The Embassy hadn’t even begun functioning and someone was already attacking it. That’s what they’d gathered from the GOE agent that the dragon man had snatched from the chaos in the hall. She didn’t know why she followed the dragon man as he prowled the halls. She didn’t know what she thought she was doing.
Years of self-preservation instincts told her to run. Normally, she would have listened to them, but this Embassy meant so much to her. It meant a place in the world where humans and dragons tried to coexist. Not the I stay in my space and you stay in your place kind of coexistence, but one where they might mingle.
She wanted it so badly for her home that when the opportunity appeared to get inside, to see how it might work, she’d jumped on the chance. Now, someone was trying to ruin it. That hadn’t taken long at all.
Her stomach flopped as the two dragons approached the ground floor. Men in familiar uniforms stood at attention in every corner. People cowered before the intruders even though not one of them bore a weapon of any kind. As she slowed, the light flashed across their eyes and she caught the familiar flash of gold.
They were weapons.
“Spread out,” a familiar face ordered. “The GPS says that she is here in this building. Search each room one by one until you find her.”
Frida breathed a low curse, one not befitting a lady’s mouth. Not that she ever prescribed to such ideals. Her phone, she thought. Farida had been so confident that no one in her family understood technology that she hadn’t even thought to disable the GPS mechanism. Foolishly, she’d called Aditi and gotten her mother. The person in the background must have been accessing Farida’s GPS while her mother spoke down to her.
The dragon man beside her whipped his head in her direction at the sound of her curse. His eyes flicked between her and the intruders, probably taking note of their shared skin tone. His lips parted, but before he could speak, Farida slapped her hand over his mouth.
Apparently, he’d been right. She was going to sabotage their future.
And she hated herself for it.
Her eyes opened wide, pleading with him to be quiet. He narrowed his own in response, hands moving to tear her grip away. As strong as Farida was, the dragon man was stronger and it only took a moment for him to pry her hand away long enough to speak.
“What is happening?” he growled, voice low enough to remain unseen.
Farida shook her head. She couldn’t risk them hearing her. She gripped his arm and dragged him back up the stairs, eyes frantically scanning for the Egyptian dragons that searched for her. Two floors up, she shoved him back into the room they’d nearly kissed in only moments ago. The soundproofing would keep them safe for only so long.
“What the hell?” the dragon man snapped once they were alone again.
She gave him a sheepish smile over her shoulder as she held her hands against the door. “While my intentions here were never to hurt you or your Embassy, I fear that I may have inadvertently done so anyway.”
His eyes widened and he pointed at her, suddenly at a loss for words. She could feel it, some kind of thread that bound the two of them. It hung between them, thrumming with his anger and her anxiety. Could it be what she thought? It wasn’t something she ever expected to find in her long life. It simply wasn’t the way of her family, despite the magic that bound them.
The continuation of the family was far more important than love, than the whims of a woman and her heart. Farida would not be so lucky. She thought of the small, Welsh woman.
Farida pushed the thought, the hope, aside. This wasn’t the time to be thinking of such far-fetched ideas. Her family was here, looking for her. She felt her shoulders slump and the confession rise out of her, one word at a time.
“Thirty years ago, my hand was promised to a gold dragon in marriage,” she began. “Because of who I was, who I’d been, I had more time before such a thing was thrust upon me. But, I found that I still wasn’t ready. The idea of marriage and what would come with it scared the hell out of me and I ran.”
Her head fell against the door. She didn’t tell him why her family was expending so many resources in looking for her. Had it been anyone else, maybe they would have found them eventually, but they would not have sent half the family to hold an entire building hostage.
Only for her. Only for what she was to them.
Her fingers tensed on the door, curling into claws that scratched the surface.
“Aw, hell,” the dragon man breathed behind her. “I can’t let them force you into something you’re not willing to do. If I offer to help you, will you actually accept it?”
Farida froze, giving him an odd stare to tell him she didn’t quite understand his question.
He shook his head and waved it off. “Never mind. Let me rephrase that. Is there anything I can do to help?”
On the other side of the door, the faintest sound of footsteps rushed down the hall. It might be only a matter of time before someone tried to enter the room they were in. Where could she go. What could she do?
She certainly couldn’t fight her way out. She wanted it to be like she’d never been there at all. Make it seem like their attempt at harnessing technology had led them in the wrong direction.
“What is your name?”
“Rhys,” he breathed. “Rhys Taniff.”
She nodded. “Come hold the door for me, Rhys.”
Farida tested the sound of his name on her lips. It was so foreign compared to her unwanted fiancé’s name, but it fit in her mouth like it belonged there. This was not the time, she thought. Not the time to find a mate. Not the time to fall in love.
Once upon a time, she’d imagined meeting her mate in a city like Paris. She imagined café brunch dates and long nights out on the town, ending in a kiss above the sparkling city streets. Not once did she imagine finding the bond while her family hunted her down like a damned fugitive.
After this, she thought, maybe there was still time to find herself such a mate.
He braced his hands above hers, his massive palms holding the door in place. Had male dragons always been this big, or was it something they fed the Welsh dragons? She was tall for a woman and had always been able to look her family in the eye. Rhys’s height not only towered a few inches over her, but his sheer width seemed to take up more space than he actually did. She would be surprised if the males on the other side could get through the door with Rhys there.
Shaking her appreciation away, Farida darted toward the computer. Using her security access code, she logged into the cameras placed all around the building. One showed a number of vans pared on either side of the Embassy, what they’d used to infiltrate the building. Another camera showed her the dragon holding cells in the basement of the Embassy. A white dragon clenched the bars between him and the camera, and stared directly at her. A slow smile spread over his face.
She didn’t have time to wonder what he was smiling about. Instead, she flicked ahead and found the camera feed she was searching for. It watched over the gaps in the Embassy’s security that her company had found. Air vents. Windows. Narrow Passages.
If she could get a lead on the rooms that the Egyptian dragons had already searched, she could slip through those spaces and find a way out. Then, Rhys could stay behind and shut down the chaos. He could negotiate with the dragons, tell them she’d never been there.
There, the air vent. She was thin enough to slip through. Rhys, on the other hand was not. His shoulders were far too wide, even if he tried to fold in upon himself, he’d never fit. Farida knew it would be best to leave him here. He could explain why the door was locked. He could hold them off, distract them while she slipped away. But, she didn’t want to leave Rhys behind.
A bad feeling stirred in her stomach. This day was not going to end well. She knew it down to her bones just as much as she knew it would not end well for Rhys.
She swore again.
“What?” Rhys hissed, his back now pressed against the door. “Can you not find a way
out?”
She hesitated. What would happen if she left him? What would happen while she wasn’t there to protect him from her family. Feeling a spark of madness take over, she rushed across the room. Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him. He pressed back, his lips guiding her rusty technique until both of them were breathless.
As if on cue, they broke away from one another and someone tried the door handle behind Rhys. When the door did not give, she heard the faint sound of shouts before they began pounding on the door. Rhys shook with their effort, laughter bubbling to his swollen lips.
“You’re nuts,” she breathed.
She was, too. She shouldn’t have touched another’s mate.
“At least I can finally be useful,” he replied.
She gave him a look before turning toward the air vent in the wall. It was a simple thing, to wrench the screws from the drywall and hoist herself up toward its entrance. Farida paused.
“Meet me in the garage.” The command fell from her before she could stop it, sounding more like a request. He knew what she really meant it as. The world stopped for a second as he held her gaze. Then he nodded and Farida’s body released her. She pulled herself into the vent and inched forward.
Behind her, Rhys replaced the grate just before the door flew open. She could hear the sounds of Egyptian dragons filling the room, turning it upside down in search of her.
Would they smell her scent? Or, would Rhys’s scent overpower hers? She hoped it was not too obvious that she’d been there only moments ago. Hoping, praying, she crawled forward toward freedom.
***
The Egyptian dragons filed into the room, but by the time they could even get past the door, Rhys had already seated himself behind the computer desk, one leg casually folded over the other. Their dark skin mimicked the color of Farida’s, but their eyes were hard and emotionless. There was no humor or family in them. Not like the gazes his family shared.
A man stepped forward. Black eyes flashed with gold over a thin nose that rounded at the end. A strap of dark hair was neatly trimmed over his chin. The dragon man’s body was tall and lean, but Rhys could tell from the way he moved that the man had been trained to fight. It was in the fluidity of his motions, how he seemed to glide over the floor like water.
Movement on the computer screen caught his eye and pulled his attention away from the man. It seemed the dragon man didn’t like that much because a low growl echoed through the room.
Rhys waved a hand for him to shut up as his eyes tried to figure out what he was looking at on the computer screen. Live camera feed, that’s what Farida had pulled up. A corner of the screen showed the camera feed from the holding cells below the Embassy. A familiar smile looked directly into the camera as Raphael’s hand snaked out between the bars and gripped the silver lock.
At least, he’d been told that it was silver. Rhys seriously questioned it when Raphael’s hand crunched the mechanism like it was made out of tin foil. Rhys’s heart jumped into his throat. The man in front of him spoke, but he hardly heard a word of it.
Not until the man’s open hand connected with Rhys’s face. His skin stung and his jaw clenched. The fire inside of him rose to the surface with the beast as he turned to face the man now.
“I asked you if you have seen this woman,” the man growled as he shoved a photo of Farida in his face.
This Farida was not wearing a seductive pencil skirt or the feline smile he wanted to see again. Instead, she was clothed in loose fitting fabrics and her face was flat, as if she wished she could be anywhere but there.
Rhys stood, pushing into the other dragon’s space. He wouldn’t be afraid of a fight. He’d taken enough punches from his own family to know what pain felt like, to know how to handle it and keep moving. And, from the look on the man’s face, he knew that a fight was coming.
But, then the man stepped back. His nostrils flared and a pang of panic cut through Rhys’s chest. The man in charge narrowed his eyes before turning to the men behind him. Rhys fought the urge to glance up at the air vent. Farida would be okay.
He could keep these guys occupied for a while.
“Fan out,” the man in charge ordered. “She was here. I can smell her.”
Shit, Rhys thought. “What did this woman do? Did she murder someone?”
“Princess Farida El Sayed’s family wishes her safe return so that her husband can claim his right as the next King of the Golden Dragons.”
Princess? Rhys had pushed a princess up against the wall? A princess had kissed him?
“Hold up,” Rhys said, reaching out and grabbing the dragon man’s shoulder before he could leave the room. “I need to know a few things before I can help you hunt down this woman. Was she kidnapped? Will her kidnappers hurt her if we get too close?”
Beside him, Farida appeared on the computer screen. She emerged from the air vent and her feet hit the floor, heeled shoes long gone. Rhys shoved the computer screen to the side so that the dragon man beside him couldn’t see her.
Why was he protecting her like this, Rhys wondered? Why bother when her family clearly wanted her back? But, he looked to the militaristic men that stormed from room to room and thought that, maybe, there was a reason she didn’t want to return home.
“Farida was not kidnapped. She has lost her way and it is my job, as her future husband, to ensure that she can be safely returned home.”
Rhys felt the impact of the words like a physical punch to the chest. It was harder than anything Gareth had ever done to him. It was harder than he’d ever been hit before.
Husband. Farida’s future husband.
The notion of it took his breath away and made the beast inside of him thrash out with a territorial rage. The beast knew that the dark-skinned woman was theirs. Her feline smile and shy glances belonged to them and them alone. The beast did not like this man. It didn’t trust the man and his intentions with Farida.
Rhys swore softly.
The dragon man that claimed to be Farida’s future husband turned an inquisitive eye on him. Rhys met his gaze. He didn’t ask for any of this. There was already too much on his plate. Adding a runaway dragon princess to that only tipped his life into chaos. Yet, the beast inside him urged him forward. There was no turning back.
He could only follow the bond forward, toward her.
“I wish I could say that I’d seen such a woman, but I’ve never seen her in my life,” Rhys informed the dragon man.
The dragon man’s head cocked to the side. His dark eyes took Rhys in from head to toe. Rhys thought that he might step forward, might call him out on his bullshit. Instead, the man seemed to find Rhys not worth his time because he made a motion and the rest of the men in the room filed out before he followed.
Rhys sat back in the desk chair, trying to process all the information he’d just been given. There was a troop of Egyptian dragons in his Embassy, searching for Farida. They had taken zero steps to do this within any kind of legal right. Instead, they’d stormed the gates as if the whole prospect of the Embassy meant nothing to them.
The Embassy should have allowed the Egyptian dragons the presence of mind to contact them. If they had, if they had gone through the right channels, Farida would either be on her way home, or the Red dragons would be protecting her.
This could have gone down differently if any of the dragons took the Embassy seriously. Rhys let his head fall into his hands.
A slight sound made his head shoot up. A feminine figure staggered into the room. At first, Rhys found himself hoping that Farida had returned. But, it was another familiar face. The assistant from the day before stared at the door the Egyptian dragons had left through not too long ago as if she could still see them.
She turned and flung herself toward Rhys. It was all he could do to open his arms and let her fly into his body. She clung to him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a vice grip while she went on about being afraid for her life and wanting him to protect her. The urge to shove her off his
lap was overwhelmingly strong.
What was wrong with this woman, Rhys thought? Why did she throw herself so blindly at him?
He grabbed her by her hips and picked her up to set her on her own two feet. She clung to him, pulling at his skin, at his hair to stay where she was.
“Listen, Miss,” Rhys began when her feet touched the floor of their own accord. He pushed himself up. There were much more important things for him to be attending to in that moment. He didn’t have time to trifle with this human woman. “You should go downstairs. In Lobby B there should be several GOE security agents gathering people. It’s part of the protocol. You will be safe there.”
She pouted at him, a well-practiced pout that didn’t make her seem like a child. She must have gone home and tried it a few times in the mirror after meeting Rhys. He groaned.
“I’d feel much safer with someone who can fend off the intruders. They’re… they’re dragons, right?”
Did she have dragon radar? How could this woman spot his kind so easily?
“The GOE agents assigned to this building are more than prepared to deal with dragons. They’ve been trained, not only by GOE experts, but by local red dragons. They can protect you.”
Rhys backed away from the small woman. She looked far too fragile, as if he might blow in her direction and she would crumple. But, the attitude she wrapped around herself made him think otherwise. He felt bad for a dragon if she was, indeed, a dragon’s mate.
But, she was not his mate.
It was a fact he knew deep down in his bones. It also helped that the idea of two hours alone with her made him think he might prefer an hour of letting Gareth pull his eyeballs from their sockets. Maybe that was a little mean of him, but he needed to move. There was too much at stake for this tiny woman to hold him up.
Farida was being hunted by the Egyptian dragons. The thought of her on her own made his beast rise. Then again, Raphael had forced his way out of the holding cell. That did not bode well for anyone.
Fated Dragons Complete Series: Books 1 - 5 Page 33