Guarded by the Dragon

by Sofia Stone

  Amelia clapped her hands together. “Okay, I need to go back to my apartment and get some stuff. But I took the bus here, and I don’t really want to take luggage on the bus . . .”

  “We’ll get a car,” Gabriel suggested. He glanced around: Edric was slipping away, leaving the two of them alone in the hallway. That sly griffin, he thought, though he was grateful for more time to spend with his mate.

  “Then let’s get this show on the road!”

  Chapter Three: Amelia

  O n the ride to her apartment, Amelia called her mother twice, but she didn’t pick up. She was probably just busy with her new beau, but so many questions were swirling through Amelia’s mind that the silence ramped up her anxiety—through it wasn’t the only thing doing so.

  As they drew closer to their destination, Amelia grew more nervous about the prospect of Gabriel in her apartment, too.

  He’s our mate, he’ll love our den because it’s ours, said the long-lost voice in her head.

  Amelia tried her best to ignore it. What a great time for the resurgence of a literally imaginary friend from her childhood in her head. Her psyche could not have picked a better time.

  I’m not your imaginary friend and I never was, said the voice, sounding affronted. Amelia wanted to scream.

  Instead of screaming, she focused on making a mental list of everything she would have to pick up from her place. What exactly did one need to embark on the journey of becoming the crown princess of a tiny European country? She had the feeling there wasn’t a handy BuzzFeed listicle about this particular life transition. That didn’t stop her from searching anyway.

  It was a challenge to keep her mind on her list for the whole car ride. Besides her childhood dragon friend and impending royal duties, Gabriel was a third distraction, and a very big distraction at that.

  In such close quarters it was impossible not to notice him: his broad shoulders, trim waist, sharp jawline, beautiful hands with long fingers that made you wonder what he could do with them. His black suit disguised his physique, but she’d bet he had the kind of muscular definition she liked in men—not overly bulge-y but fit and capable, with well-defined shoulders and pecs she would love to run her hands over . . .

  Stop that, Amelia told herself, pinching the inside of her wrist to end the fantasy that was coming embarrassingly close to making her squirm in her seat.

  Their arrival at her place provided a welcome distraction. At her doorstop, she dug her keys out of her purse. Gabriel’s proximity at her side made her fumble with them twice before finding the right key. To distract him from her incompetence, she said jokingly, “This is probably not the kind of opulence you’re used to associating with royalty, just so you know in advance . . .”

  He smiled. She had seen him smile already, back in the coffee shop, but it had lost none of its heart-stopping power: warm, sincere, and totally focused on her.

  “How much do you think bodyguards get paid in Zavinia? Even royal bodyguards aren’t that well-compensated. I have my own little place, not very different from this. And besides, I lived in student housing while in Oxford. I doubt your apartment could surprise me.”

  “Fair enough,” allowed Amelia, and swung the front door open. “It’s so weird how normal it looks.” She bit her lip, wondering how it could look so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Then she shook her head and led Gabriel inside.

  Her apartment was on the small side, but it still felt a little bare and empty even so. She had never done much decorating, and she didn’t have much stuff other than the necessities, and of course her postcard collection. She had just never felt the need to; her life was elsewhere, in her work and her friends and her family. Over the years, she wondered if she was weird or if she should feel bad about it.

  “Did you move here recently?” was the first thing Gabriel asked as he looked around.

  “I’ve lived here for three years, actually,” she admitted reluctantly, kind of wishing he hadn’t noticed.

  Maybe you knew that something more important was coming, the dragon-shaped voice in her head suggested.

  Gabriel didn’t seem bothered by her Spartan sense of decor, simply asking how he could help her.

  “Good question. There’s a duffel bag on the highest shelf of my closet, if you can reach? My stepstool is in the bathroom. Here, I’ll get some clothes and you can roll them up and put them in the bag.”

  He dutifully retrieved the duffel bag without complaint, even though this whole errand was surely drudgery well below his pay grade.

  Of course he wants to help us, he’s our mate.

  Oh, shut up.

  Meanwhile, she eyed the contents of her closet with her hands on her hips.

  “That woman said she would buy me an all-new wardrobe.” Realizing what she’d just said, she blanched. “Um. Oops.”

  Gabriel was visibly struggling to suppress a laugh. “That’s not the first time she’s been called ‘that woman’ and it won’t be the last. I won’t tell her, I promise.”

  She gave a slightly embarrassed grin. “Sounds good. Well, even though I’m getting a bunch of shiny new things, I don’t have to throw everything out, right? I assume princesses still occasionally lounge around in sweatpants and a t-shirt.”

  Oh god, why did she say that? To cover up her embarrassment, she began leafing through the hangers and yanking off items almost at random to throw on the bed.

  Her wardrobe wasn’t exactly formal; she had a few nice things like the dress she was wearing now, but otherwise she tried to dress comfortably. She tossed a few pairs of jeans Gabriel’s way, not knowing if Lady Nancy would approve of princesses in denim but not willing to give up jeans totally. Surely she wasn’t going to expect Amelia to become a completely different person. I’m not going to, no matter what she expects, she told herself.

  “She said after my fittings, we would start on my ‘lessons’,” Amelia ventured, considering and discarding a ratty sweatshirt with at least two holes. She wasn’t so masochistic as to wear that in front of Lady Nancy. “Any idea what those might be about?”

  “You’ll have to learn about the history of Zavinia, and the politics too. Probably etiquette as well.”

  “Is that something you’ll be helping me with, Mr. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Degree?”

  “Actually, yes. It’s one of the reasons I was chosen to come.”

  She wasn’t sure she could survive having such a sexy teacher. Too many fantasies all rolled into one. “And the others? Are they all experts on something too?”

  “Not really. Lise and Trees are two of her ladies in waiting. They’re originally from America and they’ve been homesick lately, so she brought them along.”

  “How did they get to move to Zavinia? Isn’t it really hard to get in?” she asked, curious.

  “Their father Willas got a job—well, I recruited him for a job. He works with us as part of the royal security detail, though he’s not here.” He wasn’t sure the details were his to share—Trees, a wyvern shifter like her father, had accidentally poisoned a classmate and as a result drawn a lot of attention from the shifter community. Wyverns were rare and deadly, and it was better to have that kind of resource on their side instead of used against them by someone else.

  While he finished packing her clothes, she grabbed her laptop, e-book reader, and toiletries, and mentally ran through her list again. Clothes, computer, toothpaste . . . what else do I need? It seemed like everything, but something was missing.

  “What’s going to happen to my place?” she asked while she tried to figure out what she was forgetting. “My lease has three months left. I probably won’t need the rest of my stuff in Zavinia . . .” She didn’t feel any particular attachment to her bargain-bin basic cookware or the armchair she found at a flea market.

  “I’ll take—we’ll take care of you. Of your things,” he assured her.

  The multiple corrections made her smile, though she hid it by turning away to the fridge to see wh
at she needed to throw out.

  “Specifically?” she asked as she examined a container of pasta salad that was almost a week old.

  “We’ll put your things in storage or have them shipped over, whatever you like. As for your apartment . . . We can afford to get you out of your lease, if need be. We have two weeks before we leave for Zavinia to work everything out.”

  “Fair enough.” Amelia finished dumping out the pasta container and threw away some takeout.

  “Is this all you want to take with you, for now?” he asked, lifting her duffel bag to illustrate.

  She snapped her fingers. “I remember now! Oh my god, you’re going I’m crazy. Okay, you can’t make fun of me, or think I’m a weirdo,” she instructed, leading him back to the bedroom, following the tug in her heart to the open closet.

  “Now I’m intrigued.”

  “Will you get those boxes for me off the top shelf?” Amelia pointed.

  He brought down was two shoeboxes, heavier than they looked, and regarded them with curiosity. Weird as it was, Amelia knew she wanted to take them with her, no matter how bizarre or unimportant their contents might seem to others.

  He will understand, said the dragon’s voice.

  Amelia ignored it, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that she did trust him, and that part of her wanted to show him what was inside.

  “I have a collection of several hundred postcards,” said Amelia, taking off one of the lids to show him. “I know that sounds so silly, but I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid—some of these were my dad’s, in fact, since he used to travel before I was born. It’s what got me started.”

  Gabriel picked up the box carefully, holding it with what she could only describe as reverence. “Some of these look very old.”

  “They’re sorted by how old they are. See?” She pointed. The ones furthest back in that box were distinctly yellowing, while those in the front were barely off-white.

  “May I?” he asked, and she nodded, pleased that he’d asked instead of assuming. She had never before revealed her silly hobby to anyone but Sabine or her mother. But Gabriel’s evident interest and care warmed her, and she hoped she hadn’t made a mistake by showing him a little piece of her heart.

  “So you don’t think it’s, you know, a little childish?” she said, trying to make it sound like she didn’t care about the answer.

  “Of course not.” His warm gray eyes widened. “You’re a dragon. Naturally you have your treasures.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh at that, and after a moment he joined in, even though she wasn’t totally certain he had been joking. Something to keep in mind whenever I have to make a speech: these people are obsessed with dragons.

  “We’ll take this with us,” he promised her, replacing the lid carefully and setting the box down as though it were precious cargo. “You won’t have to travel without it.”

  Amelia found herself touched, and oddly relieved. What did it matter whether the shoeboxes came on the plane to Zavinia or were shipped there later? Yet she was still happy to hear Gabriel’s words. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so seen. Especially by a man. She had Sabine, and her mother, of course, and she wouldn’t trade them for anything—but the look in his molten silver eyes was something more than friendship or familial fondness. She could tell he meant it down to his bones, the care in his eyes piercing the shell she’d built around her heart and making her breath catch.

  She moved, or he moved, or maybe they both moved at the same time. Suddenly his mouth was hot upon hers in a fiery kiss. The kiss warmed her to her core. And so did he—how was it possible his body was so hot? She could hardly miss the heat radiating from him, when he was pulling her close and she was pressing herself against him in a vain effort to get just a little bit closer.

  One of his hands cupped her face, tilting her head back for a better angle. Amelia didn’t think of herself as short, exactly—she was five-eight—but she felt positively tiny next to Gabriel.

  His hand slid down her back possessively, as if it belonged there—as if it had always belonged there. She found herself leaning into his embrace without thinking and twining her arms around his neck to deepen the kiss.

  It felt so right. Like two halves of a whole coming together.

  Yesssss, hissed the dragon voice inside her. We belong together!

  That was, ironically, what broke the spell.

  Amelia didn’t want to break off the best kiss of her life—in fact, she wanted nothing less . . . except she had to. But his hands felt so good on her body and his fiery kiss was so distracting it was almost impossible.

  Reluctantly, she tore herself away, panting.

  He looked as dazed and shocked as she felt. She took a couple of deep breaths to try to steady herself, but it didn’t help; she felt off-kilter and hot, a flush suffusing her face.

  “Okay,” she said—no, squeaked, to her embarrassment. She tried to clear her throat. “Okay, um. Let’s just press pause on . . . this—” She waved a hand between them. “This, whatever it is—”

  He is our mate and we belong in his arms, her dragon protested.

  Amelia took another deep breath—third time was the charm, right? Gabriel had pulled back, crossing his arms defensively.

  She finally dared to look at his face.

  He looked as wild as he felt—a little tousled, his silver gaze hot and liquid as it swept over her body with clear desire. For a moment she could almost see it behind his eyes: a silver dragon, a beast greater even than her own. Rising, as if about to take flight. It was almost enough to compel her to step back into his arms.

  “Why?” His voice was low and rough, sending a tingle of desire straight to her core. “I’ll do whatever you ask. But tell me: Why?”

  “I know this is going to sound like a cliché, but I really mean it: It’s not you, it’s me. There’s so much going on right now and my life just turned upside-down . . .”

  His gaze darkened, and his hands clenched spasmodically at his side, but when he spoke, his voice was crisp. “You’ll have an easier time without me.”

  Amelia wasn’t sure that was exactly what she meant—but it was close enough. What she’d said was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. I’m crazy, she thought. And it was a sign of how quickly she’d gotten attached that she was desperate for him to not find out. If he did . . . well, it was already a miracle that he wanted her now. What would he think of her, when he discovered the truth?

  He will love us, insisted the voice stubbornly.

  Sane people don’t walk around with voices in their heads, Amelia snapped back, then regretted it. Surely they didn’t respond to them either, she thought, and resolved not to do it again.

  Her recollections of early childhood were tenuous, but she vaguely recalled something about a mental cage. Imagine a glass sheet, said another voice—different, but equally familiar, hazily remembered. It might have been her father’s. Imagine it coming down between you, separating you. This is for your own good.

  When she tried to do it this time, it didn’t seem to work. The dragon seemed to break through every barrier she put up, and she protested loudly at all of Amelia’s attempts to do so. I won’t go away now that we’ve met our mate!

  Amelia sighed. Princess training was going to be hell.

  * * *

  Amelia was worried about the awkwardness of the next day, but she needn’t have been. When they returned to the hotel, Amelia was taken to her new living quarters, a well-appointed two-room suite. And apparently she wasn’t going to live alone: a bodyguard was going to be stationed with her.

  Gabriel was true to his word, and she didn’t catch a single glimpse of him for the rest of the night—and it pained her more than she expected. Instead, Edric was to be her live-in bodyguard. That night, as she was lying in bed trying to sleep, she spent more time than she wanted to admit imagining what would be happening right now if he were her bodyguard. Their kiss had awakened her desire, and she turned ove
r restlessly for hours before finally drifting off to disjointed dreams of him and dragons.

  The next morning, Lady Nancy didn’t give her time to brood, instead whisking her to a tailor first thing the next morning.

  Lise and Trees came with them, and Edric.

  Amelia squashed her pang of disappointment at the realization that Gabriel wouldn’t be with her today.

  It’s for the best, she told herself sternly. If they had to dance around each other all day after that kiss . . . well, she might go crazy. Even more crazy than she already was, anyway.

  “This color would look just perfect on you,” gushed the attendant, holding up a swatch of fabric to Amelia’s arm. It was a bright reddish purple, really bold and gutsy. Way bolder than Amelia’s usual wardrobe, which mostly consisted of neutrals in various shades. If they’d been in a regular store, she’d have passed right over this color without thinking twice, assuming it wasn’t for her.

  “Are you sure?” Amelia asked skeptically.

  “You have cool skin,” the attendant explained. Putting the swatch down, she took Amelia’s wrist and laid it beside her own. “See how your veins look blue and mine look green? That’s because you have cool skin and I have warm skin. Cool colors, like blues and greens and purples, will flatter you.”

  “Warm colors are like orange, yellow, red,” Trees chimed in.

  “I guess that explains why I look terrible in orange,” Amelia mused. “Though that’s probably also the hair.” The red tint clashed horribly.

  Amelia had never gone for a clothes fitting in her life, much less someplace as posh and uptown as this. They’d been served champagne when they came in, for goodness’ sakes, and now she was looking down at the top of the tailor’s head while she fit her measuring tape around Amelia’s calf, and she’d never felt so awkward in her life.

  “So what do you think of the color?” asked the attendant.

  Fake it till you make it, right? “I’ll take it,” Amelia said, with more confidence than she felt. Trees clapped in excitement.