Dragonbane

  As a precaution to keep humans from accidentally discovering their supernatural breed and freaking out, the Peltier bear family had the entire building shielded. Anyone coming here by way of magick was confined to do so on the third floor only, where a shapeshifting bouncer was always posted.

  Tonight, Serre Peltier had pulled that duty. As blond as his brothers and sister, he was a slightly smaller version of the quads, which meant he was still bigger than most creatures. But even so, it hadn't kept him from getting his ass kicked by the Arcadian newcomers who beat him down in front of their group.

  So much for abiding by the eirini, or so-called peace laws, that Savitar and the Omegrion had set down for their species to follow.

  Blond and built for murder, the leader of the small group of women grabbed Serre by his short hair and wrenched his head up to show his battered face to their group. She held an old-fashioned Greek kopis to his throat. "Who owns this place?"

  When Aimee started forward, Max, her brothers, and her husband cut her off to protect her and the unborn babies she carried. It was obvious this preter group was here for war and not to make peace or truce.

  Fang moved to meet the warrior bitch face-to-face while Max covered Aimee. "That's my brother you hold. I suggest you release him or lose your head."

  She raked a scathing glare down Fang's body. "I am Drakaina Arcadia and we don't deal with inferior species. Stand aside, animal."

  Sam stepped to Fang's side. Gloved hands on hips, she met the women with the open hostility of someone ready to battle. "And I am Samia, Basilinna of the Thurian Riders, granddaughter of Hippolyte--who was the daughter of Ares. Declare yourself."

  "Nala, Basilinna of the Drakaina, most favored of Ares, Artemis, and Athena."

  Samia scoffed. "Color me unimpressed. Now release my most beloved brother or suffer my full wrath and battle-tested blade."

  Nala tightened her grip on his hair. The pain of it must have been severe, since a moment later, Serre involuntarily shifted into his native bear form. Something that only happened when the Katagaria were in severe pain or suffered an electrical shock.

  Sam manifested her staff. The men moved forward to engage their group as Aimee shot past him to cover Serre.

  "Wait!"

  All eyes went to the stairs and for a full minute, Max stood completely motionless as the mark on his hand heated and burned in response to her appearance. Every part of his body came alive in a way it hadn't for more centuries than he could recall.

  The dragon inside salivated and it was devouring the human in him so fast, he could barely hold his form.

  He struggled to breathe. If he broke dragon right now, he'd take out half the bar. He was far too large in his native body to shift here and now.

  But it wasn't easy to remain human....

  Not when the beast inside him was stirred to this level. Not when it wanted blood.

  Her blood.

  Like a grand queen wrapped in a mantle of red, brown, and gold feathers, a lush, full-figured, Titian-haired beauty descended the stairs. Her red helm fell over her face to form a sharp beak that shaded her eyes.

  But he knew their color. Searing, haunting green that was salted with gold. Filled with bold intelligence. They had a way of looking at him with ball-shriveling scorn.

  Seraphina of the Drakaina-Scythian Riders. Voluptuous. Passionate.

  How he hated every breath she drew.

  The Amazons parted to make way for her to pass through them, to reach their queen. To the baretos humans, her armor would appear as painted, scaled bronze. Yet it wasn't. Those were the tanned and preserved scales of Katagaria dragons she'd slain, and marked her as one of the most vicious dragonslayers of her tribe.

  Her queen's champion rider.

  Seraphina struck her chest in salute and lowered her head. "Forgive my interruption, Basilinna, but perhaps I can be of assistance?"

  Nala hesitated. "Is he here?"

  "No, my basilinna. I fear your informant lied to you. I would know if my mate were here."

  Nala cursed and kicked Serre in the ribs. With a flick of her vibrant red cloak, she faced Seraphina. "I'm going to gut that demon." And with that, she led her warriors back upstairs.

  Seraphina stayed behind as they left. It was all kinds of stupid to lie to her queen. She knew that and yet ...

  She swept her gaze over the gathered men. The raven-haired one was definitely not the Drakos she sought. By his fetid stench, she knew him to be wolfborn Katagari. The rest were all blonds. All exceptionally handsome and well built. Two were twins. They couldn't be her Maxis. They, like the one wheezing as he turned human again and pushed himself to his feet, were bears.

  That only left the one.

  Like the others, he wore strange clothing--not that of a warrior or traditional Drakos. His dark blond hair was cropped very short, but as their eyes met, she recognized those perfectly chiseled masculine features. That strong, rigid, and unyielding jaw. That look of fiery defiance that pierced her with its proud arrogance. A pride that had always dared her against their traditions and culture.

  Her hand heated up with that familiar burn. Something that only happened when two mates were brought together again after a long separation.

  Determined, she headed toward him, only to have her path blocked by the other Amazon in the room.

  Samia gestured toward the stairs. "You need to leave with your tribe."

  Seraphina shook her head. "You have something that belongs to me."

  Samia stood fast and solid. "There's nothing here for you."

  "Oh yes, there is." She held her hand up for Samia to see the dragon mark on her palm. "I'm here for my mate."

  2

  Max cursed while those words cut through the immediate and echoing silence of the room. All attention went straight to him as jaws dropped in comical unison.

  Before Max could think to leave, Dev took his hand in his own and checked to see the matching mark. Tsking, he shook his head in chiding condescension. "Maxy! You got some 'splaining to do!"

  He shoved at Dev over his bad Ricky Ricardo impression. Dev laughed it off good-naturedly. Nothing ever really fazed that huge bastard.

  Aimee stepped away from where she'd been checking on Serre's busted nose and bleeding lip. "Is this true, Max? Are you really mated to ... her?" By the way she hesitated, it was obvious she had to struggle to use a more polite term.

  Releasing a tired sigh, Max nodded slowly. "Yes, the gods hate my guts. And they have a sick sense of humor." Hence the living proof before them.

  They'd mated him to her.

  A natural-born dragon to an Arcadian-born dragonslayer.

  Cherif snorted. "Well that explains the mystery about your lack of interest in women all these years. We just assumed you were gay."

  Max passed him a droll, irritated smirk.

  Actually, he'd have much rather been gay than forced to his involuntary celibacy. The worst curse of their species was that mated males were physically incapable of sleeping with anyone other than their mated females. Once the Fates assigned them a partner, they could take no other so long as that mate lived. The ultimate pair-bond.

  On the day he'd walked away from his wife, he'd known exactly what he was giving up. The steep price he'd be paying for his freedom and sanity ... which said it all about the utter travesty and hell of their marriage.

  Making sure to keep his expression blank, he crossed his arms over his chest. "What are you doing here, Sera?"

  "We need to talk.... Alone."

  Yeah, right. I went to war to train for my marriage.... Alone for the two of them had never worked out all that well for either party.

  Unless they were naked and she was in heat.

  Unfortunately, that only happened twice a year, and he could tell by her pissed-off stance he wasn't getting lucky tonight.

  Unless she happened to gut him. That might be construed as a step up for his current celibate situation.

  Max shook his head. "I said ev
erything I had to say to you a long time ago."

  "Things have changed."

  "I haven't, and I seriously doubt you have. Hell, you're even wearing the same clothes you had on the last time I saw you. And that's been what? Three thousand years? Give or take?"

  She glared at him.

  He laughed bitterly. "And there's that ball-shriveling glare of hatred I remember so well. Point taken. It's all the same. Now there's the stairs." He started for the door that led to the kitchen.

  Seraphina teleported across the room to catch his arm and keep him in place. Those golden-green eyes enchanted him and weakened his will more than he wanted to cop to. "No, Maxis. It's very different. Please. I must speak with you."

  He arched a brow at that. "Wow, that is a new word for you. I had no idea it was even in your vocabulary." In the past, she'd always treated him like a brainless animal to be ordered about. One she had to train not to piss on her rug or chew her furniture.

  A little more curious about whatever had brought her to this time period, he glanced to Fang. "If I'm dead by dawn's light, wolf, hunt her down and tear her throat out."

  "I don't think I want to know what kind of kinky sex dragons have if they come with that kind of warning. So glad I'm a bear mated to a beautiful woman."

  Max ignored Dev's dry comment. He also knew better than to take Seraphina near his younger brother, who was currently sleeping in Max's attic apartment ... in full dragon form. The last thing he'd ever do was bring more harm to Illarion. His little brother had been through enough.

  His job was to protect his family.

  Even against his own mate. And having been mated to her and forced to live with her breed, he knew exactly what dragonslayers did to dragons. What they thought of them. Her armor paid a gory tribute to what her people thought of his kind.

  They were better off dead and their remains used solely as decoration, or ingredients for their candles and beauty ointments.

  So instead, he teleported her to the special room on the second floor that Dev and his brothers had built for their more unruly clientele. Completely soundproof, it would give them total privacy. It was also shielded to keep her from using magick against him. Given what she'd done to him the last time he'd made the mistake of being alone with her, it was an appropriate precaution, too.

  He waited until she was inside before he turned the light on and shut the door to the small, spartan room.

  What he didn't count on was the involuntary reaction of his hormones to her close proximity. The sweet rose scent of her skin made his blood burn and his mouth water. Before he could stop himself, he began circling her as she stood in the center of the room, under the light that reflected off her armor and tawny skin like a majestic halo.

  Damn it to Hades. He'd forgotten just how beautiful his mate could be when she wasn't trying to kill him and mount his hide to her tent wall. She had that lush, full body that was made for countless hours of marathon sex. And a heated Amazon passion that any male would kill to taste.

  Worse? All the memories of the hours they'd spent together when they weren't fighting, and insulting each other, and their heritage came flooding back to him. The hours of the two of them sequestered in her tent, laughing and teasing.

  Curse his mind and its inability to forget....

  Seraphina tried to focus on why she was here. Why she was so desperate to speak to her enemy. But Maxis wasn't making this easy on her. How could she have ever buried the memory of how incredibly handsome and sensual Maxis was? How much his presence affected her?

  How fierce and lethal. Compelling. Seductive. Forbidden. Overwhelmingly masculine and primal, he possessed a raw Drakos magnetism that was impossible for any female to resist. Even small girls had been reduced to unintelligible fits of giggles in his presence.

  Worse, he had his head bent low and was circling her like prey he wanted to devour. And it was making her breathless and hot against her will.

  She scowled at him. "Could you stop that?"

  "Stop what?" His rumbling deep baritone was challenging. No one had an accent like he did. Words rolled off his tongue like poetry.

  Refusing to let him beguile her, she answered his challenge with the same amount of ferocity. "You know what you're doing."

  A sexy, insidious grin spread over his lips. "Is it bothering you?"

  Yes. Of course it was. It was what all Drakos males did to spread their irresistible pheromones and intoxicate any female they hungered for. That fierce predator's lope was every bit as mesmerizing, and he knew that, too. No creature born had ever held a seductive lure akin to that of a full-grown dragon male. It was part of what made them so incredibly dangerous. "I need to talk to you."

  He approached her then. Pressing the front of his muscular body against her back, he lowered his head to lay his cheek against hers. Those prickly whiskers teased her flesh as he began the slow, rhythmic Drakos swaying that was its own form of foreplay. She could feel every single muscle in his body taut and ripped as it wrapped around her and held her against him.

  Oh dear gods ...

  How did they do this? Was it something dragons were born with or did they take them aside as young males and teach them? Her entire body came alive as if she were in the heat of battle. Or lying naked in his bed. It was so intense that she couldn't even protest when he removed her helm and dropped it to the floor. Or when he freed her hair to fall around her shoulders. All she could do was lean back against him and surrender her weight to his hypnotic, primal dance.

  Breathless, she felt his hardness against her hip as he encircled her waist with his arm and dipped his head to brush his lips against her neck. Her throat went dry and every part of her ached to feel his hands on her body. "I have needs too, Sera."

  Closing her eyes, she trembled and hated the part of her that responded instinctively to his touch as he slowly caressed her. But then that was the nature of the beast. While she and Maxis were different species of dragon, they were still dragons.

  Not human.

  A different breed entirely.

  More passionate.

  Fiery ...

  In all things.

  She should have known he wasn't human the first time they had met. Normally she would have, but, as was the biggest weakness with all of her kind, she'd been in the height of her spawning cycle. Like humans, dragons could have sex anytime they wanted, and many did, especially since they couldn't become pregnant until they found their mates.

  But every six months, females entered a fertile period where they were driven to mate against all reason and sanity. The urge was so strong that it was impossible for them to think of anything else. It was what had led to many of the myths regarding Amazons. A time when they came into town for no other purpose than to find men to satiate their bestial cravings. A time when the lack of eligible, fertile males in their clans would drive them to war on their neighbors with a berserker's fury.

  It was bad for them before the Fates created a mated bond. Once that mate was selected and ordained, the craving to spawn during their fertile period was even worse.

  Tonight, it was unbearable.

  Unable to resist him, she sank her hand in his soft hair and pressed his lips closer.

  And when he lowered his hand to cup her through her armor, she cried out, needing him with an unbearable madness.

  "Tell me what you want," he whispered in her ear.

  Biting her lip, she cupped his hand and pressed him harder against her. "I need you inside me."

  He took her earlobe into his teeth to nip it gently as he rubbed his swollen groin against her hip. Then he placed a precious kiss to her cheek.... His breath tormented her flesh with its heat.

  Then he released her and coldly stepped away.

  Those golden fair eyes pierced her with icy loathing. "I'm not your whore or your chattel. Most of all, I'm not your pet dog to come at your command."

  Stunned and breathless, she glared at him. "Excuse me?"

  His own breath
ing ragged, he put more room between them. "I told you what my terms for marriage were. A partnership. Not slavery and servitude to your capricious whims and arbitrary rules of unreasonable, Amazonian law. And what did you do? You ruthlessly chose your tribe over me. And I still bear those scars."

  Seraphina winced as that long-ago night replayed through her mind. Nala had almost killed him. "I was young and stupid, and I'm dragonswan enough to admit it."

  "It's too late. I would rather live out eternity in monastic celibacy than suffer one more day with any of you. Now go! Your sisters are waiting."

  His rejection stung her more than she would have ever thought possible. Not that it mattered. She wasn't here to beg him back to her bed. She was here to plead for his help. "It's not that simple."

  "It is that simple. You and I are finished. I accept the fact that I can't take another lover, but you're free to find whatever fool you can to satiate your hunger. Now go. Bother me no more."

  Seraphina choked as she remembered the last words he'd spoken to her so long ago as he glared up at her with eyes haunted by betrayal--I told you when we mated that I would gladly give you my heart, my life, and my love, but that when I did so they came with one condition. Never abuse me. Love is not abuse. And you have harmed me for the last time, my lady. I am done with you. Forever.

  But Fate had forced her back to him.

  And she had no choice. She needed his help.

  Her throat tightened as she thought of the best way to tell him what she needed to. He would hate her even more for the secret she'd kept. And she couldn't blame him for it. She'd been so wrong for what they'd done to him.

  What she'd personally done.

  Arcadian. Katagari. In retrospect, it all seemed so stupid. And the bitter agony in his eyes tonight told her exactly how much damage their cruelty had wrought--the lingering scars they'd engraved on his loyal soul.

  You have to tell him.

  But how? The human race had already done so much to him and his brothers before she'd even met him, and by way of her own cruel hands, they'd done him even more harm. He had every right to despise them all.