Adored by The Dragon: (The Dragon Lord - Book 3) (The Dragon Lords)

by K. T. Stryker

  The captain waved both of them out of the room, and pointed to a stairwell, urging them to double-time it on the stairs and through a hallway. They came out on to the parking lot with the South Carolina sun blinding them momentarily.

  “Where’s your car?” asked Hibley.

  “Over there,” said Dana pointing to a row in the parking lot.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where’s your car?” asked Dana.

  Hibley glared at her and took her arm pointing her toward her vehicle. “The fewer questions you ask, the better.”

  Quinn didn’t like how the captain spoke to Dana, and he definitely didn’t like the captain’s hands on her. He huffed his dissatisfaction and Hibley turned to him.

  “You have a problem, Private?”

  “Get your hands off her.” The vehemence in his voice surprised Quinn but anger coiled in him about how the Captain treated Dana and he wouldn’t have it.

  “Stand down, Private,” ordered Hibley. His voice held authority that Quinn normally would respond to, but not this day.

  “I said get your hands off her.”

  “Quinn,” said Dana. Panic flashed on her sublimely gorgeous face as she twisted away from Hibley. “We should get moving. See, the Captain’s hands aren’t on me now. Let’s get in my car.”

  “Okay,” mumbled Quinn. The intense need to protect the doctor gripping him confused him. More than likely he was in shock from finding out he was a dragon.

  A dragon.

  So many pieces of his life fell into place. How he escaped that box in the ground. Why he needed to fight. Perhaps even the reason his adoptive grandmother rejected him.

  They were revelations that shook him to the roots of his soul. No wonder he wasn’t acting right.

  Hibley sat shotgun in Dana’s car, which did not please Quinn. But he climbed into the back and strapped in. Dana drove in unearthly silence until they pulled to the parking lot entrance facing Route 21.

  “North or South,” she said tightly.

  “South.” Hibley said, "to the base." He spoke with that air of command that annoyed Dana. Quinn sensed how Hibley’s words grated Dana on her insides.

  “After what happened?”

  “I told you. I smoothed over the situation. The best thing now is to get the private back to base and process his discharge papers.”

  Quinn swallowed hard.

  “Discharge?” said Dana tightly. “That’s hardly fair to Quinn. He worked hard to get here.”

  Consciously or unconsciously Dana mirrored Quinn’s thoughts on the matter.

  “It’s the only option.”

  “I’m sorry,” argued Dana. “I don’t understand. Why does this change anything for Quinn? He’s a dragon, not a criminal. Any branch of the service would welcome someone with his abilities.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “But why isn’t?” pressed Dana. “And why are you so willing to shuttle him into the outside world? He just found out he is a dragon. I suspect he has much to learn about his dragon nature. Why can’t we learn from him as well? It’s not as if he has somewhere to go.”

  She glanced over her should with her face twisted in regret. “Sorry, Quinn. But’s that the truth.”

  “You don’t need to apologize. I know it.”

  “There is nothing that the US military needs to learn from dragons,” said Hibley. “And he has a place to go. I’ll help him get there.”

  “Why?” said Dana. Her voice was rising, either from anger or panic. Waves of both rolled off her. “Just who are you, Captain Hibley, to have a place for a homeless dragon?”

  Quinn, who did not have the warm and fuzzies for Hibley in the first place, liked him even less now. The air around the man roiled with deception.

  “That’s on a need to know basis,” said Hibley.

  Yes. The captain lied. Hibley hid important information. What’s more, Dana thought it too. The funky mind connection thing going on with the sexy doctor had its advantages.

  Telepathy.

  Who would have thought?

  Dana’s emotions were wide open through their connection for Quinn to examine. She disliked Hibley intensely and didn’t trust him. That made two of them. Though Quinn’s training taught him to obey a superior’s orders without question, he had plenty of reservations about Hibley’s intentions.

  True. There were no stories about dragons in any branch of the military. It wasn’t a crime to be a dragon in the United States, not like it was in other countries. But bringing a dragon home for dinner would not go down well with the folks.

  But Quinn didn’t have a family, so that wasn’t a problem.

  Nor did he ever have a serious girlfriend. There were a few one stands, but that was it. No girl had been in danger of bringing him home.

  Still. A dragon.

  Life changing. He could barely breathe at the thought.

  “Where is this place?” asked Quinn.

  “Out of the country,” said Hibley tightly.

  “That’s not much of an answer,” said Dana. Quinn agreed. He had no assurances he could re-enter the country legally.

  “He cannot stay here,” insisted Hibley.

  “Why not?”

  “There are dangers you and he do not know about. It is best he is with his own kind.”

  “And this place is home to his own kind?” asked Dana.

  “Yes.”

  “How many,” said Dana gripping the steering wheel tightly. “How many dragons are there?”

  “The number varies from time to time. But he should go home to spend time with his own kind.”

  Dana glared at Hibley.

  “You know, Captain, you haven’t been straight up with me since I met you. You never wanted Quinn to be part of my study.”

  “The study,” said Hibley coldly, “is a sham.”

  Dana was quiet for several long seconds.

  “Sham?” Her voice squeaked weakly, as if she suspected this all along. Dana’s suspicions of the Kaurs filled Quinn too. Who would trust rich industrialists that had their fingers on the pulse of Congress?

  “It was a device to get you and Private Morgan together.”

  “No,” said Dana with a shake of her head. “The Kaurs spent too much money on this.”

  “The Kaurs,” said Hibley with a sneer, “have their own plans for dragons. They lied you, Dr. McGarrity. They only sought to use you to draw Morgan into their plans.”

  Dana laughed harshly. “How could they do that?”

  They turned off onto the long road to the base. Trees dripping with Spanish moss lined either side. Still a mile from the base proper, it was a secluded portion of the base. It served as a buffer between the public and the military, a kind of no-man's-land. Immediately the hackles on the back of Quinn’s head rose. It was just the kind of place that was ripe for an ambush.

  “Because of what you are,” he said. “But I can’t allow that.”

  Hibley grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it hard to the right, sending the car tumbling into a ditch. The speed of the car plus its angle descending the ditch turned the vehicle over.

  Dana screamed and Quinn roared at the danger. He expanded, his dragon body filling the back of the vehicle and he thrashed and kicked to get out. The metal screeched as it split apart as if a paper towel at Quinn’s efforts and gasoline spilled everywhere. Quinn licked at the gasoline and found he liked the taste, but this was not the time for pleasure. With his powerful forepaws he peeled the shell of the car apart. He hopped up to the under frame and peered at Dana and Hibley unconscious in the car.

  With a snort, he hauled Hibley out and tossed him on the soft grass. Whoever, whatever he was, his fate was not up to whatever medical services could do for him. Dana, however, lay unconscious, and he reached into her mind. What he found relieved but did not satisfy him. She hit her head and was unconscious, but otherwise she was fine.

  With his talons, he pulled her out of the car and cradled her against his br
east. It was his job to protect her and he was doing a poor job of it. That stopped now.

  He gazed at the sky and heard warning klaxons sound through the facility. A security camera must have caught the accident and emergency vehicles were on the way. Quinn couldn’t stay here, and he couldn’t subject Dana to the scrutiny of the military authorities. What happened was not her fault, but no one would believe her over a career officer.

  He hissed toward Hibley, the rat, and yellow fire spewed from his mouth. It didn’t touch Hibley, but it felt good to spit it. But he needed to care for Dana so he coiled the energy in his haunches and hoped that dragons really could fly.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dana

  Her head pounded when she woke in the pitch black that surrounded her. She moved to find muscles and joints that ached with the motion. But as far as Dana could tell she had no broken bones, and that was a miracle. But that begged the question of where she was and what she was doing here.

  She groaned at the memory of Hibley jerking the wheel and her rental tumbling on the side of the road. The pain in her head blocked her efforts to remember more.

  A scraping noise commanded her attention. With alarm shooting through her body she peered into the dark trying to divine what or who created the sound.

  “Hey, you’re awake,” said a familiar voice.

  Quinn.

  She was glad to hear his voice and relaxed against her rocky bed.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Okay.”

  “Liar. Your head hurts like a bitch.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Telepathy,” he said. “Remember, you told me that dragons could do that. And it’s true.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Blue Ridge Mountains,” he said. “It felt right, and I found us a cave to hole up in. There are a bunch of farms around us, so I’ve been able to filch a few supplies.”

  “Theft?”

  “A judicial use of resources,” said Quinn. “Improvise, adapt, overcome. Marine motto.”

  “Did you wrangle any resources to give us light in here?”

  “Oh yeah. I found something cool. Now don’t freak out.”

  Flame erupted in blazing streak lighting Quinn’s face. It struck rocks on the opposite side where she sat and heated rocks on the cave floor. The cave warmed, and the rocks gave off a bright glow.

  Dana sat speechless.

  “What do you think?” said Quinn. Obvious pride hung in his words.

  “Ah, well, it’s amazing.”

  “It is, right?” he said enthusiastically.

  “But how did you figure it out?”

  “Well, after the car overturned the gas line broke and spilled gasoline over all of us.”

  Dana sniffed at her clothes.

  “I don’t smell any gasoline.”

  “Well, that’s because while I was a dragon I licked it clean off you.”

  “You licked my body with your dragon tongue?”

  “Yeah. And your clothes too. It was delicious. I couldn’t get enough. And my dragon spit neutralized the smell, so I assume I got it all off.”

  “You licked my body,” said Dana again. She couldn’t wrap her head around it.

  “Yeah, and then when I was on, er, patrol, I hiccupped from the gasoline and a little fire came out. So I practiced and well, you see the result.”

  “Well, that’s it. You’re a dragon.”

  “Yeah.” He sat next to her.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked again.

  “You already know.”

  “Yes,” said Quinn. He put his hand on her shoulder. “But that should feel better now, right?”

  Quinn was correct. The pounding in her head eased when he touched her.

  “I can’t heal it, but I can make the pain go away, for a little while. That’s what I did last night. You were in and out and upset. I didn’t know what to do so I held you. And you did calm down and slept. I watched you, to make sure you were okay.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “I just did, or rather my dragon did.”

  “Your dragon?”

  “I can't explain this. One part of me is human that’s for sure. But another part is the dragon, and he’s, well, incredible. He knows all sort of stuff that I don’t. It’s like instinct. Or an inbred wisdom.”

  “So you experience the dragon as separate from Quinn Morgan?” This fascinated Dana. In psychology, some troubled individuals suffered dissociative states where they weren’t connected with reality. But Quinn didn’t seem disconnected. He seemed to be handling the revelation that he was a dragon with a sense of wonder and discovery.

  “Yes. No. We are one and the same. But the dragon part of me sees things in an entirely different way. It's hard to describe. Like the dragon knew to fly to the mountains, and how to find a suitable cave, and how to clean it out.”

  “Let me guess. It involved fire.”

  Quinn chuckled. “Yeah, it did. Good thing you were all tasty and stuff because it upset the dragon there wasn’t coal and sulphur nearby to make fire. But the gasoline worked just as well. That surprised the dragon.”

  “You make it sound like the dragon talks to you.”

  Quinn scratched his head. “No. Not really. It’s like I just know. The answers are on the tip of my brain and then answer is there.”

  “That’s amazing,” said Dana. “But it makes sense. We are all born with a certain amount of information encoded in our brains. Actually, all animals do. Ravens, for instance, can count numbers, and humans have this innate ability too. Children born in cultures that don’t have words for numbers still can recognize the difference between numbers. It’s called heuristics and they encode all sorts of things from the foods to the type of sexual partner we like.”

  “Really?” said Quinn. He was staring at her intently now. “So nature versus nurture?”

  “Is still a thing. We have our innate natures, but our childhood environment modifies our responses.”

  “How’s that?” said Quinn. He seemed truly interested in her psychological ramblings and this warmed her heart. On the few occasions where she dated, the man’s face blanched when she talked about her studies and the papers she wrote.

  “Take PTSD for instance. An individual grows up in a normal, healthy environment, has normal, healthy attachments, and is a normal, healthy individual. Then he goes through the meat grinder of terrifying war experiences and his brain gets reorganized. Memories triggers threat responses. Sounds, smells and sights send the PTSD sufferer back into the memories of life threatening situations. We still don’t understand all the mechanisms, what short circuits the brain and sends it to fight or flight response. But we are learning. But the experience, the environment, changed the brain of the individual. DNA may even change with a significant experience, but we are still investigating that.”

  “Wow,” said Quinn appreciatively. “Doc, you are pretty damned special.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are. I only had a high school education, and smart people tend to treat me like I’m a dummy. But I’m not.”

  “I know that Quinn. Actually, your IQ tested in the superior range.”

  “It did?”

  “Yes. I suppose if you had a better environment, didn’t have early trauma and a more stable environment you would have tested in the genius range.”

  “Things like that affect how smart you are?”

  “Sure. A lot of things affect our mental functioning. And actually, IQ scores fluctuate all the time, especially among different tests. And there are lots of controversy about whether tests are skewed more toward left brain thinking, like numbers and logic, while ignoring creative right brain thinking.”

  “That’s amazing,” said Quinn, “that you know all that.”

  “I studied for a long time and I worked hard at it.”

  “How long?” he said in a breathy voice.

  “What?�
�� said Dana. Butterflies welled in her stomach as she caught the heart-rending tenderness of his gaze. Her brain scrambled, unable to form cohesive thought as she noticed his spicy musk rise between them. Her throat was thick, and she found it difficult to speak.

  “How long did you study?” he breathed. The heat between rose as if a magnetic cord drew them together. His eyes shone brightly in the darkened cave as he stared at her.

  “I started college when I was seventeen,” she rasped. “Four years for my bachelors, two years for my masters and less than two for my doctorate.”

  “So you are a little older than me.”

  Dana was having a hard time doing the math as she stared into his brilliant blue eyes. She fumbled in her brain for his service jacket info.

  “You’re twenty, I’m twenty-five.”

  “Five years isn’t so much of a difference, especially when one of us is nearly immortal.”

  “What are you talking about, Quinn?”

  “This.”

  He leaned forward and Dana wanted to panic because he fully intended on kissing her. This was wrong. He was part of her research study.