Day of the Dragon--Two full books for the price of one

by Katie MacAlister

  “What did you hit Hunter with?” I gasped in pain as a branch slapped me in the face.

  “Art deco ashtray,” she said, stopping to wave a blocky chunk of amber-colored glass. “I was going to give it to Ramon, but when you attacked those dragons, I thought I’d just see how sturdy it was. It’s very sturdy. You go south.” She pointed to my right. “I’ll go east.”

  “I think we should stay together—” I started to say, but a roar of anger from the road had me shutting up, and instead of following Bree up a steep, slippery incline, I spun off to the right, concentrating on running as silently as possible without slamming face-first into any obstacles. It was darker in this section of the forest, the scent of pine and damp earth strong, the shadows cast by the trees too dense to see into. Enough moonlight glinted through that made it possible for me to move with a reasonable amount of safety, although I cracked both shins on numerous rocks and fallen tree trunks. My face stung with scratches when I tried to squeeze myself up to trunks in an attempt to disappear, even though I knew my harsh breathing, so loud in my ears, must be audible to anyone searching for me.

  A stitch of pain grew in my side, causing me to slow down. I paused next to a tall cedar and held my breath for as long as I could, trying to hear signs of pursuit. I thought I heard the rumble of voices in the distance, but it was a fleeting noise that wasn’t repeated.

  It wasn’t easy listening over my pounding heart, and after a minute, I decided that I must have put enough distance between Hunter and me, and knelt behind a jagged rock to catch my breath and wipe the wetness from my face.

  Just as I was able to breathe without gulping, I heard a loud crack, the sound of something stepping on a dried branch. Fear gripped my gut, my adrenaline spiking a second time. I knew exactly how a trapped animal felt, panicked and desperate to get away from whatever was out there in the darkness.

  “Thaisa.”

  My stomach gave a lurch at my name, carried to me on the wind. I stared into the darkness of the wood, trying to pinpoint where the sound had come from. Dammit, Hunter must have recovered from the pepper spray faster than I thought.

  “I know you are here. Do not run from me.”

  I got to my knees and peered over my rock but didn’t see anything moving. Carefully, I eased to my feet, hoping Bree had gotten away safely. I didn’t worry that if she made it to a town, she’d get herself back to safety, and given how fleet of foot she was, I figured she had a much better chance of escaping than I did. I looked around, saw three redwoods clustered together about thirty feet away, and carefully edged forward, my hands in front of me blindly as I stepped as lightly as possible.

  “I mean you no harm.”

  I snorted at that obvious lie, immediately slapping a hand over my mouth while praying that Hunter hadn’t heard the noise.

  Three more careful steps and I was at the redwoods. I clutched their rough bark with a silent sob of relief, finding comfort in the inky shadows cast by their substantial forms.

  “Do you know that dragons love the hunt?” Hunter’s voice was conversational as he delivered that tidbit of information.

  My eyes widened at that. The voice sounded closer, but given the number of trees around me, I couldn’t tell from where it came. I thought it was to the right. I crept around the trunks of the three redwoods, trying to peer through a moonless section to find a target of potential safety.

  “It stirs the primal beast in us. Mates run, dragons hunt—it’s considered a type of foreplay.”

  I stared in surprise at the darkness behind me. What the hell was Hunter hinting at?

  Ahead of me, a cedar that listed at a forty-five-degree angle off a mound of dirt beckoned to me. I held my breath and hurried toward it.

  “The end of the chase is always highly pleasurable.”

  His voice sounded farther away now, from the south.

  “I tell you this even though we are not mated. I know you are frightened. You have nothing to fear from me. I do not harm mortals.”

  That definitely sounded farther away. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to slip underneath the angled trunk of the cedar, but just as I reached it, a man loomed up out of the darkness.

  I sucked in my breath to shriek, but before the noise left my lips he was on me, his hand over my mouth, pushing me back against the redwood. I bit his hand and started to struggle.

  “Pax!” he said, his breath heavy in my ear as he leaned into me. I froze for a moment; then his scent teased my nose, a familiar scent, one of a woodsy, lemony soap that I remembered from the previous night.

  I pulled his hand from my mouth and squinted at the silhouette that loomed over me. “Archer?”

  “Yes. Did he harm you?” His breath was hot on me, his hands running over my person as if he was checking me over for injuries, the gentle little touches sending my libido into overdrive.

  “No, I’m all right.” I sagged into him in relief, not understanding why I felt safe with Archer when he evidently did all sorts of horrible things to Hunter’s people. “But what are you doing here?”

  “When I saw my brother take you, I had to try to save you. He would use you ruthlessly in order to hurt me.”

  “That was nice of you,” I said, somewhat breathlessly, my brain spinning in a circle with my awareness of him as a man. He was big, so big, and very masculine, and yet, rather than run from him, I wanted to fling myself on him and revel in his strength. In his heat. And oh, glorious day, in the differences between our bodies.

  How on earth had I gone from frightened half to death to incredibly turned on in the space of a few seconds?

  “You must not go anywhere with my brother again. It isn’t safe,” he insisted, taking a step closer to me.

  My body cheered, my girl parts thrilled that he was back in our life.

  “You’re awfully close,” I said, my brain so overwhelmed with his nearness that it just let my mouth blurt out whatever it wanted. “Every time I take a breast I can feel you.”

  He looked down at his chest, where it was a hair’s breadth away from mine. “Pardon?”

  “My breath,” I said, trying frantically to get my mind to work. It was a lost cause. It was too busy squealing to itself about how close he was, how I wanted desperately to touch him, and most of all, how I wanted another chance at kissing him. The kiss we’d shared in T&G had almost melted me, and I had a feeling Archer had restrained himself during it. My mouth went a little dry at the thought of repeating the kiss without an audience or restraint. “Every time I take a breath, I can feel your chest.”

  There was enough light from the moon to see that his eyes darkened, outright darkened. One minute they were pale ice with just a hint of blue, and the next, they glittered like blue topaz in the shards of moonlight that bathed us. “Who are you?” he asked in a low growl that I felt deep inside me.

  “I’m just a researcher,” I said, something nudging my awareness. Something that I wanted to talk to Archer about, although I’d be damned if I could remember what at that point.

  He leaned in, breathing in deeply, his chest rubbing on mine. I tried not to moan aloud. “This is madness.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, unable to keep from putting my hands on his arms. Beneath the shirt, his muscles felt like banded steel. “But pretty nice madness, you have to admit.”

  His breath brushed my ear, then my jaw, his hands clenched at his side. “This should not be happening. You are not a dragon. And yet, I find myself responding to you as if you were.”

  I whimpered softly when his mouth skimmed my jaw, moving over to suck my lower lip for a moment.

  I don’t know if it was the sudden life-and-death dash from peril that had my body clamoring for Archer and his touches, for his kisses, hell, for all of him, but whatever the reason, I was left with an overpowering need to touch and taste him. I knew well that I had shifted into a mental state isolated from common sense and reality, but that didn’t seem to be of any importance.

  This can’t be
happening to me, the analytical part of my mind said as I ran my hands over his chest, pulling out his shirt from where it was tucked into his pants. Not me. Not with someone as gorgeous as him. This has to be some sort of mental derangement. I’m going to end up locked in a looney bin if I let this fantasy continue…My thoughts shriveled to nothing but the purest pleasure when my hands swept across the thick muscles that ran from his breastbone down to his belly, the heat of him sending little shivers of anticipation down my back.

  “If you touch me, woman, I won’t be able to stop,” he growled into my shoulder, his mouth hot on my neck all the while his hands moved up the curve of my hips to my breasts.

  “Who wants you to stop?” I moaned, arching my back so my breasts, which had somehow gone from blobs of flesh that hung off my chest and occasionally made it hard to jog to demanding little strumpets whose focus was solely on Archer, pushed harder against his hands. I didn’t care if I was acting inappropriately; I just wanted him, despite the fact that somewhere out there an angry dragon man with pepper-sprayed eyes was probably searching for me.

  Archer consumed my thoughts, and just as if he read my mind, his mouth was there on mine, his arms moving around to pull my hips tighter against him.

  When he nipped my lower lip, asking for entrance to my mouth, I didn’t hesitate. I let him in, welcoming the taste of him and the wonderful way all the hard lines of his body fit against my curves. His hands seemed to stir little fires with the touches he trailed down my back. The night air prickled on my flesh when he pulled down the zipper of my dress, making me shiver again.

  “You are so soft, so very soft,” he murmured, pulling back his tongue where it had been bossy with mine. I’ve never found tongues to be overly romantic, but with Archer the experience was different. His tongue was just like him, pushy, arrogant, and very, very hot. I slid one leg up the side of his, pulling the rest of his shirt out of his pants and hurriedly tugging it over his head.

  “Chest,” I said on a breath, spreading my fingers across his pectoral muscles, delighting in the heat of him and the way the little hairs there tickled my fingers. I didn’t need to be able to see to know he had a genuine six-pack—the ripple of muscle moving from his chest to his stomach made my legs feel wobbly.

  “Yes, it is,” he said, sliding the straps of my dress forward, quickly dispensing with my strapless bra. If I thought my breasts felt good in his hands with clothing between us, the touch of his fingers on my bare flesh just about made me spontaneously combust. And then he dipped his head, taking one nipple in his mouth, and I arched back, my mouth open in a silent gasp while I tried to process the sensation. It felt like he was bathing my breast in fire, the heat of it almost too much to take.

  “Ah, flower, you have no idea what you do to me,” he murmured against my breastbone as he kissed a hot line over to my other breast, his breath and mouth steaming my flesh in a way that left me restless and yearning for more. So much more.

  “You almost…just a little to the left, please…oh, God, yes, right there…You almost gave me a heart attack. I thought you were Hunter. Would you do the other? It’s suddenly jealous.”

  He turned his attention to my other breast, which was indeed trying to catch his attention, giving it due consideration before moving upward again, nibbling on my shoulder, and then higher, to a spot behind my ear that made my legs buckle, literally buckle. He chuckled as he hoisted me up, pressing me into the tree, his mouth burning a brand on mine. The bark itched against my bare back, but at that moment, I didn’t care about that, or that we were out where Hunter could find us. I just wanted Archer. All of him.

  “The hunt…it makes us wild…Christus Rex, tell me you are not mortal, because I don’t think I can hold it any longer.”

  “I…I…” My mind couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought that wasn’t focused on Archer’s mouth and hands and the way I wanted us to fit together.

  His mouth was on mine again even as he pulled my legs up and around his waist, one of his hands sliding around my hips to find my underwear.

  I nipped his tongue when it got bossy with mine again, squirming against him when his fingers found sensitive flesh, dipping inside me in a way that had me groaning into his mouth. I knew what was about to happen was wrong, that I should be running from this sensual, seductive man just as hard as I had run from his brother, but as he snapped the narrow satin straps of my underwear, all I could think of was pressing myself closer to him.

  And when he surged into me with a primal growl, I flexed my hips, welcoming him with a thousand little muscles that tightened happily around him.

  “You are hotter than my fire,” he panted, his hands on my hips, holding me as he licked my neck, then kissed me again. “I don’t think I can hold it—Christus, tell me you can handle it—it will kill me if I stop.”

  “Give it to me,” I murmured, not knowing what he was asking, but so wild with the feel of him moving inside me, I wanted more. I wanted all of him. “More,” I pleaded, and bucked against him when his movements became shorter, his thrusts wild now. I tangled my hands in his hair and tugged, my body demanding everything he had to give.

  With a primal noise deep in his chest, fire swept through me, roaring through my veins, pushing the tightness inside me to the point where I thought I would simply break into a million little pieces. Flames lit my mind as they coursed through my body, making me a beacon of sexual ecstasy, and with a cry, I embraced it, welcoming the flames, reveling in the way his fire wrapped around us both, pushing me over the edge into an orgasm unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

  He bit my shoulder, his shout of completion muffled by my flesh even as he pressed hard into me, his hips flexing a few times while he found his own release.

  His breath was rough in my ear, my heart pounding almost as loud. We stood like that for a few minutes, his chest heaving against me even as I struggled to get my own breath, to make sense of what had just happened.

  Slowly, I unhooked my legs from around Archer’s hips and slid down him until I could stand.

  “Wow,” I said, panting as I looked at him, the shadows hiding all but his eyes, which were now a brilliant, glittering sapphire. “That was…that was amazing. I can see why you guys are immortal, if that’s the sort of sexy times you get up to. I don’t think I could survive many interludes like that.”

  Archer stared down at me, disbelief chasing astonishment in his eyes, followed by a sharp speculation.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, his hands still on my hips. “You are not…you cannot be mortal.”

  “I am. Um. Would you mind—thank you.” He released me when I bent to snatch up my bra, shaking it out before putting it back on, and pulling up the bodice of my dress, turning my back to him while I pulled my hair out of the way. “Zip, please?”

  “You took my fire,” he said, obliging me before tucking himself back into his pants and retrieving his shirt. “No mortal can do that. Only…”

  “Where did my underwear go?” I asked, squinting through the darkness.

  He found the pair where it was dangled from a waist-high fern and handed it to me. I made a face at the damaged undies, now unwearable, and tucked them into my purse.

  His eyes narrowed on me, his pupils elongated, like a cat’s. Suddenly he was on me again, his face buried in my cleavage, breathing in deeply.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, wanting to simultaneously push him away so I could sit somewhere quiet by myself and think about what happened and to grab his head while demanding he do it all again.

  “Learning your scent,” he murmured, moving up so that he spoke against my collarbone. “You smell…right.”

  “That’s my deodorant,” I said with a shaky laugh. “It’s supposed to be super good under times of stress, and running for my life through a forest followed by sexy dragon time evidently qualifies as that.”

  “Come,” he said, and taking my hand, turned and started off, just as if he expected me to trot along be
hind him without a word.

  Chapter Seven

  “HEY!” I SAID, TRYING TO PULL MY HAND BACK FROM where Archer held it in a steely grip.

  My body was still humming with the aftereffects of our sexual encounter, leaving me with an overwhelming desire to curl up and purr.

  Archer tightened his fingers and gave me a little tug forward, not saying anything.

  “Look, I didn’t like it when your brother tossed me in his car without bothering to ask if I wanted to go or not, and I don’t like it when you use the same high-handed tactics. Although what we just did against the tree…hoo! Yeah, that was very much all right.”

  He wound around trees and rocks much more successfully than me, still saying nothing.

  “How did you find me out here? And how did you make your voice sound like you were in front of me when you were standing behind me?”

  “I’m a dragon,” he said finally, a steady pressure urging me ever forward. “When I saw the shadow dragons searching the side of the road, I knew you must have escaped.” He paused and pulled me up for a hot, fast kiss that melted my resistance. “You are more resourceful than I gave you credit for. I am pleased that my mate would take appropriate actions to get away from the shadow dragons.”

  “I never go anywhere without my pepper spray,” I said, giving up and allowing him to lead me through the forest. The nightmare scene of painful shin-breakers and frightening shadows had faded once he had found me and was now a distant memory. I could still taste Archer, the memory of his mouth on my breasts leaving them heavy and wanting. Hidden parts of me were lying back exhausted, panting dramatically while already making plans for a repeat performance.

  Archer stirred more than just sexual appreciation, I decided while following him through the woods. Hunter made me nervous, but Archer made me feel…I shook my head at the word that came to mind. Safe. How could I feel safe with him, a man I’d just met, a man who wasn’t even really a human being?