When Drake said nothing, Emily turned to look at him. He frowned slightly, as though confused. “What is a Rottweiler?”
“A very big dog,” she answered. “Lots of teeth, strong jaws that would make mincemeat out of a person.”
“Such a dog would be afraid of me.”
Surprised that he offered information, Emily eyed him askance. “Why?”
“I am more dangerous.”
The calm assurance in his eyes made a believer out of her. “You might be,” she said slowly. “But you’d have to prove that to the dog first.”
Drake simply shook his head and didn’t answer.
Suspecting he didn’t know much about dogs, she returned to making supper. “Anyway, I saw how you fought earlier, and a security guard may not have your skills.”
“What do you do to make your living?”
“I’m a writer,” she replied, half-turning toward him. “I make money writing novels.”
“Oh?”
“I’m between projects now,” she went on, “as that asshole stalking me has put a curb on my creativity.” She grinned. “But with you here, maybe that will change.”
Drake nodded but seemed as mystified as when she spoke of the Rottweiler. The house phone suddenly rang, and for the first time in a long while, Emily didn’t jump. Wiping her hands on a towel, she answered it. “Hello?”
“Listen, bitch, I’m—”
Without another word, Emily held the phone out to Drake. “It’s for you.”
“Is it him?”
She nodded.
Rising from his chair, Drake took the phone from her hand and put it to his ear. “Hello?”
From where Emily stood, she heard the sharp click as her stalker hung up. Drake continued to listen with a puzzled expression as Emily howled laughter. She drummed her feet on the linoleum, dancing in place, triumphant.
“I don’t think he’s there anymore,” Drake said, staring at the handset.
Taking it from his hand, grinning, Emily set it on its cradle. “No, he hung up as soon as he heard your voice.”
“Why?”
“Cuz now he knows I have a man here, and he may not be able to intimidate you. He may also suspect that you are here to protect me from him.”
Drake sat back down, rubbing his chin with his eyes narrowed. “Why have you not changed your phone number?”
“I have. Five times. He still keeps getting the new one, so I just quit.”
“Maybe you should move. Go away, start somewhere he isn’t.”
“No,” Emily answered flatly. “This is my home, and that is one thing he will not take from me.”
Drake smiled slightly. “I can understand about home.”
“I work out of my house,” she went on. “I keep my doors locked, the alarm set, and don’t answer my phone.”
“But he still scares you.”
Nodding, Emily answered softly, “Yeah.”
“He will have to kill me in order to harm you, Emily.”
“And that doesn’t worry you?” she demanded, turning back to him. “That he just might succeed?”
“I’m not that easy to kill.”
“It feels weird to say this,” she said slowly. “I believe you.”
Drake ate with a voracious appetite, and Emily feared she had not made enough to satisfy him. After dinner, she brought out a cake from the freezer, and they both enjoyed slices of that. “Tell me about where you come from,” Emily asked, cutting a piece of cake with her fork.
Drake swallowed hard, looking at her. “I can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“It’s forbidden.”
Almost choking on her piece of cake, Emily washed it down with a gulp of wine. “Forbidden? By whom?”
“The elders. Please, I can’t answer your questions.”
Studying his expression, Emily saw Drake looked miserable. He refused to meet her eyes and ceased dining on his dessert. Instead, he stared at the table, his hair hanging over his eyes, concealing them. “You’re homesick.”
Drake nodded.
Sympathy welled from within her. For all of Drake’s strong masculinity, right then, he appeared lost, like a little boy who had been abandoned in the woods by those he loved. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
“I don’t understand this place,” he almost wailed. “I have to make my home here, but I don’t understand humans—people.”
“Hey, you’re not alone in that, Drake,” Emily replied, putting some humor in her tone. “I don’t understand them, either.”
She brought a tiny smile to his face and he picked up his fork again. “If you don’t, then I’m in serious trouble.”
“Ha!” she exclaimed. “You made a funny.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
After dinner, Emily made her normal rounds of making sure doors and windows were locked, the alarm set, and no stalkers sat in the garage waiting patiently for her to emerge. The same thing she did every night. But with one exception. Drake went with her.
“I’m going to walk around outside,” he told her. “Make sure he’s not hiding in the bushes again.”
“Check the street,” she advised, unlocking the door. “He most often skulks from the comforts of a Chrysler minivan, a light green one, across the street.”
“I will.”
She let him out, then locked the door behind him. Thinking that perhaps she should have offered him her Glock, she sat on the couch with her wine and the lights dimmed and waited for him to come back. After thirty minutes or so, he knocked on the door. After making sure it was Drake by peering through the peephole, she let him back in.
“Nothing?”
He shook his head. “I saw no one.”
“Then sit down and enjoy your wine.”
Emily locked the door behind him, then also peered through the curtain that looked upon the empty street. “Most often, he sits out there,” she said, pointing, “but if I go out, he instantly drives away.”
“Coward.”
“Only a coward would stalk a woman living alone.”
Drake drank his wine without comment. Emily, surprised at herself, liked that aspect of him. She’d had two boyfriends in the past, and neither let her get a word in edgewise. “The cops traced the numbers he’s called from,” she went on, “all made from disposable cell phones. None with a name or address they could use to track him.”
Drake lifted his brow, inviting her to continue.
“Without a name or a face I can identify, no traceable number, no sure hit on the cars he uses, they can’t catch him. He’s like a fucking ghost.”
“He’s no ghost.”
“I almost think he is,” she groaned. “He’s certainly smarter than me and the cops both.”
“Cowards make mistakes.”
“If he has, I haven’t seen it. Nor have they.”
Drake lifted his glass to his lips. “He will.”
Emily rested her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes. “I get so tired, Drake. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t write. If I can’t write, I don’t make money. The stress already gave me an ulcer. What else will it do?”
“Nothing. From now on, you’ll sleep, you’ll write, and you’ll quit worrying.”
Opening her eyes, Emily rolled her head toward him with a smile. “You know, you might be right.”
His lips quirked upward in a tiny trace of a smile. “I am.”
Chapter Four
Stepping lightly, Drake left his room and peeked in on Emily as she slept. The gun sat on the table beside her bed, ready to hand, but she didn’t wake as he silently closed her door. Garbed in only his underwear, he made his way to the front door, unlocked it, and went out. Hardly able to sleep, the nightmares of his exile dancing through what little sleep he did get, he got up to patrol the house and yard. Now he crept barefoot across the lawn.
He saw no cars that didn’t appear to belong on the street. No intruders hid in the bushes. The fenced backya
rd was empty of stalkers. The moon sank toward the west, and the stars faded from the sky. Dawn was close, yet still easily two hours away.
For a time, he sat on the front porch, gazing up at the moon. I should fly right now, while the humans in this part of the world sleep. With no one to see me, I can do it. The craving took hold of his soul, the desperate need to fly sank its bitter fangs into his flesh. But Emily would have no protection if he gave in to his primal urges.
With a sigh, he went back into the house and closed the door behind him.
“Get out, you crazy bastard!”
From the darkness, flame burst from the muzzle of the gun she held. It lit the room for a brief second but burned its imprint on his eyes afterwards. The shot struck the door inches from his right shoulder, splintering the wood. Instinctively, Drake ducked, then rolled, and fetched up behind the sofa. Though it was no protection from a bullet, he hoped it at least concealed him from Emily’s sight. “Emily,” he yelled. “It’s me, Drake.”
Listening hard, he heard nothing except her heavy breathing. “Emily?”
“Drake?”
She sounded hoarse, scared out of her mind, and almost paralyzed from terror. Unwilling to leave even the scant protection of his spot, Drake made his voice as calm as possible and replied, “Emily, it’s me. Put the gun down.”
“Oh, God.”
She started to sob, and he heard the soft thud as the gun dropped to the carpet. Slowly, moving with great care in case he was wrong and she still held the gun, Drake emerged from his hiding spot. Emily stood with her hands over her face, crying, a shadow in the dark, with the gun lying at her feet.
“Easy now,” he murmured, straightening. “It’s okay, Emily.”
“I almost shot you,” she cried, her sobs intensifying.
Crossing the room, Drake took her into his arms. “You didn’t.”
Her arms crept around his neck as she clung desperately to him, her body shaking from her terror. He held her close, not knowing what to say that might calm her down. Thus, he merely said, “Hush now, hush,” over and over.
Many minutes ticked slowly by as he held her, crying, against him. Emily’s sobs finally trailed off to hitches and coughs, her tears still running down his bare chest to soak into his bandages. She felt good in his arms, vulnerable and soft, yet strong. She lifted her hand to wipe her eyes and gazed up at him.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered.
Drake ran the knuckle of his forefinger down her cheek. “Don’t be.”
“I thought you were him.”
“I know.”
Guiding her to the couch, Drake set her down upon it and then murmured, “I’m getting wine. Now sit still.”
“Okay.”
Turning on the kitchen light to find what he needed, he glanced back at Emily. Now illuminated, he saw her bent over, holding her stomach as though she were about to puke. The gun still lay where it had fallen, gleaming starkly against the lighter hue of the carpet. He picked it up and, not knowing what else to do with it, set it on the counter.
After pouring wine into glasses, he took them in to Emily. She still sat in the same puke-to-come position but let him straighten her. “Drink this.”
She obeyed him and gulped the wine as though thirsting in the desert for days. Fearing she would hurl in truth after chugging that, Drake held her against him. Emily hiccupped, but the wine, and everything else in her stomach, stayed down.
He sipped his own wine more cautiously, waiting for her to regain her equilibrium. At last, she did, lifting her face toward his. “I am so sorry.”
“Stop.” He brushed his finger over her lips. “I went out to patrol and didn’t tell you. You didn’t know.”
“But I could have killed you.”
In the near darkness, her pupils were huge, filling her eyes with black. Drake caressed her cheek with his finger. “You didn’t. It’s all okay now.”
“Drake…”
Her voice trailed off even as her arms crept around his naked waist. “Hush,” he whispered. “You need sleep.”
“I can’t. Not after that.”
Setting his glass on the table, Drake stood, then plucked Emily into his arms. She had so little weight, as though she had no more substance than a feather pillow. Turning sideways, he flicked off the kitchen light. Carrying her, Emily’s head nestled against his neck, into her bedroom, he laid her down on the bed.
“Don’t leave me!”
“I won’t.”
Lying down beside her, Drake took her into his arms. He covered them both with the blanket, then wrapped her in close to him. His face buried in her hair; he pulled her close to him with his arm around her waist. By her even breathing, he knew she had fallen asleep.
It was a long time before he did the same.
When he woke, sunlight streamed through the filmy curtains over the window, and Emily was gone from under his arm. Panicking, he sat up, then heard the distinct sounds of humming in the kitchen and something frying on the stove. Lying back down, he breathed in tempting scents of cooking food, and his stomach rumbled.
“Wakey, wakey,” Emily said from the door, a spatula in her hand. “Oh. You are awake.”
Drake propped his head on his hand and looked at her. She wore a white robe and her feet were bare. Her hair hung over her shoulders in a tangled wave, yet her hazel eyes gleamed with humor and a wickedly good nature.
“You have enough time for a shower,” she announced. “Get it done, pronto.”
With that, she vanished from the doorway. Drake groaned, then threw the covers on the bed back. Staggering toward the bathroom, he closed the door. After he used the toilet, he pulled the bandage off his wound and took a look. The wound on his ribs appeared angry and red but clearly had begun to heal. Hardly any pain bothered him as he showered, cleaning the last of the dried blood away.
Emily greeted him with a smile and a plate of food. “Dig in, my friend.”
He needed no more encouragement. Devouring the tasty food as fast as he could, Emily easily kept him supplied with more. He ate until he felt guilty, for Emily hadn’t eaten a bit.
“Where’s yours?” he asked, his mouth full.
“Oh, I don’t eat in the morning,” she replied, smiling. She lifted her cup. “I have my coffee; that’s all I need.”
He swallowed, his guilt intensifying. “You fixed all that for me?”
“Don’t fuss over it,” she answered, taking a drink from her cup. “I liked cooking for you.”
“But—”
“Hush. Let me see your wound.”
Drake, garbed only in his jeans, turned to expose his ribs to her inspection. Emily ran her fingers over the half-healed wound, astounded. “That’s incredible.” She gazed into his eyes; her lips parted.
“I heal fast.”
Emily stared at him. “No one heals that fast.”
He shrugged. “I do.”
As she sat at the table watching him eat, she drank her coffee. “So, if you still want clothes, we can head downtown to where the better stores are.”
Drake nodded and chewed more of her crispy, tasty, bacon.
“You didn’t see asshole last night?”
He shook his head.
“I hope your presence here has given him reason to give it all up,” she mused. “But my gut says he may have hesitated, but he’s in for the long haul.”
“Mine, too.”
Swallowing the last of her coffee, Emily stood. “Finish your breakfast while I change.”
A short while later, she drove them both from the garage and then down the street. Drake wore his bloody shirt from the previous day and hoped it wouldn’t cause comment. Emily had clothes from previous “boyfriends” but none of them fit. As she drove, he noticed that her eyes were never still. They flicked from straight ahead, to the mirrors to either side, and to the one attached to the windshield.
Emily saw him looking. “It’s become a habit,” she said. “I’m always looking for him.”
“Is he following us?”
“If he is, he’s not in anything I recognize. And none of the cars back there have been behind us for more than six blocks.”
He liked her heightened sense of alertness, always checking for danger. Like a prey animal, she kept a sharp watch for the predators, and because of that, she would live. It was the prey that failed to watch, scent, and listen that got devoured.
At last, she pulled into a parking lot. One long building held different kinds of shops. If he was reading the signs correctly, anyway. Emily parked the car but did not get out right away; she continually watched the street they had just left. Drake found it interesting that she had parked facing out, not in, and could make a fast exit if she needed to.
She wouldn’t become a meal for a predator.
“Okay, let’s see what your taste in clothes is like.”
Drake got out of the car when she did and also took a look around. As a predator himself, he knew where a predator might hide himself. But this predator is a human, and therefore unpredictable. Still, he saw nothing unusual. No man trying to hide behind a telephone pole, no car slowing to watch them, no hunter with a high-powered rifle peering through a scope.
Emily led the way into the nearest shop, a musical jingle announcing their presence. Drake glanced at the wide array of shirts of all kinds on hangers, shelves of jeans, boots, sneakers, hats, jackets, and a myriad of other items such as knives, backpacks, satchels, and cases of jewelry. A young woman wearing nice clothes and a smile asked, “Can I help you find something?”
“No,” Emily replied, also smiling. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Let me know, I’ll be right over here.”
Drake browsed the racks of shirts and picked out mostly t-shirts, the kind he was most comfortable wearing. He selected a couple pairs of jeans, a pair of sneakers, and a double-edged knife he liked the look of. It came with a sheath, and the means to attach it to his belt. Emily watched him pick that out with no comment.
Taking all his selections, as well as underwear and socks, to the cashier, he watched her ring them up while Emily stood near the door. “That’ll be two hundred and sixty-four dollars and seventy-nine cents.”
Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset Page 41