Dragon's Ward (4 page)

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t have them, if that was even what she was feeling. They couldn’t be human. She was sure that they were like Stefan, and with her knowledge of East Asian culture, she recognized the words they used. Stefan was a dragon, a dragon king, if the words they used, and his gold coloring, were correct. They would not have called him
zhu
, or lord, if he wasn’t. Cadoc and Nero must have been his seconds. If Cadoc was Kylin, which meant he was his battle arm, then Nero was his Gui—Tortoise—his wisdom, which made sense given the way Nero acted. Suddenly something clicked into place, some nebulous thing that had been hanging in the air all night.

They were missing their fourth, their Phoenix. Suddenly some of their hidden messages, the three of them all coming at her, the connection that she couldn’t deny, made sense. They’d said something about her noticing the gold. That was Ryuichi, the first dragon, the king dragon’s color. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be able to see it being just a human. Maybe her knowledge of their world, the ways she had seen Stefan in his dragon form, and the connection between them all was something that they couldn’t deny. Maybe it was something that was old as time. She was their Phoenix, the last of their set of four mythical beasts, somehow, even though she was human. Maybe that was why she was so drawn to coming to Stefan for help in the first place.

If so, maybe she was never meant to fight the pull of these men after all. If that was true, then what did that mean for them now, and what would they do about Roach?

Chapter Six

“We should never have touched her,” Stefan growled, stalking back and forth in his living room.

“We can’t hide from what she may be to us,
zhu
. We’ve tried over ten times to find our Phoenix, and even I can admit I have never felt a connection like this to a woman. She has to be the one,” Nero said quietly.

“It doesn’t matter if she’s the one or not. She sent us away. She’s in too much trouble right now anyway for us to try to take her.” Cadoc sighed, sitting down heavily on the couch.

“Exactly. We have to take care of this Roach first.”

“
Zhu
, she just needs time. She’s been terrified for the last two years running from this man. She didn’t run from us until she felt overwhelmed. We should have given her more time. If we had eased her into it I am sure it would have been better. Even in fear her desire reached out to us,” Nero argued, leaning against the wall. Cadoc shrugged, and Stefan could feel the hurt in his second, even though his face showed nothing.

They’d all felt the moment when their potential Phoenix had turned from them. They’d felt her withdrawal like a bucket of cold water that had shattered the desire swirling around them all. He would protect her. He had no choice. He had declared her his ward and as such, he would make sure that she wanted for nothing. The first order of business would be to remove her stalker from her life.

“We need to think how to draw out Roach. I’m sure her presence with us will anger him into coming for her,” Stefan said.

“
Zhu
,” Nero tried.

“No, Gui, no. She has made her choice. We will protect her, we have no choice, but we will not try to make her our Phoenix. She has already said no.” Nero sighed roughly, but he didn’t say anything else.

“With what information she’s given us, it’s safe to assume that he may know soon enough that she is here. He keeps pretty close tabs on her and has just been waiting for his moment. In his mind, everything has a time and a place,” Cadoc said then.

“We cannot take her back to the nest. We have to protect their identities from this man. We can make our stand here,” Stefan returned.

“I don’t see us having any trouble with the human. We just have to catch him. We have to let him feel like, even with us here, that Brook is not safe with us. His anger at her being with us may be enough to make him come regardless, but just in case, we can make it appear as if we are not watching over her,” Cadoc finished.

“Or we could use the less subtle approach that would bring him along faster,” Nero broke in.

“And what would that be?” Stefan asked.

“Jealousy. If he believes she has developed a relationship with one of us, he will be determined to take her back. He won’t want to lose her to another. It may make him more rash than ever just thinking she is here with us.”

“I’m not going to use her as bait,” Stefan growled.

“It doesn’t have to be bait. I’m not going to lose my chance of having her, in some way, because you won’t listen to reason. She just needs time. I will stand by her. Even if it’s only for right now. I believe that she is our Phoenix and I will treat her accordingly,” Nero replied, standing up and away from the wall.

Stefan turned on him, anger whipping through his body. Brook had denied them. She was the one who backed away. He hadn’t walked away from her. She was human. She would not be able to handle their lovemaking, and he’d known that. He could have hurt her if she hadn’t stopped them. To make love with a dragon was difficult enough. They were forceful, dominant, and had a chance of shifting during sex. For a dragon king, however, it would be worse. His Phoenix would have to accept his Kylin and Tortoise as well, and she would have to take them all at once in her body. When they reached their climax and they began to shift, she would have to be strong enough to control their beast, subdue them within herself—creating her Phoenix out of slivers of power from each of them—and then return their beasts to them. They would then be as one.

Brook would never survive that.

“She cannot survive us,” Cadoc said, breaking into his thoughts. Nero shrugged.

“It is not us I am trying to have with her, but me. If both of you would turn away from her because she doesn’t understand, before she has had a chance to make her choice, out of fear, then I bow to that. But do not deny me my happiness when I am willing to try,” Nero argued, raising his hands in front of him as if to pacify Stefan. He always hated when his friend did that. Nero was weak by no stretch of the imagination. It was only temperament that separated him and Cadoc, in truth. Nero would try to see the bigger picture but he could be just as ruthless as Cadoc if the need arose.

“It has been decided,” Stefan said then. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to see Nero with Brook if they all couldn’t be with her.

“So I was right,” he heard behind him and whirled around at her voice. Brook stood before them in her sweats and bare feet. Her hair was messy around her and Stefan could see red splotches on her neck where his mouth had sipped at her flesh. He would not say out loud how happy seeing those marks on her made him, but silently he trumpeted his happiness to the sky.

“Right about what?” Cadoc asked, watching her from his perch on the couch.

“I am your Phoenix,” she said and the room went still.

“How?” Stefan asked.

“I told you I was an East Asian Studies major in college. After hearing how you guys were talking it clicked. The way we…clicked helped as well. Is that why me seeing that you were gold was so important? Why I couldn’t seem to break away from the need?”

“In essence, yes, but it’s not that simple,” Stefan answered, feeling his heart pounding in his rib cage. She was so very beautiful standing before him. He knew the taste of her flesh, what the swell of her breasts looked like, and the sound of her passion. He wanted her even now. He wanted to take her back upstairs, to claim her pussy, as Cadoc claimed her ass, and Nero claimed her mouth. He wanted to try to make her the piece that they were missing, and yet he knew that their priority had to be Roach. And the fact that she was human…it just couldn’t be.

“I’m not a shape-shifter. I can’t turn into the Phoenix, so I’m not exactly sure what is happening, but I can feel it.”

“Yes, you are human, but if we made you our Phoenix, you would become a shifter. But you would not survive it.”

“Why wouldn’t I survive?”

Stefan turned away, not wanting to answer her question. This was not what was important right now, and to entertain it was ludicrous.

“Look, Brook. Suffice to say taking on three shifters at one time could be physically disastrous to you, if not mentally. We can’t risk it. Your fear upstairs stopped us from going further with something we shouldn’t even have begun. We will remove this threat from you and then you will be safe,” Cadoc said to her, his eyes alive with something.

“And what about my say in it?” Brook asked then. Stefan watched her, looking for some hint of subterfuge, some sense of obligation because they had decided to protect her. What he found there shocked him to his toes. All he could see was desire in her eyes. Pure desire as she stared at him.

“You don’t know what you ask,” he finally managed to say then.

“You don’t know what I want. I can say that I have had no choice in the last couple of years. I haven’t made one choice for myself, no matter what I wanted. Roach has taken so much away from me. Don’t take my choice from me now.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Cadoc said then.

“What I’m saying is don’t make the decision for me. Let’s take this all a step at a time. I’m not saying that I’ll be able to accept any of you or all of you. I’m just saying don’t make the choice for me.” Brook walked further into the room and to the couch. She lifted one elegant eyebrow and Cadoc sat up, swinging his legs off the couch so that she could sit down.

“Now, Nero’s idea isn’t a bad one. One time, when I had a job at a fast-food restaurant before I realized that over-the-table work was a bad idea with Roach, a guy there started to flirt with me. I thought it was harmless until a week later he came in with an R carved into his cheek. I realized then Roach knew the name I gave him, must have heard it at some point, and was trying to scare me. It worked. The guy from my job said a mugger did it to him after the man stole his money. I knew it was Roach. He doesn’t like men to be around me. It made him come and attack that man, and his subsequent letter had been even more vicious.”

“Then it may not be a bad idea after all,” Nero said then, smiling.

“Obviously,” Stefan said, staring at Brook in wonder.

“What?” She asked him, catching his stare.

“You are priceless,” he replied to her, and he allowed the desire he had for her to wash over his features. If she wanted to let things go as they could, he would be willing to go along with her. If she didn’t want to hide, then he wouldn’t hide.

“Which of us are you going to choose? Or are you bold enough to take us all on?”

Chapter Seven

That she could be having a spot of fun right now was something wondrous to her. This she understood. Men she could handle when they just wanted her. For a little bit she could pretend she was just a normal girl. She could act like she was a debutant and she had three delectable men to choose from. Some may find her change of attitude startling, or even untrue, because of her ordeal, but if they never had lived in fear like her, they didn’t understand. She needed this break, craved it. Soon enough the agony of terror was going to let itself come back in and she wouldn’t be able to function past survival mode. For now she wanted to act as if Roach didn’t exist.

She looked at the men in front of her, from Cadoc’s dark head to Stefan’s tall shape to Nero’s graceful stance. These men wanted her, for more than her death, for more than some fantasy world they’d created with her as the main show. She could feel the pleasure within them at her presence. She didn’t know how she could, and she didn’t want to question it. For now, she would hold onto her own fantasy, a fantasy that said she could keep them, that this was real. Amusement filled her as she thought about her choice. It would serve them right if she chose Nero, for he was the only one who had chosen her, despite her fears stopping them in the room, but she couldn’t. She remembered the touch of Stefan’s mouth on her neck and ear, Cadoc’s face buried between her legs, and Nero at her breasts. They were meant to work as a triad. Why stop that now?

“So the plan is to lure Roach out with the sight of me with another man?” she asked then.

“That will probably work the fastest. We could wait for him to come to you, but it may not be safe for you. The longer he watches us, there is a better chance that he will see some break that he could terrorize or hurt you through,” Stefan explained.

“I thought you guys would be indestructible.”

“We are nearly impossible to kill, but you aren’t. All he needs is a chance, and all it would take is for him to believe he’s lost you entirely and he’ll see you dead even quicker for disillusioning him,” Nero continued.

“So we want this to happen fast?” Brook said then, smiling.

“The sooner the better,” Cadoc said then, frowning slightly at her. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“It would serve you right if I only chose Nero, he’s the only one who wanted to give me a choice,” Brook started.

“You don’t know everything. If you did you may understand our decision,” Cadoc said, face closing down.

“Then explain it to me.”

“No,” Stefan said.

“Explain, or I only choose one, and what a choice it will be.” Brook walked toward Nero, hips swaying, a soft smile playing on the edge of her lips. He stood taller, his face unreadable, but his eyes were alive. They sparked with desire. They were so green they looked almost emerald. She ran her hands up his stomach when she reached him, feeling his muscles tighten under her fingertips as he sucked in a harsh breath. Felt his heart pound under her fingertips as she caressed his chest. She leaned into him, gripped his shirt, and pulled him down toward her. He bent easily and his lips met hers.

Where Stefan’s lips had been warm yet strong, Nero’s were pliable and slick. His arms came around her, pulled her tight against him, and then lifted her off her feet so that she was eye level with him. She closed her eyes, turned her head slightly to get closer to him, and let herself go. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue and she opened to him. Smooth, wet, and slightly cooler then she expected, he slid his tongue against hers, dueling for supremacy. He explored every inch before sucking on her tongue as if he could make her a piece of him.