Dangerous Lovers (219 page)

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Audrey and I were headed toward the kitchen when Drake appeared. I felt Audrey twitch as if she wanted to hide behind me, but she stayed where she was. My thoughts of Drake had been far and few between in light of the problems I was faced with. But seeing him now stomping toward his daughter, I couldn’t help but wonder what supposedly extinct creature he was…what Audrey was.

“We will start your training in the morning,” Drake growled. His eyes flicked between us, showing his obvious dislike for our physical contact. “If it wasn’t for Xavier, I would kill you for touching her.”

“She is not yours to command,” I ground out standing tall.

“Careful what you say, boy.” With a final glance at Audrey, who still hadn’t cowarded behind me, he pushed past me.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Audrey whispered.

“Why? It’s true, he isn’t your keeper. You’re not his.”
You’re mine,
I added with a silent growl.

“You don’t understand what he is like. You just… don’t understand.” She sounded so defeated. I could see her right hand start to twitch like she did when she started to count something.

“Then tell me,” I whispered. Grabbing the hand that twitched, I placed a kiss on her knuckles.

“He-he, well we, we are,”

I could see this was difficult for her. She swallowed hard looking around as if she wanted to escape. I tightened my hold on her hand.

“We are dragon-shifters.” She looked up at me through her eyelashes. I could see the fear in her eyes.

“That explains a lot,” I said, hopefully sounding light enough to make it seem like a joke. Inside I was shocked. It made sense for Drake. I could imagine a dragon-shifter having such a build. Audrey though…

I eyed her as I started to lead us toward the kitchen. Audrey was small for a dragon woman.

“What did your father mean by your training?” I asked, stilling mulling over the fact that she was a dragon. No wonder Abram had kept her locked up tight.

“I have never been able to transform…” She looked away. “I gave up believing that I had a dragon form.”

I grabbed her hand. Dragon-shifters weren’t the same as Weres–none of the elder races were. Dragon-shifters lived in harmony with their animal spirit, not entirely human in their human form, but not entirely dragon in their dragon form. While were-creatures held most of their animal’s habits and traits even in their human forms, the elder races weren’t like that.

From what I remember about tales involving the elder races, they held a certain relationship with their animal spirits that even were-creatures couldn’t quite understand. Looking at her now, I realized how deeply her pain ran. She didn’t have that connection. I pulled her close and she buried her face into my chest.

“What do you know about dragons, Audrey?”

“Only that they are hoarders. Their possessions are sacred, and to steal from them is almost certain death. I never knew about their hearts until you told me about them. My father never talked about our heritage much, seeing as I might not ever…” She trailed off and buried her face a little deeper.

“There is this tale about the first dragon-shifter and how it came to be. Would you like to hear it?”

She nodded.

“He was a dragon, black as the unforgiving night sky, and just as cruel. He would protect his hoard fiercer than any other dragon and would even kill another dragon if they got too close. He would attack the human villages that would build too close to his hoard. One human village decided that if they would send a virgin offering that he would leave them alone."

“Though this great, black dragon was known for killing a human without blinking an eye, he didn’t kill the woman. Instead he instantly fell in love with her long blonde locks, and her pale brown eyes. He had never seen someone so beautiful and decided to keep her as a gem as he did with other precious jewels. But she was sad, and broken."

“Overtime the dragon started to feel the same way, and didn’t understand why. He thought for sure that someone had stolen something from him. While he searched out for the jewel he was convinced went missing, he destroyed even more towns, and killing livestock and the men who would try to attack him."

“While he was out, the woman he had stolen for his own, left the caves and saw her old home destroyed. Hurt by the dragon’s betrayal of his promise to not hurt her family, she sought the dragon out. When she found him, he looked down at her and realized he had found his missing jewel. She cried and told him that she never wanted to see him again. His heart broke. He didn’t understand that he loved her in a different way than his jewels. Watching her cry, he let her go and flew away into his cave. For years, he mourned the loss of his most precious possession. He pleaded with the Gods to let him talk to her, human to human. The Gods granted him the gift to shift. He flew down from his caves leaving his jewels unprotected, and forgotten, and went after his love. When he found her, she had aged but he didn’t care."

“He told her that she would always be the rarest of gems in his eyes. He told her how he had never attacked her family after the day she came to him. She forgave him before he even said anything because she had heard it was a red dragon that had attacked her old home."

“They lived many years together, he never aged, but she grew older every day. He told her everyday how beautiful she was, and she always believed him. But the day came when it was her time to leave this world, and he didn’t want to give her up. He shifted into his dragon form ready to rip out his own heart in order to die with her. Instead, when he pulled out his heart, he only had half, and he offered it to his beloved. Years melted away, and she became the same age as the day they met. They lived happily ever after.”

I had sat Audrey down and started to search around the kitchen for food. Xavier had told us that we could take anything we wanted, so I started to grab food to make a meal for Audrey. Looking over at her while I started making something, I could see tears in her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, staying on the other side of the counter, even though all I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and never let her go.

“It’s a beautiful story,” she whispered. “I wonder…” She looked down.

I hoped I wouldn’t have to coax it out of her.

“I wonder if my father felt the same way about my mother.” Now she looked up at me with hope in her eyes.

This time I did move away from the counter. I went around and grabbed her hands in mine and brought them to my lips. Her tears washed away into something close to desire. My body reacted.

“I am positive your father loved her more than anything,” I whispered, pulling her head into my chest and stroking the back of her head. I could only hope my words were true and, if they weren’t, that she would never know the truth.

“I never asked him about her…does that make me a bad daughter?” Audrey asked me a while later after I had moved back to my spot in front of the stove. I looked up at her. She nervously touched the kitchen tiles as if she wanted to start counting them but instead she was focusing on her question.

“Never.” I had the urge to tell her about my mother’s death. Instead I decided to tell her a different story. “When I was about five years old my mother would tell me that the best way to a girl’s heart was to make her a special dinner. That very night,” I looked up at her, she was smiling, leaning forward as if excited to see what I had to say, “I made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. With the crust cut off, just the way I liked it.” I looked back down to the sauce that I was stirring and heard her huff a little.

“That’s all? How did she react?” Her voice was so light, so free that I couldn’t stop myself from looking up at her. There was a wistful smile on her face and she looked so eager.

“She looked down at me, smiled and she pulled me onto her lap. Then she explained that what I had done was a selfless and a wonderful thing to do. The problem was though I had made the sandwich the way I liked it. I hadn’t thought of what she would like. She assured me that the girl would always like that I had made the effort in the first place, but going that extra mile, doing that extra little thing would make her fall in love with me.”

I swallowed, wishing I had listened to my mother more, but wishing for the past to be different is useless. There was no point in it.

“So I ran back to where I had left the crust and grabbed it all in my hands and offered it to her. She laughed for what seemed like years. I miss her laugh.” I didn’t look up from stirring for a long time.

I felt small hands move around my waist. Looking down I recognized the lightly tanned skin. She was looking so much better since we left the compound at the Braden’s land. Thinking back to that reminded me that she had been talking to Elijah, I wanted to know what they had talked about. What it is that had the wraith acting so out of character around her?

When I turned, I had a spoon ready for her to try the sauce. She looked down at it then looked up at me as if she was unsure. I snickered a little.

“Open up.” I watched as her beautiful lips opened. I watched the scarred part wondering if, even after all these years, if it hurt to move. And if it did, if it even had the slightest indication that it hurt, I would kiss the pain away, every time she had to move her lips. I hadn’t realized that I started to lick my own lips when I looked at her placing the edge of the spoon in her mouth.

She had her eyes closed, which thank Gods she did because I knew my eyes were flashing a dangerous color. I shut my own eyes, but it was worse because now I could hear the slight moan that slipped from her lips, and the way she started to say yum. I couldn’t resist.

I moved on instinct, as if I knew right where her lips would be. I could taste the sauce I had made still on her tongue, and I moved a little closer grabbing her hips with my hands.

When she finally pulled away for air, I moved from her lips to the corner of her mouth…to the scarred part. I kissed there then moved down to her neck. She stretched her neck so that I could get better access, I don’t know if she meant to or if it was pure instinct. Her breathing was heavy.

“I really liked the sauce.” She laughed a little.

My lips stopped against her smooth skin, and I let a laugh rumble down in my chest. She shivered slightly, and I knew that my closeness was affecting her. When I looked up at her, she was biting her lips and making parts of my body demand so much more from her.

“I am glad you like it,” I whispered, my lips moving to her ear. She shuddered again. I stepped back. I knew if I kept touching her, if I thought about how I just told her about the one memory I had of my mother that wasn’t stained with the memory of her dying, I would not let her go.

It was a simple spaghetti dinner, but Audrey ate it faster than she had any other meal. She ate more than she usually did as well.

“What did Elijah want?” I asked before taking a bite of my own food.

She stopped and looked down at her plate.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Audrey

I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought back to earlier in the day when Elijah had asked me if he could speak to me. Stone had looked upset, but didn’t stop me from going to talk with Elijah.

We had wandered the halls for a while, both of us silent. I didn’t know what he had wanted in the first place, and while I grew braver in the presence of Stone and Nixie, Elijah was completely different. My father was someone I knew not to cross. Elijah was cold, hard, and completely unfeeling. He was a new type of danger that I knew instinctively never to push.

“I have decided to stay.” Elijah was looking down at me and spoke in his completely monotone voice.

I swallowed. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. I was curious about his involvement in all of this and why he would stay. If he was there all those years ago when I was first taken, he had known what Jacobs was up to the entire time. Why was he helping me now?

“You can ask me,” Elijah stated looking forward, clasping his hands behind his back. He kept his pace steady, as if he had said nothing at all.

“I don’t understand…” I moved next to him. I was ready to finish the statement when he actually sighed.

“There is…something about you.” It was strange but his words, the way his body tightened ever so slightly. It seemed like he was…frustrated. “I find you completely aggravating. I can’t quite decide whether I would kill you for making me…” He stopped his thought but didn’t stop his walk. “I find that being in your mind was enlightening.”

With that Elijah stopped turned to me and nodded. He walked away without another word and I was left wondering what was so enlightening about me. But with his dismissal, I turned back toward my room.

Stone cleared his throat and pulled me back to the present. Looking up at him, I could see the worry painting the irises of his eyes.

I told Stone of the whole encounter. The hand that held his fork tightened so much that the skin on his fist looked dangerously white. I wished I could tell him that my encounter with Elijah made sense, that I understood why the wraith would want to stay, but I was more confused than ever.