Pia Saves the Day

  See me. Choose me.

  Instead, she let him go and stepped away.

  “Do you need more time here?” She sounded breathless.

  “No,” he snapped. He watched her recoil, and part of him wanted to rampage through the night in a rage.

  Cautiously, she peered sideways at him as she suggested, “Would you like to go back to the house?”

  Back to the house, with the silent, empty nursery for an absent child, and the beautiful, serene suite of rooms the other Dragos shared with her.

  Clenching his fists, he pressed them against his thighs. This was too volatile, even for him. He had to get in control of himself. How could he expect her to continue trusting him, if he didn’t trust himself?

  “Go on back.” His tone was too short, and he fought to soften it. “I need a few minutes alone.”

  She hesitated, her face tilted up to his like some rare flower that only emerged in moonlight, and while she tried to hide her anxiety, he could still sense it running through her slender form. “Are you sure?”

  With a sudden flash of intuition, he realized what she was worried about. He touched her face. The softness of her skin was addicting. This time, when he reached for gentleness, it came to him readily. “I’m not going to leave,” he murmured. “I only want a few minutes.”

  Her fingers curled around his, and she pressed her face into the palm of his hand. She said quietly, “Okay. I’ll see you back at the house.”

  Some predatory instinct had him gripping the delicate angle of her chin, carefully to avoid bruising that soft skin. He said into her face, “I didn’t want to stop kissing you.”

  The tiny sound of her indrawn breath brushed over his heated skin. Her heartbeat pulsed against the tips of his fingers. She whispered, “I didn’t want to pull away.”

  I’m not who you think I am.

  I am not the man you so badly want me to be.

  He didn’t say it. Instead, he brushed her soft mouth with his lips, and never mind that he really was the other Dragos—this impulse to sensual intimacy was all new. It was the first time it had ever existed in his world, and trapped in a tangle of his own devising, the dragon had no idea how to tell her that.

  Letting go of his hand, she stepped back, pivoted on her heel and walked back to the house.

  He stared at her retreating form, his muscles tightening instinctively as she disappeared underneath the shadow of the trees. Once he was truly alone, he gave in to the savage, jealous creature inside, shapeshifted back into the dragon and prowled over every inch of the construction site.

  He didn’t care what he looked at. He wasn’t searching for any kind of evidence of wrongdoing. That suspicion had been thoroughly laid to rest. The dragon simply picked through the rock and various items for something to do while the real activity happened inside his massive, convoluted mind.

  He hadn’t left the gold and jewels back up the mountain for safekeeping. He had forgotten about it, and he’d only remembered when she had brought it up.

  Which, he would have said, was rather unlike him. He never forgot about treasure. Never. Except for this time, when all of his attention had been focused on the real treasure in front of him.

  There was only one creature he’d ever heard of who could heal with her blood, a creature that had long ago disappeared into myth and legend, and yet he knew that must be her true nature. He knew it like he knew how to make the fire respond to his commands.

  Leaving the construction site, he leaped into a short flight that took him over the barrier of trees and landed in the clearing on the other side. Once grounded, he cloaked his presence in case she watched for him and prowled around the massive house.

  Look at the scene, so civilized. So pretty.

  The lights she had left on for him twinkled in the darkness.

  His tail whipped back and forth as he bared his teeth at the house. He did not fit in that civilized, pretty life. He fit out here in the night, where the moon created a world filled with shadows, and other predators knew to slink away at the first sign of his presence.

  Dragos.

  Cuelebre.

  Those were his names, and they said what he was. No more, no less, yet everywhere in that house he had seen the evidence of a civilized man, the man she had mated with, the man who might never return to her.

  The man he hated and would kill if he could. The man he did not want to be.

  But he did want to take that man’s place in those soft, serene rooms upstairs. That private place, filled with cream furniture and jewel-toned colors, and all the sensual evidence of her nesting. The perfume she wore. The scatter of feminine clothes, and shoes, and jewelry.

  Most especially, he wanted to take that man’s wife for his own.

  So he would put up with the rest of the civilized life. He would figure out the complexities in that office of his and learn to make peace with the many other creatures who seemed to be part of the total package. Tilting his head, he shapeshifted back into his human form and strode toward the house.

  A better man, perhaps the other Dragos she had fallen in love with, might warn her of what he had become.

  But he wasn’t a better man. He wasn’t a good man at all.

  And unfortunately for her, he was the one who wore her ring on his finger.

  Entering by the front door, he tracked her to the back of the house, where he found her in the kitchen, sitting at the table and eating a bowl of cereal.

  She had showered, and her damp, combed hair followed the curve of her shapely head. Her sturdy hiking clothes were gone, and she wore thin, soft-looking pajama pants along with a matching sleeveless top that was a deep, ruby red that highlighted the golden tan of her skin. She was barefoot also, he saw, her pink-painted toenails peeping from underneath the hem of her pants.

  Glancing at him self-consciously, she said, “If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of food in the fridge.”

  He was on fire with hunger, but not for food. He watched her ravenously as she spooned the last bite of her cereal into her mouth. The way her plump, naked lips slipped around her spoon as she took the last bite of food gave him an incredibly painful erection.

  Clenching, he fought for self-control. She had undergone a lot of stress, and to the best of his knowledge hadn’t eaten anything for a long time. “How about you?” the dragon asked, striving for a solicitous tone. “Is there anything else you would like to eat?”

  Her large gaze slid sideways to him, and he could tell by her guarded expression that he wasn’t acting quite right. “No, thank you. I’ve had enough.”

  As she slid out of her seat and carried her bowl and spoon to the sink, his gaze dropped to her shapely ass and thighs, the tight glide of toned muscle sliding sinuously underneath the thin material of her pants.

  Abruptly, he said, “I know what you are. I knew when you healed me.”

  Setting her bowl in the sink, she turned to face him, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. “I wasn’t really trying to hide it from you, although you should know—we hide it from everybody else.”

  He wasn’t surprised. In her Wyr form, her horn could dispel any poison. She could heal with her blood. She could only be captured by unfair means. No cage could hold her. Her life sacrificed could bestow immortality. If word got out about what kind of creature she was, she would be hunted for the rest of her life.

  He stalked across the room toward her, slowly so as not to frighten her. Cocking his head, he studied her closely. “You’re cloaking yourself somehow. I didn’t notice it before. I know how to cloak my presence, but I have never seen someone with the ability to cloak as subtly as you do.”

  While she might not have realized it consciously yet, some deep, animal part of her sensed that he had gone on the hunt, and she shifted her body restlessly as she leaned back against the kitchen counter. “My mom always said our cloaking was the most important thing we could do for ourselves. That, and knowing when to run and how to hide.”

  He would
like to see her run. Not in fear, or because she felt she was in danger—those thoughts were as distasteful to him as the scent of her tears. But the thought of chasing her down a dark forest path as she tried her best to elude him… that was a game that appealed to every hunter’s instinct he had, and his erection hardened.

  Stepping in front of her, he trapped her against the sink by putting one hand on the counter on either side of her torso. This close, he could hear how her pulse picked up and her breathing shortened. Of all the many revelations in this long struggle of the day, the fact that he could smell her arousal for him was one of the most amazing.

  The warmth from her body was a gentle heat that bathed the air against his skin. “Take the cloaking spell off,” he said, in a voice that had turned low and husky. “I want to see you for who you really are.”

  A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “You never have tolerated any barriers between us.”

  He frowned, not sure how much he liked the comparison between himself and the other Dragos, but before he could decide how to respond, that elegant, subtle cloaking spell of hers fell away.

  Pale, delicate illumination shone from her skin. He lost every other impulse and stared. The glow was so much like the moon’s silvery glow, yet it was exponentially more precious, as it was drenched with her cool, witchy magic.

  He lost himself in awe. The dragon couldn’t remember the last time he had ever felt awe. Perhaps he had felt it once at the morning of the world, in that first, bright dawn. Gently taking one of her hands, he lifted it to his mouth, marveling in the effortless symmetry of the movement in her graceful wrist and arm.

  She adapted to his action and took it for her own, as she raised her hand to cup the side of his face. That magic, the immediacy of her presence, sank into his skin and found its way into his old, wicked soul. Forgetting to breathe, he closed his eyes and soaked her in greedily.

  “What do you need now, Dragos?” she asked softly. “Do you know? Do you need space, or your own place to sleep? Or do you want to go back to the mountaintop?”

  The swiftness of his internal reaction jolted him, an immediate whiplash of denial at the thought of taking his own space, but when she mentioned going back to the mountaintop, he had to pause.

  He couldn’t deny it. He was tempted. The stone of the ledge would still be radiating heat from the day’s sun, and the gigantic canopy of the night sky would arc overhead, stars gleaming like diamonds. The wildness and solitude of the place called him, and he knew she would come with him if he asked.

  Yet, while he wanted to return at some point to collect the small pile of treasure—his gifts—going back there now would not be conquering the alien landscape of this place, and that was what he was most determined to do. He needed to invade that private place upstairs, the nest she had shared with the other Dragos, and to claim it for his own.

  He needed to claim her in that space.

  Holding her gaze, he said deliberately, “I need to take you to bed.”

  The sense of her arousal deepened, and the light that came into her face in that moment had nothing to do with her own magic, and everything to do with the magic they were creating between them. She whispered, “I’m glad.”

  Keeping hold of her hand, he turned and they walked through the silent house together.

  Chapter Eight

  Pia didn’t know what to think of Dragos’s deliberate, sensual approach, or the way they journeyed upstairs hand in hand.

  It should have felt like a sedate pace. It didn’t. It felt like a slow burn that crawled underneath her skin and set her on fire.

  As they passed Peanut’s nursery, he glanced at the closed door, and the expression in his eyes turned moody. “I need to see him too,” he said. “But not yet. First, I need to be more settled in myself.”

  After a pause to think it over, she replied, “That’s an excellent idea. The accident was only yesterday afternoon—it’s been barely over a day. Much as I miss him, he’s surrounded by people who love him, and I know they’re doing a wonderful job looking after him. It’s okay to take a few days, maybe even a week.” She looked up at him. “The most important thing right now is to make sure you get what you need.”

  He opened the door to their suite, set a flattened hand at the small of her back and ushered her inside. Biting a nail, she watched him explore the rooms, discovering for himself where everything was. Silently, he disappeared into his walk-in closet for a few moments, then he strode into the bathroom. A moment later, she heard the sound of water running.

  If the situation had been normal, he would never have let go of her hand. She would have gone with him and offered him comfort and sex. They would have shared healing intimacy in that shower. They had certainly done so several times before.

  Now everything was so strange. He advanced on her and made no secret of his sensual interest, and yet he had barriers that remained in some deep, fundamental way. It confused her and made her question her own instincts.

  He acted like Dragos, but he didn’t act like her Dragos.

  Eyes filling with tears, she went to the balcony doors, opened them wide and stepped outside for some fresh air. He didn’t know about the healing, intimate times they had shared in the shower together, and she didn’t feel confident enough to go into the bathroom to join him, even though she wanted to. She didn’t know how to act, and she was afraid of doing something wrong, something that might send him away.

  She didn’t hear him step out onto the balcony. Not only was he fast and light on his feet, but he was also extraordinarily quiet when he chose to be.

  Something else alerted her, a huge, fierce Power brushing against her senses.

  Wiping her face, she kept her gaze fixed firmly on the shadowed mountain range in the distance.

  “You could leave, you know,” she said. “Be free, start a completely new life. You have an out like nobody has ever had in the history of Wyr mating.”

  Also, just because they had mated, that didn’t mean they had to live together. Several different species of Wyr chose not to live with their mates. Solitary by nature, they kept their lives separate and came together only when they needed.

  She didn’t want to live that way. She couldn’t imagine adapting to that after the wealth of what they had shared, but you never knew what you could live with once you didn’t have any choice. If that was what it took to keep him in her life, she would do it.

  His hands clamped down on her shoulders, and he spun her around.

  He was naked, his inky black hair and dark bronze skin still damp. His clean, male scent wafted over her. She got only a blurred impression of his muscled body before he jerked her toward him, bending over her upturned face.

  His expression had turned murderous, and the gold in his eyes glowed bright and hot.

  “Fuck that,” he hissed.

  Aw, he said the sweetest things to her.

  Patting his hair-sprinkled chest, she said unsteadily, “I didn’t say you should, or even that I wanted you to. I said you could. I only meant to point out this situation is really bizarre.”

  He thrust that deadly face into hers, growling, “I keep what is mine. I don’t leave it. I don’t lose it, not ever, and I go after anyone who tries to take it from me.”

  She knew that quite well, which was one of the major reasons she had chosen not to tell him that she had once stolen from him. That, in fact, him chasing after her had been how they had first met.

  Being that it was another one of those complicated concepts and all, and best appreciated in context.

  She should say something to lighten the mood. She should reach for the gentle, pragmatic way with which she had responded to his traumatized reaction at the site of the accident.

  But her pragmatic side was worn out. It had gotten its ass kicked over the last two days. All of a sudden, she didn’t have any more coping ability left, and even though she tried to stop the tears from coming, her damn eyes sprang a leak.

 
Her voice wobbled, and her mouth shook. “That’s just it—you don’t have any of those memories anymore that make me yours.”

  If anything, he looked even more furious. “What happened to ‘I’m in your bones’?”

  “Well, I want it to be true, but I don’t know that it is, do I? And I’m t-tired.”

  “Stop that,” he demanded. “Stop.”

  He cupped her face. Despite the roughness of his tone, his hands were infinitely gentle as he wiped the paths of her tears with both thumbs.

  Belatedly she realized he was ordering her to stop crying, and a hiccup of laughter broke out of her. It quickly twisted into something else.

  “I thought you were dead,” she sobbed. “I stood in front of that horrible pile of rock and thought you were dead, and all I wanted to do was crawl under that pile to join you.”

  His hard features turned stricken. The world tilted as he scooped her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  He laid her on the bed and came down over her, pinning her with his heavy body. She craved his weight. Gripping the back of his head, she dug her fingers through his silky black hair, holding on to him tightly.

  His mouth came down on hers, stopping her uncontrolled flood of words.

  Hardened lips slanted over hers, and his tongue plunged into her mouth. There was no finesse, no coaxing. This was a taking, and she reached for it with all of her greedy heart, kissing him back with everything she had inside of her. All the love, all the desire.

  Bunching his fists in the bedspread on either side of her head, he thrust a heavy, muscled thigh between hers. The hard weight of his erection lay against her pelvis, and she reached for it, caressing the broad, velvet head with one shaking hand.

  He hissed into her mouth, and his hips pushed against hers rhythmically.

  She pushed back, matching his rhythm. Pulling his mouth from hers, he rose onto his knees and shredded the clothes from her body.

  When she was completely naked, he froze. The quality of his stillness made her pause, and she searched his expression.

  He was staring at her.