It made no sense. Maybe I was under his thrall? Did dragons have thralls? I made a mental note to research that later and decided that I was temporarily insane. I wasn’t really safe with Archer. The only person I ever felt safe with was my gran, and no sexy, large, really handsome dragon man was going to change that.
As I was arguing to myself, the words he’d spoken made a few synapses spark. “Wait a minute, your mate?”
“You took my fire. It surprised me, too. Ouroboros dragons don’t often find mates, since our genetic ties have been broken, making it difficult to find someone compatible with us.”
“You are using way too many words that sound like they should make sense, but don’t. Let’s take the big one first, this mate thing. If you think I’m some sort of a dragon—”
“Not yet,” he said, glancing back at me, his eyes now their normal pale, iced blue. “Soon, though.”
“But I’m human!” I protested.
“Yes. That is why it is so unexpected.”
“That’s like…cross species. Isn’t that impossible?”
“Unlikely, but not impossible. Originally, dragons did not mate out of their septs.”
“Come again?”
“Extended family groups. Ouroboros dragons do not have such bonds, but that meant mates, those who were genetically matched with us, are few and far between.”
“Again, can I point out I’m human?”
“I know what you are,” he said, his voice grim as he marched slightly ahead of me, his fingers holding tight to my hand.
I was about to continue questioning him when a thought fought its way through the postcoital haze that wrapped around my brain. “Bree!” I squawked, guilt flooding me that I had forgotten her so easily.
“Who? Oh, the sprite?”
“No, Bree. She’s the girl who was with me tonight. The one who likes to stare at you and say inappropriate things—your tail! That’s what she meant! She knew you were a dragon when we saw you at the hotel bar. That little…I’ll have a thing or two to say to her, but, Archer, we have to find her first so I can say those things. She’s somewhere in the woods. We split up in order to make it harder for Hunter to find us.”
Archer swore under his breath but dropped my hand and stopped. “Which direction did she go?”
“To the east.”
He pulled out his cell phone and spoke quickly into it, speaking Proto-Balto-Slavic, another old language, this one the progenitor to modern languages currently in use in Eastern Europe. I’d done part of my master’s research in that language, but I was amazed that Archer and his friend knew it along with Eastern Slavic. “The sprite is in the woods, evidently running to the east. No, they left, but knowing the shadow dragons, Hunter will make a show of returning. I don’t expect them to take long to do so. Find her fast.”
I was about to ask him if he’d done research in medieval central Europe but lost my train of thought when he took my hand again and helped me over a fallen trunk, saying, “Miles will find your friend before the others do.”
“I appreciate that, but she’s my responsibility.” I looked around, confused as to where we were. “I appreciate you sending your friend—I assume Miles is the man with the auburn hair who was with you last night—but she’s my friend, and I can’t let her run around a forest on her own, especially if Hunter and that huge man with no neck are out there looking for her.”
“They won’t be,” he said, making an exasperated sound in his chest before taking my hand and tugging at it again.
“How do you know?” I was still peering around the trees, although I did reluctantly let Archer pull me down a game trail. Ahead of us, barely visible down a steep ravine, I thought I saw a glimpse of light.
“They are cowards. As soon as they saw us, they left.” His voice was completely neutral, not gloating, not angry, just as if his brother was of no matter to him.
I stopped worrying about Bree for a minute to eye the man who was holding branches ahead of me so they wouldn’t whap me in the face. “He doesn’t have very nice things to say about you. I take it you two are on the outs?”
“To date, forty-one members of my tribe have been murdered,” he said, and this time, there was emotion when he spoke, a deep anguish that I felt more than heard. “You could call that being on the outs.”
I stopped for a third time, causing him to look back in question. “Your brother killed your…er…I’m not quite sure on dragon nomenclature, not that I even realized you guys were real until half an hour ago, and frankly, I think I’m doing an exceptional job of not making a bigger deal about it, but to be honest, I raised a demon earlier, and that kind of took my paranormal-being cherry, if you will. Am I babbling?”
“Yes,” he said, and pulled me forward another ten yards, then paused and looked down a long, forty-five-degree slope made up of dirt, small shrubs, and ferns. Given that there were rocky cliffs on either side, it looked like the only way to the road unless we took another path.
Archer didn’t say anything; he just turned to me, swung me up in his arms, and started down the slope.
“What the hell!” I squawked, twisting my body around him so that once again my legs were around his waist, his head smashed into my breasts while I clutched his hair in a death grip. “Ack! Stop! You’ll break your neck! Or mine! Ack ack ack!”
His arms cartwheeled, and I felt the vibrations of him speaking into my boobs but couldn’t understand what he was saying when he continued forward, more or less sliding down that slope, dirt and small rocks and bits of plants cascading down before us. Amazingly enough, he managed to keep his balance until he reached the last yards of the slope, at which point he tripped over a large rock and fell forward. I only had a fraction of a second to realize I was going to be between him and the road and braced myself for what was sure to be a very painful experience, but Archer twisted in the time it takes for one second to pass to another, with the result that I landed on top of him when he skidded a few feet on the road.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I chanted, my heart pounding while I scrambled off of him, trying to simultaneously catch my breath and run my hands over him to make sure he wasn’t hurt seriously. “Don’t you ever do that again! Are you hurt? Did you hit your head? Holy shit, Archer! We could have both been killed! Or at least seriously injured. Are you bleeding? I don’t see any blood, except…Oh, man, I have a clump of your hair.” I showed him the small wad of hair that was still clutched between my shaking fingers.
“So I gather,” he said, rubbing the side of his head before sitting up. He winced and tried to look over his shoulder.
“Did you hurt your back? How did you twist like that? That was impressive, although I don’t know how you— God’s boils!” I’d crawled around to see his back and stopped at the bloody, gruesome sight that met my eyes. The slide along the asphalt with me riding him had resulted in a hideous case of road rash, the entire upper back of his shirt shredded, his flesh bloody and black with dirt. “Oh my God! Okay, don’t move,” I said, my hands shaking as I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll call 911.”
“There’s no need,” he said, getting to his feet. He winced again but offered me a hand. “It will heal soon enough, although I would like to point out in my defense that if you hadn’t climbed me like I was a ladder and tried to smother me with your breasts, I would have been able to see. Come. My car is this way.”
I stared at him in astonishment, amazement, and other a-words of surprise that I couldn’t think of at that moment, because I was so agog with the fact that he thought he could just walk off a major injury like having his back skinned off. “Agog,” I said, my brain picking something ridiculous to focus on because it just couldn’t cope with anything else.
He cocked an eyebrow at me as I got to my feet.
“It’s my third a-word for what the hell do you think you’re doing? Archer, you can’t just pretend your back isn’t a bloody mess.”
“I’m not pretending anything. It j
ust isn’t of importance at this moment. Are you going to come with me, or do I have to pick you up and carry you? That act will definitely not be pleasant for my back, but if you insist—”
I punched him in the chest. Not hard, because the poor man had to be in immense pain already, but enough to let him know I didn’t appreciate his bossy attitude. “Listen, I’m really sorry that I climbed you like a ladder, but I…It just seemed…Oh, hell, I just wanted to be held if I was going to die.” A little flush swept upward to warm my cheeks. “Regardless, I am not the sort of person who likes to be manhandled, and that includes being picked up and hauled around like I’m a sack of potatoes.”
He flashed a wolfish grin at me, an expression that flooded my stomach with heat and pleasure. I reminded myself that I’d only just decided that I didn’t feel safe with him despite the most mind-blowingly fabulous sex, but it didn’t do much to stop me from wanting to fan myself.
“Trust me, flower, I do not think of you as a sack of potatoes. Come along. I don’t wish to remain here while my brother has time to return to reclaim you.”
“Reclaim me? What is that supposed to mean?” I trotted alongside him, his long legs making me move faster than I would have normally, but since I was scanning the tree line for signs of Bree, I didn’t object.
His fingers twined through mine in a way that made my stomach do happy little flutters. Dammit! I just lectured myself, and yet here I was happy fluttering just at the touch of his hand.
With much sternness, I pointed out that just because we had a hookup in the forest didn’t mean his talk of being a dragon mate was valid. Or important.
Or desired.
The horror of the kidnapping, following my relief at being found by Archer, simply pushed our libidos into overdrive, that was all.
My inner voice made a comment about how sad it was when one had to lie to oneself. I thought mean things at the voice.
“What are you doing?” Archer asked me.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re growling.”
My blush lit up my cheeks again. I was glad we were in a section of the road without a light. “Just…uh…telling my inner voice that she could go to hell.”
He shot me a look I couldn’t identify in the darkness. “You are a very unique woman.”
“Yeah,” I said on a sigh. “I’ve always been weird. Speaking of unique, Mr. Mythical Beast, I have a bunch of questions.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding to where a black sedan had been pulled off the side of the road. Ahead, I could see the skid marks where Hunter’s limo had come to its abrupt stop, but of the limo—or Bree—there was no sign. “Here are the keys. Wait in the car. Lock the doors. If my brother returns before Miles and I do, leave.”
He shoved a set of car keys into my hand before starting for the trees.
“Oh, you are so not doing this,” I said, and ran after him. “I don’t mind you helping me look for Bree, because despite what a particularly snarky part of my mind says, I’m not stupid, but Bree is my friend, and I feel responsible for her.”
I heard him muttering under his breath but couldn’t catch what he said.
“People who deliberately say rude things too quiet for others to hear are cowards,” I said, following him across a downed trunk that spanned a ditch filled with inky ferns.
“I said that I was going to regret having such an acute sense of smell.”
I frowned as we went deeper into the tree line. He paused at the crest of a hill, moving forward when I pointed to the direction I’d last seen Bree fleeing. “If that’s a slam against my deodorant, I’d like to point out that the Archer Log Flume ride we did down that hill could push even the most effective of products beyond its limit.”
“I was referring to your scent.”
I took a brief whiff of my armpits. “Well, I am sorry if I—”
“Christus Rex, woman, I am not insulting you,” he snarled, pulling me to his chest, his nose buried in my neck. He breathed in deeply, a low, rumbling noise coming from his chest that had an answer deep inside me. “Your scent drives me insane. It’s not just a field of flowers. It’s…” He took another deep breath as I fought the urge to slide my hands up his chest. I might not be too shameless to go at it with him in the relative privacy of the forest at night, but I drew the line to sex on the road. “It’s like you are bathed in sunlight. Golden, warm flowers that make me want to bury myself in you again—”
I fought it, I really did fight it, but I turned to a puddle of goo against him, my still very happy girl parts deciding that if he wanted to go another round, they’d be up for it. Luckily, his phone gave a little hiccup just as he started nibbling on my earlobe.
The conversation was short. “Miles has your friend.” He turned on his heel, and we hurried back toward the road. “They are near the road, hidden, but they saw the shadow dragons on the move, no doubt to try to reclaim you.”
“There’s that word again.”
He said nothing, but I saw another wince of pain when he reached back to help me scramble down a boulder. I decided I’d distract him from the discomfort of his back with some of the thousands of questions that had popped up in the last few hours. “About this mate business—what we did back there was pretty awesome. More than awesome, really, but I should tell you that I’m not looking for a romantic partner. I’m perfectly happy as I am. So if whatever it is to be a mate means we’re dating—”
“We aren’t dating,” he said, his words cutting into my soul. For a moment I was stunned by the baldness of his words, even though I’d just told him that I wasn’t in the market for a man.
How stupid is it to feel hurt by that after I just said I was not looking for a relationship? Unreasonably, I was hurt, and that just made me more annoyed at myself because I hate it when I act inconsistent.
“You’re growling again, flower.”
“Sorry.” I gritted my teeth for a couple of seconds instead. “I have a really sarcastic inner voice, and she’s riding me hard tonight. Naturally, I wasn’t implying that you would be interested in dating me—the interlude in the forest aside, judging by Sparkle Bosom, you’re into a totally different sort of woman than me—but since we’re agreed on the ‘steamy forest dragon sex is awfully nice, but it’s not going to go any farther than that’ situation, I guess I don’t understand the mate reference.”
He slid me a fast glance. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what? Ask questions? I like to have things orderly in my mind.” I sighed.
“Curiosity, I understand. I enjoy satisfying my own. But you insist on denigrating yourself, and I do not understand why. Is it because of your genetic difference?”
I touched a finger to my affected eyebrow, automatically smoothing it. “I’m not denigrating anyone. I have a very healthy self-image. I just have no false idea of what I look like. We have this weird dichotomy in our culture—either people feel it’s perfectly fine for them to make unsolicited comments to me, or they try to boost me up with inclusionary statements meant to make me feel like I’m utterly gorgeous when I’m not remotely. So, yes, my situation makes me more aware that people find my appearance freaky than someone who lives their life without such things.”
“I, too, have different genes. I do not use it as a crutch as you do.”
“Hey,” I said, frowning at him. “Unless you’ve lived through the insults that I’ve had to endure, you don’t get to make those judgments.”
He stopped when we hit the road and took my chin in one hand. “And yet you hide behind dark glasses during the day and tell me that I couldn’t find you sexually arousing simply because you have different coloration manifesting itself in unimportant ways. This despite the steamy forest dragon sex.”
I slapped his hand from my chin, annoyed that he more or less called me a coward. “Says the man who looks like a freakin’ GQ cover model! What do you know about having people stare and make comments and laugh at you because you are different?”
Anguish was raw and rough in his voice, a pain so deep it made tears prick at the back of my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were abandoned. That’s beyond tragic. But…but you have a name…Wait, did you say seven hundred years?”
“Archer was my job, not my name.” The edge in his voice was as sharp as a razor. He strode past me, bone-deep sorrow trailing behind him.
I stood for a moment trying to process the hell he had lived through, wanting to cry. My parents had died when I was very young, but at least I had my gran and a name of my own. I ran after him, not touching him but feeling like a gigantic self-centered fool. “Not that it in any way compares to what you lived through, but I don’t hide behind my sunglasses. I just…just take a break from people staring at me. Also, can we go back to that seven hundred years bit? Because that really boggles my mind.”
“If you had some truly unfortunate quirk, like six breasts or a couple of arms growing out of your head, I could understand your attitude, but not this. I expect better from you.” He continued walking as if he hadn’t just said the most outrageous things.
And suddenly, I was annoyed again. “Look, I get that you had a hard life. I’m sorry about that. I can’t do anything about it other than…well, I guess I can help you pick out a new name if you’d like one. One that’s truly yours, one that you feel reflects who you are. But that aside, you don’t get to say rude things to me just because you had it harder than I did growing up. And because we got hot and bothered together.”
He said nothing.
“After all,” I pointed out, still mildly miffed by his attitude toward me, “you may not have had an easy life before, but you have to be sitting awfully darned pretty now if you can spend the sort of money you spent on a manuscript leaf. You spent more than five years of my wages on a piece of vellum and a bit of gold leaf.”
Day of the Dragon Page 11
