female relatives got ticked off and ripped the pages out so no more of her sisters would have to read such drivel. Like there’s any chance a female within this family would ever need reminding about the sanctity of the male gender.”
Draco chuckled, used to my complaining of being powerless to shift into a female wolf.
“You have your own powers, Cassie. A strength within you that is unmatched.”
“That’s sweet of you to say, but I’d like an actual power. You know? Something cool I could use to kick demons’ brains in.” I giggled and when his eyebrow arched, I offered, “Not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty sure I’d look exceptional in a thick gray fur coat. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“I’d love you wearing fur or nothing at all, little one,” he said. “You are beautiful and every day in practice you seem to be growing stronger.”
I flushed at his compliment but had to agree about the latter part. “I do feel stronger since our honeymoon. And I’ve hit every one of my targets since we’ve been back. I think all of our gymnastics in bed have helped me tremendously,” I laughed.
Laughing with me, Draco gave my knee a squeeze. A moment later he spoke, the laughter gone from his voice. “You will need your strength soon, I fear.”
I quietly stared out my window, watching the bare limbs of the trees go by. The vision of the faces of the officers drifted in my mind.
My eyes snapped to attention as Draco exited from the main street and onto the highway.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we could go to New York today.”
Sitting straight up in my seat, I turned to Draco, surprised by his casual statement.
“That’s almost a two-hour drive,” I said.
“Three. We are going to the castle.”
My brows narrowed at Draco. “Does Deo know where we are?” Deo had made it very clear to me that if I was not safely at home, then I was to be within the walls of our newly acquired office building. Nowhere else. I figured a little jaunt to grab lunch around the corner was fine, but New York? The castle?
“Deo knows you are safe with me,” Draco replied vaguely, merging into the lane and following the green highway signs directing us to New York. “We are both your mates. There is no difference between his word and mine.”
My tender, plugged ass begged me not to argue; my lawyer mind recognized an attempt at misdirection when it heard one: it won the fight. “That is not what I asked. Does Deo know we are going to the castle?” I said, shifting in my seat and reaching into the pocket of my coat for my cell phone. My hand came away empty.
“Draco Ambrosia, where the h-e-double hockey sticks—” I said, using a phrase I had picked up from Cy, “—is my phone?”
“Language, Cassandra,” Draco mused. Without taking his eyes from the road, he pulled the rose and gold case-covered phone from the pock
et of his shirt. Handing it to me, he said, “My apologies. It’s been disabled.”
“What the hell, Draco. What gives you the right to disable my phone? All my contacts were in there. I want to call Deo.”
“No.” His stern voice was final. There was no smile on his face, no amusement in his tone.
Fuming, I demanded, “Why are we going to the castle, anyway?”
“Alekos, Xander, and Margaret have stayed behind. I need to check on them, and I thought I would bring you along.”
“You mean you had to bring me because you are babysitting and can’t leave little Cassie alone in the office? Am I right?” I huffed.
“It is your own actions that have led you to having to be watched, Cassie,” Draco said, simply. “And you are, in fact, acting ‘little’. Control your temper or I will pull this car over and take my belt to you. You would think being spanked and plugged not a half hour ago would be enough to remind you how you are to behave, but if not, I’ll be more than happy to add a few stripes to your ass.”
I wasn’t happy, but decided it would be safer to shift the conversation away from my disobedience.
“Poor Alekos—stuck with grumpy Aunt Margaret in upstate New York while Xander gets to roam the forest as a wolf.”
A chuckle came from Draco’s chest. Always stoic, it seemed I was the only one who could illicit a laugh from my dragon. “Not really. Aunt Margaret is a softie if you get on her good side.” Draco threw me a conspiratorial look. “Do you want to know a secret?”
“Yes.”
“They are the best of friends. Margaret cooks for Alekos all day—he can consume enough food for three men. His metabolism hasn’t yet caught up with his age. In the evenings, they sit by the fire in Deo’s library, smoking Vamma del Sols. Though Deo is not above swiping a few, Alekos is the only one Margaret willingly shares her cigars with. They play chess well into the night. They are more evenly matched than any two people I have seen, and the competition is fierce.”
“I can’t picture Margaret playing anything.” The image of her snapping at me, shoving a heavy platter into my arms the night Deo had me help her in the kitchen as a punishment flashed in my mind. Though she had complimented me, saying, “You will do,” I just never got the feeling that she really liked me. “I left a bunch of dresses on my bed that first night and I think she cleaned them up and that got us off on the wrong foot.”
“I cleaned up your dresses,” Draco said quietly.
“Oh.” I was mated to the man and he’d stripped me of my clothing several times. So why did I feel shy at the thought of Draco in my room at the castle, running his hands over the clothing I’d left scattered on the bed? I might not know the answer but I did know that I loved the feel of this man’s fingers running along my skin. Gentle or rough, it didn’t matter. Just the thought of his touch was enough to cause my pussy to spasm in need. I gasped when I realized that the quick contraction was also felt in the walls of my ass where they hugged the plug he’d placed inside me. Feeling the heat rising to stain my face, I damned what Deo referred to as my ‘porcelain’ complexion. It was always giving away my emotions. “Thank you,” I murmured softly.
“I was happy to do it. Anything for you.” He gave me a smile, not questioning the shifting of my hips or the color of my face, but undoubtedly guessing in which direction my thoughts had instantly gone. As if to ease my embarrassment, he continued to share news of the members of our pack who had remained at the castle.
“Xander will be spending most days and nights in his wolf form, protecting the grounds, searching for signs of trouble. Margaret will be keeping house and Alekos will be protecting Margaret.”
I snorted. “Margaret shouldn’t need any protecting. Though, she is without her weapon now.” I thought of the thick wooden spoon in my husband’s hand and gave an involuntary shiver. My face burned with humiliation. “How did Deo wrench that thing out of her hands, anyway?”
“No wrenching required. I was there when Margaret presented it to our mate—a gift to celebrate the trinity. She said he would need it within one week of our departing the castle. And we both know she was correct, don’t we?”
“She’s so mean! Why would she do that to me?” Crossing my arms over my chest, I slouched down in my seat.
“She loves you.”
“Well, that’s a heck of a way to show it. Couldn’t she have given me some of her recipes or something?”
“I think we all know what a disaster that would be. The spoon has already proven its usefulness. The recipes would be wasted on you.”
Despite myself, I had to laugh. My new mate had learned quickly what Deo had already known—my cooking was atrocious. If Deo wasn’t available to cook his standard meal of fish and vegetables, Draco let me order out all kinds of goodies. Chinese, Italian. But we had all given up on my culinary escapades.
We fell into silence—me watching the interstate go by, Draco quiet, seemingly lost in thought.
When Draco spoke, his voice was soft. “It was hard for me, at times, in the castle. To hear you being punished. Now that we are mates, I feel no unease. It is like second nature for me to discipline you. As well as to pleasure you.” His hand rested on my upper thigh. I could feel the warmth from his skin radiating into mine.
My protector in the spiritual realm, Draco had never been more than a stone’s throw from my side during the entirety of our stay at the castle. And my husband had admonished me many times during our stay. And now, Draco was not only my protector but also my mate.
His fingers wrapped around my thigh as he continued, “God, you are defiant at times. Downright belligerent. Headstrong at best, but disobedient to the point of danger at other times.”
I was unsure of what to say. After a moment, Draco continued to speak. “Tell me, Cassie, has the discipline had any effect on you, whatsoever? Have Deo and I taught you to think of your safety, first?” His dark eyes turned to me.
Something in his stare loosened my tongue. “It does work,” I answered honestly. “I can’t tell you how many times I have held my tongue or stopped myself from doing something stupid. I’m less impulsive, I guess you could say.”
Draco’s tone was as close to puzzled as I had ever heard it when he spoke. “But you still find times to defy us. Putting your will before our commands.”
“But before—when just Deo and I were married, before I knew about the pack or any of this, before Deo took me in hand, I was unbelievably obstinate. If Deo said black, I said white. If Deo said, ‘turn right,’ I turned left. I tested him every moment of our day. Just to see what he would do. Our marriage was miserable. We fought all the time. And I instigated the fighting.”
“So, it was as Artem supposed,” Draco mused softly.
“What does that mean?”
“Artem told Deo upon your engagement that you craved discipline. He urged Deo to take you in hand the moment you were wed.”
This was news to me. “Why didn’t Deo do it, then? Why wait?”
“He was afraid of the physical difference in your sizes. You are so much smaller than he is. He was worried he’d hurt you, break you in some way.”
“That’s silly. He’s never hurt me… well, except for the spankings but that’s different,” I said, reaching to cover his hand with mine. “Both of you are big men, incredibly strong men, but I’ve never once been afraid of either of you.”
After a moment of silence, Draco spoke hesitantly. “May I ask you a question?”
“Of course. You are my husband too, now,” I said shyly.
He gave a small smile, his hand wrapping around my thigh. “Are you happy—with the way things are now?”
“I’ve never been happier. I love Deo, and I love you. And I like being your ‘Cassie’. I feel—complete.”
“As you should be. And as do I.” Draco drove quietly. He took my hand in his, his thumb brushing softly over the back of mine.
I didn’t want the conversation to end. I gathered my courage, wanting to a
sk Draco the question that had been on my mind since we vowed our lives to one another at the ceremony. “Now I get to ask you a question. When did you first have feelings for me?” I asked.
His voice was soft when he finally spoke, his fingers entwining with mine, our joined hands resting on my thigh. “It was in the courtroom.”
“The courtroom? When did you ever see me in court?”
“When Deo first proposed to you and we knew you were to join the Ambrosia family, Artem asked me and Baal to do a surveillance of your daily locations. The courtroom was the first I visited.”
“Artem sent you to spy on me?”
“No, not spy. Surveillance. So we could keep you safe. So, we would know the quickest routes to the places you frequented, should the need arise to protect you.”
“And that’s why Baal looked so comfortable in my office the first time I met him,” I mused. It was as I had suspected—he had been there before. “What was I doing… when you saw me?”
A smile stretched across Draco’s face. “According to your opponent, you were badgering the witness. He kept objecting but you just kept talking. No matter how loud the other lawyer got, you stood firm, refusing to let him intimidate you. You used your brain and your smooth tongue to win your case—even though I would have sworn the judge was ready to throw your belligerent butt in jail.” His eyes locked on mine for a moment. “You were brilliant. And beautiful. And I knew Deo had chosen well.”
I wanted to hear more. I wanted to know all the times he had gazed upon me fondly. The times he had desired me. But I was getting more and more used to Draco’s ways—I could tell that he had said his piece and would not speak more on the subject.
Chapter Eight
Cassandra
“Shall we stop here?” Draco asked, eyeing an approaching exit. On the side of the highway was a green and white diner, the sign proudly proclaiming ‘Ray’s.’
