Guarded by the Dragon

by Sofia Stone

  “I called the police,” the hotel employee continued in a gentle voice. “Maybe you should sit down?”

  Numbly, Amelia followed her gentle guidance to one of the plush lobby chairs, and sank down into the seat. “Thank you,” she said when the girl brought back a blanket for her. Amelia wrapped it around her shoulders. Her fingers were shaking, she noted as if from a distance, like she was outside her body and only watching what went on. Shock. I must be in shock.

  “There were gunshots, weren’t there?” she asked the other woman, feeling suddenly unsure. Everything had happened so fast, it was almost like a dream. Or rather a nightmare . . .

  You need to wake up, said the voice in her head. Amelia had the impression of fluttering wings like those of a bat, but much larger. You have to go!

  Go where? asked Amelia, befuddled.

  To your mate. Now! the voice insisted. He’s in danger!

  Somehow Amelia was as certain of that fact as she was about the sky being blue. And there was something else, too, a feeling niggling at the back of her mind . . .

  She bolted from her chair. The sudden movement startled those around her, but she paid them no mind. All of her attention was focused on Gabriel. The danger he was in—she’d felt it before, smothered in shock, but now the sense of it rose to a fever pitch. She could sense him.

  That sense drew her like a flashing beacon. Amelia didn’t question where her feet led her, as if they had a mind of their own: out the revolving door, back into the street, down the pavement, around the corner . . .

  . . . to Gabriel.

  At first she didn’t realize it was him, but then she recognized the clean gray linen of his suit, and his dark hair coming unwound from his bun. He was on his hands and knees, as if he’d fallen but was still trying to go on, to complete his mission.

  “Gabriel!”

  He didn’t seem to hear her.

  Amelia rushed to his side. While he’d looked fine from the back, the front was another matter. His shirt was stained with red. She didn’t know anything about emergency aid, but he was bleeding, and she knew that wasn’t good. She held the fabric of his jacket against his wound and pressed.

  An ambulance, she thought frantically, I need an ambulance, or he's going to bleed out. Amelia fumbled for her phone, but dropped it when a hand seized her elbow. Even weakened so, Gabriel’s grip was still surprisingly strong.

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “No hospitals.”

  “You need help!” she argued. “You can’t even stand up straight!”

  He shook his head again. Stubborn man, she thought with mingled anger and affection.

  “You? Are you okay?” The question sounded like it took an effort.

  “I can’t believe you’re asking me that,” blurted Amelia. She shouldn’t even be arguing with him; she should be finding help. No one had noticed them; this little side street wasn’t busy at all.

  She was amazed when he huffed a laugh. It was a weak, tired laugh, but it was a laugh all the same.

  “I’m getting better, sweetheart,” he rasped.

  The endearment gave her flutters, but Amelia forced herself to focus.

  “What on Earth are you talking about?” she hissed.

  Gabriel held his hand up to his chest, and she watched as something fell into it.

  He held it up between blood-soaked fingers. It was the bullet, she realized with astonishment.

  “See?” he said, as if this was a sign of anything other than imminent bleeding to death.

  “Put that back in right now!” Amelia said, half-hysterically.

  He smiled weakly. “No need. Don’t worry.” He slipped the bullet into the pocket of his jacket.

  Maybe she wasn’t a doctor, but she watched enough crime dramas to know that a bullet coming out of him was not good. But somehow he seemed convinced.

  Gabriel took a few deep, steadying breaths, and his hand came to rest heavily on her shoulder. “Amelia, we need to return to the hotel.”

  “Uh, we need to get you some medical help!” Amelia corrected, hoping the subtext of are you a crazy person?! came through loud and clear.

  But Gabriel shook his head. “No hospitals. And no one can know I was shot. Help me up. We’re walking back.”

  “What? No!” She was aghast. “Can you even walk?”

  “I can if you help me. Trust me. Please. I know this sounds crazy, but it needs to be done.”

  “Everyone’s going to see the blood all over you,” she pointed out.

  He frowned. “Good point. We’ll use that blanket you have,” he said.

  She’d forgotten about it. It had fallen at her feet when she reached for him. Amelia wrapped it around his shoulders, arranging it to cover the red. Somehow the stain looked smaller than she thought it should. Shouldn’t he be bleeding more?

  “I really hope you know what you’re doing,” she muttered as she knelt beside him and drew his arm over her shoulder.

  Together they stood. It was a slow, halting process, and he swayed into her side.

  “Careful, crazy cowboy,” she warned. “I’m a big girl, but you’re bigger, and if I go down so do you.”

  He gave her a small, wan grin. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  They took a few ungraceful steps. He was a little wobbly, but it went better than Amelia expected.

  “We’ll go up to the hotel room. Don’t say anything about my being shot,” he said firmly, catching her eye and waiting for her to nod before taking the next step. He must have seen the uncertainty she felt on her face, because he added more softly, “Lady Nancy will know exactly what to do.”

  It seemed too much for Amelia to believe, but somehow she trusted him.

  * * *

  He didn’t stir for hours. When he did, it was with a yawn and a stretch, and a healthy glow, that made him look like a completely normal, uninjured person just rising from a nap.

  Amelia stirred when he did, lifting her head from the armchair where she’d been dozing ever since putting him to bed.

  Her nerves, frazzled by the day’s events, couldn’t take it any longer, and she spoke at the first sign of life.

  “You’re awake!”

  “I’m awake,” Gabriel said agreeably, rolling onto his side toward her—until he winced.

  “Careful with that shoulder. Having been shot there and all.”

  He pushed himself up with his good arm and leaned back against the hotel pillows. There was no blood on his chest. Amelia had been half expecting it and half not.

  “Where’s Lady Nancy?” he asked.

  “She's in bed.” She waved a hand at the window, which showed the darkness outside. Night had fallen several hours ago. “She apparently thought there was nothing to worry about, despite the fact that you were shot and we covered it up from the police,” she said pointedly.

  “What did you tell them?” He pushed the blankets off his lower half.

  “That you didn’t have anything to eat all day before running after the shooter, so you fainted.” It had happened to her a few times, so it was the first thing that came to mind when the cop questioned her.

  Gabriel grimaced.

  Amelia pointed a finger at him. “Hey! You don’t get to complain about the story I had to make up on the fly because you were unconscious.”

  He raised his hands in surrender. “You did a good job,” he said with a reassuring smile.

  “Damn right I did. Assuming you’re not about to die on me.” Amelia was trying to sound cool and confident, but her voice trembled on the last few words, betraying her.

  In response, Gabriel began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Um,” she said intelligently, before locating her brain again. “What are you doing?” Her question came out in a squeak.

  He shrugged his shirt off without a verbal answer. There was no sign of blood on the bandage. When he began to peel back the corner of the tape holding it in place, Amelia protested.

  “You shouldn’t do that!”

 
; Gabriel gave her a smile, the one that made her feel safe, like everything was going to be okay.

  “I’m fine, Amelia.” He said her name like a caress, soft and intimate. “Come over here. See for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

  Amelia was about to retort that it wasn’t about belief so much as actual physical impossibility when her words died in her throat at the sight of his wounded shoulder. Or rather at the sight of his very non-wounded shoulder. When he brushed the remaining rust-colored flakes of dried blood away, there was only bare skin left underneath.

  No open wound lingered. It had closed over. The skin wasn’t completely unmarked, though. There was new scar tissue there—like what a gunshot injury might look like, but weeks or months afterwards. Not hours later.

  Amelia gaped. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she leaned in and reached out without thinking. Her fingertips skimmed over his collarbone and came to rest just under the old-looking wound. The only sign that it had been recently acquired was the pink skin surrounding it.

  “How is this even possible?” she breathed.

  Gabriel gave her a puzzled look. “How do you think?”

  She was taken aback. “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking!”

  He tilted his head back, studying her with his dark gray gaze. “Well, what happens when you get injured?” He sounded like he was honestly curious.

  What a weird question, Amelia thought. “I don’t, really,” she replied with a shrug. “I never have, not seriously. Just lucky, I guess.”

  Gabriel considered that. “You’re sure about that? Never-never? Or have you ever been hurt and it just seemed to go away?”

  Amelia thought about it, biting her lip. “There was one time I thought I broke my toe, but it turned out only to be sprained, and it was fine the next day.” At the time, she attributed the incident to her lack of diagnostic skills. “That was nothing like this, though,” she added, tapping the fingers that were still resting on his chest. His lean, nicely muscled chest, which she was definitely not staring at.

  His hand came up to cover hers, sending shivers of electricity down her arm. “It’s exactly the same,” he countered, a half-smile rising to his lips. “I suppose if you weren’t raised among us, you wouldn’t know. We’re not like other people.”

  The breath caught in Amelia’s throat as she reflected on what he was saying. Zavinians weren’t like other people? They had supernaturally fast healing?

  Don’t be stupid, said the voice in the back of her mind. He means us. Dragons.

  Gabriel squeezed her fingers, drawing her attention back to him. Amelia swallowed. The attraction she thought she’d suppressed had blazed back to life. Coming so close to losing him had woken up something inside of her. It made her realize how much he meant to her. In some ways he was a stranger, but . . . not in the ways that counted. She knew him. She knew he would keep her safe, protect her with his own life . . . She knew he was her mate.

  The strange word popped into her head, making her flush, but she also knew it was exactly the right word. They were soulmates.

  They were sitting so close together, close enough she fancied she could hear his breathing pick up pace, and feel his heart beating beneath her hand.

  “Gabriel,” she whispered, overcome by how much she wanted him in that moment. “I almost lost you. I don’t know what I would have done if . . .” She left the worst possibility unvoiced.

  His hand tightened on hers and she felt a heady pull of arousal low in her belly. This close his eyes were not only gray, but she could see shades of other colors as well: green and blue and even, she thought, a hint of purple. In all their colors, his eyes were dark with intent, and his gaze dropped to her lips.

  He leaned toward her, and her eyes slipped closed in anticipation.

  Anticipation for a kiss that didn’t come.

  The moment was interrupted by a loud sound—the growl of an empty stomach.

  Amelia opened her eyes. That sound had definitely not come from her. Looking down at his stomach, she said dryly, “How the tables have turned. Why hello there.”

  Gabriel looked as embarrassed as she’d ever seen him.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, and Amelia couldn’t help it—she let out a giggle. It quickly turned into a full-blown, stomach-clutching fit of laughter, which Gabriel joined her in. The relief and happiness she felt in that moment was overwhelming. It went on for at least a minute before beginning to taper off. Tears escaped her eyes, and she wiped them away between chuckles.

  “I think I needed that, after everything that happened,” she gasped, and Gabriel nodded.

  Finally he leaned back against the headboard, rubbing a hand over his face.

  “So you’re hungry, huh?” Amelia managed to say, before pressing her lips together to hold back another gale of laughter.

  Gabriel grinned, looking flustered. “The healing process takes a lot of energy. I’m starving.”

  Amelia jumped off the bed and began rifling through the drawer in the night table.

  After a moment, she found what she was looking for. She held up the room service menu triumphantly. “Let’s get some food in you.”

  He looked over the menu, and then proceeded to order what seemed like one of everything over the phone. When he was done, he saw Amelia gaping at him, and grinned.

  “A lot of energy, remember? I need to recharge.”

  Amelia was a big eater, by necessity as well as for pleasure—her one stint at dieting in high school had seen her collapsing from an empty stomach, just like she’d told Gabriel—but she’d never seen a spread like the one that came up to them then. It was a veritable feast. A banquet, even. The two employees who brought it up gave them weird looks—clearly expecting there to be many more people present, even at the late hour—but they didn’t say anything.

  Amelia sat with Gabriel at the table. By this time, she knew the proper salad fork—proper everything—and practiced her princess etiquette with her food while Gabriel glanced at her with amusement between bites. She exercised her talents on a juicy, medium-rare steak with a mushroom cream sauce, a side of buttery mashed potatoes, and a hunk of grilled Romaine with a bleu cheese dressing.

  Gabriel, on the other hand, wolfed down what had to be three or four complete meals very quickly—though his manners never faltered—before slowing down even a little bit.

  “Careful there,” she remarked with a hint of alarm. “I didn’t save your life today to lose you to choking on a piece of asparagus.”

  Gabriel smiled, making her heart jump. “Don’t worry. You’re not losing me yet.”

  She felt a giddy smile cross her face and sipped at her glass of merlot to hide it while he continued to eat.

  Finally, he sat back with a huge sigh, surrounded by a number of dirty plates. “We’re not easy to kill,” he said.

  “How not-easy is not-easy?” she asked curiously.

  “We’re not affected by any poison I know about,” he replied. “We heal quickly—very quickly, as you saw today. It’ll be a couple of days before I’m completely back to normal, though.”

  “Oh, only a couple of days,” she teased. “How inconvenient for you.”

  He grinned. “We never really get sick, either,” he finished with a shrug.

  “I got food poisoning in college once,” she said thoughtfully. “But I guess I’ve never gotten sick-sick, though. And even that only lasted for a few hours.”

  “Your body can handle it better than normal people’s.” Gabriel’s eyes narrowed at the remaining food. “I thought I was done, but I’m definitely not. Do you have a dessert preference? There’s four of them.”

  “I’ll take the lemon cheesecake with blueberry sauce, please.” She had practically started drooling when she heard him order it. The cheesecake was as light and fluffy as a cloud, with a tart finish that perfectly complemented the sweet berries.

  “Who do you think it was who . . .?” She waved a hand at his shoulder.

  He pause
d with a forkful of bread pudding halfway to his mouth to consider the question. “I’m almost positive they wanted to get you,” he began slowly.

  Amelia blinked. “Really?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just a bodyguard, and the bastard by-blow of a lord. What would anyone want with me? You, on the other hand, are a princess. And a secret princess at that.”

  “Who could it be?” she thought out loud. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “I told you about your distant cousin Henri.”

  “The heir to the throne . . . after me. The one you don’t like very much,” she recalled.

  “He’s a power-hungry dick,” Gabriel said bluntly.

  Amelia swallowed. “So do you think he might have sent that man after me?”

  “He wouldn’t know about you unless he knew about your uncle’s infertility first, and I don’t see how he could know about that. We certainly didn’t tell him, and there’s no one else your uncle trusts enough to tell. But he is our best lead, I suppose.”

  “Whoever it is, they know I’m here. What are we going to do next? We can’t stay here, can we?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “We shouldn’t. We probably shouldn’t have even come back here after what happened.”

  Amelia shivered, as if a cool hand had reached out and touched the back of her neck. “What if they try again?”

  Gabriel leaned forward and took her hands in his. “Nothing's going to happen to you, I promise,” he vowed in a low rumble. “I’ll protect you.” His thumb stroked the back of her hand, soothing and inflaming all at once.

  “I’m not just worried about myself,” she told him. “What about you?”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “I told you already. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  “You do seem very sturdy. But . . . please be careful.”

  “Okay,” he said, humoring her. Silence reigned for a few long moments, and she regarded him intently. “Why do I feel this way about you?” she asked in a whisper.

  He was silent for a long moment, dark eyes flashing, before he answered. “Because we belong together,” he said hoarsely, and their lips crashed together.