He was in front of Thaisa before she could do more than storm off a few feet, her friend in tow. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Not following you around after fucking you a few times, that’s for sure,” she snarled in the old language, the one used by early dragons.
Surprise chased chagrin as he took her by the arm, spinning her around to face him. Her eyes were angry, but worse, shiny with tears. “You understood?”
“Very much so,” she answered in Magyar at the same time Miles got to his feet, his hand bloody where he held it to his nose. She switched to East Slavic to add, “I speak eight different variations of archaic Western, Middle, and Eastern European languages, as well as four extant ones.”
Archer couldn’t stop from shaking his head, laughing as he did so. “I might have known you would understand such archaic languages. Come, my fiery flower, you have made your point. No, do not try to prick me with your verbal thorns. We are not safe here, and I can almost feel my brother’s tribe breathing down my neck.”
“What the hell?” Miles asked nasally, stopping before them to glare at Thaisa. “I didn’t deserve that!”
Fire whipped through Archer at the look his cousin was giving Thaisa, fire and an unreasonable urge to add more injury to Miles’s nose. “Apologize to her,” he ordered, taking Thaisa’s hand in his, twining his fingers through hers so that he could rub her fingers with his thumb.
Miles stopped feeling his nose, a smear of blood visible underneath it. “The hell I will! I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“She speaks the old languages,” he said in Proto-Balto-Slavic. “My phone was on speaker when I talked to you.”
Miles’s gaze swiveled to Thaisa. “Shit.”
“Why, yes, that is my exact impression of you,” Thaisa said in a voice that fairly dripped with honey. Archer didn’t blame her for being angry, but this was not the place to placate her ruffled petals.
Miles muttered an apology while Archer led Thaisa to the passenger seat, ignoring his cousin’s glare as he did so.
A frosty silence settled over the car when he headed south, to his home. He slid Thaisa occasional glances, but she sat with her arms crossed, staring pointedly out the side window, not saying a word, not even acknowledging his existence. He wanted to apologize for what his cousin had said but decided that was better left for a private moment.
His back still hurt like it had been raked by lion’s claws, but the pain was beginning to ease, indicating the healing process innate to all dragons was working. He wondered if perhaps a little twinge or moan of pain might not exact some sympathy from Thaisa but decided he was above such pathetic manipulation.
If only she’d stop ignoring him. He didn’t like that at all, especially when he was blameless. At least where Miles’s rude comments were concerned. He dwelt instead on the memory of her responsiveness in the forest, when she had tantalized him, initiating a chase guaranteed to drive his control to the edge even though he now knew she was ignorant of such things.
He thought of telling her just how much he enjoyed her heat, the way her breasts heaved against him, of the lure of her mouth, and how the moment when she embraced his fire had driven him past all that could be borne.
No, he’d wait for a private moment to tell her those things, too.
Dammit. Why was she punishing him by pretending he wasn’t there, sitting right next to her, obviously waiting for her to tell him the most outrageous things that came to her mind. He wanted to hear her growl at herself. He wanted to answer the many hundreds of questions she evidently stored up, but most of all, he wanted to see his dragon fire reflected in her sated, passionate eyes.
“I don’t see why you have to cater to the woman,” Miles said a half hour later from where he sat in the back seat. He was speaking in Zilant, a language used exclusively by dragonkin centuries ago, before English became the standard language of communication. “Just because she overheard a few things. At least she can’t understand this.”
Archer began to see why so few ouroboros dragons were mated. It wasn’t that due to their mixed genetic backgrounds there were simply no compatible males or females; it was because mates had to be the most exasperating, confusing, and downright irrational beings on the planet.
Thaisa continued to ignore Archer despite his many encouraging glances her way.
“Hey, that’s Zilant, isn’t it?” Bree asked. She nudged Miles. “I’ve heard about it, but never actually heard it, if you know what I mean.”
Miles shot her an outraged look before saying—still in Zilant—to Archer, “Is no language safe with these two?”
Archer slid yet another look at Thaisa, who still seemed annoyed. He didn’t blame her for being insulted, but she was his mate. She had to know he would have words with Miles later about the proper way to speak to and about her.
He reached for one of the hands that was so tightly tucked across her chest, but she merely shot him a fulminating glare and twisted so that her back was toward him.
“I don’t know,” Bree told Miles with a grin. “Is there?”
Miles glared at her. “I knew it! Archer! Did you hear that?”
Why hadn’t Thaisa told him that she was a scholar earlier? He toyed with the idea that she had led him along deliberately, playing him until he couldn’t resist her neck and her hips and the way her breasts pressed into his chest, and all that silky skin that beckoned him, making him hard just thinking about filling her with dragon fire—and himself—but after a few minutes mulling that over, he dismissed the idea. Thaisa wasn’t devious. She might be irrational, she might have a delightful quirky nature that she didn’t seem to appreciate, but her eyes were never shadowed with deception, and her countenance was as open and sunny as her personality.
She was going to make his life a living hell.
“How did you learn to speak Zilant?” Miles demanded to know of Bree in that language. “You’re not a dragon. Only dragonkin are allowed to speak it. I insist that you stop this instant.”
Archer’s vision for the future never included a mate. He had spent his life alone, on the fringes, never belonging, never bonding with anyone, not until he found Miles and decided to form a tribe. And now here was this woman, this mate who drove him to distraction with her wonderfully different eyes and the warmth that seemed to wrap around him like his fire.
“Dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bree told the now irate Miles. “Chill!”
“You didn’t understand me?” Miles asked suspiciously, still in Zilant.
“Of course not,” she said, flashing Archer an impish grin before pulling out her phone.
Miles sat back, looking smugly pleased.
Christus Rex, he would not allow his mate to wrap him around her little finger! If she wanted to sulk, so be it. He was master of the tribe, master of her, and if she thought she could get around him with a few hurt feelings and tears, she could think again.
“Why did you decide to specialize in medieval history?” someone asked Thaisa. He was surprised to find the words came from his mouth.
She turned back to look at him, sniffed as if she wasn’t going to answer him, but suddenly unbent, sighing before she turned around to sit properly in the seat. “I thought it was interesting. You must feel the same way if you bought the leaf.”
“Wait a minute,” Miles said in English, suspicion dawning on his face. He frowned at Bree. “Wait just one minute. When I asked you if you understood me, you said you didn’t.”
“That’s right,” Bree said.
“Ah. Yes. There is a reason I bought the leaf. Mostly because Miles had a theory about it.” He let her see how pleased he was that she had stopped ignoring him and tried to take her hand again. She pulled it out of his grasp. “It has to do with an old fable.”
“The Raisa Medallion? Your brother told me about that, although not why you guys are so interested in it. It’s just a story, right?”
Warmth blossomed on his thigh as Thai
sa placed her hand on his leg in a possessive move. Instantly, blood rushed to his penis, ensuring that he would spend the rest of the drive home feeling as if his trousers were two sizes too small.
“The medallion is supposed to be the one my parents divided between my brother and me.”
“God’s shiny pink butt! That was about you? The story that your brother told?”
“It is a fable only. There is no truth to it other than my parents abandoned us.”
“No wonder you don’t want to give back the leaf.” Her hand was warm on this thigh. Very warm. His fire, usually smoldering quietly inside him, roared to life at the touch. He flicked the air-conditioning to a level higher.
Her fingernails were on fire again.
“What did you mean by it?” Miles asked Bree.
Thaisa looked at her hand, her eyebrows arched. Archer’s body interpreted the look she gave her hand—located so near his genitals—as an outright act of sensual teasing, and accordingly, he hardened even more.
Dammit, now his trousers were three sizes too small. If she kept touching him like that, he wouldn’t be able to walk at all.
“What did I mean by what?” Bree murmured, the tinny sound of a mobile game coming from her phone.
Archer lifted Thaisa’s hand and placed her index fingertip inside his mouth, extinguishing the little dollop of fire.
She gasped, heat shimmering in her eyes. His heat.
He repeated the process with another finger, swirling his tongue around it.
She moaned softly to herself.
“What did you mean by saying you didn’t understand me, when you had to do just that in order to know what I asked?”
“Are you on crack, like, right this very moment?” Bree asked, giving Miles a look that said he was being unreasonable. “Have you eaten some funny mushrooms? Some hemp-flavored noms?”
Archer repeated the process with Thaisa’s next two fingers, thinking seriously about unzipping his fly so as not to injure himself while his trousers continued to shrink.
Thaisa quivered.
“I am not the crazy one here!” Miles said, his hair standing on end like he’d been running his hands through it.
Archer, with a sidelong look at Thaisa, took her final finger into his mouth, the dragon fire on it absorbing into him. He gently bit the pad of her finger. She clutched the car door with her free hand, her eyes huge and misty with desire.
Desire for him. He released her finger and smiled.
She reclaimed her hand and slumped back on the seat, giving odd little twitches.
His penis attained a hardness equivalent to marble. Or titanium. He could probably use it to crush rock.
“That’s it. I’m done talking to you,” Miles said, and turned away from Bree, leaning against the side of the car, closing his eyes in an obvious signal he was going to sleep.
“Quitter,” she said in Zilant.
Miles hissed something rude.
“What…” Thaisa cleared her throat. “What were we talking about?”
Archer had to think for a few minutes. “Your desire to translate ancient medieval texts.”
“That’s right.” She pounced on the subject, her breath a bit ragged.
He smiled. She might tell herself she wasn’t his mate, but it was obvious she was halfway to being in love with him already. As his mate, it was right and proper that she should love him, whereas he, the master of the tribe, would show her respect and a reasonable amount of affection, but nothing too consuming. He cared for all the members of his tribe, so really, it would be no extra trouble to ensure she was happy and free from cares, and in return, she would love him with all the passion he saw growing every time he looked into those lovely, mysterious eyes.
He shifted in the seat again, making a mental note to have a tailor attend to the lack of room in his trousers.
“Wait, I thought you said you were taking me home?” Thaisa said when he pulled off the highway and took the turn that led to the coast, and his home. “Ross is another seven miles to the south.”
“We are going to my home, not yours.”
“Really? First your brother kidnaps Bree and me, and now you do exactly the same thing?” She punched him in the leg, right where she had previously placed her hand.
His erection strained his fly.
“What is with you dragons?” she continued to rail, her color high. “Dammit, don’t make me pepper spray your pretty eyes!”
“I am not kidnapping you. I am simply taking you to my house because I didn’t think you’d care to be alone in your apartment above the shop. The address of which, I need not point out, my brother must know if he contacted you.”
“Oh.” She thought about that for a moment. “I didn’t think of that, but that’s a good point. Although you could have asked me first. I could stay at a hotel. Or with a friend. And what about Bree?”
“You would be in great danger by yourself,” he said simply. “You may not like the fact that I did not ask for your opinion, but it is your safety as well as others’ I am thinking of. That includes Bree, since my brother knows she is with you, and thus he might use her to force you to come to heel. Who is Gran?”
“Your brother said almost the same thing about my safety, although I will admit I believe you a whole lot more than I do him…Hmm? Gran is my grandmother. Why?”
“You said she was the only person you needed in your life. Does she live with you? We will detour to pick her up if so.”
She gazed at him with astonishment. “You’d…you’d fetch Gran to keep her safe?”
“Of course. You are my mate. She is your relative. My protection extends to her as well.”
“I…” She seemed to have a hard time speaking for a few seconds. “I’m…Archer, I think that’s just about the nicest thing anyone has said to me. But you don’t have to get back on the highway—Gran lives in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. They have locks on all the doors and only let in people who have relatives there, so she’s quite safe.” She stopped suddenly, her face troubled. “For the most part. Archer, we really need to talk.”
“I agree,” he said, pausing at the gate that protected his home from intruders and punching in the access code. A clutch of palms provided a privacy screen, but as he drove along the curved drive to his house on the beach, he heard Thaisa’s intake of breath.
He stopped outside the garage so that she could get the full impact of the house, pleased that she liked it.
“Holy hand grenades,” she said, getting out of the car, her eyes huge while she took in the white stone house that sat two stories high, floodlights scattered along the pathways and foundation softening the clean, sharp lines. The air was still warm with the heat of the day, but the breeze that rolled in from the water brought with it the salty tang that Archer loved. “That’s where you live? That’s…wow. Just wow.”
“I designed it,” he said, enjoying the way her pleasure shone on her face. “This side isn’t as nice as the one that faces the ocean. I will show it to you in the morning. You will enjoy it.”
“I’m sure I will. I’ve never known anyone who had a beach house,” she said, absently taking the hand he held out for her.
It flitted through his brain that he’d never been one to enjoy touching a woman outside of the sexual act, but there was something about Thaisa that had him rethinking that policy. He liked the way she curled her fingers around his, how she bumped his hand when she wanted him to touch her but was too shy to initiate the contact. It made him feel…He shook that thought away. He felt respect for her, as was proper with a mate, and that was enough. “Miles, cease pretending to be asleep. I want a security detail on the perimeter in the next ten minutes. Send out a warning to the tribe that the shadow dragons may strike them in an attempt to hurt me. The grounds and house will be locked down immediately.”
“Pretty!” Bree said, getting out of the car and taking a picture with her phone. She stretched and yawned. “Gotta go, though. Abdul has to b
e at work early, so I can’t stay for the house tour.”
“Abdul?” Thaisa looked over her shoulder as Archer led her to the entrance. “I thought your boyfriend was Ramon? And what about San?”
“I have lots of boyfriends.” She giggled.
“It’s not safe for you. You will stay here so you cannot be used in order to get to Thaisa,” Archer said to Bree.
“Really?” She tipped her head and looked at him, a light in her eyes that he thought at first was mocking but quickly realized was amusement. “You think they’re going to hurt me?”
He opened his mouth to say he disliked having to repeat himself, but reconsidered. “Even sprites can be hurt,” was what he finally said.
“So they can, but I am not a sprite,” she answered, glancing back at the road where a small minivan pulled up and tooted a weak horn. “Not anymore, anyway. Laters, taters!”
“Wait, Bree!” Thaisa started to go after her when she ran up the driveway. Trajan, one of the tribe members who worked for him taking care of all things mechanical, emerged from the guesthouse that sat back from the gate and sent a questioning glance toward Archer. “It’s really not a good idea for you to go scampering around out in the public. Not if Hunter is a demon in man clothes! You should stay here with us.”
Archer nodded at Trajan, who pressed the button that opened the gate. Bree jogged through it, pausing at the top of the drive to turn and wave at them. “I’ll be fine. Call when you want help controlling your demon,” she yelled at Thaisa, waving her phone in the air before jumping into the van.
“What the…my demon? You mean Naamah?” Thaisa frowned and would clearly have gone after Bree if Archer hadn’t put his arm around her, steering her into the house. “Sometimes I think she says the most outrageous things possible just to get a rise out of me.”
“That is possible,” he said, his attention divided between her and the measures he must put into place. If word had gotten out about the manuscript being in his possession, then he had to ensure the safety of his tribe against the attack that was sure to come. “I’ve found that most members of the Court of Divine Blood have an impish quality about them. This is the living room. That is the dining room. Normally the doors would be open, but for safety’s sake, we will leave them closed.”
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