Kidnapped by the Dragon

by Rosko, Mandy

  Inferno cocked his head to the side a little, eyeing his mate from bottom to top. He brought his hand up to rub at his jaw. “Very interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “You,” he said. “You must be the first person in the history of my life not to accept money when it’s offered to you. No one has turned down rewards or promises of cash before.”

  Fiona briefly bit her lips together. “Right, well, I’m trying not to be a greedy asshole here.”

  “So you will accept my gift if I offer it enough?”

  The look on her face suggested she was already having trouble turning it down. Inferno knew, at that moment, that this woman wasn’t used to generosity, but could learn how to accept it in time.

  Right. But he had to remember that humans had their fair amount of pride. Judging by her small apartment, her job couldn’t have paid all that well. People did not often choose such circumstances. She might have claimed that she chose that job over others because her boss let her work in the kitchen all she wanted, but he could tell she would have dropped that job like she was coming down for a hard landing if anything remotely better presented itself.

  And an idea came to mind — a way to present the situation that might allow her to accept it better.

  “This is not charity. This is an assignment.”

  “A job?”

  He nodded. “Indeed. An arrangement. You will stay in my home and accept payment, enough for you to start your bakery by the end of the deal if you perform to my expectations.”

  Her green eyes flew wide. “How did you—oh,” she said, deflating a little when he raised and wiggled his phone. “You’ve had a lot of time to read over my blog, haven’t you?”

  “And watch some of your more interesting videos.”

  She swallowed. Inferno watched, transfixed, as her throat worked. “What could you possibly want me to do for enough money to start my own business?”

  “The answer is simple. You will enter into a marriage contract with me, and carry my heirs, becoming the mother of the future lords of the dragon kingdom.”

  6

  Fiona couldn’t understand why Inferno appeared so pleased with himself

  “This shocks you. Good,” he said. “It would shock most to be given so much, but as my mate, you more than deserve it.”

  Fiona shook her head. “I’m not mating with you.”

  The smile slipped from his face. He tilted his head to the side. “Is there something you object to?”

  “I object to the idea that you’re just going to assume I’ll be your mate and have your dragon babies. That’s not the way it works in real life.”

  “It is how it works in real life. This was the way it was always done.”

  “Not for humans.”

  “You are no ordinary human.”

  That threw her off even more. “Even if I were, what of your fiancée?”

  “I told you, my cousin, Tinder, was just a fill-in. Now that my true mate has been discovered, she’s free of her obligation to marry me.”

  He smiled at that, then offered her his hand. Fiona hesitated, and against her better judgment, she took hold of it. It felt warm in a good way, and a tingling sensation rushed up her arm and into her spine, but that wasn’t what made her shiver. It was the sudden pulse of pleasure that hit her down below, between her legs. Holy shit, just touching his hand almost felt as if he had his mouth on her nipples, and the shocks of pleasure were sudden.

  She wanted to pull away, she almost did, but she couldn’t.

  “You’ll get used to that,” Inferno offered, looping her arm through his so she could hold onto him as she walked.

  Fiona walked, though it was in a daze. “What did you do to me?”

  She glanced up as Inferno frowned. “Don’t make me out to be some sort of villain. I did nothing to you. This is instinct.”

  “What?”

  He went back to smiling as if he was the most excited man in the world or a kid at Christmas. “Instinct. The more I touch you, or the longer I touch you, the more you will be affected. Do not worry; it’s happening to me, too.”

  She hadn’t even thought of that. Fiona knew she wasn’t horrible to look at; in fact, she could look pretty good when she had the opportunity to do her hair and makeup, but she also didn’t inspire men like this to shiver with lust and pleasure either.

  She glanced up at him. Fiona felt like she could barely contain it. Was he feeling this same shivery lust for her that she felt for him? She suddenly, in that moment, remembered the way he'd licked her chocolate sauce in the bakery, and she had to bite back a groan. Yeah, maybe she could believe he was struggling with this, too. Why was that knowledge so intoxicating?

  Inferno continued. “Introductions will have to be made. I’ll avoid my aunt and cousin for the time being. I imagine they are not happy with me, and with what is happening between us, but my brothers will be excited to meet you.”

  Fiona hardly saw the halls around her anymore, the bright lights, and the expensive furnishings that had been placed along the walls to act more for decoration than to be used. She could only look up at him. “Why would your brothers be excited to meet me? What’s going on? I need…” She shivered as another rush of pleasure hit her right in her sex, making it throb as if there was an actual hand down there, touching her, trying to make her sing. She clenched her teeth. “I need to know.”

  “And I will tell you.” Inferno gazed down at her. “You’re not my captive. You are free to roam wherever you wish.”

  “Just not back home?”

  He looked away. Fiona got the feeling she’d hurt him, but his face remained a stoic mask.

  “Considering the men who tried to kill you, is that something you want?”

  Fiona bit her lips together. “Don’t suppose you’d let me take some bodyguards with me or anything, would you?”

  Inferno laughed, shaking his head. “Not at the moment, no.”

  Not at the moment. Okay, maybe there was something here for her to work with.

  They passed by several end tables that were probably made of solid wood. On them were either expensive looking lamps, or vases that probably cost more than two months of Fiona’s rent combined, and each had flowers of absolutely perfect shapes inside. She’d thought they were fake at first, but then remembered where they were. The palace where the prince of dragons lived with his family wouldn’t have fake flowers, and the smell they emitted was something even the best artificial ones couldn’t replicate.

  Inferno brought her down another large hallway. This one had all the doors shut, and all the window curtains pulled closed, though some soft light did still manage to break through. The halls were mostly lit by the lamps on the walls and those end tables, along with what had to be crystal chandeliers above her head.

  “This is crazy.”

  “I’m glad you approve.”

  She did, but that didn’t mean she wanted to live here. Inferno was handsome as hell and sure, touching him in any skin-to-skin way for this long made her want to jump his bones, but that was entirely beside the point.

  Inferno stepped up to two double doors. “I asked my brothers to meet me here. It’s early, but they will have likely shown up by now.”

  Fiona tensed. “Already?”

  She was about to meet the other dragons in the royal family, and she wasn’t ready, dressed as she was.

  “They will not hurt you. Blaze was there with me, helping me to rescue you.”

  That seemed to make the heat in her neck and face even worse. “I can’t meet them looking like this; I’m wearing pajamas.”

  “And you look beautiful in them.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. He didn’t kiss her on the mouth this time, but she was sure she would never get used to that feeling she got whenever his mouth touched her. The intense heat was like a fire beneath her skin and between her legs. She wanted to have sex with this man. The mating thing was something she didn’t entirely understand, but
she wanted the sex.

  “I’m going to fly apart.”

  “Don’t do that,” Inferno said, chuckling. “Come. They will be happy to see you.”

  He opened only one of the double doors, then held it open for her so she could walk in first. No one had ever held a door open for her. Well, strangers had at times, but no one she’d dated. It seemed weird, and it probably wasn’t helping with her plan to look independent and capable of handling herself, but she liked it, and she allowed him to do it.

  There were people waiting inside. It looked like a conference room that was used to make business decisions, and two other men were sitting at the table in the middle, their feet up, chatting with each other while their phones and tablets were propped up around them.

  They straightened up at the sight of Fiona and Inferno entering the room.

  “I knew you would be early,” Inferno said.

  “Not like it’s that early. Is that her?”

  “This is indeed her.”

  Fiona knew who he was because of the pictures. That was Ember. He was the youngest of the brothers, but just as tall and wide in the shoulders. He was even bigger in real life than was on a TV screen or in a magazine.

  Ember stepped forward. He wore a suit, tailored so that it fit him perfectly, but it was casual in the way that it wasn’t buttoned up, and lacked a tie. He held out his hand. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Ember Blackclaw.”

  She expected him to add on the Fourth, as well as his title as prince, but he didn’t. His introduction was a lot more polite than what she was used to getting, but not the stuffy thing she would have expected to come from a prince either.

  “It’s good to meet you.” She was definitely nervous. “Should I curtsey?”

  Ember pulled back, his eyes wide, then he laughed. “No, please don’t. I hate that people have to do that out in public. In here, please, by all means, never curtsey to me. Or to either of these assholes.”

  “Thank you so very much for that, brother,” Inferno growled.

  Ember just shrugged, stepping aside so Prince Blaze could also take her by the hand. He turned it over, bent low, and kissed it. “It’s good to see you awake. Did you sleep well?”

  The touch of his mouth didn’t liquefy Fiona’s insides the way Inferno’s kisses did, but it still made her heat up. She couldn’t speak when Prince Blaze lifted his eyes to grin at her, but when Inferno growled, Fiona realized this show was more to irritate his older brother than to be a traditional gentleman.

  Fiona laughed nervously, pulling her hand back. “It’s very nice to meet you. Thank you for letting me stay here.”

  Prince Blaze straightened. “Our pleasure. I hope you’re feeling better after your ordeal.”

  “Introduce yourself, idiot,” Ember hissed.

  “What? Oh, right.” Blaze cleared his throat, all the life leaving his eyes as a bored expression settled there. “I am the honorable Prince Blaze Blackclaw the Sixteenth, second in line for the dragon throne of the United Kingdom of Ameri—”

  “Not like that, fool!” Ember snapped, smacking his brother over the back of the head, though there didn’t seem to be much heat in it. “She’s going to think we have metal rods up our asses.”

  “They’d be gold rods.”

  Ember rolled his eyes, shook his head, and stepped away.

  Blaze chuckled at his brother, and while his previous introduction had all the spirit of a piece of cardboard, now his eyes positively danced, as if it excited him to see that he could annoy his sibling and that he was accepting a challenge to get it done.

  Fiona blinked at the spectacle. She hadn’t expected this, that was for sure. They were so casual, like real brothers, and nothing at all like the proper princes, or soldiers, she’d seen on TV or in magazines. They were bantering and fighting.

  “Blaze, I adore you, but if you attempt to kiss my mate again, I might be forced to break your nose.”

  Blaze flipped him off as he lounged back in his chair. “Wouldn’t be the first time, so whatever.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I still need to know what’s going on,” Fiona said, really hoping no noses got broken in front of her. “I think there’s been a mistake. Inferno seems to think I’m his mate, and I need to tell him that he’s got the wrong person.”

  She looked to both of Inferno’s brothers, though she figured Ember might be the one who would have the most sympathy for her plight. There was no way Fiona could ever be the mate of a dragon prince. The odds of that were too much.

  Ember sat down on the other side of the table, his back straight, unlike Blaze, who leaned back and kicked his feet up again.

  “We’re not sure there is a mistake,” Ember replied.

  Fiona blinked. “But I—”

  “I know this is a lot for you,” Inferno said, his voice sounding softer than before. Was he attempting to be calm and considerate here? “Come, please, have a seat. I will explain everything you need to know.”

  Fiona swallowed hard. Inferno pulled out a chair for her. She sat in it, allowing him to ease her closer to the table before he grabbed another seat and rolled it over so he was sitting next to her, the both of them at the head of the table.

  Blaze took one of the tablets off the table, tapped something, and a projector slowly dropped from the ceiling just as the lights dimmed.

  What it showed on the opposite white wall looked to be a couple of family trees that dated back centuries, coming to the present. Some of them were snuffed out in black.

  She got the feeling she was supposed to be paying attention to the families that were blacked out, as if a cloud of smoke had just come in and stopped their progression, snuffing them out, and that this might have something to do with her.

  Her and Inferno.

  Inferno was the one to start. “What do you know about the Istavan family and the way dragons choose their mates?”

  7

  Inferno watched her carefully, the way she blinked those wide green eyes up at what the projector displayed for her to see. How did it look to her? How did seeing those blacked out names, as if they had been charred by an unforgiving thick smoke of a poisonous fire, make her feel?

  The Istavan family, which he was sure was hers, was blacked out. As was the Cesare family, which had been wiped out due to fighting, Bellemare, and Romulus, which had also been destroyed by the Capuletta family. Interesting story there. The Grimoult Family, Montgomery, Burns, Vis-De-Loup, and finally, the Fitzherbert family, which had also been destroyed.

  Of the ten families, four had been thought to be wiped out through unnecessary battle and greed. Until now. Fiona was an Istavan.

  Did she recognize what was up there? Even if it were just unconscious and instinctive, Inferno would take it. All the royal human houses seemed to know. It was always unconscious, but it was there, just as her lust and desire were. She denied it now, but the way she’d leaned back into him after pulling away from Blaze when the idiot had kissed her hand made it obvious.

  “I…” she started, faltering, as though searching for the right words to use. “I’ve heard of some of these names. In magazines, or when the news talks about the dragon nobles, but I try not to pay too much attention to any of it. These are the families that can breed with dragons, right?”

  Inferno nodded. “Yes. Exactly. Every generation or so, a new head of house in each noble dragon family find their mates within these families. For all of our recorded history, these families had produced strong, powerful dragons, and even some notable kings.”

  Fiona glanced at him before quickly looking away, her cheeks darkening. What had she thought just now for her to do that? Was she thinking of him? He hoped so.

  Inferno continued. “This isn’t always the case, however. Some dragons choose to breed with other dragons.”

  “Why do that?” Fiona asked, frowning at him. “That makes no sense. If your family and the noble dragons are mating with humans, then why fight it? I thought a dragon mating was
supposed to be, you know, true love.”

  He could hear the hesitation and embarrassment in her voice, and Inferno was glad she’d asked this question.

  “There are a couple of reasons this could happen,” he started, rubbing the back of his neck. “Some have claimed they never had a natural-mating with the person in question from any of the human families you see on the wall. This is a possibility, given there’s no reason anyone can think of as to why the dragon nobles would be drawn to these specific families to begin with.”

  Fiona looked down at her hands. “I always heard it was a romantic thing.” She turned her gaze back up to him. “That these families were destined to be with each other, and that the dragon’s true loves were within them.”

  Blaze chuckled. “It would be amazing if it was that easy.”

  Ember hissed at his brother. Inferno left them alone, his eyes only on his mate.

  “That is a nice story to tell, but there are more political and survival aspects involved in all of it. These human families are the only ones we have on record that can bear dragon children. Natural-matings do happen, and they seem to occur frequently enough, though no one is sure if that’s just a happy accident or not.”

  She looked away from him again, back at the bright image the projector cast. “You make it sound so dreary.”

  “So, what if it is?”

  Inferno bit back a grunt when, in that next instant, he felt a rush of pain in his calf. He looked over. Ember glared back at him.

  Ah, a signal to be more sensitive.

  He’d get Ember back for that later. Right now, he needed to make things better with his mate. “It’s not that bad. As I said, there are often natural-matings made with these pairings. It’s to the point where we can, for the most part, predict which family will produce a mate for that generation. This time around, it was the Istavan family, but they were gone.”