“What will we do?”
“I plan to get there and reassess.”
“We’ll do that then. How far is the cave? We’re both tired and could do with rest.”
Leo squeezed her shoulders, pride shining on his face. “My lodestone,” he murmured, and he stole a quick but gentle kiss. His touch seared her lips, and that fast burst of fiery heat warmed her inside out.
“The stream runs parallel to the track up here. We’ll walk along the stream bed and try to muddy our trail should they follow us with dogs.”
Gwenyth followed Leo and stepped into the stream. The water ran over the top of her boots, but she didn’t complain. She slogged through the bubbling flow, placing her feet carefully on the slippery stones. The water level decreased, and she bent her legs backward at the knee to empty at least some of the liquid in her boots. By the time Leo deemed it safe to walk on the track again, fatigue nipped at her. Sheer determination kept her moving and the knowledge they’d rest soon. Her pace slowed, and she caught Leo frowning over his shoulder at her.
“Another half an hour,” he murmured.
“I can do it,” she said and crossed her fingers in the hope she was telling the truth. She made it another ten minutes before Leo came back and swept her off her feet.
He swung her onto his back, and she clutched his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist to remain in place, leaving his arms free to push back overhanging branches and other obstacles. Exhaustion tugged at her again, and her eyes slipped shut. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d suffered this level of fatigue. She searched her mind and found it blissfully blank. For once, the emptiness seemed comforting rather than scary or confusing.
“We’re almost there,” Leo said.
Gwenyth’s eyes flicked open to study their surroundings. The tree canopy wasn’t as thick here, which bothered her. “Why are we stopping?”
“Do you require a bathroom break? And more water?”
“Yes, to both,” she said.
“Go behind those trees over there.” Leo pointed out a clump of trees and bushes. “The stream cuts closer to the path just ahead.”
“Oh, joy,” she muttered.
Leo laughed. “Hurry. If the search team flies this way again, we’ll be more visible.”
The warning lent her feet wings, and she scuttled behind a trio of trees to take care of business. Leo was waiting for her when she emerged. They drank before setting off again. As Leo promised, they soon reached the cave. The trouble was a precipice lay between them and the cave.
“Can’t we fly up?”
“The cave entrance is on the face of the cliff. The ledge isn’t big enough to hold my body while I shift back to human. Climbing is the only way.”
She sighed. “I guess that makes it safe from the dragons tracking us. All right. Let’s do this.”
“You ascend, and I’ll follow you,” Leo said.
Although she hated the plan, she followed his instructions.
“There’s a place for your right foot here.” He guided her boot into position. “Grip that rock with your right hand.”
Bit by bit, Leo helped her to climb the cliff face. Once they neared the cave mouth, he rose to the same level as her and helped her crawl into the cave. She collapsed on the uneven rocky floor, her trembling legs refusing to function correctly.
“My sweet Gwenyth,” he whispered. “Just a bit farther, then you can rest.”
She dragged her body deeper into the darkness, taking courage from the fact Leo was at her back. Safe. For now.
Moments later, Leo joined her inside the cave, his large frame making the gloomy space shrink. He reached for her, and she went to him, trusting him in a way she didn’t think—couldn’t remember—trusting another man. Sometimes now, if she allowed her mind to wander or to relax, she sensed a presence. Someone who’d hurt her. Made her so angry, she’d wanted to stab with a weapon. But whenever she drew on the memory, seizing that sliver of her past, it dissipated into mist.
Had she hurt someone? Killed them?
Gwenyth pushed out a sigh. The hopelessness and frustration emerged harsher than she’d intended.
“Is something wrong?” Leo asked.
She avoided the real topic in her mind to pursue one of her other concerns. “Are we safe here?”
“I think so,” Leo replied, his callused hands cupping her face.
She watched him in the twilight. Despite all that had happened, the betrayal of his family, and their flight from the castle, he seemed upbeat. Confident they could get to Perfume Isle, that they would escape Nan, and that they’d find answers with the help of his friends.
“This must feel like history repeating itself,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You told me you left the castle before to escape your brothers’ taunts and cruelty, your parents’ disinterest in you.”
His big shoulders moved in a shrug. “I guess I did, although they weren’t trying to kill my wife,” he said, anger highlighting his words. “The worst part is I don’t understand why my parents are forcing me toward Nan. Or why Nan wishes to marry me when she thinks of me as nothing more than a bug beneath her shoes. You said she wants my land, but that won’t be part of the betrothal agreement. It will still belong to me.”
“She inferred she’d get rid of you once you passed your usefulness.”
“Bitch,” Leo muttered. “Then there is the barrier failure. No one understands how it works to keep our worlds separate. And Martinos. His sister and my brothers stood at his trial and accused him of raping the girl. My gut tells me there is a connection, but I don’t even know where to start. For everything we learn, the mystery and the possible answers become more convoluted.”
Should she tell him and add to his stress? “I think my memory is returning,” Gwenyth blurted before she’d even answered her own question.
“What have you remembered?” His expression had gone blank, and she could merely guess at what was running through his mind.
“There’s an ominous presence hovering in my memories. I can’t decide if I’m scared or angry or something in between. This specter makes me uneasy.”
Leo sighed and settled on the floor of the cave in a reclining position. He arranged her body until she sprawled on top of him, and they were face-to-face. “That word describes everything rattling around in my head. None of the clues are aligning and it’s frustrating as hell.”
“Yes.” Idly, she played with the ends of his hair, smoothing and tugging the strands.
“The one agreeable thing in this situation is finding you,” he said, and he kissed her.
The meeting of their lips, the sweetness, and tenderness in the exchange had everything inside her softening. A yearning grew and bloomed. One Leo seemed to share.
“I want to make love to you,” he whispered. “If you’re too tired, we can wait.”
“No. I mean yes,” she said, cupping his face. “As long as you think we’re safe.”
“For now,” he said. “Few people know about this cave. I discovered it while hiding from my brothers. They never found me.”
Reassured, she kissed him, letting her actions do her talking. Each kiss, each caress was slow and unhurried. A silent exchange of what they’d become to each other. Languorous waves rolled through her as he kissed her neck and nibbled hard enough to spike both pleasure and pain.
“Gwenyth,” he purred in her ear.
The stubble dusting his jaw dragged across her chest, and the upper swells of her breasts. She clenched her thighs together, wanting to hold onto the delicious tickle of heat.
Leo lifted her tunic, the pads of his work-roughened fingers dragging across tender flesh. The decadent abrasion had wetness pooling between her thighs. Her breathing went shallow, and the muscles of her inner legs clenched. She kissed Leo’s cheek, his shoulder, and wished they could disrobe and explore each other without hindrance.
His fingers skimmed her breasts, and he lifte
d his head to kiss her. His tongue stroked hers, keeping time with the rub of his thumb over her nipple. She squirmed against him, rubbing her lower body against his rigid shaft. His masculine groan thrilled her and sent an answering tug deep into her belly.
“Gwenyth,” he whispered, the longing in his voice bringing the sheen of tears to her eyes.
Her mind pushed at her, insisting—rightly—that she didn’t even know if she was free to love Leo and what if she became pregnant? The sane part of her shoved these worries away, locking it behind a barricade to stop it from spoiling this moment with her brave dragon. If the dragons hunting them captured her, she’d die. Right now, she chose to celebrate life.
“Let me remove your trews,” she whispered.
His arms loosened, and he allowed her to move down his torso to straddle his hips. Without haste, she tugged the fabric up and away from his erection.
“Do dragons never don underwear?” she asked.
“The fewer clothes to discard when we shift, the better.” The lazy gleam in his green eyes was apparent even in the cave.
“I like my underwear,” she said.
“I adore your underwear. Pretty lace and silky fabrics. It’s different from garments available in the human village.”
“Hmmm,” she hummed as she pulled down his trews far enough to gain access to his engorged cock. She lowered her head and licked the crown, sucking a little before lifting her head at his gasp. “Too much?”
“Too good,” he replied. “I find myself with little restraint around you. I want you too much.”
“And that’s a dreadful thing?”
“It is since I want to spend hours making love to you.”
She stroked his abdomen and pushed up his tunic to gain access to his ridged abs. Her fingers drifted across the delineation of muscle and over his flat stomach before she returned to his cock. As she explored his length with her hands and mouth, despite his assertions he wouldn’t last, velvet tension grew in her, expanding and crowding away the uncertainty that kept assailing her. She focused on Leo, his beautiful body, and the tiny pulses and flexes of his muscles she drew from him with her touch.
She rose enough to drag her trews to her knees and teased her flesh to relieve or maybe add to the tension growing inside her.
Leo hissed as she stroked him too, the beads of moisture forming at the tip of his cock, telling her how close he was to his climax.
“Gwenyth,” he whispered, his tone hoarse.
She smiled, enjoying her feminine power even though it was a double-edge sword, hacking and swinging at her willpower too. Gwenyth lifted her body, situated herself, and sank down, taking his shaft in one increment at a time. She watched her lover as his flesh filled her, pausing when fully seated. For an instant, she savored the fullness.
“Gwenyth.” Her name was a ragged whisper, and it said everything. His hope for the future. The depth of his feeling for her. His enjoyment of what they were doing together.
She lifted off him and took him again, her pace slow to savor the thick slice of pleasure from each sweep of his cock against her inner flesh. With each invade and retreat, she shifted the angle a fraction until she hit a special place. Her head fell back with a groan while she slipped her hand off his hip to stroke her clit. Slowly, she increased her pace and soft, needy sounds bubbled from her throat. It was delectable agony—this rush of pleasure and sensation. Each rise and fall pushed more excitement through her. Her pulse thrummed, her heart thudding.
Then, on the next downward stroke, she was soaring from her body before jetting back down in a series of rapid spasms. She ceased the strokes of her tender nub, the orgasmic buzz making her eyes heavy-lidded.
“Beautiful,” Leo whispered. He gripped her hips, holding her in position and thrust upward.
She made a purring sound of approval as his cock reignited a sensitive place inside her. Her skin flushed with heat, and somehow, another mini-climax rocked her. Leo grunted, his hips jerking upward in one more thrust before he stayed buried deep inside her. Gwenyth collapsed, and Leo wrapped his arms around her. Their mouths met with a ferocious heat that seared right down her throat and into her lungs.
Once their kiss ended, Leo pressed her face into his neck, and she yawned her exhaustion. She sensed fatigue lurked in Leo too. She’d close her eyes for a few seconds before she moved and righted her clothing.
Leo nuzzled Gwenyth’s neck, but she didn’t stir. He didn’t wake her, content with their intimacy, their bodies still connected.
“We might make a child,” his dragon whispered, even though Gwenyth couldn’t hear this conversation.
Leo thought about a child. His and Gwenyth’s and his heart beat a little faster. “Not before we’re settled.”
“You don’t want a child with Gwenyth?”
“More than anything,” Leo replied. “But you heard her. She’s getting flashes of memories. Making a child in these circumstances mightn’t be the best thing.”
“This worries you. The return of her memories.”
“The mate bond hasn’t snapped into place as my grandparents described it to me.” Leo smoothed Gwenyth’s hair.
“She is our one,” his dragon said.
“I agree, but there must be a reason the bond remains absent.” Leo sighed. “Right now we have far more to worry over. For my parents to arrange an arena fight—that hasn’t happened in over one hundred years. A fight to the death would be bad enough for a dragon, but to subject a female human to this kind of punishment is barbaric.” Leo shook his head in disbelief. “Why do my parents want to get rid of Gwenyth? Is it Nan? My brothers? Or heck, it could even be Telus. There are enough suspects to fill a novel.”
“We keep to our plan,” his dragon said. “Staying on Hissing Isle is suicide. We need to get to our friends and investigate once we reach relative safety.”
“I hate to say it, but it might be best if we get Gwenyth back to the mainland. At least she’d be safe.”
“No!”
“What if something happens to us? If our parents decide we’re expendable? What then? Gwenyth will have little chance if she’s alone on Hissing Isle. We’ll keep to our plan, but if we can return Gwenyth to her world, we must take the opportunity.”
“She has no memory,” his dragon argued. “She’ll be vulnerable on the mainland too.”
“But there will be humans who can help her. People of her kind who do not wish her ill. We must think of Gwenyth’s best interests.”
“I don’t wish her to go.”
“Me neither,” Leo said. “But if this is the only way to keep her safe, we must let her leave.”
His dragon fell silent after their conversation. Leo shifted positions, separating his body from Gwenyth’s, a part of him breaking at the loss of their connection. Like his dragon, he’d fallen for this wonderful human woman. Every instinct told him they were mates, the forever mates as described to him by his grandparents, yet the bond hadn’t snapped into place.
He wished the answers weren’t such a mystery.
18 – Release Me. Let Me Go
“My lodestone,” a deep voice whispered. “It’s time to go.”
Gwenyth groaned as a hand shook her awake. Every muscle protested the rattle of her bones at a second shake.
“Stop.” Her eyes flickered open to discover Leo smiling at her. “It feels as if I’ve just fallen asleep.”
“It’s almost dark enough to risk flying over the rest of the island.”
“How long will that take?”
“Around an hour until we reach the coast,” he said. “It depends if we have to stop to hide.”
Gwenyth pushed to her feet and stretched out her aching limbs. “Did you sleep?”
“A little. I have enough energy to get us to Perfume Isle.”
Gwenyth’s stomach gave a loud rumble, and she clapped her hand across her stomach. “Sorry.”
Leo pulled a face. “I’m hungry too.”
“How will we do this?”
“I think the quickest way will be if you climb on my back, and I’ll carry you down. Your eyesight isn’t as good as mine in the dark.”
“Let’s do this.” Gwenyth trusted him totally.
Leo lifted her into his arms before she could blink. Seconds later, he was climbing down the cliff at a pace that had her closing her eyes as she prayed for a safe descent.
“We’re on the ground,” he said, humor radiating from his voice. “I can’t see anyone, but I’ll need you to keep your eyes open and watch for anyone following or searching for us. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Gwenyth said. Swallowing a bug or two was nothing compared with keeping them both alive.
A loud screech had her leaping off the ground. She whirled around to peer into the trees in front of them.
“A night bird. An owl,” Leo said.
“What else will we see or hear?”
“Maybe wolves or deer. Other birds. Hopefully, not a single dragon.”
Leo stripped off his boots, then his clothes and handed them to Gwenyth. She rolled them up into a bundle, and plaited her hair to keep it out of her face, and tied the end with a scrap of cloth she ripped from the bottom of her tunic.
“Ready,” she announced.
Leo stood back and morphed to his dragon. He nuzzled her arm before picking her up and taking off. Straight into a cloud of bugs. She gasped and made a choking sound, almost dropping Leo’s clothing and boots in her attempts to get the icky bugs out of her mouth.
“Fly higher,” she called.
He did, and while she could see nothing apart from tree silhouettes and old volcanic plugs, she didn’t think others would spot them either. It was quiet flying this high above the forest, and she heard no birds or animals. Instead, the wind rushed past them, and a quick glimpse above showed stars peeking between ominous clouds.
The moon slid into view half an hour later, and she spotted a lake in a clearing in the forest. Still no dragons. Had they ceased the search?
Probably not.
There had been something about the determination in Nan and in Leo’s parents that told Gwenyth this was not over. As she scanned the landscape below them, she considered the reasons his parents and Nan were so insistent on the joining.
Liza (Dragon Isles Book 1) Page 18