Dane was so wrapped up in his fears, that he didn’t see the blur of white that struck out at them.
It was coming for him, he thought. Then it changed course. The blur was a glancing blow off his shoulder, breaking them apart and sending Liana flying back. He heard the crack of a tree trunk as the two forms hit it. His heart was in overdrive as fear for his mate surged through him. The white dragon had his mate pinned up against a tree, her hands held in one of his while he used his forearm to press against her throat.
Dane lunged forward and reached for the white dragon. At the same time, Liana lifted her foot and kicked at the white dragon’s chest. The dragon stumbled back, dragging her with him. It put the dragon in Dane’s reach. He grabbed a handful of white-blonde hair and jerked him off his feet. Liana managed to disengage her hands from the dragon’s grip before he crashed to the ground.
“What luck,” Liana said dryly. “First run and we catch one right away.”
Dane sent her a look that said she shouldn’t be so happy about this. Having white dragons still prowling around the perimeter meant that the fight wasn’t over. They might be in the very last stages of this uprising, putting down the last few dissenters, but it would be much better if it were done and over.
Dane looked down at the man beneath his grip. He didn’t fight. He didn’t struggle. The white dragon laid there, his eyes closed against whatever blow Dane might strike. It sent a jolt of realization through him. The white dragon was waiting to die.
The white dragon attacked them in a kind of suicide mission. Gone was his family, his leaders. Their attempt to regain the home they thought they were entitled to had failed horribly. What else did this dragon have?
Nothing.
Dane sighed and pulled back. Liana made a sound of indignation, but Dane held out a hand for her to quiet. She was a fighter. He was a leader. Dane didn’t leave the man’s space, ready to hurt the white dragon if he so much as moved in the wrong direction. He was no idiot.
“You don’t have to die,” Dane began, using his alpha voice. The one he’d used with his own people when times were rough and they needed strong guidance. “Everything may seem to be lost, but lesser men have come back from worse. You have a chance. One that will allow you to truly share this home with the red dragons if you are willing to set aside your anger.”
The white dragon looked up at him, his eyes flickering between Dane and Liana. The female dragon didn’t say anything. She didn’t growl or sneer, to Dane’s relief. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and slid her feet apart so that she might attack if need be.
Dane quickly pulled his attention from his mate and turned back to the white dragon laying on the forest floor. The man studied Dane. He studied Liana before his gaze turned up to the sky above them, empty and hopeless. Dane’s heart plummeted into his stomach.
“They won’t share with us,” the white dragon said. “We did as our leaders asked and look what it gave us. What more can we do now than scatter to the winds and die?”
“That’s damned poetic,” Liana bit out. “If you’re worried about me, I’m leaving soon. The others… won’t be incredibly fond of your presence, but Snowdonia is a big place. Big enough for all of this to finally end.”
Dane felt a surge of pride enter his heart. This was his mate. This was the woman who would stand beside him for the rest of his life.
He hoped.
He hoped she would want him. He hoped she would be able to look past his life and see the man he was, see the man he so desperately wanted to be. Because, if she knew, Liana might turn him away. She might never try to love him.
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Chapter Two
They released the white dragon with a warning and instructions. Should he return to the border of Snowdonia, there would be another perimeter watch who would not spare his life. He was to go to the Embassy in the city and wait there to speak to someone. There, they might be able to arrange for him to build a home for himself on the Territory.
Liana didn’t like it, but she knew this all had to end. Wiping the white dragons from the face of the earth served no purpose. Hell, they would probably miss one and the dragon would later rise to enact a cruel revenge on them all.
She officially watched too many movies with her brother.
That was where she sat, on the couch with Rhys and a trashcan sized bucket of popcorn situated between them. On the too large television screen, a new movie about mummies and curses flashed from scene to scene. Liana didn’t catch a whole lot of it. She wasn’t a huge fan of the actor and her mind seemed to want to focus on something else entirely.
The monster inside her wanted Dane. It wanted to roll him over, nibble until it drew blood, and feel him as he pounded inside of her. Liana wanted no such thing and it drove her mad when she was in his presence. Before the perimeter walk, before the white dragon, Dane had just been a simple nuisance. He made her feel soft and vulnerable.
Seeing him negotiate with the white dragon like a true leader had moved things inside of her. It had aroused her monster. She wished that her beast would return, would tell her right from wrong. All she had to go on was her own conscience versus the monster under her skin. Most of the time, the monster was right when it made decisions in the heat of battle or when it sized up another’s beast.
But that didn’t always mean she gave it what it wanted, the beast too often wanting to draw blood. This would be one of those times. Liana would travel to the States with the dragon man, but she would not give in to the monster lurking inside of her and its dark cravings. She didn’t want to know if she would enjoy it.
She didn’t want to fall for him.
He would only become a liability to her stone heart.
***
Dane had made arrangements for his group’s return. Flights had been booked for four plus one. He looked around the small cottage the red dragons had let them live in, watching three dragon men try to dance around one another to make breakfast. They’d come to offer aid in the white dragon uprising and help begin the process of creating human dragon embassies worldwide.
He never expected that he would leave with his mate in tow, no matter how cross and cold she was. Rhys assured him that the woman he knew now was not the woman she’d been before the uprising. Before, Liana was full of laughter and mischief. The desire to protect, one that they all had burning inside of them, had led her down a path of trauma and confusion.
Dane would uncover the real Liana, not the woman she’d been or the woman she was now, but the woman she wanted to become.
“Sit down when you’re done fighting over the toaster,” Dane instructed.
Each of his men threw wary glances at their leader. Marc was more concerned about the fried eggs in his pan than the nervous energy radiating from his leader. Marc was a calm ocean and his peaceful aura radiated out to those around him. His twin, on the other hand, was a rough river in comparison. Luc opened his mouth to say something, revealing chewed food, when Marc threw a glance at his twin to make Luc wait.
Isaac had a piece of nearly burnt toast hanging from his mouth and his phone, a monstrosity, in his hand as he claimed his seat and glanced at his leader. Dane knew that the Egyptian royal dragon had shared a bit of coding with their tech savvy dragon, quickly earning Isaac’s eternal devotion.
The family Dane led could not be labeled by the beast inside their bodies. Not like the red dragons or white dragons. Each of them had something different lurking inside of them. Isaac had a steel blue beast, scales the color of the sky before a storm that crackled with electricity. It made his love for technology rather touch and go at times. The twins, with their sun-kissed bronze skin hid something more on the tropical end. Their ancestry could be tracked back to the depths of Southern America.
“There will be another dragon coming back with us,” Dane began.
Luc nodded. “Yeah, we heard about the chick.”
Dane leveled a glare
at the cheery dragon man. Luc threw his hands up in mock defense, a smirk still tugging the corner of his mouth upward. Dane sighed. He would have to get right to the point with them.
“Liana is my mate,” he declared. The idea of any of his dragons trying to flirt with his mate on the way back home made his scales ruffle. It made his chest rumble with a growl and his lips pull back in a lack of self-control that he hadn’t experienced since he was much younger. “She will be treated with respect. You will treat her as if she is me at all times.”
It was Marc who spoke next. “But, you haven’t laid claim to the woman yet. I can tell by the way she acts with you. She does not know of the bond.”
Dane let out another sigh. Why couldn’t they just take him for his word, just follow instructions? Because they were good men that looked at a problem from every angle. It was why he’d brought them.
Dane spun his coffee mug between his hands, rolling it back and forth as he looked at the dark surface inside it. “I don’t think she’s ready.”
“In other words, you’re afraid she’s going to turn you down.” Luc gave a voice to Dane’s second deepest fear.
It made him growl, a sound that filled every inch of the cottage. He pushed away from the table and leveled his stare at each of his dragons in turn. They would listen to him. They would behave. He could not lose her.
He couldn’t.
Marc nodded. Luc shoved a wad of bacon into his mouth. Isaac bit off the piece of toast he’d been holding before throwing it down on the table.
“Liana is family,” Luc said. “We’ll treat her as such.”
“Damn it,” Dane breathed.
That meant so much more than he’d asked for. The dragons at the table exchanged sly glances and smirks. He hadn’t meant to unleash them on his mate, but, as he thought about it, he wondered if it might be for the best. They were a rowdy and rag-tag group at best, but they were family. They loved one another, no matter the pranks they pulled on one another.
The plastic wrap over the toilet seat had been one of the worst pranks yet. Dane was just glad they hadn’t tried it in the Welsh dragons’ cottage.
The thing was, their rowdy pranks might help pull his mate out of the shell she’d built around herself. If anything, he could see her acting in turn, becoming more and more part of the family each time. Because, like it or not, she was with them for the long run.
Dane hoped.
“Marc. Can you accompany the new leader and the pregnant one to the Embassy today? Their escorts have been called away and they need a fill-in while they negotiate with the white dragon we sent to the Embassy. I fully believe the pregnant one can take care of herself, but they’re far too protective of her to go without an extra body.”
Marc nodded, agreeing because he had nothing else to do. The last escort was taking care of Egyptian dragons that stayed to help their princess. Wales had so quickly become the hub of dragon activity. He hoped that it was for the best. Dane hoped that the dragons here could help repair the relations dragons and humans had.
It wasn’t only the Welsh Occurrence that had wrought such a horrible reputation with humanity. The dragons in the States had been equally awful over time. Many, living somewhat solitary lives, had left trails of disaster across the country.
Luc leapt out of his seat, mouth still half full and slapped Isaac on the shoulder. “If Master says we’re free, want to help me set up something?”
Master. Luc thought he was funny. Dane rounded the table and gave his dragon a rough punch to the shoulder. Not enough to really hurt him, but to remind him why Dane was the master. Luc laughed as he rubbed the now aching spot. Dane didn’t want to know what they would be up to, but trusted they wouldn’t accidentally blow up Snowdonia in their quest for pranks.
***
How the older woman had found her was beyond Liana. But, Maggie Taniff sat herself down on the edge of the cliff beside Liana, letting her feet dangle over the edge as they looked out over Snowdonia together. Maggie still looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Her usually sharp gaze had dulled, like she could see Drystan – her late husband’s face hovering before her everywhere she went.
They sat together in silence for a long while, Maggie gathering her thoughts and Liana trying to quiet the monster inside of her. It was mad that she didn’t kill the white dragon in the forest. It was mad that she refused to lay with the American dragon leader. It wanted the leader’s blood on its tongue. The very thought made Liana’s throat tight.
“I miss him,” Maggie began. “I will never deny that. Part of me always thought that when Drystan died, I would crumble into ash without his magic, having far outlived my human expiration date. It seems I still hold a piece of him inside of me. I don’t know if it was from how long we were together or if it was from carrying his child inside of me for nine months. Either could have struck a spark inside me that was fanned to life.”
Liana cut a sidelong look at her old leader’s wife. Maggie’s hair was a wild mess of black curls, but there was a touch of color in her cheeks while the woman remembered her life.
“I think… I think it created a beast inside of me.”
Liana’s brow furrowed. She waited, confused and impatient to know what Maggie was trying to say.
“There’s been a voice inside of me, one that I always thought was my own. I thought it was my conscience. But, when I felt Drystan die, the voice changed. It hardened and sharpened into something new.” This time, Maggie turned to meet Liana’s gaze.
There, in her eyes, Liana could see it. There was something beneath the surface. It reminded her of Scotland’s Loch Ness, like there was something mysterious and unidentifiable swimming beneath dark waters. More so, it was a reflection. It was what Liana saw when she looked in the mirror.
Drystan’s death had turned the beast into a monster. Was that what happened to Liana? Was her beast long gone, transformed into the thing she now had to live with? She sometimes missed the cat-like creature it had been. Other times, she reminded herself it was for the best. This was what she had to become. It was what she needed to be to survive and protect those around her.
“What we have become,” Maggie continued. “It won’t help you make friends in the States. It won’t help you set up good relations with the dragons or the humans while the new Embassy is built.”
Liana shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Living without it won’t help me survive this world.”
“What I’m trying to say is that I think the thing my beast became can grow. I think it can become the best of beast and monster. I think, that if an even ground is found between the two, then healing can happen.”
Liana fought the urge to roll her eyes, the urge to stand and leave like she did with everything. Maggie was baring her pain to Liana. She had to stay and hear the woman, her elder, her near adoptive mother.
“I understand that you might need to heal, but I don’t mind what I am now. Everyone thinks that I somehow need to be fixed, that I’m broken. I’m sick of people walking on eggshells around me. I’m not going to fall apart if people look at me the wrong way. If anything, I’m stronger than ever.”
“If you say so,” was all Maggie said in return.
The woman pushed herself up and gave the scenery one last look of longing. Did Maggie yearn to fly over these treetops like her husband and son? Did she wonder what it was like to have the strength and power of a dragon’s body? Or, did she just want her husband back?
It was one of the reasons Liana was happy she was still so young. Her mate might not come along for years to come. She didn’t have to deal with that kind of pain and anger. She didn’t have to worry about that vulnerability.
***
Liana pushed the door open, knowing the house would be empty. Rhys and Farida were off, seeing another movie. They were probably French kissing in the back of the theater. Soon enough, the house would be truly empty. Rhys and his mate would return to Egypt to rule the gold dragons and Liana would be d
ragged from her home to live with the American dragons.
It made her heart clench until she shooed away the feeling. It was just a house, she told herself. It was just a structure of wood and carpeting. No one could take away the memories she’d had here. No one could take away her brother. Rhys would always answer if she called.
He was all she’d ever had, all either of them had. Their parents died when she was still young. That left Rhys to raise her. Sure, the family helped as much as they could. Often times, Liana stayed with Maggie or spent long, quiet days with Owain. Even at that age, Liana had a strange understanding with Drystan’s father.
She remembered the time she accidentally stumbled into Elgar’s hoard. She never thought that Owain’s mountain home was connected to Elgar’s prison. She found the room of shining metal cups and had gotten lost in its glory, meandering from one chalice to the next in awe. Until she found the thin and ancient dragon sitting in the corner by himself. His eyes flicked to her for an instant, reminding her of a wrinkled, old lizard.
She’d frozen, a tiny four-year-old staring up at what seemed like an ancient dragon. She’d expected Elgar to eat her in one gulp. Instead, a soft smile curved his lips and he turned back to studying the cup he rolled between his hands.
Confused and curious, Liana spent most of that day sitting not too far way. She watched while Elgar polished and studied each and every chalice in his hoard, as if a genie might pop out of one and grant him the thing he so desperately wanted.
Liana was going to miss everyone, even old Elgar.
Her heart clenched in her chest. They were forcing her to leave. Everything she knew and loved would be thousands of miles away, on the other side of an endless ocean. She didn’t understand what she’d done for them to make her leave. She’d protected her family. She’d killed their adversary.
Fated Dragons Complete Series: Books 1 - 5 Page 43