Mated To The Dragon Of Manhattan (A BBW Paranormal Romance Book 1) (14 page)

After springing to my feet, I took one running step and launched myself into some sort of leap, aiming the point of my stake at Dominic's chest like a spear. Aiming it right at a small, smooth thin patch of skin that all shifters had over their hearts. And to my surprise, to my complete astonishment, the point of my "spear" went in. Easily, in fact. I buried the stake about a foot deep in his chest. And he fell backward, eyes closing, and landed on his back, sending a tremor through the rooftop garden.

I gasped, dropping my stake. "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh!" I took a step closer and surveyed Dominic's massive, prone dragon form, gasping again with my hands flying to my face. "Oh my gosh! I actually stunned him."

No sooner than I'd spoken those words, I realized I had a problem. He'd be regaining consciousness in just a minute or two, maybe less. I had to get Truman's attention. Not knowing how else to accomplish that, I cupped my hands around my mouth and lifted my face to the sky to yell for him. But I didn't even need to. Because having maybe heard Dominic's dragon roar, he was already soaring down, and within a few seconds, he landed just a few feet away from me.

Weak with relief, I actually laughed, pointing at Dominic. "Truman, I did this! I really did this! I was brave! I went up against a dragon...and I won!"

He looked at me, and I couldn't be sure, because of course, his dragon face wasn't as expressive as a human's, but I thought I saw the edges of his scaly mouth lift into a smile. Right before he turned, pounced on Dominic, and stabbed him through the heart with a razor-sharp claw, right beside my stake. Then, he stabbed him through the eye, killing him. Dominic's chest, which had been rising and falling, suddenly stopped. And after seeming to study it for a few seconds, Truman gave me a definite wink and then launched himself into the sky, where the battle still raged.

It didn't continue raging for long. Truman killed three more dragons, in rapid succession a minute or so of re-joining the fray. Owen took out several others. A few other golden-clawed dragons took out still more. And before very long at all, it was all over.

Truman descended to the rooftop garden once again, immediately shifted into human form, and took me in his arms. "Tell me you're
alright
. Tell me he didn't hurt you in any way."

I shook my head as best I could, considering he had it pressed against his broad chest. "He didn't. I don't even have a scratch. But what about you? And the rest of our shifters? Is everyone okay?"

He squeezed me even tighter, rocking me. "Everyone's just fine. Zero casualties on our side."

"Oh, thank God. Thank God."

He held me for a little while longer before speaking in a low voice thick with emotion. "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you from him, Brette. I'm so, so very sorry."

I shook my head. "No, please don't be. Please. He somehow had the ability to pass right through walls, which you didn't even know. And besides, this was important for me. This was actually probably the biggest accomplishment of my life. I proved that I can protect myself. I proved that I can be brave. I proved that I'm really not a weak, scared, helpless little cream puff."

Truman relaxed his hold on me and lifted my face, his expression serious. "No. No, you're certainly not. And in fact, I think you're the bravest woman in all the parallels. By far. By miles. And tomorrow night, we'll have a celebration victory dinner to honor you and everyone else who fought. But tonight...tonight is just for us. I'm going to hold you in my arms every single second of it. Because I never want to let you go."

I smiled, my heart soaring. "And now you never have to."

With a grin spreading across his handsome face, he picked me up off my feet, and we kissed, a now-clear sky of pure blue above us.

CHAPTER TWELVE

My first thought was that I was going to die. And if I didn't, it was going to be a very close call.

Though I hardly had more than a fraction of a second to think about anything. I only saw the massive crystal chandelier falling from its height of fifty or sixty feet when it was about ten feet above me and maybe a foot or two to my right. I'd been alerted that
something
was up when I'd heard a collective gasp from a few dozen people in the packed ballroom, those who'd maybe seen the chandelier drop from the ceiling. And then, almost in that same instant, just out of the very corners of my eyes, or
tops
of my eyes, rather, I'd seen something large and sparkly descending. Not even a blink before Truman yanked me out of my seat and onto his lap.

We'd been having a wonderful evening. Truman had asked me to marry him a week earlier, about a month after we'd taken out Dominic as a team, and we were having our engagement party dinner in the enormous ground-floor ballroom of the tower. But now, the celebration was clearly over.

The massive crystal chandelier, with its fifty-pound center crystal, landed directly on Owen's head. I gasped; Brianna gasped; and a collective gasp rose from the maybe three hundred party guests. The chandelier fell from Owen to the floor behind him with a crash. Owen slumped in his seat, unconscious, with blood streaming from several gashes on his head.

Brianna, who'd been sitting to my right, jumped out of her chair and kneeled next to Owen, who'd been sitting to the right of
her. "Owen!"

Scanning the remaining four chandeliers above us, Truman pushed me off his lap and stood. "Brette, I want you and Brianna off this platform right this second. Go, and I'll help Owen."

I hesitated, horrified, my gaze on Brianna, who was patting Owen's bloody face with tears streaming down her own.

Truman gave me the tiniest of little pushes toward her. "Go now, Brette. Grab her hand and get her off this platform."

Suddenly comprehending that he was afraid of another chandelier falling, I grabbed Brianna's hand and did as I was told, more or less yanking her away from Owen and pulling her down the steps of the pale gray marble platform where we'd been seated at the royal table. Annabelle, who'd been sitting on Truman's left with Matthew, joined us, and Truman and Matthew began attending to Owen, whose light brown hair was now soaked with blood.

Once Brianna, Annabelle, and I were a safe distance away from the platform, we paused and looked up at where the chandelier had been anchored, though the distance was so great it was hard to see much. The enormous, cavernous ballroom took up at least three quarters of the floor space of the entire first floor of the tower, and its lofty vaulted ceiling rose to a height of about a hundred feet, with the ceiling above the platform being just a bit over half that height. The dim lighting in the ballroom also made it difficult to see how the chandelier that had fallen on Owen had become untethered. For our celebration dinner, Truman and I had wanted soft, romantic lighting, and the five large chandeliers above the platform, several smaller chandeliers above the guest tables, some wall sconces, and tabletop candle arrangements were the only sources of illumination.

Annabelle put an arm around Brianna and pulled her close. "Just remember, Owen's a shifter. Shifters can't die or be permanently harmed from blows to the head. Shifters heal fast. Just keep all that in mind, okay?"

Still crying and with her gaze locked on Owen, whose white dress shirt and light blue tie were now splattered with crimson, Brianna nodded. "Okay."

Within moments, several doctors were up on the platform, helping Truman and Matthew stop the bleeding from the various large gashes on Owen's head. Watching the scene while the hundreds of party guests murmured and got out of their seats for a closer look at what had happened, I realized that the chandelier would have, without a doubt, killed a non-shifter man. Or woman. Which very easily could have been me. A fact that I knew wouldn't be lost on Truman, and I was sure that the staff workmen who'd recently installed the new chandeliers were going to be fired. At the very, very least.

While Owen was laid out flat on the platform with a rolled-up jacket for a pillow behind his head, Brianna began crying harder, and I put my arm around her over Annabelle's and gave her a little squeeze.

"It's gonna be
okay
. He's gonna be just fine."

She nodded, but began crying even harder still, and Annabelle tapped me on the shoulder and looked at me behind Brianna's back.

"I almost think she shouldn't be here to see this, especially since Owen's going to be completely okay. Do you think you could take her up to their apartment to wait for the doctors to bring him up once he's healed a bit?"

I nodded. "Good idea."

Sobbing, Brianna was now making feeble attempts to break free from Annabelle's and my hold on her, probably intending to go to Owen, and I gently but firmly began pulling her in a different direction, toward a set of mahogany double doors leading out of the ballroom.

A short while later, we sat with mugs of tea in the spacious kitchen of her and Owen's seventy-fifth floor apartment.

After taking a sip of hers, Brianna dabbed her big green eyes with a tissue. "Sorry I lost it for a minute there in the ballroom. I know Owen's going to be okay. I just really freaked out when I saw all the blood pouring out of his head."

I reached across the blonde oak table and gave her hand a little squeeze.

"Absolutely nothing to be sorry for. I'd be worried if a person
didn't
freak out a bit seeing their husband in that situation, shifter or not."

I'd
been more than a bit freaked out about the whole incident myself. My hands were still trembling, in fact.

Soon, Brianna said she just wanted to know what had happened. "I mean...how does a chandelier that has supposedly been very securely fastened the day before,  just fall like that?"

I had no idea. But for some strange reason, my thoughts went to Mara. She was an ex-flame of Truman's who'd recently come back to town to work for Annabelle at Truman's charity foundation. After her arrival, she'd made it clear, just through little looks and hints, that a job at the foundation wasn't the only reason she'd come back to New York City. The rumor was that she wanted to win Truman back before he could marry me. Though Truman claimed to have zero interest in her,
zero
, and I believed him. Completely. I trusted him with all my heart.

I didn't, however, trust Mara, not one single shred. And now I wondered if she'd had anything at all to do with the chandelier falling
,
being that it had fallen only two seats away from where I'd been sitting. If someone had somehow caused the chandelier to fall intentionally, I very well could have been the target.

In response to Brianna's question, I said I didn't know, deciding to keep my suspicions about Mara to myself for the time being. "I have no
earthly
clue how a chandelier could just fall like that. But I'm sure Truman will get to the bottom of it, though. And I'm sure the staff workmen who were in charge of doing the chandeliers will be fired. If not jailed for a while, if it turns out that outright negligence was involved."

Brianna frowned, drawing her gingery brows together. "I don't see Truman firing or jailing Matthew."

I sat up a little straighter, shocked. "Matthew? What? What do you mean?"

"It was Matthew who did the chandeliers. The workmen were having trouble reaching the height of the ceiling, even on their highest scaffolding, so Matthew offered to fly the chandeliers up and attach them while in dragon form."

I sat stunned, not only to learn that Matthew, Annabelle's husband and Truman's third-and-command and very old friend, was responsible, but to hear that he'd shifted while in the building. It just seemed absurd and somehow even impossible, though the cavernous ballroom
was
big enough for a dragon to shift in and fly around, I supposed. And actually, in reality, it was probably even big enough for a dozen shifters to fly around in dragon form, as strange and funny as that idea was.

I set my mug of chamomile tea on the table, feeling just a tiny bit silly and bad for having suspected that Mara might have had anything at all to do with the chandelier falling. "Oh. Well, Matthew must have made some terrible accidental mistake in whatever he did to attach the chandelier. And I know he's going to feel absolutely awful for Owen being hurt, so let's hope Truman's not
too
hard on him."

Brianna nodded, dabbing at her eyes again. "I hope so, too. I know whatever happened, it was just a terrible accident, and Matthew's going to feel bad enough."

Soon we heard voices in the living room, and we both flew out of our chairs and dashed out there. Owen stood next to Truman, looking no worse for wear except for a tiny little bandage covering one temple.

He grinned at Brianna, his deep green eyes twinkling. "I have to admit, being a shifter has its advantages. Sometimes I really do like this speedy healing thing."

She practically jumped into his arms, saying how relieved she was that he was okay. It turned out that the gashes on his head were healing so quickly, they hadn't even needed stitches. One of the gashes was already almost completely healed.

Truman and I soon bid Owen and Brianna good night and took the elevator up to our penthouse, holding hands. Once inside, we sat down on the couch, and Truman pulled me into his arms.

"I am so, so glad that you're okay and that you weren't injured. But I am also so, so sorry that our special night ended on a less-than-positive note."

I shook my head with my face against his chest. "No. Please don't feel sorry or bad at all. For one thing, for the most part, our engagement party dinner was absolutely amazing, and I'll have so many wonderful memories of it. And for another thing, what happened with the chandelier was no one's fault, least of all yours, so I don't want you to feel even a tiny bit sorry about what happened."

"Well...it
was
someone's fault."

I lifted my face from Truman's broad, chiseled chest. "Brianna told me that Matthew was the one who actually hung the chandeliers from the ceiling. So, I know he's
kind of
, in a way, responsible for whatever happened. But no matter why the chandelier that fell on Owen came loose and fell, I know it was just a complete freak accident. Maybe it was a weak spot in the ceiling where the bolt was attached or something. I know it can't have been due to any negligence on Matthew's part. And I know he's got to feel absolutely terrible for what happened to Owen."

Truman knitted his dark brows. "Yes, I imagine he does. Though I have to admit, I find it hard to muster up much sympathy for him when the accident he caused could have hurt you. Could have maybe even..." Truman gave his head a little shake. "No. No use in torturing myself with the possibilities of what
could
have happened to you. You're okay, and you weren't hurt. Thank God." He paused just long enough to plant a rather firm kiss on my forehead. "Thank God.”

“However, I can't just let this accident go without finding out the cause. Not to mention, I want to make sure the other chandeliers in the ballroom are safe. So, I've called several of my engineers and electricians to come do an inspection in the ballroom  tonight. But first, I wanted to make sure you were doing all right. I imagine what happened was a very rattling experience, to say the least."

Without a doubt, it  had been, but I told him I was fine, and I was. While wrapped in the strength and safety of his arms, it was really hard to
not
be fine. However, to my disappointment, he had to leave soon, to meet with the engineers, and also to have a talk with Matthew.

Once he'd gone, I took off the scoop-necked midnight blue dress I'd worn to the dinner and changed into a short, red, sheer baby doll negligee that was one of Truman's favorites. When he returned, I hoped to perhaps rekindle some of the romantic and celebratory vibes from earlier.

After pouring a glass of champagne and bringing it into bed with me, I began watching a movie, though it really wasn't very interesting. At least, not compared to the things I was thinking. My mind was full of thoughts of Truman's long, hard body. And the way his body felt against mine while we were making love.