Dark Heat: The Dark Kings Stories (12 page)

“These are lovely,” she said as she stopped beside one canvas to stare at a green dragon locked in battle with a silver dragon. “I’ve never seen paintings like these. The artist is amazing.”

“Why did you stop beside this one?”

Cassie looked at Con and lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. Something about it drew me. The eyes of the green dragon look like emeralds, and the way its scales fade from the dark emerald green to a lighter green toward the front of its body is…” She shrugged and grinned. “Well, it’s beautiful.”

Con grunted and proceeded down the hall. Cassie wanted to stay and look at the painting some more, but she reluctantly followed Con to where he stood next to an open door.

She walked into the lavish office where floor-to-ceiling windows sat behind the large mahogany desk and looked out over the mountainside where sheep were grazing.

“Please, sit,” he said, and motioned to the two leather chairs while he sank into the chair behind his desk.

Cassie lowered herself into the chair and looked around her. Expensive lawyer’s paneling covered the walls. A fireplace stood at one end of the office with a burgundy leather couch positioned before it. The paintings were of more dragons, but these pictures were much smaller, and each one showed just one dragon though each were different colors and sizes.

On the right-hand side of Con, where the windows stopped, was a sword that gleamed in the lamplight.

The office appeared to be a private one, not one that Con used to run the businesses. Cassie turned her gaze to him then. He was young and handsome if one could get past the cynical look in his eyes.

“This is your personal office. Why bring me here?”

He shrugged and locked his fingers over his abdomen. “What I have to say is private. No one from the distillery or the farm would dare to bother us here. I have no idea how long this conversation will take, but I refuse to be interrupted during any of it.”

“All right. Then get on with it.”

Con chuckled. “What has Hal told you about us?”

“Nothing other than he has secrets he can never share.”

“Well, Cassie, I’m going to share those secrets. What I’m about to tell you can never be uttered again.”

She inclined her head and said, “I understand.”

“Nay, you willna until you’ve heard what I have to say.”

Cassie sniffed as feeling came back into her nose from the warmth of the room. “You’re going to try to scare me off from Hal. It’s going to take a lot to do that. What, are you all part of the mob or something? Drug dealers?”

“Nothing like that,” Con said with a laugh.

“Then what?” She was becoming nervous the longer they talked.

Con leaned forward so that his elbows rested on the impeccably neat desk. “We’re no’ human, Cassie. No’ fully.”

Of all the things he could have said, that she wasn’t prepared for. She could only stare at him, waiting for him to continue.

“We’re immortal with powers unlike anything you could imagine. We were created to guard mankind. And dragons.”

She glanced at the paintings of dragons. “Dragons? As in …
dragons
?”

“Aye. Dragons. We’re part dragon. Since the beginning of time, dragons have inhabited this earth. We used to fill the skies. And then man was created. In order for dragon and man to live in harmony, there had to be someone who was a part of both worlds.

“Each of us was leader of his dragons. And then we were created so that we could shift between dragon form and human form. The Dragon Kings.”

Cassie hadn’t realized she’d gripped the arms of the chair so hard until her hands began to ache. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from Con.

“You’re saying you’re dragons?” she asked slowly.

Con lowered his head before he looked at her, his black eyes pinning her to the chair. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Shall I prove it to you?”

He rose and motioned for her to stand beside him at the window. Cassie wasn’t sure her legs could hold her, but she managed to rise and walk stiffly to the window.

They didn’t have long to wait. In the valley, sheep began to scatter as a man ran down the mountain. It took a moment, but Cassie recognized that it was Tristan. He fell to his knees and grabbed his head as if he was in great pain.

“I—”

“Watch,” Con interrupted her. “Tristan is new to us. The tattoo signals him a King. He’s learning how to listen to the dragon within him. Each day at this time he comes out here.”

Before her eyes, he shifted into a large amber-colored dragon and roared. Suddenly she realized the sound she had heard earlier hadn’t been thunder, but a dragon roar.

Tristan’s dragon wings unfurled from his body, and he raised his great head to the sky.

“Shite,” Con said, and started to unbutton his shirt when four men ran into the valley.

Cassie watched, transfixed, as Rhys, Guy, Banan, and Hal surrounded the dragon. Tristan charged Hal, and just when she thought Hal would be eaten, a green dragon stood where he had once been.

She stumbled backwards and ran into the desk, her hand on her mouth.

“Now you see,” Con said.

Cassie’s words were locked in her throat as she realized the green dragon she looked at now was the same one in the picture she’d gazed at so long in the corridor.

That dragon was Hal.

One by one, the other men shifted until there was a yellow, a blue, and a red dragon standing around Tristan. When he tried to jump into the air to fly away, it was Hal who grabbed his legs and threw him back to the ground.

Cassie wanted to turn away, but she couldn’t. She was fascinated with what she was seeing. Hal, her amazing, gorgeous Hal, was a magnificent dragon.

Just when she thought it was over, Tristan rose up and opened his large mouth and roared. He slashed his talons at Hal and the others as they closed in around him.

“You said you’re immortal. Does that mean you survive everything?” she asked as Hal let out an angry roar as his chest was sliced open.

“The only ones who can kill us are other Dragon Kings.”

She glared at Con. “So do something. Get down there and stop this before Hal or someone else is hurt.”

“Hurt?” Con asked with a frown. “Cassie, he’ll heal. Tristan hasna fully mastered all that he is. Hal and the others are as old as time itself. They can handle themselves.”

She wasn’t convinced, especially when Tristan landed several more strikes against Hal and the others. And then it was over as quickly as it had begun.

As Tristan lay in human form, naked in the snow, she let her mind absorb the fact that Hal was as old as time itself. It seemed impossible, yet after seeing men shift into dragons, believable.

When Tristan shifted, Hal and the others shifted as well. Cassie longed to go to Hal, but she knew Con wasn’t finished with her.

While Rhys and Guy took Tristan’s arms and draped them over their shoulders so they could walk away, Hal remained with his back to her.

Slowly, he turned and looked right at her.

Cassie put her hand to the window, hoping to let him know she might be afraid, but she wasn’t running away.

“He can no’ see you,” Con said.

She dropped her arm and looked at him. “I’ve yet to run screaming from the room. I assume there’s more you want to try and frighten me with.”

“There’s much more, Miss Hunter.”

Cassie resumed her seat and waited.

“We are bound to this place,” he said as he took his chair. “We can leave for a few weeks and sometimes a month at a time, but always we must return.”

“Why?”

“Verra long ago, some humans began to hunt dragons. Several dragons were killed. Because we were meant to protect both, we Kings stayed our hand.”

“Was that wise?”

Con shook his head. “Looking back, probably no’. One of us, Ulrik, thought the same as you. When he came seeking my approval to find the hunters, I refused. Ulrik took it upon himself to avenge the dragons that were killed. His retaliation started the verra war I was trying to avoid.”

“Is that why you hate humans so much?”

“I doona hate humans.”

Cassie raised a brow in question.

After a moment, Con continued. “It wasna just the war. I could’ve stopped Ulrik easily enough and punished him for disobeying. But he had fallen in love with a human. She used her influence and kept pushing Ulrik into more and more battles.

“What Ulrik didna know was that somehow she was communicating with his silver dragons and having them attack settlements, killing women and children.”

“Oh, God,” Cassie said, feeling sick to her stomach as she pictured the events in her mind.

“Every dragon has a King, and every King answers to me. Ulrik was a friend, though he was closer to a few others, such as Hal. I was prepared for those loyal to Ulrik, those who had wanted to fight with him to find the hunters, to balk when I issued the order that we find and kill Ulrik’s woman.”

“Did they?” she asked.

Con sat silently for a moment. “Nay. We cornered her easily enough when she left Ulrik’s stronghold. I didna know she was on her way to meet him. My sword was the first to strike her. Every King then pierced her skin.”

Cassie didn’t have to hear the rest of the events. She knew. “Ulrik discovered what you’d done.”

“Aye.” Con rose and walked to the fireplace where he squatted and placed another log on the fire. “His rage was uncontrollable. My plan was to tell him what his woman had been about, but he never gave me time. He used his Silvers to attack the rest of us.

“The battle was immense. Many humans lost their lives because they happened to be in the way. And then more joined the hunters and killed the wounded dragons before they could heal. It was utter chaos. And we had only one option left.”

“Which was,” she urged when he paused.

Con rose to his feet and turned to her. “I used my dragon magic to take away Ulrik’s ability to shift or talk to his Silvers. We caught some Silvers and caged them in the mountain there. And then we sent the other dragons to a different … place … where they could be safe.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“Ulrik might be immortal and human for all intents and purposes, but he’s still a Dragon King. His rage and need for revenge fester even after all these millennia. He had to be watched, for the sake of mankind. With the bound Silvers in the mountain, the only way to keep them caged is with dragon magic.”

“You mean the Kings. It’s why you can’t leave, right?”

“Aye.

Cassie exhaled sharply and looked out the window where she’d seen Hal shift into the splendid green dragon, and then shift back again to human form.

“Why tell me all of this? I thought you wanted to scare me.”

“I did,” Con said with a chuckle. “But I observed you watch Hal when he shifted. You were concerned for him, even though I saw a spark of fear in your eyes. I told you I’d tell you our secrets.”

“And you did. What do you want me to answer?”

“My question from before. Do you love Hal?”

Cassie thought about her life before Hal, and how he had changed everything. Even with him being not quite human, she couldn’t imagine her world without him in it. He made her laugh, he awakened passion inside her she hadn’t known was possible.

“Yes. Yes, I love Hal.”

“Can you face him in dragon form?” Con asked softly.

Cassie licked her lips and stood. “Yes.”

Con walked to his office door and took the handle. “I’ll warn you, when a dragon finds his mate, there’s no going back. If you have any doubts, now is the time to voice them. If you go out there and confront Hal in his dragon form, he will claim you forever.”

“Not forever,” she said as she realized he would go on without her. “I’m not immortal.”

Con didn’t say anything until he opened the door. “Prove to Hal you want to be with him. But I caution you, Cassie, if you run away from him, if you hurt him, I’ll make you suffer.”

“You mean you’ll kill me.”

He smile was cold and deadly. “I doona kill humans. You’ll have your life, but no one hurts one of my Kings and doesna feel my wrath.”

Cassie walked out of the office and to the painting of Hal. She gently touched the green dragon. “Take me to Hal,” she told Con.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Hal didn’t bother to put on any clothes. He’d known Cassie was watching him with the others as they tried to rein in Tristan. He hadn’t wanted her to see him like that.

He’d have shown her differently. But as usual, Con had to have his way.

Hal put his head in his hands as he sank onto a boulder and squeezed his eyes shut. Anyone seeing a dragon for the first time would have to be witless not to be scared out of their minds.

And Cassie had seen five of them.

Fighting.

“Fuck,” Hal muttered.

He knew he’d lost Cassie. It ate at his soul to realize she was probably halfway back to Arizona by now, with Con helping her board the plane.

For the first time in a very long time, Hal hated Constantine. Why was it so bad for one of them to be happy? What was wrong with feeling?

“You act as if she’s gone,” Rhys said as he tossed a pair of black jeans at him.

Hal caught the jeans before they could hit him. “To a human who thinks dragons are no’ real, what do you think she did when she saw us shift?”

“Why don’t you ask me?” Cassie questioned from behind him.

Hal jumped to his feet and whirled around. There stood Cassie, her hands buried in the pockets of her oversized tan coat with Con behind her.

It took everything Hal had not to go to her and pull her into his arms, to feel her softness against him and just hold her.

“Con told me everything,” she said into the silence. “I … well, I saw everything.”

Hal was afraid to say anything and frighten her off, but he had to know. “And you’re still here?”

“Yes.”

Con stepped around Cassie and gave her a brief nod. “There’s one final thing I need from you and Cassie, Hal.”

Hal turned his gaze to Con. “What?” He’d do anything as long as Cassie stayed near him.

“Shift.”

Anything but that.

He’d wanted her to know who he was, what he was, but he saw the thread of panic and hesitation in her beautiful dark eyes. She’d seen him from far away, but up close and personal was something completely different.