Hidden Dragon

by Harmony Raines

  And our children, his dragon added. The children our mate carries will be born dragons.

  And our children. We must grow strong once more and be always on our guard.

  But one kiss. He could spare one kiss.

  He lowered his head and touched his lips to hers in a chaste kiss. But Fleur’s fingers tightened around his neck and pulled him closer, deepening their kiss. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and was not afraid to go after it.

  She is a strong woman. A warrior woman. His dragon puffed smoke in admiration before retreating to brood at the back of Doran’s mind.

  Heat spread through his body which responded with an urgent need to sling Fleur over his shoulder and carry her off to bed. His thighs tightened and blood surged to his groin as his arousal grew. With her body pressed so close, his hardened length bulged against her.

  The pressure was almost too much and he loosened his grip on her. But Fleur slipped her hand down over his butt and leaned into him, her hips rotating in small circles that provided incredible stimulation. Right where it was needed.

  He groaned against her mouth and she slid her tongue along his lip before grazing it with her teeth. The tension in his body grew and he was ready to explode, like a volcano about to erupt.

  “Fleur!” Tansy’s voice broke the spell and Fleur took a step back, her eyelids heavy as she fought to hide her own desire.

  “We’re here, Mom.” Fleur winked at Doran as she dropped her voice and said, “We can save this for later.” Then she patted his butt and walked into the house.

  Doran stood rooted to the spot. He’d never met a woman like her. Normally, women were meek, particularly where sex was concerned. But his mate was strong, forward and incredibly self-assured.

  He’d never wanted a woman more.

  Straightening his clothing, he cleared his throat and followed Fleur into the house. She was talking to her mom in the kitchen and he followed their voices with the empty beer glass in his hand.

  “We are going to hike over Woodacre and see if we can make any sense out of Doran’s past,” Fleur told her mom. “We also need to take a look at Doran’s treasure.”

  “Are you planning on moving it?” Tansy asked Doran. “I don’t think it’s safe to leave it there unguarded.”

  “That’s what we need to decide,” Doran answered. “Although in this new world, I am unsure where I would store it.”

  “Harlan’s vault is safe. Fiona would literally kill him if anything happened to any of their treasure.” Fleur glanced at her watch. “We only have a few hours of light left. I got off work early so we could take a good look in the light.” Her voice hitched and Tansy reached out and took hold of her hand.

  “What happened with Mr. Preston?” Tansy asked, and a surge of jealousy coursed through Doran as he sensed the rush of emotion flowing through his mate. She should not have such strong feelings for another man.

  “He has cancer.” Fleur ground her back teeth together as she fought the urge to cry. Tansy’s reaction told Doran this was very bad news.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” Tansy enveloped Fleur in a mother’s hug. “Is it treatable?”

  “I think so. He didn’t say where exactly it was, but…” Fleur drew in a deep shuddering breath and tried to calm her tears. “He doesn’t see the point in going on. He has nothing to live for.” Sobs erupted as Tansy held her close and Doran’s earlier jealousy slid away to be replaced by a need to make this right for his mate. Whoever Mr. Preston was, he wasn’t a threat to Doran’s relationship with Fleur.

  “I’m sure he’s just scared.” Tansy fought against her own tears. “We can all help him. You know we’re all so grateful that he gave you the opportunity to learn from him. He might not have a family of his own, but he has us.”

  Fleur nodded. “I love you, Mom.”

  “And I love you.” Tansy loosened her arms and took a step back. “Now, I’ll prepare some food for you and Doran and then you go and get some fresh air and take your mind off this. You have to look after yourself and your future if you want to do the best for Mr. Preston.”

  Fleur nodded and wiped her eyes. “You’re the best, Mom.”

  “Only because I’ve learned so much from you and your brothers and sister.” Tansy’s cheeks flushed at her daughter’s words. “Now, go and get ready.”

  Fleur nodded and with a quick awkward smile in Doran’s direction, she left the kitchen. “I’ll be back down in a couple of minutes.”

  “You are a good mother,” Doran told Tansy, who blushed furiously and waved him away.

  “I’m nothing special. I’m proud of each of my children. They are the ones who have brought out the best in me.” She opened a cupboard and took out packets of food before looking over her shoulder at Doran. “Do you remember your family at all?”

  Doran took his empty beer glass to the sink and turned on the faucet. While he filled the sink with hot soapy water and began to wash the glass along with the other dirty dishes, he searched through the few fragments of memory that had returned over the course of the day.

  “I can see my mom’s face. But it’s a vague shadow. Her voice is clearer, high and sweet and kind.” His forehead creased and he stopped washing the dishes. “She wasn’t a dragon. I don’t think she was a shifter at all.”

  “Your father was the dragon shifter?” Tansy asked as she smeared butter over bread.

  “I believe so.” The crease in his brow deepened. If he kept on frowning like this, he would soon look every one of his many years. “I can’t remember him at all.” He tapped his skull. “It’s as if there is a big gaping hole where those memories should be.”

  “They’ll come back.” Tansy fetched a backpack from a cupboard filled with many coats and boots. “When you are ready.”

  “When I’m ready?” Doran asked. “You don’t think I’m ready to remember now?”

  “I don’t know. But our minds are strange things. They protect us from hurt. They protect us from ourselves.” Tansy carefully placed the food she’d prepared into the backpack.

  “I need to remember.” Doran’s eyes grew dark. “I need to remember so I can protect Fleur.”

  “Is that what scares you?” Tansy asked. “That whatever reason you had for going into Ancient Slumber is still out there?”

  He nodded briefly and then turned to look into the hallway. Fleur was returning.

  Tansy crossed the kitchen and placed her hand on his wrist, her grip tight, her eyes fierce. “Promise me that if you do remember, you will do whatever it takes to protect my daughter. And you will tell us so we can protect her, too.”

  “I swear,” Doran began. “On my treasure, I swear.”

  And he meant it. He would give up his treasure for his mate. If he had to, he would give his life.

  She was his world. And not because she was the only constant in it.

  Chapter Fourteen – Fleur

  “Are you certain you don’t want me to carry that?” Fleur asked as they trekked toward the ruins they’d flown over the night before.

  “No, I can manage.” Doran looked distracted. His treasure was calling to him. At least that’s how he described it. But he understood they had to visit the other ruins first since those were the ones Fleur was supposed to have visited yesterday.

  Our mate had called to us, her bear pointed out. It’s reasonable to assume Doran’s treasure calls to him in the same way.

  Very reasonable, Fleur agreed as they fought their way through dense undergrowth. They were close to the ruins if the coordinates on the map were accurate.

  Doran lifted a fallen log and moved it out of their way so they could scramble under a low hanging shrub. If there were ruins here, they had been abandoned a long time ago.

  “Does any of this look familiar?” Fleur asked as they stopped for a drink and looked down at the valley below.

  He shook his head. “No, but so much has changed in the hundreds of years I slept. The only thing I recognize is the mountain itse
lf. Ageless and undying, I still remember each peak and each valley.”

  “And you can’t remember a building around here?” Fleur asked. “I’d hoped when we got here you might have found something familiar.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  She put the water bottle back in the backpack. “We don’t have too far to go.”

  Doran nodded and pulled on the straps of the pack. “Let’s go. The sooner we take a look at these ruins, the sooner we can get to my treasure.”

  “It calls to you that much?” Fleur parted a clump of leaves and stepped through the gap.

  Doran placed his arms above his head and waded through the undergrowth, ignoring the branches that tried to snare him. “It does. Perhaps because I was asleep on it for so long. It’s as if it is a part of me.”

  “We’re going to need to move it.” She glanced sideways at him. “And if you want to hold onto Woodacre, you are going to have to sell something.”

  His face darkened as if a thundercloud had passed in front of the sun. “This land is mine.”

  “It was yours.” Fleur didn’t want to fight with him, but he needed to see sense. “But even if the land remained in your family and was passed down through the generations, it’s still not technically yours.”

  He stopped walking and studied her closely as she swung around to face him. “I see. The land belonged to my mother. But I was forgotten.”

  “Presumed dead. The land was then inherited by successive people.” Her eyes widened. “You might have relatives still alive. They might have information and even documents that explain what happened to your brother. Which might shed some light on why you agreed to the spell.”

  “That might be the key to unlocking my memories.” Doran reached out for her hand and threaded his fingers through hers before pulling her forward. “Let’s go.”

  They half ran, half stumbled through the undergrowth until they spilled out into a clearing where broken walls stood half buried under trees and shrubs. The house that stood there would have been no bigger than a small cottage and had been abandoned long ago.

  She’d expected more. Or perhaps she’d hoped for more. Hoped they might find something here that would have unlocked Doran’s memories.

  “I think it’s been a wasted trip.” Fleur put her hands on her hips and stared at the ruins, which in places had crumbled into nothing.

  “It was worth the journey.” Doran beckoned to her and she followed him across the clearing until they stood next to one of the walls. He reached out his hand and touched his fingers to the cold stone.

  “Anything?” Fleur asked.

  He shook his head. “Let’s take a good look, though.”

  “Yes. I should also take some photographs, too, since this is the reason I came to Woodacre yesterday.” She pulled out her phone and began tapping the screen.

  “Photographs?” Doran asked as he moved to stand behind her and looked over her shoulder as she snapped pictures of the ruined walls.

  “Yes. A little like painting only without the paint. And the wait. You press this button here and my phone takes the picture.” She walked around the perimeter of the building, taking lots of pictures.

  “This is the closest thing to magic I’ve seen so far in your world.” Doran followed her around, watching her phone screen as she took pictures.

  “Not magic, technology.” Fleur reached a hole in the walls, with smooth stone on either side. “This must have been the doorway.” She stepped inside and Doran followed. “To think someone lived here once.”

  Doran nodded as he turned around, looking at the ruined building around him. “I might have lived here once. But it’s not my home. My home was down there where my treasure lies.”

  “There are no ruins above ground there. It’s as if the cavern was built underground to conceal you and your treasure. We didn’t see any walls or any other sign of habitation.” Fleur walked around the inside of the cottage ruins, picking up stones and plucking moss off the walls. There were no clues here. Only decay.

  “We have no answers.” Doran didn’t hide his disappointment.

  “No, we don’t. But we have learned this building must have been built later.” She put her phone in her pocket. “Tomorrow morning we can go and visit George at the museum and find out everything he knows. He might have some old journals or some other record of who lived in the house. It might help us piece it all together.”

  “I hope so.” Doran picked up a broken roof tile and held it in his hand. “If only I could remember.”

  Fleur walked back out of the ruins. “Come on, let’s go and see this treasure of yours. Maybe something there will jog your memory.”

  “I thought you would never ask.” Doran took the lead, walking through the dense trees and bushes in a straight unwavering line as his treasure sang to him.

  Fleur found it amusing at first. Until the terrain became more difficult. “I wish it was dark enough for you to fly.”

  “Has your technology not produced a contraption to make things disappear?” Doran asked as he waited for her.

  “Nope. Not yet. Unless the military is keeping it a very closely guarded secret.” She stopped to catch her breath for a second.

  “Military.” Doran turned from side to side. “This way looks easier.”

  “Yes, the Army. You must have had an army of some sort even hundreds of years ago.” Fleur pushed herself to keep going. She had to remind herself that Doran was the one who had been asleep for hundreds of years since he seemed to have a higher fitness level than she did.

  A dragon and his treasure, her bear mused. He sure must love all his silver and gold.

  And jewels. Did you see some of the pretty jewels? Fleur asked her bear.

  No, I was too busy staring at the pretty dragon. Her bear laughed as they followed their pretty dragon shifter over a pile of rocks that had slid down the mountain some time ago.

  “So Mr. Devizes owns Woodacre now.” For an old man, Doran was still nimble as he ducked under bushes and clambered over fallen tree trunks.

  “Yes. Mr. Devizes is selling it. I haven’t met him. Mr. Preston has dealt with him personally.” She slid a few feet down the side of the mountain before coming to an abrupt stop behind Doran. “What’s wrong?” She pushed her senses outward. There was no one around as far as she could tell, but Doran stood stiffly alert like a tracker dog who had found his quarry.

  Fleur stood still, watching him as his eyes went out of focus.

  He’s remembering, her bear said.

  I think so. Fleur held her breath as she stood a couple of paces away from her mate, looking down on the same view of the mountain, and yet she was certain she did not see the same images as Doran.

  Big white fluffy clouds, the kind a child draws on a picture, slid across the sky, while birds wheeled in the wind as they rode the currents coming down off the mountain. The trees bent in the stiff breeze that blew down through the valley, their leaves rustling as she waited.

  Doran moved, his eyes out of focus as if he’d just woken from a dream.

  “Are you okay?” Fleur placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “I saw my mother walking through the trees. It was as if I could reach out and touch her. She carried a basket and was collecting herbs.” He ran a hand over his face. “It was all so clear as if it was still there, just the same as one of your photographs.”

  “Perhaps your memories are starting to return. The familiar surroundings are breaking down the barrier between you and them,” Fleur suggested.

  “Perhaps.” He nodded but didn’t look at her as he pressed his hand to his eyes. “I am overcome with emotion.” He looked down at his hands before scrubbing them on his borrowed pants. Tomorrow they would go into town and she would buy him a whole new wardrobe of clothes.

  “Hey, that’s understandable.” She slid her arm around his shoulders. “And as much as women have grown stronger, men have gotten in touch with their feminine side.”

  �
��Feminine side?” Doran asked.

  “Yes. Which means you are allowed to cry in front of me and I won’t think you are weak.” She touched her head against his shoulder. “Shall we go down?”

  He nodded. “This is my home. It’s where I would build a house. Directly above my treasure.”

  “We can do that. But for now, your treasure needs to be moved.” She threaded her fingers through his, wishing she could make this easier for him.

  Just being here with him makes it easier, her bear replied.

  They circled around a large clump of tall pines and came to the place where only yesterday she’d stood with Jax looking at…nothing. Even now, knowing that there was a large hole under the ground, she had no clue where exactly it was. The trees and shrubs hid it well.

  And while his treasure drew Doran onward, Fleur no longer felt inexplicably drawn to anything other than the man standing next to her. She wished she could reach inside his mind and free his memories.

  If that’s never possible, then we will make new ones with him. Good memories to chase away the pain. Her bear was the sweetest creature when someone was in need.

  Ten feet further and the gaping hole leading down to Doran’s treasure was clearly visible. Doran approached with caution, skirting around the edge of the hole until he found the exact spot from where Jax had hauled them out.

  “This still looks safe.” He thumped the earth with his heel before kneeling down and peering into the hole.

  “There’s a flashlight in the side pocket of the backpack.” Fleur came up alongside Doran and unhooked the flap holding the flashlight in place. “Here.” She flicked the switch as she handed it to Doran.

  “It’s not plugged into the main electricity.” Doran examined the flashlight closely.

  “It runs on batteries, just like my phone.” She patted her pocket and then pointed to the hole. “Are we going down?”

  “We are. Or at least I am.” He swung his head around so he faced her, his expression full of concern. “If you want to stay here, that’s all right.”