“Lily, goddamn it, no!”
She stared at him as his anguished roar shook the building. White-hot pain radiated along her spine and through her insides before her legs gave out and her body went numb. He caught her and bellowed for Gabriel. The last thing she saw as her world faded black was Porter’s head being torn off his body.
* * *
DALLAS COULDN’T BREATHE. All the oxygen had suddenly left the earth, leaving him desperate and gasping. Or maybe whatever god was in charge of such things decided he didn’t deserve to breathe anymore and had simply cut off his ability.
He wished they’d cut off his ability to feel instead. He hurt. For two thousand years, he’d managed not to feel anything, to control his emotions so effortlessly it hadn’t even required thought. He’d been cold, methodical, ruthless. He was the Ryuu Destroyer. And now he hurt so bad it was killing him.
He leaned forward in the chair, his arms braced against his legs and his hand wrapped around Lily’s as he and Seren fought to save her life.
She was dying on him. He couldn’t close his eyes to blink without seeing her maddening leap for him playing in his mind’s eye again, over and over, on some kind of fucked up loop that he couldn’t shut off.
He was a two thousand year old dragon, a warrior with instincts like nothing else out there, and yet she’d somehow realized what her stepfather was going to do before he had.
Vaguely aware of one of the males coming in and standing in the doorway, Dallas didn’t even bother to turn his head. Seren wouldn’t have sent Gabriel if Lily was dying. Even in his fucked up state, Dallas knew that. No, Gabriel wouldn’t be sitting next to him. He’d have him locked up somewhere so he couldn’t hurt himself or anyone else in his grief.
Which meant there was something the older male needed to talk to him about instead.
Gabriel cleared his throat quietly and glanced at Seren. “How is she?”
Seren looked as exhausted as Dallas, but she hadn’t let up once. She used the energy Dallas was giving Lily to keep her body fighting while she repaired the damage, but the damage had been bad. The knife had severed her spinal cord and punctured a vital organ. Dallas didn’t remember which one because it didn’t matter. It was all the same with the same result. His Lily was hurt.
Gabriel pulled him into the hallway, out of Seren’s hearing range. He waited while Dallas leaned against the wall opposite the room where he was still able to see his mate. “Cage is missing again,” he finally said. “I don’t know how, but he’s disappeared.” When Dallas didn’t react, Gabriel studied him for a long moment, his gaze flicking toward the room before he finally shook his head. “Fiona had him on lockdown at a supernatural treatment facility. He blacked out, and when he came to he was roaring about a necromancer. He tried to kill the healers around him. He shouldn’t have been able to get past her, let alone undo the spells she and I both put on him.”
Dallas walked back into the room, turning his attention back to Lily where it belonged. He had given Lily every ounce of energy until he’d swayed on his feet and almost face-planted from the drain on his body. Seren had tried to kick him out a while ago to grab a sandwich and some juice and to get his head straight, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get himself to leave her like this.
They’d found Bain being tortured in the basement where Lily had said he’d be. When they’d told Seren, she thought maybe Lily being so close to her stepfather again and her concern for herself and the others had triggered the empathic abilities she’d been born with as a Hunter.
“She’s going to be okay.”
Dallas’s head snapped up at Seren’s voice, half afraid he was delusional in his fear and exhaustion and only hearing things. “What?”
“Look.” Climbing off the bed where she’d been kneeling next to Lily while she’d worked, she gently pulled the sheet down so Dallas could see her back. “Not even a scar.”
Hope slammed against his chest so violently, he snarled. “Then why isn’t she awake?”
Seren moved around the edge of the bed, stood behind his chair, and looped her arms around his neck, resting her head against his. “She’s exhausted. I put her under a sleep spell so her body can rest. She probably won’t wake up until morning, but she’ll be good as new.”
In a move that was completely foreign to him with anyone but Lily, he reached up and caught Seren’s hands before she could pull back. “Mean it, Seren,” he murmured hoarsely as he turned his head to look up at her, unashamed of the tears spilling down his cheek. “I cannot lose her. Not her.”
“Hey.” She cupped his face and leaned down to kiss his cheek. “I promise, Dallas. Now get some rest while she does so you can be awake enough to yell at her in the morning for scaring you. I’ll keep everyone out.” She straightened and held out her hand. “Give me your cell phone.” When he cocked a brow at her, she smiled and snagged it out of his hand. “You don’t need any distractions. I’ll fill Daniel in and let him run interference with everyone. Broderick and Luca are outside. No one will get past them. They’ll make sure of it. You concentrate on Lily and resting.”
He nodded, too exhausted to argue with her. “You’re bossy in your old age, woman.”
She winked, though he noticed the humor didn’t fully reach her eyes. “I’m Dragan, and she’s my sister. You have no idea.”
“Can I move her?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
Dallas didn’t say anything else, and not caring if the healer was still in the room or not, he unbuttoned his jeans and yanked them off before he moved to the oversize cot and gently lifted his mate. He took her spot on the bed and curled her up against him, keeping his touch as soft and gentle as possible. He knew she was healed, but he couldn’t shake the image of her being breakable yet, and he needed—would always need—to be extra careful with her.
The second her naked skin stretched out against his, she let out a soft sound of pleasure in her sleep. Her tight, perfect body stretched out alongside his, her small hand coming up to press against his heart that was trying to hammer out of his chest. He knew she was alive. That she wasn’t going to die on him if he fell asleep, but he couldn’t make himself close his eyes. Instead, he spent all the hours of the night staring at her, his fingers touching every inch of her, exploring and soothing and reassuring himself that she really was still there with him. It had been too damn close. She’d almost died on him, and he was going to have to figure out a way to make sure it never happened again.
And as dawn finally started to break, the perfect plan started to form, and he fell asleep with visions of an inescapable, impenetrable, fortified fortress filling his mind.
Chapter 27
LILY COULDN’T BREATHE. Something heavy enough to almost, but not quite, crush her lay across her chest, pinning her to the strange bed. The familiar feel and scent of her mate kept her from panicking, and more asleep than awake, her body turned into his, craving the feel of his skin against hers.
She breathed him in as she floated toward wakefulness, loving the feeling of contentment that flooded through her when his arm tightened around her, hauling her ever closer to him.
A soft sigh of pure, contented pleasure purred in her throat when she tilted her head back to skim her lips over his stubbled jaw. She loved the taste of him. She loved the feel of him. She loved his skin and his heart and the stubbornness that went deeper than his soul and was rooted in the very heart of what he was. He’d been as broken as she when they’d met, and just as alone. Then, when she couldn’t fight anymore against his need to keep his distance, he’d given her the words. Even in the deepest corners of her heart, she hadn’t dared to wish for that.
Ignoring the crick in her neck from sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, she lifted herself up enough to brush her lips over his. “I love you, Dallas,” she murmured. “I love you so damn much.”
He opened one eye and gave her a sleepy grin. “Of course you do,” he drawled. Half-asleep, he pulled her closer and slowly devoured her m
outh. “And I’m going to let you seduce me, though I haven’t forgiven you yet.”
That brought her up short. She paused, her hand about to slip past the band of his boxer briefs, when the night came tumbling back in full-on HD. Since the last thing she remembered was “feeling” Porter’s intent a second before she’d leapt like a wild woman at Dallas, it didn’t take a genius to realize what had happened between then and her waking up in a healing room.
Oh crap. She chewed on her bottom lip as she peeked up at him. “How bad was it?”
He bared his teeth at her, and she immediately winced. “I’m not dead, though. That’s good, right?”
His face went scary pissed a second before he sat up and set her on the bed away from him. “We are not talking about this.” He grabbed a shirt Seren must have brought in sometime during the night and tossed it at her.
Confused, and a little worried about his reaction, she caught the shirt and frowned at him. “Why aren’t we talking about this?”
“Because…” he started with a snarl. He spun on his heel to point at her, his face a mask of fury and fear. “I am nowhere near in control of my emotions at the moment, and you are still recovering. A full on war between us right now is not going to solve anything, and I am not going to bring Seren’s house down around us by bellowing at you.”
Without bothering to put on the shirt, she slipped off the bed and walked over to him. She wrapped her arms tight around his torso and pressed her face against his chest. “I love you, Dallas.”
He hooked his arms around her neck and dragged her closer. He buried his face in her hair. “Yeah, Lil,” he murmured, “I got that.”
She tried to hold back the tears, and when she failed, she tilted her head back to look up at him. “You’re angry with me.”
To her surprise, he shook his head. “No. Actually, I’m not. I should be, damn it, but I’m starting to get anger isn’t going to change anything.”
Because she wasn’t sure that was much better, she pulled back, cold suddenly. She pulled on the shirt. “I don’t want to fight with you, Dallas.”
“We’re not fighting. But I am going to find a tower to lock you in for the rest of our lives.” He lifted a brow when her knees wobbled, then snorted and crouched in front of her, gently reaching out to brush the sleep-tousled hair out of her face. “I’m kidding, woman.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You promise you’re only teasing? You tend to be a little…over-protective.”
His brow jacked up as he gave her a direct look, deliberately ignoring her understatement. “Do you really think I’m going to lock you in any place I can’t get to?”
Lily thought about it. “No, probably not.” She moved in closer to him, searching his eyes. “That doesn’t explain why you’re not yelling at me. The last time I almost got hurt trying to save you, you yelled at me so much I was afraid your head was going to explode.”
He gave her a look that said she’d answered her own question, even as the muscle under his eye began to tick. He rested his head against hers. “Fat lot of good all that yelling did, huh? Second you thought I was in danger, you did it again. I’m not naïve or dense enough to think that there is anything I can say to you that will stop you from trying to save my life.”
She shook her head slowly. “Probably not.”
* * *
“RIGHT.” IN THE last twenty four hours, he’d lost her to Porter and watched her nearly die on him, but as he’d lain awake all night, unable to do anything but hold her and thank whatever gods were out there for saving her life, it had occurred to him that whatever hell he’d gone through in the last day, it was nothing compared to hers. She’d gone back to her nightmare to save his life, had refused to let her stepfather break her, had refused to stop believing that Dallas would find her in time, and had taken a knife to the back and nearly died to save his life.
That was when he’d decided. He may be a warrior by birth, but his mate was a warrior by heart, and that made her so much better than him. He’d done everything wrong with her from the very beginning, but she was still here, and against all odds and reasoning and common sense, loved him the way he loved her. She’d been saving his life since the moment she’d kissed him to keep his friends from tearing him apart at Daniel’s wedding, and she’d never stopped. And if it took the rest of their damn lives and all the way into the far reaches of forever, he was going to find a way to show her he loved her, too.
“So rather than be a bastard about something I’m not going to be able to change, I’ve decided the best thing for me to do is make sure I’m worth you saving.”
“You are,” she murmured, her eyes troubled as she moved in closer and searched his face. “Don’t you see how amazing you are?”
He caught her face in his hands and forced her to meet his gaze. “You walked back into your personal hell to save my life, Lily. You faced the monster of your childhood, and you nearly died. I am not the amazing one in this relationship.”
Lily didn’t say anything for a long time as her eyes searched his. She scowled and went up on her toes, gently resting the back of her hand against his brow.
“What are you doing?” he asked, confused.
“You don’t have a fever.” She ignored his question as she stepped back. “But we need to have Seren look at you anyway, just in case. I wouldn’t put it past Porter to have given you some kind of magical illness.”
“I’m fine.”
She shot him a look that said he was deranged if he believed that. “I almost died because I jumped between you and danger, and not only are you not yelling at me about it, you’re talking like you have no idea why I could possibly love you when you have single-handedly given me a life that I can not only live without fear, but you’ve given me the safety and security to be myself. So, yes.” she snapped as she pulled her hair out of the back of her shirt and walked forward. She grabbed his hand and pulled him along on her way to the door “We’re going to have Seren look at you.”
“Ryuu,” he cursed. “I don’t need Seren to look at me. I need you to understand that I love you, and that I’m always going to love you. And I need you to stop looking at me like I’m fucking insane when I say that.”
She stopped walking so fast he had to hook his arm around her waist and lift her off her feet before he plowed into her and sent her flying to the ground. Without missing a beat, she managed to turn in his arms and look up at him, her small hands cupping his face. “I do think you’re insane when you say that, Dallas, because I know with everything inside of me that you love me as much as I love you. It’s so much I feel insane trying to contain it.” When he opened his mouth to argue, she grabbed one of his hands and pressed it to her heart. “I feel it here. The same way I felt Bain—” She went stark white. “Dallas, Bain, did you—”
“He’s safe.” He brushed the hair out of her face, and since he already had her in his arms, he carried her down to the kitchen. “Worried about you and recovering, but he’s safe.”
She hooked her arms around his neck and snuggled into his chest. “How did I know what Porter was going to do before he did it?”
He leaned down to kiss the tip of her nose, then gently set her down on the counter. He was always going to be gentle with her, always take exquisite care so she didn’t change her mind about loving him. He braced his hands on either side of her. “Seren thinks being back there with him and being afraid for my safety triggered something inside of you that you were born with and had mostly shut off sometime during your childhood to keep yourself from breaking. I think that ability is what connected you to Adrian, and to me.”
Her brow furrowed as she shook her head slowly. “You’re saying I was born with the ability to feel other people?”
“Yes. And if you were able to feel their emotions and their thoughts as a child suffering what you did, I can see why your subconscious shut it down.”
* * *
LILY WASN’T SURE how she felt about being able to feel other peoples�
� thoughts and emotions except for Dallas’s, but she fully planned on using her newfound ability to her advantage.
She reached out and splayed her hands on his yummy, massive chest and then slid them up to grip his shoulders. “So,” she said slowly, batting her eye lashes at him, “what you are saying is that my mate is so amazing and has made me so safe that for the first time in my life, I am able to be what I was always too afraid to be?”
He scowled at her. “I didn’t do anything. This was all on you.”
She snorted at him, then raised a brow and gave him a look. “You’re forgetting, dear Dallas, that I have this nifty new ability to sense other people’s emotions, and what that means is I can feel how much you love me. And not only can I feel how much you love me, I can feel how much you worry about me and want me safe and happy and want me to know how much you love and need me.” She tilted her head back and grinned as she watched him wrap his brain around what she was saying. She was so full of joy she was going to burst with it. “So.” She fisted her hands into his soft, shoulder-length hair, using it to pull his face down to where she wanted it. “I love you, Dallas. As much as you love me.”
He sighed, lowering his head to take her mouth in a hungry kiss. “You are going to be a stubborn pain in the ass for the rest of our lives, woman, aren’t you?”
She beamed at him as she scooted toward the edge of the counter. She wrapped her legs around his waist, leaning up to trail her tongue over his shoulder. “Most definitely.”
He groaned, his eyes closing and his hands nearly bruising her hips when she bit at his nipple. “Goddamn it, I need you.” He turned his head, bellowing, “Seren!”
Almost instantly, the healer’s amused voice came from the other side of the house. “Go for it—but not in my kitchen!”
Dallas grinned at his mate when he knew it was safe to have her. He scooped her up and into his arms, his mouth devouring hers.
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