by Zoe Chant
Darius opened and closed his mouth. He seemed completely lost for words. Finally he got out, "You cannot refuse."
"I'm sorry, it's a tempting offer and this place is amazing, but let's maybe slow down a notch on the 'together forever' part, okay?"
"No one ever says no to me."
"Well, that's an issue you need to work out on your own time—"
"You are my mate. You have no choice!"
Loretta crossed her arms over her towel, phone and all. "Okay, that? That right there? Problem, buddy. Big problem. And I can't deal with it while I'm wearing nothing but a towel and just getting over the fright of my life. I am going to take a shower. Why don't you spend that time thinking about maybe using a better pickup line than 'you can't refuse me because we're meant to be together.'"
"But," Darius said. She had to get away from him, because she was going to start feeling sorry for him in a minute. He really looked upset.
"We'll talk about this when I'm out of the shower!" she declared firmly, and marched into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Sometimes you just had to be firm. With other people, and with herself as well.
She didn't get into the shower right away. Instead she stood with her back against the door, getting control of herself. She wasn't even sure what she was feeling at the moment; her emotions spun like a tilt-a-whirl. There was one part of her that just wanted him to open the door, march into the bathroom, and take her in his arms towel and all—
Instead she heard the door of the suite close.
"Darius!" She flung open the bathroom door and stomped across the suite—as much as she could stomp in bare feet on deep plush carpet. She half expected the door to be locked, but it opened easily. Outside was a hallway with a high, arched ceiling and a marble floor. Darius was nowhere in sight.
Loretta blew out a breath and closed the door. There was a lock on the knob. She locked that and then the secret panel as he'd shown her. If anyone came in here, hot dragon billionaires or otherwise, it was going to be on her terms. Her emotions couldn't take any more of Darius tangling them up right now. Then she went into the bathroom to wash the shampoo out of her hair.
It was difficult to believe that less than an hour ago, she'd been in a low-rent apartment where the shower knobs barely worked. This one had a huge Jacuzzi-style tub with flowers around it—daffodils and daises in pots—and a fancy shower with knobs made of crystal. There were huge white bath towels, soft as clouds to the touch, and a whole row of fancy shampoos and soaps.
The water came on at a touch, perfectly warm in seconds. No waiting for hot water here! Hesitantly, she placed the phone on the edge of the sink and then slipped out from under Darius's jacket. She started to let it fall to the floor, then stopped and raised it to her face.
So sue me. She wanted to know what a billionaire smelled like.
There was a faint, spicy hint of cologne, and soap, and something musky and masculine as well. Of course he smelled as good as he looked.
She dropped the jacket and her towel on the floor and put a dirty bare foot under the caress of the water. It felt wonderful. Abandoning her hesitation, she stepped in and let the water flow over her entire body. She sniffed some shampoos, and then decided to try them all.
I don't know what the hell is happening to me, but I guess I might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
Chapter Five: Darius
Darius strode down the hallway. One look at his face was enough to let every passing servant know to get out of his way. He reached for his phone and then remembered that Loretta had it.
Loretta. What a lovely name. How it rolled off the tongue.
And right now, she probably thought as little of him as she possibly could. He pressed his fingertips against his forehead. He'd just snatched her out of her building and whisked her through the air without a by-your-leave, and the more he tried to fix it, the deeper he seemed to get; he'd seen that she was more unnerved than pleased by the opulence of the room he'd put her in. Perhaps he should have started with the servants' quarters, and worked up from there.
Thanks a lot, by the way, he thought at his dragon.
You're welcome, his dragon preened.
Unhelpful reptile.
He opened the door to his office and found Maddox already there.
"Got damage control in full swing at the apartment building, boss. We've got a few possible dragon sightings, but no camera footage."
"Good job," Darius said, glancing up at the flatscreen on the wall, which showed a relatively controlled situation at the apartment building. The building was still intact, and it looked like the firefighters were winding up hoses and preparing to leave. "How bad is the damage? Any casualties?"
"Building's gonna need heavy repairs, but it's not a total loss." Maddox glanced at a notepad by his elbow. "Looks like most of the residents got out okay. There's one tenant unaccounted for, a Loretta Somers—"
"Don't worry about it," Darius said quickly, before the conversation could run too far down that track. However, that reminded him of another Loretta-related issue. "Oh ... call down to Housekeeping and tell them that I need to have some women's clothes sent to the Daffodil Room."
"What size?" Maddox asked, taking this in stride.
Right. Size mattered a lot with women's clothes. "About the size of ... what's the name of the latest cook? Elvie? About her size, except—" He held a hand by his shoulder. "A few inches taller. And she likes yellow."
"Is there a prisoner in the Daffodil Room I should know about, boss?"
"There is a guest in the Daffodil Room, and I expect to find her well taken care of when I get back. Remember, she likes yellow."
"Yellow. Gotcha." Maddox shook his head and picked up the phone, then glanced at him. "You gonna be around?"
"I'll be back. I have an errand to run."
He jumped out the window without waiting for a response. It was faster than bothering with the door. A moment later, a dragon soared aloft over the valley in the morning sun.
***
There was only one person Darius knew who might be able to offer advice on the thorny issue of discovering that your one true fated mate was a human. It was not someone he wanted to go to for advice. But any port in a storm ...
She refused me! he thought. She cannot refuse me.
His dragon wasn't especially bothered by it, smug in its conviction that their mate simply needed time to come around. She could not refuse; she was their mate.
Darius was far less complacent about it. His main experience with humans so far was his daughter-in-law Tessa, and he had watched that tiny human woman stand in the face of a draconic assassin and channel the power of a dragon clanlord. Humans were stubborn. Especially, from what he had observed, the females.
He circled above the cabin in the woods where his son and his son's mate had made their home. It looked as if they'd been doing some work in the yard; a garden had been put in since he'd last flown over. There was no sign of anyone stirring, though it was past the point when they should have been up. Perhaps there was a problem? An enemy? Perhaps they weren't home ... which made him think, belatedly, that it might have been a good idea to call ahead.
But their car was parked under the slope of the porch roof. He swooped in, landed neatly on the lawn, and quietly mounted the porch steps. The door opened softly beneath his hand, and the inviting smell of coffee greeted him. Ah, they were just now getting up. Excellent timing.
Stepping quietly inside, he spotted his son in the cabin's small kitchen, emptying a used coffee filter into the trash. Perfect. The very person he needed to talk to. He threaded his way among chunky, comfortable-looking furniture hosting a small collection of sleeping cats to the kitchen.
"Benedict."
Ben yelped. Coffee grounds scattered across the counter.
"I need to know how to woo a human female."
Ben stared at him for a moment, blinking. He was unshaven, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, his hai
r sticking up at odd angles. "Good morning to you too, Dad," he said finally. "If you just woke up Skye, I'm turning Tessa loose on you."
Oh right. Babies tended to keep odd hours. No wonder the household wasn't awake yet. "You were quite a difficult baby yourself, as I recall."
Ben blinked at him, then turned to swipe up the spilled coffee. "I don't know how you'd know that, since you were never there. Make yourself useful and get out some mugs."
"I was there," Darius said quietly. It was a memory he hadn't thought of in years: his firstborn child in his arms, the tiny fist clutched on his sleeve. Of course, he hadn't known Ben wasn't a dragon then—it was only later that Ben had his first transformation and Darius had learned that Ben had taken after his mother, turning into a panther instead. It had really mattered to him a lot in those days, the bitter disappointment that his oldest son and heir had failed to be what Darius had wanted him to be.
Ben had been an adorable child, with big eyes and a scruffy mop of dark curls as a human child; he'd shifted into a cute fuzzy black kitten. And all Darius had been able to see was that he wasn't a dragon ...
"I was not a good father to you, was I?"
"Self-awareness in your old age, Dad? Melody and I have known that all our lives." Ben turned around from the cabin's small refrigerator with a bottle of creamer in his hand, his eyes suddenly sharp. "And you're buttering me up because you want something. What was that about wooing a human? Don't tell me you've decided to add to your ex-wife collection."
"This one's different."
"Yeah, and Esmerelda was different from Mom, as I recall—"
"This one is my mate," Darius said quietly.
Ben was silent, looking at him. The coffee perked gently in its pot. "Let me get some pants on, then we'll take this outside. I don't want to wake up Tessa and Skye."
***
The yard was quiet and beautiful. Darius could feel himself settling into the peace of this place, miles from any neighbors, with nothing in sight but a restful sprawl of trees. A simple life in the forest, with one's mate and children ...
... was not the life dragons were drawn to, he reminded himself. His kind loved wealth and luxury. They needed hoards and people to do their bidding.
Though Melody seemed happy enough, traveling about the country with her mate as an itinerant bookseller. In all honesty he'd thought she was going to get tired of that lifestyle and give it up after just a few weeks, but so far she was happier than he'd ever seen her.
But of course dragons, like humans, were different.
And some humans were very different ...
Ben came out onto the porch, still shirtless but now in jeans, with his feet shoved into a pair of mud-splattered hiking shoes and two cups of coffee in hand. He came over to join Darius at the edge of the new garden. It was still a work in progress, the ground half dug up, spindly tomato plants in cages and pea vines climbing a trellis that still gleamed with fresh wood.
Ben handed Darius a mug reading CRAZY CAT LADY? I PREFER THE TERM DEDICATED FELINE ENTHUSIAST. The coffee was made exactly as Darius preferred, with a dash of cream. It felt like a peace offering, which he wasn't sure he'd earned.
"Tessa's project," Ben said, nodding to the garden. "She likes staying busy, but she hasn't been able to do as much volunteer work since the baby came. Hence, gardening."
"A sensible plan. Your mate is a sensible woman."
"More sensible than I am," Ben said, with a crooked smile. The smile dropped away, and he gave Darius a long, solemn look. "And now you've found a mate at last. What's her name?"
"Loretta," Darius said, and despite his unhappiness, the name sang through his soul. It was a name filled with light. Like her.
"What's she like?"
"Human. Which is the problem."
"In other words, you've already scared her off."
"I certainly have not," Darius snapped. "She's having a shower at the mansion right now—"
Ben made a face. "No. No. It is much too early in the morning to talk about my father's sex life. Actually, there is no amount of sleep and caffeine that's going to make that an okay topic, so let's just not."
"We have not had sex. That is the problem."
"You heard me say no talking about your sex life, right?"
"You wooed Tessa somehow," Darius said, and he heard the desperation in his own voice. Apparently Ben did too, because his expression softened somewhat. "How? Everything I say to her seems to make her consider me less acceptable as a mate."
A parade of interesting expressions crossed Ben's face. "Yeah ... Dad ... I think that's mostly you."
"Do you mean to tell me that Tessa accepted you as her mate immediately? With not a single frown or complaint?"
"Well ... no, but there was an assassin after her at the time. There wasn't much time to think. And it helped that I shifted into a panther in front of her. She likes cats." Ben frowned. "Does your mate like dragons? Er—does she know you're a dragon?"
"She does. I transported her to my lair personally."
"And by transported, you mean ..."
"Carried her," Darius said. "In my claws."
"In your claws. Um. Took that well, did she?"
"There was some screaming along the way," Darius said uncomfortably.
Ben took a long slug of coffee, eyes closed, before he said, "Dad ... did you kidnap this woman?"
"Why do people keep asking me that?" Darius snapped. "No, I did not kidnap her. I rescued her from a flaming building!"
"And took her to your mansion."
"Where she is safe."
"Right." Ben rubbed a spot between his eyes, as if he was developing a headache. "And what does she think of all this?"
"She does not understand the realities of the situation."
"Those realities being ...?"
"She is my mate, and she is safer at my mansion than elsewhere."
"Right. So what part of that doesn't she understand?"
"All of it," Darius said. "Apparently."
"You haven't told her that she's your mate? Shouldn't that come before the carrying-off-to-the-lair part?"
"The building was on fire! There wasn't time for idle chitchat! Anyway," Darius said, "I did tell her. She appears to be confused about it."
"What'd she say?"
Darius developed a sudden interest in a row of parsley.
"Dad. You wanted my help. You gotta tell me the truth. How upset was she? Throwing things upset?"
"No, she ..."
He hesitated. Now that he was out of the situation, able to think about it calmly, it was more than his wounded pride that stung. He had scared her; he had given her no reason to think well of him. Loretta was not a woman who could be approached casually or imperiously, and he knew of no other way to talk to her. He didn't know ...
I do not know how to make her love me.
She will love us because we are her mate, his dragon declared complacently.
Mere hours ago, Darius would have thought that was all it would take, too. But he hadn't realized how complicated humans were, or how resistant to casual charms.
"She refused," he said, raising his eyes to meet his son's. "She does not understand. One cannot refuse the mate bond. And yet ... she tries."
"Dad, from what you've told me so far, you haven't actually given her any reason not to. Look, you carried her off to the mansion, and then what? Did you try just sitting her down and talking to her? Maybe asking her out on a date?"
"Wait!" Darius said hurriedly. He reached into his pocket for a notebook, gleaming in gray leather with a gold pen attached. "Dates. Yes. That's excellent. Is there any particular kind of dating experience that human women prefer?"
"Dad." Ben put his hand on Darius's arm. That stopped him in his note-taking; his son touching him was a rarity. And Ben's expression was sympathetic. "Listen ... you're not going to win her over with notes, okay? Or, for that matter, with expensive gifts and flowers, because I know that's probably the next thing yo
u're going to try. It helps, sure, but it's not the most important part. You have to find out what she likes. What kind of things she's into. What she wants out of life. You need to get to know her, and let her know you."
"I already know her. I've seen her soul. It is beautiful and fierce, a proper soul for a dragon's mate. What else do I need to know?"
"Oh, my God." Ben rubbed his temple. "Okay, so when is her birthday?"
"I fail to see what that has to do with—"
"Her favorite flavor of cake? Favorite animal? Favorite color? Foods she won't eat?"
"Do you expect me to believe that you can produce all of these facts about Tessa on a moment's notice?"
"November twelve," Ben said. "German chocolate. Cats. Blue-green. Brussels sprouts and bubble-gum-flavored ice cream. Is there anything else you want to ask me about her? Favorite band, the best Christmas present she ever got, where she wants to go on vacation, what she hopes our daughter's first words are? Yes, Dad, I know all of those things about her, because I love her, and that's what you do with people you love. At least ..." He took a breath. "That's what most people do. I bet you can't tell me any of those things for me or Melody, either."
"Your sister's birthday is March 9th," Darius said with triumph.
"Yeah? When's mine?"
It was definitely a month that started with J. "Ju ..." Darius began cautiously, on the general principle that there was at least a 66% chance he was on the right track.
"It's January 27th, Dad." Ben sounded ... weary. Just that, just an old and deep weariness that went down to the bottom of his soul and made him sound older than he really was.
Now Darius truly did feel guilty. He hadn't been a good father. And he had a very bad feeling that he wasn't getting off to much of a start at being a good mate.
"I do know one thing about Loretta," he ventured. "Her favorite color is yellow."
"Really? Well, that's a start. That's actually good. Keep that up."
The door of the cabin opened, and Tessa came out onto the porch. She was wearing sweat pants and what looked like one of Ben's T-shirts, much too big for her. A baby in footie pajamas was draped over her shoulder. And she was looking across the yard at Darius with a deeply accusing expression.
