by Ava Benton
Table of Contents
Epilogue
Miles
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Afterword
Miles
Dragon Heartbeats
Ava Benton
Contents
Miles
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Afterword
Miles
Miles has watched all the dragons in his Appalachian clan find their mates. Now he’s flying solo.
Will a week off in the Caribbean lead him to his fated mate?
Savannah’s got a death wish and a secret. Why did this dark brooding man have to save her? She didn’t ask to be saved.
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1
Miles
If I had to observe my cousin Gate and his mate much longer, I’d lose it.
Not that I was jealous. Far from it. Jealousy was never one of my weaknesses. I was glad that he’d found his mate after waiting for so long.
A thousand years could leave a man with a strong craving. It was just as much of a victory for him to find his fated mate as it was for any of the rest of my family back in the cave.
I merely wished they weren’t so damned lovey-dovey about it. Was that too much to ask? No matter where I went, no matter how secluded the nook into which I retreated with a book or simply with the objective of having a little time to myself, there they were. Staring lovingly into each other’s eyes, arms wrapped around each other, exchanging murmured terms of endearment in between sloppy kisses.
More than once did I fight back the inclination to order them to the room they shared. Why couldn’t they have their little honeymoon period there? In privacy? None of the others had behaved this way. I thought that might have been what got under my skin the most.
It didn’t matter that I was the last of the group to be left alone, no matter what Alan or Dallas or any of the others supposed. More than once, I reminded them that we hadn’t been familiar with each other in a millennium. Enough time for an entire ocean of water to pass under the bridge. I’d grown up a lot since those days back in Scotland.
“Unlikely,” Alan laughed the first time I asserted this. “You’re the youngest, and you’ll always be the youngest. No matter how much time has passed.”
“I’ve more than proven myself worthy,” I reminded him as we rode through the jungle in the truck Mary had lent us for the day.
I had needed to get away from the resort for a while—it was paradise, no doubt, but also the place where my entire clan was holed up. No matter how fond I was of them, no matter how much of a relief it was that they were safe again, there was only so much I could take of the incessant chatter and laughter and always the chance of running into the new lovers.
“I’m sure you’re a good man in a fight,” Dallas agreed. Still, always the one to make peace. He hadn’t changed a bit, any more than his cousin Alan. Their fathers were twin brothers, reflected in the dark red hair and green eyes they shared. Ainsley, Alan’s twin sister, was nearly his mirror image.
“Thank you,” I replied, slightly mollified.
“But you’re still the youngest,” he chuckled, then ducked to avoid the slap I tried delivering to the side of his head as Alan laughed.
“Relax,” he urged me. “You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself out here, are you not? Or would you rather have gone back to Appalachia?”
“You say it like that’s a bad thing. I happen to like it there. Not that I have much of a choice,” I added. “But it’s a beautiful place.”
And I had carved a deep enough niche for myself there that I could retreat and have my alone time with a reasonable amount of confidence that there wouldn’t be any interruptions. Even with the size of our group growing ever larger, my daily routine hadn’t been too drastically disturbed.
“You’re a creature of habit,” Dallas observed.
“I am that—and aren’t you? A person doesn’t live as long as we have without developing certain habits. I’m fairly set in my ways, thanks very much.”
“Better hope you never meet your mate, then,” Alan ribbed. “Your life will never be the same after that.”
“As if you’d know,” his cousin laughed.
I tuned out while the two of them had a good-natured argument. I’d yearned to do a little exploring and stretch my legs, and all we’d done so far was talk about things I’d rather not discuss. Such as my personal life in general.
“Let’s stop here,” I suggested, pointing to a stretch of sand a little way up the road.
It was just visible through an opening in the palm trees and looked warm, inviting, and blissfully empty. I was out of the truck almost before it stopped, and stripping down to my boxers by the time the guys joined me at the water’s edge.
“A bit eager for a swim,” Alan grinned.
“Something like that.” The fact was, I couldn’t have explained why I was so eager to get out at that very spot, at that very moment.
It was more than a matter of getting away from the conversation—I could handle joking and ball busting. I’d been doing it for centuries. What else was there for us to do, especially prior to the advent of the technology which had taken the place of endlessly long conversations and the hours of boredom we’d once lived through?
I needed to be here, on this beach, at this exact moment. My dragon told me so, and he was never wrong.
There were times when I was certain that his voice, always present in my mind, was the only true thing I could count on. My instincts were never off, and I knew better than to ignore them. They were telling me to be there. Where else would I be?
This wasn’t something I could share with Alan or Dallas. Perhaps in the old days, back home, before so many centuries had passed without our speaking to, or seeing each other.
Simply put, Alan and Dallas just didn’t understand me, didn’t come close to sharing the sort of bond I had cultivated with the others, the ones I share the cave with.
I never thought I’d miss Cash or Fence or any of them, but I did just now. I missed our shorthand, the way we could understand what the others were thinking without having to explain too much. I hadn’t realized how exhausting it could be to make myself understood until just then.
The scenery around us was idyllic, and I couldn’t help but let my stress melt away as I swam out until the sand was nothing more than a line in the distance.
There were a series of cliffs off to my left, with rocks along the base on which waves crashed. The word “tranquil” didn’t begi
n to describe it.
Except for one thing.
I wished I could shake the feeling that something was wrong.
“We should cliff dive!” Alan called out from where he treaded water, yards behind me.
I took another look, then shook my head. “Unless you want to paint the rocks,” I called back.
There were far too many. A person would have to take a running leap starting a great distance from the edge.
I was in no such mood and wasn’t sure I could shift in time to save my reckless neck.
“She is!” He pointed up, shielding his eyes from the late-morning sun.
I looked up, too, and knew the moment my eyes locked on her that she was the reason I was out here, that I had chosen that spot and swam out that far because of her.
From that distance, I could hardly make out any of the details of her face or body. She was little more than a silhouette standing against the deep, blue sky. Still, I knew she was the reason I was where I was. Nobody needed to tell me.
Just as I needed no announcement that something was terribly wrong.
“She can’t jump,” I muttered when Dallas reached me. “She’ll never make it without hitting the rocks.”
“Maybe she’s sightseeing,” he suggested, sounding doubtful.
“Maybe.” I didn’t believe it. I also didn’t take my eyes from her.
A gust of wind blew over her and carried the scent of her hair, skin, and clothes with it.
I breathed her in, my eyes closing without my intending them to. She was a rare perfume, one I had never smelled before and would never be able to get out of my head.
“Does she see us?” Alan asked, waving his arms over his head as if to warn her.
“I don’t think so. She’s not looking down.”
Instead, she stared off at the horizon, the picture of regret. It was in the slope of her shoulders, the position of her head. Perhaps my imagination played me false, I tried to reason, but the dragon knew better. He was alert, all but holding his breath as we watched to see what the girl on the cliff would do. The tension was nearly unbearable.
Until it broke.
Until she threw herself off the cliff.
2
Savannah
It’s all over. It’ll be better this way. Faster.
I had already been dying inside for as long as I could remember. From that terrible day in Papa’s study, when I overheard him discussing plans for the rest of my life without the benefit of my presence.
The look on his face when I had made my presence known. He wasn’t even sorry to see me cry. Annoyed, more like. Annoyed that I was bothering him with my emotions. How dare I? And how dare I labor under the illusion that my life was my own?
There was still one thing I could do. One step I could take. One statement I could make. A final statement. The punctuation at the end of the short, pathetic sentence that was my life.
I parked the Jeep as close to the cliff as I dared. I could’ve driven it over the edge, but I didn’t want there to be any questions as to how it happened. No way to pretend it was an accident, that I had made a wrong turn or something.
I wondered if it would hurt very much.
A balmy breeze blew through my hair as I stepped out of the car, carrying the scent of the sea with it. I would never smell it again. I would never feel the water rising around me and the sand under my feet as I went in for a swim. I would never go fishing again or write again or do anything, ever.
Is it worth it? I asked myself this question as I stood there, pebbles and bits of earth scattering as I approached the edge.
A few small, loose stones tumbled over. I didn’t dare watch their descent. I’d know how they felt soon enough.
Was it worth jumping? The idea of escaping a lifetime of imprisonment? I looked out over the wide expanse of sea—but instead of seeing its sparkling waves, I saw him. My fiancé. Soon to be my husband.
I didn’t have to twist my imagination too hard to picture the sort of life he’d inflict upon me. One of loneliness, but I would prefer the loneliness because it would mean being without him.
I thought back on all the awkward dinners with him and my father, seated across from each other with absolutely nothing to say. Well, I had nothing to say—he, on the other hand, never stopped talking about things I supposed were meant to impress me. Or Papa. Probably Papa, come to think of it. This business deal, that meeting he attended, the big such-and-such he had entertained on his family yacht. And Papa would be impressed and would shoot looks at me, telling me I should act equally as impressed or even more so. And I would pretend, since it was what he wanted and I knew better than to refuse him.
But there were parts of Antonio’s business which he would never discuss in polite company, because it wasn’t the sort of thing one spoke about in between the soup and main course. Rumors I had picked up on the salt breeze. Corruption. Bribes. Threats. Intimidation. Physical violence. And worse. There was blood on his manicured hands, on the cuffs of his tailored shirts.
And his women. That was worst of all.
I shuddered at the idea of being just another one of them. Something he could use until he grew tired of me. What then? I’d play the part of the smiling, empty-headed accessory. The broodmare. The concubine living a life of quiet desperation who would probably turn to pills or alcohol or a combination of the two in order to ease the pain. And there would be pain.
The dark, empty look he sometimes got in his eyes when I denied him a kiss or a fondle—only when my father wasn’t around, only when we were supposed to be taking time to get to know each other—promised many nights of pain once there was nothing standing in the way of him taking what would legally be his.
How was I supposed to let that happen?
You’ll go to Hell.
All of my mother’s teachings came back to me in a rush as I stood at the edge of the cliff. It was her voice I heard, reminding me that suicides went straight below and suffered an eternity of hellfire and torture. Images from my childhood, from the religious books I used to flip through as a little girl teased at the edges of my memory. I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I couldn’t bring myself to believe that any so-called merciful God would punish me for eternity when all I was doing was sparing myself a certain lifetime of misery. Didn’t my anguish matter? It had to balance out. It just had to.
I was wasting time. Stalling.
It wasn’t as if I wanted to jump. I didn’t want to die. I had to, though. That was the rub. I had to end it. It was the only way. The fear of what waited for me on the other side was what held me back, kept me from flinging myself over the edge.
Tears spilled over and rolled down my cheeks, soon to be just a tiny part of the salty water below. Maybe I would see Mama waiting for me. She would understand, if nobody else. She would speak up for me in front of whoever it was who judged these things. If there was any such person. Maybe there was only nothingness. Just blank, empty space. Even that would be preferable to life as Antonio’s sex slave.
One more look at the world I was about to leave. The tears flowed fast and hot as pain spread through my chest. I didn’t want to go, but there was no other way out. What had I ever done to deserve this? I’d never fall in love or have babies. I’d never see my words published. Nothing I had dreamed of would come to pass. Because I was born in the wrong place, to the wrong man.
A gust of wind picked up my hair and blew it out behind me like a flag, wrapping the thin, cotton dress around my legs.
I shivered in spite of its warmth.
It was a case of now or never. I had to do it before somebody found me—with my luck, somebody would. And I’d never get another chance.
“I hope you can forgive me for this,” I whispered to nobody in particular.
God, I guessed, even though I had stopped believing years earlier. Around the time of Mama’s funeral. Even so, the old fears and superstitions were there. They had only been sleeping. Waiting for a moment of crisis.
<
br /> One… two… three.
Goodbye.
I closed my eyes and jumped.
And I immediately wished I hadn’t.
No! No! No! I take it back!
But there was no taking it back. I was falling and crashing, and the snap of bones rang in my ears as pain, real pain as sharp and hot as fire, consumed my consciousness before everything went black.
3
Miles
“Shit!”
She was falling, almost in slow motion. Or perhaps it was the way time seemed to slow down, dragging out like warm taffy.
I had no time to think. I could only react.
The calls of Dallas and Alan were only a whisper in the back of my mind as I shifted and allowed my dragon to burst free.
We took to the air, wings beating furiously as the body fell.
Faster, faster, catch her!
I elongated my body as much as possible and focused on centering myself beneath her.
The crash of her impact with my back knocked me off-balance, but I righted myself and sailed over the surface of the water, triumphant and frantic.
Warm blood spread over my scales, a warning. She was gravely injured.
Alan and Dallas were already ashore when I landed, allowing them to ease her off me before I shifted back to human form. They’d spread a towel out on the sand, and it was already stained dark red.
The girl’s leg was coated in blood which oozed from a compound fracture—her thigh bone stuck out, a stark, white splinter.