I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie (The I Like Big Dragons Series)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “You can do that?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Sometimes. I’ve got to borrow energy from my brother to do it, though.”

  I tilted my head. “You can do that?”

  He grinned.

  “Yeah. Did I forget to tell you that?” He teased.

  I shook my head.

  The man had been toying with me, I could tell.

  As if he wasn’t already strong enough, now I find out that, if he is in need of more power, all he has to do is call on his brothers and poof!

  More power!

  The sex we’d shared on the floor of his office had been wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but it was also a bone of contention with us.

  I wasn’t really fond of feeling powerless, and I’d asked him to help me not be powerless.

  Which was when he’d started teaching me all that he knew.

  Except I’d found that Keifer wasn’t the best of teachers, and I wasn’t the best of students.

  We were more like the popular kid and the nerd in high school.

  One really wanted to learn, and the other was there to have fun.

  Keifer proved to be more of the latter part.

  Which was why he’d pulled Juno up from the Alabama sanctuary and designated him with the task of teaching me.

  “Keifer, I’m on birth control, and have been for six years now. I’ve even been getting my period! I got it two weeks ago!” I told him. “That’s not possible to know yet—even if I were to admit that there might be a possibility.”

  His eyes found mine and he grinned.

  Then I felt power wash through me.

  Keifer’s power.

  But also a little bit of Nikolai as well.

  How I knew it was some of Nikolai’s, I didn’t know.

  It smelled like him mostly.

  Or maybe felt like him.

  I’d come to know Nikolai really well over the last month.

  He’d joined in in teaching me the ropes, much less enthusiastically than Keifer, but he’d done it nonetheless.

  “There it is,” Keifer breathed, eyes going wide in wonder.

  And that feeling, the one telling me I was wrong and my argument no longer held ground, started to course through me.

  There’s not a worse feeling than to know you’ve lost the argument while still having the argument.

  And the moment I saw Keifer’s eyes, I knew.

  I was pregnant.

  Despite the fact that I’d been on the pill.

  Despite the fact that I took it so religiously.

  Despite the fact that I’d just had my period.

  I was one hundred percent pregnant, and I had no one to blame but myself and my horniness.

  Fuck.

  Chapter 13

  Fuck the extra bedroom for people to stay in when they visit. I want a moat with water dragons that keeps those fuckers away.

  -Text from Blythe to Brooklyn

  Keifer

  She’s fine.

  I turned my scowl to Declan.

  “How do you know?” I snapped snottily.

  I was well aware that I was acting like a child.

  Hell, I knew she’d be mad if she knew I was out here.

  I was mad at myself.

  It was just that it hurt if I wasn’t near her.

  My fingers ached to hold her.

  My skin felt cold and clammy at the loss of her body heat.

  And most of all, my dick missed her.

  Missed her sweet mouth. Her hot, juicy…

  Snap out of it! I berated myself.

  I’m fine, was gently whispered through my head.

  My head hung at the realization that I’d been caught.

  Jesus. I’d been trying to be inconspicuous. Yet, here I was acting so worried that I couldn’t tell when she was in my mind.

  Hell, I’d probably summoned her there in the first place.

  It’d been three weeks since Blythe and I found out she was pregnant.

  Three weeks of crazy dreams. Three weeks of people talking inside our heads without intentionally contacting them.

  If it wasn’t obvious before, it was more than obvious now.

  Our child that wasn’t more than a blip on a screen, was seriously powerful.

  Crazily powerful.

  So powerful, in fact, that I knew it was about to turn bad.

  Something as powerful as our child was bound to have enemies.

  I didn’t know whether it was some sort of a sixth sense or whether I was just a worried soon-to-be-father, but I just knew something was about to happen.

  Something terrible.

  Hence, why I was sitting on my bike with Declan flying through the air above me, cloaked in smoke.

  Blythe was taking her nursing boards, and I’d been out here trying not to freak out since eight thirty this morning.

  It was now eleven hundred hours, and I wasn’t doing any better now than I was three and a half hours ago.

  I’ll be out soon. I just finished, she whispered, making my heart settle in my chest, and my breathing come a little easier.

  Relaxing slightly, I swung my leg off my bike and took ten steps to the bench I was parked next to, and leaned against it, crossing my legs in front of me.

  My phone rang about thirty seconds later, and I looked down at the display, surprised to see my sister’s name.

  “Hello?” I answered, watching the front doors to the building like a hawk.

  “Derek’s awake,” my sister said quickly.

  I sat forward until I was standing, staring blankly into space.

  “Is he okay? How’s he doing?” I asked urgently.

  Derek was one of the final members of my inner circle, and it’d been crippling not to have him with me over the last few months, advising me as he usually did when I needed my ass kicked into gear.

  The Dragon’s Warriors MC was really just used as a convenience.

  Nikolai, Ford, Alaric, Jean Luc, Ian, Derek and Dorian were all in my inner circle.

  They were the men I trusted with everything, although, sometimes I questioned my judgment when it came to Ian.

  Derek, though, was a huge loss. I’d spent the last few months finding myself calling him only to realize that he couldn’t answer two rings into the call.

  When I’d first formed The Dragon’s Warriors MC, it’d been to act as a cover of sorts.

  The eight of us spent quite a bit of time in public, and being who we were, as well as how we looked, it was hard to conceal ourselves from the public eye when we were trying to protect ourselves.

  A lot of times we found ourselves at odds with the Purists, and with the technology as it was nowadays, it only got harder and harder to conceal ourselves from those that would harm us. Intentionally or unintentionally.

  Hence why we’d formed the MC in the first place.

  If we were going to be seen in public together, it was better to draw attention to the fact that we were part of a motorcycle club rather than a secret horde of dragon riders that protected the Meridian and all of its hearts.

  “He’s fine. Actually, he’s asking for you right now. He has some interesting stories, whether they are hallucinations from the brain damage he sustained or actually real. I’m not sure how long he’ll be awake, so I’d hurry if you want to hear it,” Skylar informed me.

  I saw Blythe finally make her way through the front doors with Brooklyn at her side, and smiled. “I’ll be there…”

  I froze.

  But it wasn’t anything that Blythe did.

  It was what she didn’t do.

  She knew I was out here, yet she acted for all she was worth like I didn’t exist.

  Brooklyn, I think, didn’t see me. She didn’t look at me, but she was animatedly speaking with Blythe like she was trying as hard as she could to convince her of something.

  They walked straight past me on the sidewalk and kept walking, nei
ther sparing me a glance.

  I was partially hidden in the shade of a tall pine, so it was possible that Brooklyn didn’t notice, but I damn well knew Blythe did.

  Declan.

  I see, he growled.

  Follow me, her sweet voice ordered.

  Pfft. Like there was any other choice.

  “Gotta go,” I murmured quickly, and then shoved the phone into my pocket before getting onto the sidewalk and walking behind Blythe and Brooklyn as if I was just out for a random stroll.

  The neighborhood we were in was more of a residential district rather than a commercialized area. The testing center was situated in a remodeled house.

  Backup! I ordered.

  On it.

  That was Declan. Always on his game.

  Although I couldn’t see him, I knew he was there.

  I knew he was fifteen feet over my head just like I knew I was wearing a watch.

  Declan and I were one; I knew he would have my back just as I would have his.

  I’d hung back slightly, leaving a little bit of distance between them and me.

  And when they turned the corner into a small park and I saw Father Joseph, I about shit myself.

  Derek had been visiting with the leader of the Alaskan heart, Josiah Jones, upon my request, when the sanctuary that occupied that particular heart of the Meridian was set upon by Purists.

  We’d only had four eyewitness accounts as to what happened, and every one of them had Father Joseph in their stories. Described down to the fuckin’ mole on the left corner of his lip, and the scar that curled around his right eye.

  And I was scared shitless.

  For Blythe and our child.

  Did they know Father Joseph? Why would Father Joseph be meeting them?

  It seems I was right to have a bad feeling.

  ***

  Blythe

  “Please, please, please?” Brooklyn pleaded, clutching her hands together like she was begging for her life.

  I sighed.

  Brooklyn had finished her test over an hour before me, so I was completely surprised to see her outside waiting for me to finish.

  Once I stepped over the threshold, she started begging for me to go meet with her Uncle Joseph because he had some news that I ‘just had to hear.’

  “It’s a matter of life or death, Blythe. I would never put you in jeopardy. I’m only looking out for your well-being, I promise!” Brooklyn continued to plead.

  “Fine,” I sighed, knowing that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

  Keifer was outside, after all. Even if he was acting like he wasn’t.

  He was acting as if I was a piece of fine glass that would break in his hands at any moment.

  I was pregnant, for Christ’s sake, not an invalid.

  But whatever.

  If it made him feel better to sit outside the testing center for four hours, he could go for it.

  “Come on,” Brooklyn ordered, snatching my hand and hustling us outside.

  My eyes immediately scanned for Keifer without being obvious.

  I found him almost instantly the moment I stepped out the door and hurried along with Brooklyn.

  Follow me, I told him.

  He didn’t reply back, but I knew he’d heard me.

  The minutest of nods graced the tilt of his head as we passed him.

  Brooklyn hadn’t seen him, which I was sure was a good thing.

  I had a feeling this thing with her uncle had to do with Keifer, and if she knew Keifer was here, she might change her mind about what her uncle had to say.

  “What’s going on, Brooklyn?” I asked her.

  She looked at me worriedly, and then turned back to the path that led to a small park just beyond the parking lot we were in.

  “My uncle, he wanted me to tell you that he really needed to talk to you. He said he wanted you to meet someone,” she whispered as we cleared the trees.

  I saw Father Joseph sitting on the edge of a picnic table.

  He was alone, but I could sense he wasn’t truly ‘alone.’

  I could tell I wasn’t truly ‘alone’ either.

  Declan was somewhere above me, and Keifer was at my back about twenty yards into the trees.

  I could also sense others coming our way.

  Many others.

  Something I’ve been able to tell the moment I’d connected with all of them that night a month ago.

  “Ahh, Brooklyn, Blythe. I hope the tests went well?” He asked with a smile.

  Brooklyn smiled. “Very well, Father Joseph. Very well.”

  Father Joseph smiled. “Good, good. Blythe, my dear. And how are you doing?”

  I resisted the urge to curl my lip at him.

  I’d never really liked Father Joseph.

  I couldn’t get over the fact that Brooklyn’s entire family had disowned her, and although Father Joseph hadn’t been a real part of it, he’d not treated her well either.

  I only saw him on the rare occasion when Brooklyn and I ran into him at certain events for school.

  “Father Joseph,” I said, smiling partially.

  He grinned, reminding me of one of those Cheshire cats that grinned when they were about to bring the world down on your head.

  “So, Brookie here tells me you’re dating a dragon rider,” he got right down to the specifics.

  I nodded, not saying anything.

  I didn’t want him to know anything.

  Why was it his business who I was dating or mated to?

  Although, Brooklyn still didn’t know I was mated to Keifer.

  She only knew that I was seeing him.

  “Do you know the story of the dragon riders?” He broached the subject carefully.

  I squinted, but again, nodded.

  Of course I knew the story of the dragon riders! Everybody did!

  “You know that they killed humans, feeling that dragon riders and those with powers were supreme to those without?” He asked in surprise.

  I shrugged. “That’s not exactly the story that I heard.”

  I’ve, of course, heard that version. But, I knew it wasn’t true.

  Just like I knew that the sky was blue and flowers were pretty.

  “And what, might I ask, have you heard?” He continued.

  I could say that he asked it snottily, but he didn’t.

  He managed to convey snottiness, but also have an air of aloofness to it.

  “That they protect their own kind from those that would like for them all to be gone from the Earth,” I said simply.

  I’d heard more, but there was really no reason for me to get into it with him.

  I didn’t want to talk to him in the first place.

  And I knew he wanted to tell me his version.

  If I told him all that I knew about the dragon riders, then he’d know that I was a lost cause and refuse to tell me anything more.

  He didn’t disappoint me, though.

  He went right on into his spiel.

  “They’re killers. Baby murderers. Rapists. And they’re out to take over the world,” Joseph explained quickly, sounding like he’d repeated the same speech dozens and dozens of times before. “Years and years ago, before I was even born to this Earth, a war started between humans and dragon riders. Dragon riders wanted to be supreme, while we lowly people were to just jump at their every beck and call. Well, a group of people called the Purists were formed and have continued to fight the war with the dragon riders. Our main mission is to rid the world of the scum and make sure that no more humans, who can’t defend themselves, are lost to this war.”

  My brows, I guessed, were likely in my hairline by now.

  The more he spoke, the higher they went.

  “You’re joking,” I said stiffly.

  Joseph’s brows rose at the disbelief in my tone.

  “You don’t believe me?” He asked incredulously.

  I shook my h
ead, trying my hardest not to laugh.

  “No, I don’t believe you. I think you’re full of shit,” I laughed, turning on my heel and walking quickly away.

  Except I didn’t get far.

  Mere feet, to be honest.

  I was just heading to the tree line when the sound of a gun cocking made me freeze.

  “Don’t move,” he hissed.

  Brooklyn, who’d frozen solid the moment I’d told Joseph I didn’t believe him, came unglued and started to freak out.

  “Uncle Joseph, you said you just wanted to talk to her. Why do you have a gun?” She shrieked.

  Keifer came out of the trees, as calm as could be.

  But I knew he wasn’t calm.

  I could tell by the way his tattoos pulsed.

  The way they were bright red with his anger.

  His body, though, looked like he could care less about what was going on.

  “Joseph, Joseph, Joseph,” Keifer admonished. “I thought we’d talked about you trying to take my toys.”

  Toys?

  Toys?

  Did he just call me a freakin’ toy?

  Why that little shit!

  I am most certainly not your toy! I yelled at him, despite the fact that I had a gun trained on my head.

  Hush, Drakina. Get ready to move.

  The gentle admonishment that washed over me cleared away every single ounce of nervousness from my body.

  Now, instead of freaking out, I took in the area around us.

  There were men in the trees.

  Lots of them, in fact.

  Joseph wasn’t taking any chances with this.

  He was ready for anything.

  I could tell some of the men had what looked like arrows in huge pipe things.

  I assumed those were for the dragons seeing as they’d be overkill for a human.

  “I knew you’d be here,” Joseph smiled nastily. “I just knew she’d make you come out.”

  Keifer opened his arms wide, making the muscles underneath the shirt he was wearing ripple.

  “Here I am. What’d you want?” He asked calmly.

  “You took out eight of my best men,” Joseph snarled. “How would you feel if I did the same?”

  Keifer’s smile slowly died on his face.

  “You did do the same. Does Alaska, Anchorage specifically, ring any bells?” Keifer hissed with a deadly tone that could’ve stripped bark from the trees around us.