Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset

by Serena Meadows

  “I knew what he was and I still underestimated him.”

  “But you won’t make that mistake again.” Emily watched him closely, seeing the deadly smile emerge, the gleam in Drake’s eyes.

  “I will not.”

  “Are we doing this tonight?”

  The police guard no longer sat outside the house. With the lack of any activity, Clem’s powers that be returned them to their normal duties. Drake pondered for a few minutes, then replied, “Let’s wait until tomorrow night. Give you another day to heal, and for us to make a plan, then ten other contingencies.”

  “All right. It may turn out we just go for a drive and nothing at all happens.”

  “No,” Drake replied slowly, “that won’t happen. Toombs won’t be able to resist us being out in the open. He’s a hunter. And hunters don’t want their prey in hiding.”

  To make Toombs believe this was simply an outing, Emily drove Drake to a decent restaurant. She could not tell if Toombs followed or not, nor did he try to kill Drake as he did the last time they went out to eat. If he was out there, Emily couldn’t see him, nor could Drake.

  Neither drank any wine but enjoyed the delicious steaks and seafood. A nervous fluttering filled her already full stomach as Drake escorted her from the restaurant. “Do you see him anywhere?” she asked as they crossed the parking lot.

  “No, but I feel him. He’s here, somewhere close, watching us right now.”

  Getting into her Ford, Emily pulled the Glock from her purse and set it on the console. Drake sat in the passenger seat but refused to put his seatbelt on. After a moment’s hesitation, Emily unbuckled hers. “It’s a good thing I disabled the reminder,” she muttered.

  Too busy watching for Toombs, Drake asked no questions, and within moments, Emily drove onto the interstate. Driving ten miles an hour under the speed limit, Emily hoped to spot Toombs. But he’s too smart to maintain an equal speed and will either hang way back or will pass us.

  Darkness had fallen, and the cars and trucks on the highway had turned on their headlights. “He might keep his lights off,” Emily commented, “and will hang back to pace us. Keep an eye out for a reflection of a car with no lights.”

  Though Drake kept his eyes on the mirror, he saw nothing of the sort. Cars and trucks passed them by, and every time one did, she tried to see the driver. But between the night’s darkness and tinted windows, she had no luck. “Do you still feel him?” Emily asked.

  “No,” he admitted. “But that might be because he currently isn’t watching, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t planned something.”

  “Okay, time to head for open land,” Emily said, turning on her blinker and exiting the highway. “I wonder if we lost him.”

  “Let’s not start thinking that.”

  As Emily drove on, following a semi-deserted state highway, her nervousness returned. No car followed them, with or without lights. Yet her nerves thrummed with either anticipation or dread, or maybe both, and she felt as taut as a guitar string. Even Drake’s face in the lights of the dash appeared tense, as though the waiting for something to happen got to him, too.

  “It’s time to head back,” Emily said abruptly. “I don’t like this.”

  She pulled over to the side of the road, bumping along its shoulder in preparation for making a U-turn on the two-lane blacktop. As though waiting for exactly that moment, bright headlights bore down on them at a high rate of speed.

  “Shit!” Emily yelled, then floored the accelerator.

  The Ford dropped down into the ditch on the far side of the highway, and the truck that clearly aimed to hit them broadside missed the rear bumper by a hair. Drake opened his door and leaped out as Emily fought to get the car back onto the asphalt.

  Onto the shoulder again, she grabbed the Glock and got out of her car. Drake blasted past her, the wind of his passing blowing her hair around her face. Swiping it to clear her eyes, she saw the truck skidding to a halt, then turning around. As a black dragon on a dark night, Emily had trouble seeing him. But there was no mistaking the flames that burst from his wide jaws.

  Even at that distance, Emily felt the heat from it. Soaring over the truck, Drake blasted his fire down onto the vehicle, setting it ablaze. Joy and terror both gripped Emily as the burning truck trundled to a stop in the middle of the highway.

  Her joy vanished and terror filled her as a figure, backlit by the terrible flames, emerged unscathed by the fire. It lifted, aimed, and fired a rifle up at Drake. He wore a flame-retardant suit! It was similar to what firemen wore before running into burning buildings, but far stronger.

  Emily screamed in frustration, rage, and fear as Drake banked away from Toombs and his rifle. Even so, he continued to fight. A shadow lit by the fire; Emily saw Toombs searching the sky.

  He can’t see Drake! As silent as an owl, Drake hovered briefly over his target even as Toombs tried to see him, invisible as he was. Shooting a blast of fire over the man, Drake then banked away, unable to hover for very long. Toombs, his suit blazing for a moment before the flames slowly extinguished, lifted the rifle to his shoulder again. Emily screamed, hoping to distract him.

  It worked, for the shots missed Drake.

  But it brought Toombs’ attention on her.

  He raised the gun to his shoulder again, aiming it at her. Emily raised the Glock, forgotten until now, and fired first. While she didn’t think she’d actually shot him, her shooting at him distracted Toombs and forced him to hide behind his burning truck. He shot back, but the bullet went wild. Emily cranked four more shots at him, forcing him to keep his head down, then raced back to her car.

  “Drake!” she screamed. “Let’s go!”

  She punched the accelerator, hoping Drake would heed her and follow, throwing the fight to Toombs. She knew that Drake’s flames would eventually eat through the suit if Drake could keep flaming him, but he couldn’t while Toombs shot a rifle at him. Looking back, she saw the burning truck recede into the distance and felt some small satisfaction that Toombs was in the middle of farm country with no vehicle.

  Looking to her right, Emily saw Drake pacing her, flying low over the fields. She slowed the Ford and came to a stop, putting it in park. Getting out, she watched as he circled overhead and came in to land on the blacktop. The backwash of his wings sent her hair into dancing around her head, then he furled them.

  He ambled toward her, gazing down at her with blue eyes that blazed with a fire of their own. This was the first chance she’s gotten to touch him when he was in this form. As he dropped his muzzle down to her, Emily caressed it.

  His hide felt silky smooth under her fingers. It wasn’t precisely hair, nor was it scales, but an odd mixture of the two. Her arms barely reached around his face to cup his long jawbones, but she tried as she rested her face between his eyes.

  “My dragon,” she breathed. “My Drake.”

  He made a low growling sound deep in his throat, but clearly, he couldn’t talk as she understood it while in his dragon body. She took it to mean that she was his, even as she realized it was indeed true. She loved him, protector or not, with all of her heart, and all of her soul.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  What he might have replied was lost as sirens sounded in the distance.

  “Shit,” she muttered, stepping around him as he turned his head toward the direction they had come from. “Someone reported the fire. Unless you want to fly home, you better get in the car.”

  Instantly, Drake stood on two legs, not four, and swore choice words. “I could have had him, Emily,” he snapped. “He outsmarted us again.”

  “Get in.”

  Once Drake was inside the car, Emily drove on. Something nagged at her; something about what had just happened bugged her. “Why didn’t the rifle explode?” she asked.

  Drake nodded grimly. “He must have coated it with something to repel my heat,” he answered. “The same as the suit. I could smell it as it caught fire, something nasty.”

&nbs
p; “Maybe asbestos,” she said, thinking. “But where does a man with no job, fresh out of prison, get the money for a fire-proof suit?”

  “He has to have a stash,” Drake answered. “Like what I have.”

  The sirens screamed louder as they approached the firetrucks, the red and blue lights washing over the Ford before they blew past. Emily watched them in the mirror for a time, then focused on returning to the interstate.

  “I think you’re right,” Emily said thoughtfully. “Asbestos itself is hard to find. It causes cancer, so no one wants it around. Where could he have gotten it?”

  “I heard that just about anything can be bought on the Internet.”

  Emily barked a laugh. “That is true. And that might be why we haven’t heard from him in a while. He’s been making his toys and waiting for the chance to use them.”

  “And we gave him that chance,” Drake said, glum. “Could there be a bug in your house that Clem missed?”

  Emily frowned, thinking. “Maybe there is. But if so, why break into my house to plant a new one?”

  “Nothing about this guy makes any sense at all,” Drake complained. “How can he always be ahead of us every step of the way?”

  “He had heard us plan a trap to burn him,” Emily said slowly. “I’m guessing he merely planned on us trying. Hence the suit. He suspected it when we drove way out here and had the suit with him in case you went dragon and tried to turn him into dust.”

  “Which I did.”

  “I don’t think there’s another bug in the house, but if there is, we’ll find it. If we don’t, then I’ll guess that Toombs just used up his ninth life.”

  “Ninth life?”

  Emily glanced sidelong at him. “Cats are supposed to have nine lives. Nine chances to cheat death. Once it uses them up, then it’s history.”

  “I see.”

  “I think I know of a way to check for listening devices,” Emily went on. “We’ll try it. Then we’ll know for certain.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emily’s plan to sweep for bugs was to turn on an old radio, then walk around the house with it. Drake watched, fascinated, as she pointed it to walls and light fixtures, expecting the bug to make a sharp whine back at the radio. No whines erupted, and Emily finally sighed, then turned it off.

  “Toombs isn’t listening,” she said. “He merely guessed right.”

  Drake checked the entire house despite knowing that they had left Toombs miles out in the country without a car. “Would the firefighters give him a ride?” Drake asked her, checking the street outside through the window.

  “Not likely,” she replied, sitting in her chair with a sigh. “They might have let him use a cell to call a cab if he didn’t have one with him.”

  Drake joined her by sitting on the couch. “What would they say if they saw his suit?”

  “That would have raised many questions, amigo,” Emily replied, taking a sip of her wine. “He would have hidden it.”

  Drake drank from his own and leaned against the back of the couch. “I wonder what explanation he gave.”

  “He may not have even been there when they got there,” she answered. “If I were him, I’d have bugged out the minute we did.”

  “I heard firemen are very adept at understanding how fires start,” Drake remarked.

  “And they’d know instantly that nothing ordinary started that truck on fire.”

  He took a drink from his wine glass, thinking of another night on the roof, watching for Toombs. His dragon senses were much keener than his human’s. He saw better in the dark, his sense of smell finer than that of a deer. “Once you go to bed,” he commented, lying back on the couch and balancing the glass on his chest, “I’ll go up to the roof.”

  “No,” Emily said quickly. “Not tonight.”

  He eyed her askance. Her expression seemed set, defiant even, as though she expected him to argue. She rushed on, not giving him a chance to speak. “I want you here with me. You can protect me from in here.”

  “In your bed?”

  “Yes.”

  Drake grinned. “I’m not gonna argue with you.”

  “Good.”

  Emily relaxed, hitching her knee over the arm of the chair and swinging it idly. “He would have arranged for someone to pick him up,” she mused. “If things went badly for him. Maybe a car service.”

  “I would have planned for that,” Drake replied, drinking his wine. “What else would he be planning, O guru of the stalker’s mind?”

  Emily laughed. “First, I’d be pissed that both of us escaped. Second, I’d be planning a phone call to make threats, maybe scare us.”

  “That hasn’t worked.”

  “It did before you got here, amigo.” Emily drank, then licked wine from her lips. “Then I’d do something they didn’t expect.”

  “Like what?”

  “Set this house on fire,” she mused. “Drive us into the open, then shoot the dragon, take his prize.”

  “He can’t do that if I’m on the roof watching.”

  “Then he will get on top of another roof and shoot you through a scope with a high-powered rifle. To get me, he has to kill you, Drake.”

  “Hmm.” Drake drank his wine. “So why hasn’t he done that?”

  “I don’t know. Unless he wants to catch me, then torture you by raping me or some other torment in front of you.”

  Drake growled low in his throat. “Just how does he think he can hold me long enough to accomplish that?”

  “Chains?”

  “Yeah. Only a fool would try to chain a dragon.”

  “No one said he was sane. Smart, yes. But not sane.”

  Drinking his wine, Drake pondered. “We can talk all night and still not know what Toombs intends to do. I suggest we forget him for now and ponder other, more pleasurable, thoughts.”

  Emily grinned wickedly. “Why don’t we?”

  Draining his wine glass, Drake stood up and padded over to Emily. His hands in hers lifted her from her chair, and he lowered his face to hers. Kissing her, he tasted the wine on her lips and something that was unique to Emily alone. Her hands in his hair prevented him from escaping, even if he wanted to. His fingers roamed her back under her shirt, her skin like silk to his touch.

  Emily broke from him, her pupils huge, like a cat’s. “Let’s go into the bedroom.”

  “I won’t argue.”

  Taking his hand, she led him down the dark hallway to her bedroom and urged him to sit on the bed. As he watched, she slowly undressed, every movement as sensual and erotic as the act of making love itself. Then, standing naked before him, she took his face and pressed his mouth against her right breast.

  Holding her by the waist, Drake licked and sucked each nipple in turn, her breathy moans in his ears. His engorged shaft strained against the zipper of his jeans but he didn’t want to stop pleasuring Emily to unzip it and free it. Her restless fingers roamed through his hair, keeping his mouth hard against her nipples.

  Trailing his right hand down her slender hip, Drake caressed her soft skin for a moment before dipping his finger in her wetness. Emily moaned louder, her legs spreading as her arousal trickled down to his wrist. Plunging his finger into her, he teased her, arousing her further, getting her ready for him.

  Standing, Drake kissed her mouth, his tongue tangling with hers, making himself hot, needing to be in her. But still, he took things slowly, not wanting to rush, and perhaps hurt her without meaning to. His fingers trailed up and down her back, her ribs as her own fumbled at his jeans. Then she got them open and pulled his hard shaft out.

  She pushed them back, exposing his manhood. Breaking their kiss, she gazed up at him. “I want you,” she whispered.

  “You can have me until you cry for mercy.”

  Turning her, Drake laid her back on the bed and pulled her butt to the edge. He spread her thighs wide apart, then leaned over her. His hands flat on the bedspread to either side of her shoulders, he gazed down into her face as he ca
refully worked his rod into her cave.

  Emily wrapped her legs around his, her hands on his shoulders as he thrust slowly in, her eyes closed. Drake watched her face as he pushed steadily into her, seeing the pleasure written in her expression, her opened mouth. Her moans increased in tempo as did his thrusts, and soon he glided in and out smoothly.

  Crying out, Emily dug her fingers into his shoulders, her nails causing him only a tiny pain. Faster, he plunged in as deep as he could, his pleasure rising as the head of his rod struck her G-Spot. He felt her orgasm as she shrieked, her mound spasming, tightening down on his hard-driving shaft.

  Drake exploded too soon. On the heels of her climax, he felt his own explosion nearing. He blasted his seed deep into her, plunging in deep and holding it for a long moment before withdrawing to thrust in deeply again. Panting, he pushed in one more time as Emily’s legs fell away from him.

  Straightening, he shoved his jeans down to his ankles, then kicked them away. He took his shirt off, then joined her on the bed. Emily curled up beside him, her head on his shoulder. Her fingers toyed with his nipples, her knee on his thighs.

  “If you got me pregnant,” she said slowly, “what kind of child would I have?”

  “Emily, I can’t tell you,” he admitted, worried that she might not want him if it meant she would bear a dragon shifter. “I love you; I don’t want to lose you. But maybe we shouldn’t, you know—”

  He didn’t see her hand move until it covered his mouth, effectively silencing him.

  “Hush,” she said. “I love you, too. If that means I give birth to a dragon, then so be it. I envy you the ability to fly, to breathe fire, I wish I could be a proper mate to you. But I can’t. So, I’ll give you dragon children.”

  She lifted her face suddenly to stare down at him. “I won’t have to lay an egg, will I?”

  Drake never thought himself capable of laughing so hard. His ribs ached, and he rolled on his side, holding them, tears squirting from his eyes. Emily stared at him in an annoyed huff, but he couldn’t seem to help it. At long last, he sniffed and choked and chuckled his way into coherent speech.